Salon.com > Mark Ebner

Like a “Virgin”

Tue, 01 Feb 2000 17:00:00 +0000

"The Virgin Suicides," based on Jeffrey Eugenides' acclaimed novel, is a suburban tale about five teenage sisters and the tragic domino effect set off when the youngest kills herself. Kathleen Turner and James Woods play the upstanding, if oppressive, mom and dad, healthily concerned about their daughters and questioning of their own parenting skills. Partly told through the collective narration of several goofy boy-suitors who find the family and the suicides of the title somewhat difficult to comprehend, screenwriter and director Sofia Coppola's first feature develops into a dark, ethereal -- and at times dreary -- fable that challenges the banal stories seen in other cookie-cutter comic teen love movies.

Coppola, best known as Francis Ford Coppola's daughter and for her lackluster performance in "The Godfather Part III," was attracted to Eugenides' novel for its classical feel, the way the author placed the story squarely in the 1970s but made it seem almost timeless. But from the earliest pairing of Coppola and the movie, which played here at Sundance and will open in April, the cheap shots and personal attacks against the director have been unusually vicious, even by Hollywood standards. Those closest to Coppola, however, have helped deflate the criticism. Woods -- an actor notorious for not getting along with his directors -- has been calling Coppola one of the top five talents he's ever worked with. "She's like all good writer-directors," Woods said at a Sundance dinner celebrating the film. "Like Oliver Stone."

Who wants short shorts?

Mon, 31 Jan 2000 17:00:00 +0000

One of the hottest topics in the film world is that shorts are back, and not just as camp-kitsch echoes of 1976 biology class or nostalgic memories of the days when movie theaters actually played something besides commercials before the feature started. AtomFilms, one of the Internet's premier short-film hubs, hosted its Sundance party in a mountaintop condo on Monday night. Over the canapi tray, I caught up with Patrick Lynn of MediaTrip.com, a player in the brand new world of short-film marketing who showed up in Park City with a million bucks to spend.

Can you explain why short films are getting such phenomenal attention right now?

Well, the real phenomenon is that short films now have an excellent life. On the Internet, on cable, on television -- you name it. It's their day in the sun.

Many dot-com businesses seem to be parking on "real estate" for the future, while they wait for technological innovation to catch up to them. Short films are different -- they'll actually work on the Internet at its current speed, right?

Killer's kicks

Wed, 26 Jan 2000 17:00:00 +0000

Mary Harron's giddy dark comedy "American Psycho" is more entertaining than Bret Easton Ellis' novel was controversial. Adapted by Ellis with Guinevere Turner and set in 1987 Manhattan, the film revolves around narcissistic Wall Streeter Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale). Bateman is the embodiment of the soulless yuppie, a man who works out to a tape of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," revels in brand names and delivers trite lectures on the talents of Whitney Houston before his murders. Bale plays the slasher sociopath like Pierce Brosnan soused on a Tom Cruise cocktail. He's perfect in the role, originally offered to Leonardo DiCaprio for his post-"Titanic" comeback.

The film, which will open wide in early April, picked up a dreaded NC-17 rating, supposedly because of a sex scene between Bateman and two prostitutes. It's likely that they bristled at the sex position, which features the trio in a love train, with Bale watching himself in the mirror as he brings up the rear.

After the Sundance premiere, Harron ("I Shot Andy Warhol") and Bale ("Velvet Goldmine") fielded questions from a roomful of reporters.

Sundance postcard

Fri, 21 Jan 2000 20:00:00 +0000

For Sundance Film Festival veterans in the know, the best two days are the day before and the day after. Sadly, no snow fell on a serene Sundance eve, but Park City's soon-to-be congested Main Street was navigable and condo hot tubs remained invitingly empty beneath a starry sky.

The erstwhile silver-mining town has come to resemble a Hollywood back lot in the two decades since Gentleman Bob Redford hatched his idea for a quaint independent film showcase. But this year's film lineup still looks promising -- the ancillary Burger King advertising, dot.com-a-rama and digi-overload notwithstanding. The lack of buzz around Park City on Day 1 was a good thing, but the industry rumors and half-truths are already flying.

To begin with, it's been reported in the trades that heavyweight Miramax honcho, Harvey Weinstein is ill and hospitalized with a bacterial infection, preventing him from attending the festival this year. Of course the babbling fountain of gossip claims that the Weinstein is a lot sicker than the trades are letting on. Miramax flatly denies the rumors.

Star sickness

Mon, 29 Nov 1999 17:00:00 +0000

Celebrity is a fleeting thing, fragile and impermanent. And health, like elusive fame, can vanish in an instant, leaving the subject weakened and bereft. Stardom and illness have united in banquet halls and the halls of Congress to raise money for and awareness of everything from Alzheimer's to osteoporosis. Disease-stricken celebrities have put a familiar face on infirmities that otherwise hovered below the high-profile funding radar.

Until recently, for instance, Parkinson's disease was just a shaky blip in the National Institutes of Health's budget, despite the more than 1 million victims of the neurological illness. In 1998, the NIH research funding for Parkinson's was $41 million (or $41 per person afflicted), compared with the more than $1,600 per person that is being spent to find a cure for the 980,000 citizens currently infected with HIV. Cancer, in its various forms, afflicts 8 million in the United States; as of 1998, cancer research receives $368 per person.