Mainstream Flicks">Mainstream Flicks
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Published in U.S. 1 Newspaper on March 8, 2000. All rights
reserved.
At the Movies
The Cider House Rules" is a gentle, touching,
heartbreaking, and groundbreaking film that deserves its seven Academy
Award nominations, including best picture, best director (Lasse Hallstrom),
best supporting actor (Michael Caine), and best adapted screenplay
(John Irving wrote the screenplay from his best-selling novel). The
acting performances here are superb, and in a time of bitter, edgy,
surreal, and lampooning movies, this one is straightforward, quiet,
low-key.
It tells the story of Homer Wells (Tobey Maguire), an innocent, unemotional
young man who leaves the isolated Maine orphanage where he has been
raised and mentored by the resident doctor, Wilbur Larch played by
Michael Caine. Jane Alexander, soon to appear onstage at McCarter
Theater in "The Cherry Orchard," plays the doctor’s caring
assistant, Nurse Edna.
Yearning to explore the world, Homer catches a ride away with an unmarried
couple, serviceman Wally Worthington (Paul Rudd), and Candy Kendall
(the lovely Charlize Theron), who have come to Dr. Larch for a then-illegal
abortion. Homer gets a job apple picking on Worthington’s family farm
and is living in the cider house with its all-black transient crew
led by Mr. Rose (Delroy Lindo), when Worthington is called away to
combat. Now Homer falls into an affair with the lonely Candy.
This is a coming-of-experience movie that tackles big moral issues
and ultimately bespeaks an unquestioned morality. When Worthington
returns from combat, paralyzed from the waist down, Candy returns
unquestioningly to him, while Homer, with equal quietude, renounces
his love for her, accepts his duty to be of service (as Dr. Larch
has taught him), and returns to the orphanage. And there’s another,
higher, moral law reaffirmed, when an errant character grinds a knife
into his own gut.
This is one of few movies to deal with abortion: Dr.
Larch performs them; Homer won’t. Larch, whose orphanage is filled
with unwanted children, tries to teach Homer that he is saving lives
of women who might otherwise die from botched abortions. The young
Homer believes that in matters of sexuality people should "control"
themselves; until he himself is smitten with the seductive Candy.
Later, faced by quite different circumstances, Homer voluntarily performs
an abortion.
Clearly, this is no ordinary big-screen love story. Bookended by orphanage
scenes set in which the clear-eyed, earnest children long to be adopted
into families, the movie could sink into sentimentality. Yet these
scenes seem touchingly real. So does Homer’s repetition, upon his
eventual return to the orphanage, of the now-late Dr. Larch’s refrain
to the children: "Goodnight you Princes of Maine, you Kings of
New England."
And those Cider House rules? Readily ignored. Just as, in certain
circumstances, we may ignore some of the rules we profess to live
by. But forget morality. This is a beautiful, memorable, complex,
and thought-provoking film.
— Joan Crespi
Montgomery, Regal.
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Film Festivals
Weekly screenings of 13 films, Wednesdays, at 7:30 p.m., at Kresge
Auditorium, Princeton University. $5. 609-683-1101.
find $4 million in a plane wreck, and become caught in a web of greed,
paranoia, and betrayal, with Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, Wednesday,
March 8. After Life, Kore-eda Hirokazu’s brilliant fantasy set
in a waystation to the afterlife, Wednesday, March 15.
Co-op/New Jersey Media Arts Center. Screenings are Fridays through
Sunday in Scott Hall, Room 123, College Avenue campus, near the corner
of College Avenue and Hamilton Street. Thursday screenings are in
Loree Hall, Room 024, Douglass College campus, near the corner of
Nichol Avenue and George Street. All programs begin at 7 p.m. Call
732-932-8482.
notorious 1960 thriller — on the big screen, $5, Thursday, March
23. American Movie, Chris Smith’s comic 1999 feature, set in
Memomonee Falls, Wisconsin, about a filmmaker’s two-year struggle
to make a movie. $5, Friday to Sunday, March 24 to 26. Las Hurdes,
Luis Bunuel’s 1937 pseudo-documentary about poverty in Spain. Borders
Books, free, Wednesday, March 29.
and rare films, presented by Princeton University’s East Asian Studies
Program, screens Mondays, at 7 p.m., in the James Stewart Film Theater,
185 Nassau Street. Free. 609-258-5722.
satire on capital punishment and the true story of the execution of
a young Korean worker, Monday, March 27., April 24.
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Mainstream Flicks">Mainstream Flicks
Confirm titles with theaters.
Mendes’ dark comedy about dysfunctional suburban families, leading
the pack with eight Oscar nominations. AMC, Loews, Mercer, Regal.
and a cast of beauties led by Leonardo DiCaprio make this a treat
for the eyes. AMC, Destinta, Loews, Mercer.
accidentally enters Malkovich’s mind in this Spike Jonze spicy fantasy,
nominated for three Academy Awards. MarketFair.
at a firm where the cost of success is high. Ben Younger wrote and
directs. AMC, Loews, Mercer, Regal.
Brandon Teena won her the Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. AMC,
MarketFair, Montgomery, Regal.
death of Mona (Bette Midler), a woman with more enemies than friends.
AMC, Destinta, Loews, Mercer, Regal.
star recruited by aliens to save their planet. AMC, MarketFair.
in a screen version of Stephen King’s prison story about an innocent
man with miraculous powers. Oscar nominee for best picture. AMC,
Loews, MarketFair.
middle-aged sisters dealing with the approaching death of their father.
AMC, Destinta, Loews, Mercer, Montgomery, Regal.
exotic and different, her mother sends Harvey Keitel to show her the
error of her ways. By Jane Campion (`The Piano’). AMC.
an Oscar nomination for his heroic performance based on the life of
the New Jersey boxer twice-tried for a triple murder. AMC.
Plummer star in Michael Mann’s movie based on the real-life story
Its seven Oscar nominations include best picture, best actor, and
best director. AMC.
the Middle’ stars in this adaptation of Willie Morris’ book about
a lonely young boy who finds friendship in a Jack Russell terrier.
AMC, Destinta, Loews, Mercer, Regal.
to play a mother, with Rupert Everett as her gay friend who is also
the father of her child. AMC, Destinta, Loews, Mercer, Regal.
away, watch out for this solar eclipse. AMC, Destinta, Loews,
MarketFair, Regal.
in this delayed Christmas release with Ben Affleck as a car thief
just out of jail and Gary Sinise who has a plan to get him back in.
AMC, Destinta, Loews, MarketFair, Regal.
Cox-Arquette return. AMC, Destinta, Loews, Mercer.
working with a boy who communicates with the dead. Six Academy Award
nominations. AMC, Destinta, Regal.
Destinta, Loews, Mercer, Montgomery, Regal.
brought to the screen by Scott Hicks, starring Ethan Hawke and Youki
Kudoh. MarketFair.
White’s beloved mouse to the big screen. AMC.
screen. AMC, Destinta, Loews, MarketFair, Montgomery,
Regal.
that his hoodlum friends are liable to get them all put away for life.
AMC, Destinta, Loews, Mercer.
alien seeking an obliging human to bear his child and save a planet.
AMC, Destinta, Loews, MarketFair, Montgomery, Regal.
an ex-hitman, with Matthew Perry as his uptight next door neighbor.
AMC, Destinta, Loews, MarketFair, Regal.
Michael Douglas learns to grow up. AMC, Garden, Loews, MarketFair,
Montgomery, Regal.
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Venues
AMC Hamilton 24 Theaters, 325 Sloan Avenue, I-295 Exit
65A, 609-890-8307. 24-screen, stadium-seating multiplex. $7 adults;
$5 matinees; $5 twilight.
Destinta, Independence Plaza, 2465 South Broad Street,
Hamilton, 609-888-4500. Stadium-seating 12-screen multiplex. $6.75
adults; $5 matinees.
East Windsor Cinemas, Routes 130 and 571, 609-443-9295.
$3 adults; $2.50 matinees. Features Indian language films.
Garden Theater, 160 Nassau Street, 609-683-7595. $6.50
adults; $4 matinees.
Loews Theaters, Route 1 South, New Brunswick, 732-846-9200.
Stadium-seating multiplex. $8.50 adults; $5.25 matinees.
MarketFair-UA, Route 1 South, 609-520-8700. $7.50
adults; $4.75 matinees.
Mercer Mall General Cinemas, Route 1, 609-452-2868.
$7.25 adults; $4.75 matinees.
Montgomery Center Theater, Routes 206 and 518,
609-924-7444. $7 adults; $4.25 matinees.
Regal Cinemas Town Center, 319 Route 130 North, East
Windsor, 609-371-8470. Stadium-seating, 15 screens. $8; $5 matinees.
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