Movie Reviews

Sassy women learn about love in The Sweetest Thing

By Christopher DaCosta

TSC Writer

Gorgeous and statuesque, a blonde bounces up the hills that are the San Francisco streets, shamelessly strutting her stuff. Too much of a sweet thing? Definitely not. Movie-goers are treated to 84 minutes of a midriff-bearing Cameron Diaz teetering precariously on runway-fresh stilettos, with a mini-skirt-clad Christina Applegate in tow. Sugary and shockingly amusing, The Sweetest Thing exposes the esoteric habits of a female swinger.

Christina Walters (Diaz) accompanied by best-friend and roommate Courtney Rockliffe (Applegate), are a fabulously dressed duo, both brazenly dismissing ardent admirers while enlightening their younger and more impressionable roommate, Jane Burns (Selma Blair), to the delicate art of 'the game.'

Walters and Rockliffe are virtuosos. Champions of the sport, they have mastered nightclub-hopping as well as guy-hopping. They are ultimate players: always having fun, always unattached and always in control. That is until femme fatale Christina discovers her weakness for a sarcastic realtor, Peter Donahue (Thomas Jane), at a crowded San Francisco hotspot.

In an unorthodox departure from their carefully established principles, Courtney teams up with the lovesick Christina to hunt down Peter, apparently a small-town guy from Somerset. Hilarity ensues as the girls embark on the road trip which epitomizes all typical chick-flicks.

Yet, this romantic comedy offers more than just emotional scenes featuring double-chocolate fudge ice-cream, it reintroduces humor of a bygone era. The almost extinct gross-out comedy written by the Farrelly Brothers into cult-classics such as There's Something about Mary resurfaces once again, this time from a female perspective. Nancy Pimental, screenwriter for The Sweetest Thing, uses her experience as a former South Park writer to employ bathroom humor that borders on the disgusting.

Two-time Golden Globe nominee, Diaz offers her own unique presence to the big screen, taking on a vastly different role from last winter's psychological thriller Vanilla Sky, proving her acting versatity. Diaz was able to create an individual, lovable, character complete with a flaw: a fear of a meaningful relationship.

Applegate is believable as the sassy but loyal girlfriend. Her quick-witted mind and even faster mouth evoke laughter from the audience. The doe-eyed Blair, previously cast in Cruel Intentions and Legally Blonde, has her share of dirty jokes, but on the whole Jane Burns remains a minor character. Peter Donohue, the male love interest, seems to be quite toned-down as are all men in this movie. Peter is a generic and transparent character; however Jane is a fine contribution to the cast, making this a strong movie. B+

Trouble serves up erotic cannibalism

By Brian Tanaka

Scene Staff Writer

Trouble doesn't begin to describe Claire Denis' Trouble Every Day, a delicate film that patiently finds its voice, and ultimately leaves the audience horrified beyond belief.

American couple Shane (Vincent Gallo) and June (Tricia Vessey) visit Paris for their honeymoon, rooming in a petite hotel to consummate their love. Each loving kiss and caress of skin heightens their pleasure for each other, yet their lovemaking always falls flat. Shane is constantly fighting his urge to eat. His insatiable lust for human flesh destroys the honeymoon he's suppose to be on. Instead, he vanquishes into the bathroom, or stops making love to harness his need to feast on his wife (A large bite mark on her arm shadows a past experience).

Shane has come to Paris also in search of Léo (Alex Descas), a scientist whose radical experimentation with the human libido has exiled him away from the medical community. Léo now works on research concerning his wife Coré (Béatrice Dalle), whose cannibalistic impulses mimic those of Shane.

Locked in a homemade prison by Léo, Coré frequently escapes to hunt out her next victim. Her hunger is every much sexual as it is cannibal, resulting in unsuspecting men being lured to their deaths.

Both Shane and Coré journey through different paths of a cannibal, Shane bent on fighting the affliction while Coré embraces it. Shane and Coré's lives parallel one another, both indulging in a cannibalistic eroticism. Shane's moral dilemma constantly holds him back from harming someone. The only thing holding Coré back is her husband, whose experiment has created this sexual monster. The two finally meet and both must find a way to deal with their hunger.

Trouble Every Day finds comfort in taking its time. Denis has the patience to draw out exposition and characters, resulting in much more effectiveness in cannibalism once the feasting occurs. Each character displays a strangeness. Gallo's Shane robotically walks through the film while Dalle's Coré pounces on screen like a tiger.

Vivid close-ups of each person during sex scenes heighten the experience as the camera focuses two inches off the skin. Each magnified shot creates a claustrophobic maze of flesh, both fascinating and sensual, accentuating the passion and hunger each character goes through.

The most fascinating (and toughest) scenes of this film (and of any film to date) occurs with the feasting. Coré's rough lovemaking with her one victim turns into sheer terror as the moans of her lover change into the shrieks of being eaten alive. These graphic scenes are so nauseatingly horrifying that they put Hannibal Lector to shame.

The rounding cast of Vessey, Descas and Dalle all put in strong supporting roles, but the true creepiness of Trouble Every Day is Vincent Gallo. Gallo, a man heralded for his acting/directing roles in Buffalo '66, showcases an eeriness hallmarking him in the fame of movie monsters Frankenstein and Nosferatu (he even mimics the latter monster in a scene at a cathedral). His tormented timidness countered with his anxious passion is strikingly effective, often inciting sympathy and pity for his character.

Trouble Every Day gives an unexpected twist to the cannibalistic film (Alive, Hannibal, Ravenous), which seem solely driven by graphic eating contests. It finds a pleasant, slow beat to create two alternate perspectives of the tormented soul, leaving the audience every much troubled as the characters living it. A-