Featured attraction
After weeks of movies that are outright lousy (Supernova) or misconceived (Eye of the Beholder), it's a welcome relief to find a film that is not only good but connects with an audience. Boiler Room is a timely, compelling drama about young would-be financial whizzes who toil at a crooked brokerage firm that is both geographically and socially a long way from Wall Street. The sons of the striving rather than the privileged classes, they work crammed into a large, airless cavern (the boiler room of the title) on Long Island, where they huddle over phones sweet-talking, cajoling and sometimes bullying gullible marks into investing their life savings in no-name stocks that will surely drop tomorrow. The life these guys aspire to is that depicted in Wall Street, the 1987 Oliver Stone drama they repeatedly watch on video, mouthing the lines. But their tactics and morals are more Glengarry Glen Ross, the 1992 film about real estate barracudas.
Entering this scuzzy world of cold-calling con men is Seth (Ribisi), the film's conflicted protagonist. The son of a federal judge (Rifkin), he is a decent sort with a weakness for easy cash. As a trainee at the firm, he begins to suspect that there's something untoward about the highpressure sales tactics and whopping commissions, but he is already hooked on the fast money and adrenaline high of making the sale. In an agile performance that ought to help him break out of the twenty-something actor pack, Ribisi (The Other Sister) shows a core of hurt and need for fatherly approval reminiscent of James Dean in East of Eden. (There's also strong work by Affleck as Seth's nasty boss, Rifkin as his dad and Long as his girl.)
The film—the first by writer-director Ben Younger, an obviously talented 27-year-old who based the script on his own flirtation with a similar job—moves along at a brisk clip but still allows its characters time to breathe and grow. To borrow a phrase, Boiler Room is an IPO you don't want to miss out on. (R)
Bottom Line: The place to be
Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox Arquette Arquette, David Arquette, Parker Posey
More jokes, less blood. That's the skinny on Scream 3, the moderately amusing and (the filmmakers have promised) final episode in the much imitated teen slasher series. And while there's still plenty of gore, the emphasis on knowing, self-referential gags makes for a better movie.
As in 1996's Scream and its 1997 sequel, both also directed by Wes Craven, there's yet another masked killer on the-loose, and he is again targeting Campbell. All grown up now, she works as a crisis counselor and lives in rural California at a seemingly safe distance from Los Angeles, where the bloody events of her past are being immortalized in Stab 3, a quickie horror flick whose cast members soon start falling victim to the anonymous assassin. Veteran Screamers Campbell and the newlywed Arquettes (who met on the set of the first Scream) slip back into their old roles with ease and, in the case of David Arquette's dim-bulb cop, bumptious élan. There are also deft comic turns by Posey and Jenny McCarthy as Stab 3's whining starlets. (R)
Bottom Line: Entertaining enough, but enough already
Orgyen Tobgyal, Janyang Lodro
This charming wisp of a comedy, the first feature film made in Bhutan, may do for Buddhist monks what the pious efforts of Richard Gere, Brad Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet and director Martin Scorsese with Kundun didn't: namely, make them engaging and likable onscreen. Based on a true story and cast with actual monks, the leisurely paced Cup shows how residents of a remote Tibetan monastery, go loopy over soccer during the 1998 World Cup. They get to watch it only after a teenage monk (Tobgyal), who has seen earlier matches at a bar he snuck into, campaigns ceaselessly to convince an elderly abbot to import a TV and satellite dish so that everyone can sit around in saffron robes watching men in shorts kick a ball. (G)
Bottom Line: Soccer moms, make way for soccer monks
>The Beach Leonardo DiCaprio, as an American backpacker, suffers moral angst on an island paradise in Thailand. Movie never clicks, leaving viewers as stranded as Leo. (R)
Eye of the Beholder Femme fatale Ashley Judd stabs her victim and sobs, "Merry Christmas, Daddy!" She's a mess. So is this thriller. (R)
Galaxy Quest This silly but smart comedy is a surefire way to beat winter's blahs. Sigourney Weaver and Tim Allen star. (PG)
Gun Shy An undercover agent (Liam Neeson) finds his job has given him a jittery stomach. Sandra Bullock (who also produced) is a doctor's assistant who gives him an enema. We kid you not. Possibly a good script by TV vet Eric Blakeney, but he never should have been allowed to direct. (R)
Magnolia Follows the intersecting lives of nine residents of contemporary L.A. Way too long (three hours), but Tom Cruise and ensemble cast deliver. (R)
Stuart Little More Home Alone (with a mouse replacing Macaulay Culkin and cats subbing for the bad guys) than E.B. White's classic children's story, but small fry love it, so we'll just sit quietly and eat our popcorn. (PG)
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
