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Show C-9 The Park Record Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, October 1- 4, 2005 Polanski's 'Oliver Twist' flip flops By MICAHEL BOOTH MediaNews Group Wire Service It's a steep challenge reclaiming "Oliver Twist" from the bloated comforts of dinner theater, where overemoting actors must shout and cackle to be heard over the clatter of steam-table lids. Olivers tale is so familiar by now, after so many tellings on film, TV and the stage of your local country playhouse, we need major persuading to open our hearts for the little orphan once again. Roman Polanski is certainly the director to try. A victim and scholar of strife and heartache, Polanski could have made Oliver as haunting as his 2002 Academy Award-winning film, "The Pianist." Yet his new effort falls just short. It's as if Polanski were torn between making a fairy tale for his young children and freshening an object lesson for adults. "Oliver Twist" flip-flops uneasily between the jaunty "notes of a plucky boy and the screeching horror strings of evil grown-ups. Polanski ends on the right tone, a dim glimmer of dawn after a terrifying night. But he has to,twist his own earlier intentions to get there. "Oliver Twist" was Charles Dickens1 most strident demand to shrink growing class divides in 19th-century Britain. Oliver is raised at a workhouse orphanage after the death of his mother and forced to pick oakum from frayed rope, hour after hour. Polanski makes the orphanage officials ruddy buffoons, but they are horrid and deserve a hearty flogging. The other boys treat Oliver badly, too, forcing him to make the famously suicidal claim for more porridge at breakfast. One problem for any Oliver adaptation is that the titular boy is a fairly dull character. Things happen to the lad, but he doesn't do much; he is polite and bland, while everyone around him is sinister and interesting. He was Dickens' dewy-eyed kitten poster for world •reform, and yet you can't hang a whole movie on him. Barney Clark won the part with an appropriately cherubic face but without having to do much in the actual film. "Oliver Twist." then, becomes a showcase for showy adults, with rich parts like Fagin, the wretched old thief who coddles runaway boys in London but puts them in harms way to steal precious goods. Ben Kingsley here offers one of the finest Fagins ever, making the nearly broken man touching right up to the moment he twists the knife in his friends1 backs. Jamie Foreman also does yeoman's work making chief thug Bill a wretched menace. A trap for Polanski and other adaptors is what to do with Bill's doomed girlfriend, Nancy. She's the only one in the entire story who goes out of her way to do the right thing and is murdered for her trouble. She's then quickly forgotten, in favor of recounting the fate of the band of boy criminals under Fagin. It may seem a small point to say Polanski's sets are too clean and well-made, but it goes with the complaint about tone. In recreating the foul streets of London, Polanski gets the shape right without throwing on enough dirt. Dickens was a master at shaming the public with a brutal view of its own decay. Too often this "Oliver Twist" looks like the Disney version of splintered rails and rancid streets. The lack of atmosphere lets the adults bluster unconvincingly, as if they arc just playacting at being mean until somebody in the 20th century forces them to play nice. When Polanski turns out the lights near the end, he takes it even further than some of the more pessimistic versions of "Oliver.11 We visit a deteriorating Fagin on death row, as they build the gallows just outside the window, and Kingsley's desperation is brutally honest. Polanski is right in that some children can handle the old-fashioned dark fairy tales, but this scene is powerfully disturbing, and parents are forewarned. I know, I'm sounding as unpredictable as Fagin himself: Is the movie too light or too heavy? A little of both, and in more than one wrong place. The next version of "Oliver Twist1' calls for a young director full of anger and bile, Dickens deserves someone retelling the classic story as full-on nightmare instead of ultimately reassuring daydream. One rescued orphan still leaves behind a dormitory full of unhappy truth. Urban teens skate off in 'Roll Bounce is listed as an associate producer.) . Xavicr, or X, and his friends live their summers at the Palisades Gardens. The year is 1978, and the rink on Chicago's South Side has seen better days and is about to close. By LISA KENNEDY If X and friends Junior, Naps, A-JedidNews Croup Wire Service Boo and Mixed Mike - a.k.a. Last year, the Starz Denver the Garden Boys - want to Pan African Film Festival skate on, they'll have to do it at screened a funky, fun documen- the swank Sweetwater roller tary on urban roller-disco culture skating rink on the North Side. called "8 Wheels and Some Soul The Garden Boys trek will Brother Music." end in a skate-off between rivals. Fully loaded with bouncing- But it won't be a Jets vs. Sharks to-the-beat characters and cul- rumble set to Parliament and the tural insight, Tyrone Dixon's film Bee Gees. Sweetwater is more skated off with the festival's integrated than that. audience award. Indeed, the king of the rink is "8 Wheels" was one of those afro-wearing Sweetness (Wesley documentaries with all the mov- Jonathan). If Jermaine was your ing parts of a fiction feature, the Jackson, then Sweetness is your sort of documentary that makes man. you ponder. "What if?" His skate crew includes a sub•'Roll Bounce." director urban jerk borrowed from a John Malcolm D. Lee's coming-of age Hughes" flick; his entourage of film starring no-longer-so-li'l babes is a rainbow coalition of Bow Wow, provides a huad-bop- the willing. The filmmakers know ping if noi qurtc as inspired the difference between the" answer to that question. (Dixon boarded-up Palisades and thriv- . •• v " v • .• : • . . ' • • - . ountam CHANINC SERVICES RESIDENTIALJCOMMERCIAL • Repairs/Maintenance Services • High Celling Dusting • Serving Summit and Wasatch Counties Bonded • Licensed • Insured CaO Today for a Free Estimate! ( 5 ing Sweetwater's is about class as Director Lee debuted with much as race. "The Best Man" and followed up "Roll Bounce" has a life out- with the underrated, ridiculously side the rink, though the movie is astute comedy "Undercover seldom more rousing than when Brother." Screenwriter Norman Stanley Clarke's soundtrack Vance Jr. wrote "Beauty Shop," kicks it and the skates get laced. which Robert Teitel and George This is a family movie about Tillman Jr. produced. This is a family dynamics, and few rela- talent posse that knows that cultionships have demanded as tural identity is in the details and much consideration over the that universal themes are in the years as those of black fathers storytelling. and sons. Chi McBride ("Boston There's a lot of sweetness to Public") plays X's dad, Curtis. A "Roll Bounce." As X's new recent widower, he spends more neighbor Tori, JUrnee Smollett time under his muscle car than he makes the Garden Boy's silliness docs with X and his little sister. less tiresome. Meagan Good Though X and Curtis don't admit grounds things further as Naomi. it, they're still grieving. They But there's a hint of bitterness have retreated to their own cor- here, too. In a semi-perfect ners to Jick their wounds. world. "Roll Bounce" would McBride's quiet intensity have come out in the late '70s or gives the explosive scene the "80s, when there was a cotbetween dad and son a believ- tage industry of teen flicks. The able way out. And Bow Wow fact that it didn't says something holds his ground as X but also as unpleasantly familiar about a young performer. Their conflict demographics and moviemaking. ends with a '90s style resolution. Still, there are few personal But that's OK. What culture buttons "Roll Bounce" doesn't rends, movies try to repair or at push. It's as if the filmmakers least re-envision with gentler found the preset on the car radio: consequences. 92.5 FM. classic soul. For Thcmati-c Elements and Brief Mi!d Language. h HUGE SELECTION OF DVD MOVIES FOR RENT AND SALE TWO LOCATIONS TO SERVE YOU! 8208 Gorgosa Pines Road Ste.7C 649-86O3 950 Ironhorse Drive 645-9234 Over 10,000 Titles to Choose From Open Sun.-Thurs. 10 a.m. to 11 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 10 a.m. until midnight Make lr A BlOCHBUSTEft High! IN I'AKK CTI'I Y A r sundance institute documentary film series in association with the Park City Film Series i;.;;-'.',. ^ , : ADMISSION IS FREE - FILMS SCREEN AT 7:00 PM Q & A discussions following each screening Jim Santy Auditorium - Park City Library Building 1255 Park Avenue, Park City, Utah THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2005 MARCH OF THE PENGUINS Filmmaker Luc Jacquet braves 13 months of the Antarctic winter to document the valiant march of emperor penguins to their traditional breeding grounds. Screened at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival as The Emperor's Journey. Dancing, Food, Spirits, Masks a must. Costumes optional. Prizes! THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2005 THE EDUCATION OF SHELBY KNOX Directors Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt track student Shelby Knox as she works to reform her high school's ineffective sexual education policy, in spite of her conservative family beliefs. Winner of the 2005 Sundance Film Festival American-Excellence in Cinematography Award. Featuring: MOTHERLODE CANYON BAND Tickets $20 T'T o *4 m FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL 328.FILM OR VISIT WWW.SUNDANCE.ORG Sundance Institute programs are supported in part by the Summit County Recreation, Arts, and Parks Program. For tickets or information, please call 435-649-9371 www.parkcityshows.com Mary G. Steiner Egyptian Theatre 328 Main Street rt m |