Cockney bull (1/19/01)
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The Gift. [Sam Raimi, 2000. Written by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson.]
Cracker Gothic: after her husband is blown to bits in an industrial accident, sad shy but psychic smalltown Georgia peach Cate Blanchett takes up fortunetelling to support her three children; collecting among her clientele Very Disturbed auto mechanic Giovanni Ribisi and Battered Wife Hilary Swank. When Cate advises Hilary to leave her husband [Keanu Reeves, here surfing in the Deep South], he threatens her and her children with various picturesque forms of violence; meanwhile she is developing a thing for schoolmaster Greg Kinnear, who, unfortunately, is about to marry Katie Holmes, who, unfortunately, is fucking everybody in town; Keanu included. Katie abruptly disappears and foul play is obvious; Cate’s visions seem to pin the job on Keanu: a solution which, alas, is entirely too cute, entirely too quick; other visions follow, and the dead intervene in the affairs of the living. — Strange but true, this is terrific; Thornton must deserve some credit, but the real gift, obviously, is Raimi’s. I await his interpretation of
Spiderman with bated breath. In the meantime, check this out.
____________Love and death (1/14/01)
