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COLD CREEK MANOR By Rachel Deahl Review Film Critic Click for the official site Returning to "studio" filmmaking with a genre thriller, director Mike Figgis brings some of his avant-garde sensibilities to the moderately spooky, but well-handled, "Cold Creek Manor." After achieving his most notable mainstream and critical success with
"Leaving Las Vegas" in 1995, Figgis seemingly departed from Hollywood to
make more non-linear films. Creating mostly befuddling ("The Loss of Sexual
Innocence") or pointless ("One Night Stand") efforts, Figgis finally
emerged with his indie piece-de-resistance: "Timecode." The film, which
follows four different storylines on a screen split into quarters, was an
interesting and ambitious idea that didn't make for a very watchable final
cut.
Here the director is working, thankfully, with a much smaller palette on a decidedly less ambitious project. Returning to plot-driven storytelling, "Cold Creek Manor" is a familiar revenge yarn made exceptionally moody by Figgis' mannered direction. Dennis Quaid stars as Cooper Tilson, a documentary filmmaker who lives with his successful wife (Sharon Stone) and two kids in Manhattan. Souring on city life, the clan decides to pick up roots and move to the countryŠupstate New York to be precise. Trading their pricey condo for a massive fixer-upper called Cold Creek Manor, the Tilsons move in and quickly start making themselves at home. After becoming acquainted with the only other yuppies in town (who've also abandoned urban drudgery), the Tilsons soon learn that most of the blue-collar community doesn't care for city dwellers. And, when they meet the former owner of their homestead, Dale Massie (Stephen Dorff), they become acquainted with their most suspect neighbor.
A wily ex-con that offers to help the Tilsons fix up his old place, Dale starts hanging around making the new residents quite ill at ease. And when bad things start happening at the stately residence (from snakes in the bed sheets to the untimely death of the new pony), suspicion falls to Dale. Refreshingly,"Cold Creek Manor" isn't driven by plot twists or forced horror movie scenarios. Instead, Figgis constructs a more unusual thriller by implicating his nuclear family in their own torture. Not only does the director employ the fact that his central character is a filmmaker, he also underscores the socio-political trend of wealthy New Yorkers buying property upstate. (A timely comment on the fact that these new owners are raising property values and pushing out longtime residents.) In one scene in the film, Dorff's character confronts Quaid's soccer dad in the local diner and points out that, not only did Mr. Tilson buy his house at a rock bottom price but he then had the gall to go through his pictures and memorabilia in order to make a documentary about his family. Finally, "Cold Creek Manor" isn't a film about the repercussions of gentrification, but it does ingeniously work in a social commentary about the trend. And Figgis, making great use of his wonderful set (the dilapidated mansion is scary enough without a psycho running around in it), tells a very un-subtle story in a laudably subtle way. Grade: B+ UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN Click for the official site At first glance, "Under the Tuscan Sun" appears to be a mostly familiar romantic comedy about an aging beauty (here played by Diane Lane) who's forced to rekindle her love of life, and faith in love, after being painfully dumped by her husband. At second glance "Tuscan Sun" isn't much more than that, but some unexpectedly good subplots and beautiful scenery make this fluff particularly palatable. In this enjoyable tail of second chances, the imminently watchable Lane stars as Frances Mayes, a 35-year-old writer who spends most of her time panning other authors' novels while failing to finish her own. When she gets the hurtful news that her husband is having an affair and starting a new family, she moves out of her homey San Francisco apartment and into a depressing motel that caters to spurned divorcees. Then, after a year of moping, Frances' best friend offers her a free vacation in Tuscany. The Tuscany trip proves to be a new beginning for Frances, who impulsively decides to purchase a run-down villa in the picturesque countryside after spotting it from the bus. As she begins to refurbish her crumbling cottage, she likewise starts to piece her life back together.
Luckily, Frances is surrounded by an irreverent and disparate cosmos of supporting players - from the trio of Polish contractors who work on her house, to the flamboyant English actress who dishes out advice handed down to her from Federico Fellini to the gorgeous Italian named Marcello she has a brief affair with - much of the life in this comedy is provided by the enjoyable threads which crop up around the minor cast. Working nicely with the metaphor of fixing a house in a veiled attempt to fix a life, Frances appropriately summarizes her dilemma: she bought a house for a life she didn't have. And unlike most films of its ilk, "Under the Tuscan Sun" is improved by this twist: it's about a woman searching for love, and in the process, missing out on life. Ultimately love is the end-goal here, and the film is more indebted to delivering on the fairy tale than debunking it, but it does nonetheless offer up a variation on the romantic comedy with its heroine chasing a dream as opposed to a Hollywood hunk. Plus, it also boasts some truly amusing scenes and unexpected characters. Most notably it tweaks the standard wise-cracking best girlfriend character - here said sidekick is wonderfully played by actress Sandra Oh as a sage and amusing, pregnant, gay woman. All this said, "Under the Tuscan Sun" is not without its share of genre transgressions. In one unfortunate scene, Lane embraces her young Italian boy toy on the beach as the sun sets and day warps quickly into night. The sequence is so trite -- with the waves crashing and the couple embracing against a background that looks as if it was just rolled in from another Hollywood back lot -- that it seems intentionally superficial. And, overwhelmingly, that's the ultimate catch with this film, it's not quite smart enough to avoid the familiar. Earlier in that same scene Lane's acerbic author replies to Marcello's longing sentiment that he wants to swim in her eyes with a laughing retort that this is the line all American women expect from Italian men. And, it is. But, like its heroine, the film mocks what it can't resist and finally embraces these clichés with open armsŠand a lengthy moonlit kiss. Grade: B+
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