KING OF NEW YORK (PG) (4.5 stars)
Stars: Christopher Walken, Laurence Fishburne, David Caruso, Wesley Snipes
Director: Abel Ferrara
When: 7 p.m., June 14
Maverick director Abel Ferrara is perhaps best known for his stories of psychotic loners and their journeys of self-discovery (Ms. 45, Bad Lieutenant, The Addiction), but he's equally adept at underworld ensemble pieces, especially having to do with the connecting and crumbling of family. The often-overlooked King of New York is the best of these.
Christopher Walken stars in a powerhouse performance as Frank White, a gangster newly released from jail who attempts to make a new life for himself not only by organizing all street crime, but also by donating money to hospitals and becoming a respectable (and electable) citizen. Frank surrounds himself with women bodyguards and black gangsters, such as a swaggering, volatile thug played by Laurence Fishburne. David Caruso leads a team of desperate, frustrated cops who find they can arrest Walken but can't control his lawyers.
Ferrara's dangerous vision of the city at night goes beyond what most cream-puff directors are capable of: He gets to the core of everything from the silent, dark windows of towering penthouses to the vicious rattling of crime-ridden subways. A huge band of then-up-and-comers fleshes out the superb cast, including Wesley Snipes, Victor Argo, Steve Buscemi and Giancarlo Esposito. Ferrara's usual collaborator Nicholas St. John scripted.
MORVERN CALLAR (R) (5 stars)
Stars: Samantha Morton, Kathleen McDermott
Director: Lynne Ramsay
When: 7:30 p.m., June 17
Director Lynne Ramsay delivers on the promise of her darkly poetic first film, Ratcatcher. Samantha Morton gives a breathtaking, purely instinctual performance in this Scottish film about a girl trying to shake the dark clouds from her life. In the title role, she's completely unguarded, and every moment is painfully, beautifully genuine.
During one bleary, dreary Christmas, Morvern finds her suicidal boyfriend dead on the floor. She takes some money, publishes his novel as her own, and takes off with her best friend (Kathleen McDermott) for a holiday in Spain. Using Alan Warner's novel as loose backdrop, Ramsay attempts to find the center of Morvern's soul by watching Morton's soulful eyes for long, potent moments; the actress is so good you can actually read them.
Otherwise, Ramsay decorates the film's moody, contemplative atmosphere with mournful pop songs from a mix tape (Morvern's Christmas present from her dead boyfriend) and suggests death and loneliness at every turn. Yet Morvern Callar ultimately grows hopeful as the heroine's journey takes her to new and unexpected places, and finally closer to the "someplace beautiful" that she's looking for. It's a film that demands total emotional openness and rewards it tenfold.
VIVA LAS VEGAS (PG) (4 stars)
Stars: Elvis Presley, Ann-Margret
Director: George Sidney
When: 6:30 p.m., June 15
Elvis Presley's career is a thing of lost opportunity. On screen, the King could have been a decent actor, as evidenced by his expert performance in Don Siegel's Flaming Star (1960), or had he saved his energy for bigger, more sporadic releases, he could have been an event-worthy star. Instead, he saturated the market by cranking out a huge quantity of half-baked, forgettable films over a relatively short period of time.
Of these, Jailhouse Rock (1957) is probably the most respected, but Viva Las Vegas (1964) is the most fun, and no film kicks off with a cooler theme song blasting across the screen. Directed by George Sidney, it has a carefree spirit as opposed to the carelessness of the other films, and for once Elvis is paired with a worthy co-star. Sex kitten Ann-Margret could shake it as well as Elvis, and could match his physical allure inch for inch.
The plot—such as it is—involves a car race in which fair Ms. Ann-Margret is the prize, but in the process Viva Las Vegas captures a cartoony side of Vegas with just a bare hint of wanton corruption.
LEAVING LAS VEGAS (R) (2.5 stars)
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Elisabeth Shue, Julian Sands
Director: Mike Figgis
When: 6:30 p.m., June 16
Director Mike Figgis shot this overrated 1995 movie on 16mm to give it an extra-gritty look and feel, and the effect goes a long way in covering up the film's weaknesses.
Nicolas Cage took home the Oscar for his role as Ben, the suicidal alcoholic who cashes in everything he has left for a stockpile of liquor, with which he plans to drink himself to death. But not before he meets Sera (Elisabeth Shue), a beautiful Las Vegas hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold who inexplicably falls in love with him. Julian Sands appears from time to time as Sera's ridiculous pimp who tries to spoil their fun. Most of the film follows the offbeat couple as they party, drink and talk—and never before has a malnourished suicidal-depressive been so charming, so healthy and so in love with life.
Figgis pretends to go all the way to the edge with this potentially devastating material, such as showing Ben's twitching DT fits, but he never leaves the comfort of his own artistic self-awareness. Mostly, Figgis is content to show off his own low-down jazz score and his love for pretentious sleaze. Figgis adapted the book by John O'Brien, who committed suicide just before shooting began.
SHOWGIRLS (NC-17) (1 star)
Stars: Elizabeth Berkeley, Gina Gershon, Kyle MacLachlan
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Here's a conundrum: Showgirls has become a beloved cult classic, but can any members of the cult offer anything in its defense?
On paper, Showgirls looks like an exciting combination, a camp classic in its prime. It features a screenplay by Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct), who is the most viciously horrible, sexist writer the movies have ever seen, but also possesses a singular voice unlike any screenwriter since Ed Wood. Along for the ride is director Paul Verhoeven, the fearless maven of sleaze, ready and willing to take his films one step further than a typical Hollywood cream puff would dare. Still, the film emerges as a plastic, awkward mess without a hint of eroticism or genuine sexuality (not unlike Jerry Bruckheimer's Coyote Ugly).
In the lead role as the girl who comes to Vegas with stars in her eyes, Elizabeth Berkeley appears as a Barbie statue with eyes and lips painted on; she has no humanity, nor allure. Only Gina Gershon comes through with any grace, turning in an oversized, twangy performance worthy of the material. But what brings the whole enterprise crashing down is an absolutely brutal, totally gratuitous rape scene. It's reprehensible that such a thing should be part of an otherwise laughably awful crowd-pleaser.