This week on Ebert & Roper, a young wizard faces a deadly enemy in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
Also, Gene Hackman and Danny DeVito are double-crossing criminals in Heist.
And Jack Black sees only Gwyneth Paltrow's inner beauty in Shallow House.
Alright, Percy. You first. Excuse me.
The train to Hogwarts leaves from platform number nine and three quarters in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
and will have an expanded review plus three other new movies. I'm Richard Roper.
And I'm Roger Ebert. The first thing to say about Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
is that the millions of readers of the book are not going to be disappointed.
This is a surprisingly faithful adaptation, and for me at least, it visualizes the story a lot like I imagined it.
The second thing to say is this is a terrific movie.
With ease and charm and enchantment and thrills and humor,
director Chris Columbus and his British cast have created a classic about a young magician at school.
Stick your right hand over the broom and say up. Up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up.
Shut up, Harry.
Harry's best friends are Hermione Granger, a bright student played by Emma Watson,
and Ron Weasley, played by Rupert Grint.
They team up to explore the off-limits secrets of Hogwarts Academy.
Anyone here, my sweet?
I thought she was gone. We think this door is locked. It was locked, and for good reason.
Grrr.
Grrr.
These are smart kids, and it's a good thing, too, when they get involved in a chess game with very high stakes.
The seamless combination of drama and special effects here is typical of the whole movie.
You there, D-5!
It felt good to be seeing a family movie with intelligence, teeth, and imagination.
A movie that creates characters, evokes atmosphere, and tells a story instead of hammering the audience with mindless action.
Daniel Radcliffe is convincing as the young hero, properly sober and serious,
and then Emma Watson and Rupert Grint provide high spirits in contrast to the more low-key Harry.
The faculty at Hogwarts is an all-star cast of British actors.
Maggie Smith, Richard Harris, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman, Ian Hart.
They know just exactly how broadly they can play without stepping over into farce.
Director Chris Columbus showed he could handle kids and special effects in Home Alone,
and here he scores a triumph.
It's a complete triumph, and you know, Chris Columbus wrote Gremlins,
so before he started doing movies like Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire,
he had the capacity to write kind of darker, subversive stuff,
and this is not a movie for little kids. I think they'll be scared by some of the magic,
and of course, you know, Harry's what happens to his parents and things like that,
but for everybody else, it's a complete winner, I think,
and there was such a buildup to this movie, and to have it live up to that
and even exceed my expectations was really wonderful.
Yeah, because everybody's expecting the hype is, you know, over-exaggerated,
and it's not, and you mentioned how scary it is.
I've already gotten some emails from people saying, is this going to be too scary?
And you know what? I can remember growing up with movies that really were scary.
There's stuff in Wizard of Oz that's scary. It's okay.
It's okay for a movie to be scary. It's not over the line. It's not too scary.
I think it's just scary enough.
I would agree completely with that. Now, my favorite character is Hermione Granger,
played with great verve by Emma Watson.
She reminded me of a miniature British version of the Holly Hunter character
in broadcast news, a type AAAA personality.
Wingardium Leviosa.
See here, everyone. This grade has done it.
Now, many of the book's delightful elements are faithfully reproduced,
as in this scene where the students find out what dorm they're going to be in
with the help of the bewitched sorting hat.
Ah, right then.
Right. Okay.
Gryffindor!
Even with all the wondrous special effects and the joyfully superb work from Smith,
Harris, and Alan Rickman, who can get a laugh just by giving you a deadpan look
and moving his face just a little teeny bit, I really think the kids are the ones
who hold the key to this film. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and little Emma Watson
are in nearly every scene. They're asked to carry this story,
and they do it with style and natural ease.
In the hands of less talented young actors, the entire Harry Potter franchise
could have been in big trouble. Instead, we're treated to the first installment
in what truly could be a great series.
Even as a stand-alone effort, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,
I think, is the Wizard of Oz of its time.
You're right about the kids. You're right about the Wizard of Oz. It's in that league.
And Chris Columbus here, I think, has made kind of an Indiana Jones for kids,
because some of the amazing set pieces were just a delight.
For example, the Quidditch game. That was really well realized.
I was wondering, how can they do Quidditch on the screen? And they could.
Yeah, it's fantastic.
And then the tendrils, the pit of tendrils that they fall into,
which reminds me of similar scenes in Star Wars and Indiana Jones.
And then that trip into the dark forest where they meet the centaur guy, you know?
And that's kind of scary.
The whole movie just surprised me with how successful it was.
And I think it's important to stress, too, that if you've never read any of the Harry Potter books,
if you don't know anything about this kid or the world he lives in,
it's still a really good movie. It stands alone as it is.
It doesn't end like, coming up next, we'll find out where Harry's caught in the pit and he'll be safe.
It's a story that's complete unto itself and really successful at that.
It sure is. Coming up later, Gwyneth Paltrow looks good to Shallow Howl.
Ow. Are you OK?
Brain freeze.
And coming up next, Danny DeVito convinces Gene Hackman to pull just one more heist.
What made you a criminal? Nothing made me a criminal. I am a criminal.
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Last night I had spray cheese and prehistoric tuna noodle casserole.
I had 46 cherry tomatoes.
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Who did you expect, the Terminator?
Cut him off.
How is it? It's his road game.
Gene Hackman leads a team of clever thieves who always want to do things the hard way in Heist,
an ambitious but cluttered and ultimately unconvincing caper.
There's a fantastic cast here, including Get Shorty vets Hackman, Danny DeVito, and Delroy Lindo,
and they have a lot of fun throwing David Mamet's verbal daggers at one another.
But the heists they plan and the con games they pull are either too elaborate or way too simple.
And most of this stuff just isn't plausible.
Give me our cut. We worked for it, my crew. We'll do the Swiss job.
Come on, Joe. You're going traveling. What are you going to do, play me for a sucker?
I give you the money now and you're gone. This other job is set up. You understand my position?
Well, here's mine. We did the job, my partners and me.
That's DeVito as the money man and Sam Rockwell as his dopey violent nephew.
And Hackman's Joe Moore is the veteran thief who's talked into doing, you guessed it, one last big job before he retires.
What the hell is it?
They found the car.
What car?
The station wagon. The cops found it.
What do you mean they found it? How could they find it? I told you to ditch the car.
I stopped off to see my niece.
Did you wipe it down?
There are a lot of false starts and wrong turns in heists.
The job is on, then it's off, then it's back on again, but the alliances have switched, or have they?
But after Hackman pimps his girlfriend in order to keep his con game working, I had no rooting interest in his survival.
It's scum against scum. Heist also suffers from character inconsistencies.
The same players who are capable of pulling off elaborate schemes sometimes fall victim to the most elementary bait and switch.
Now, of course, even subpar mammot dialogue is unique and interesting, and this cast is excellent.
Heistbell proves that enormously talented people can make a pretty lousy movie.
Gee, I like this movie. I like the characters in it.
I like the complexity of Gene Hackman as this old guy who has the young wife and who really likes his boat better than anything,
and I love Delroy Lindo as the professional, and I love the dialogue.
I love the way DeVito says, everybody loves money. That's why they call it money.
Okay, that's a funny line. That was a funny line, and the characters are interesting,
but what they have to do, the way they get manipulated by Mammot, I thought just what's interesting.
That's what Mammot does. Mammot loves those labyrinthine schemes where everything comes around the back and turns out to be different than you think.
But there's no payoff here, Roger. I thought there was no payoff whatsoever.
The final shootout, which is handled in a kind of a deliberately clumsy way because these guys have never really fired a lot of guns before,
and I love a line like, don't you want to hear my dying words? I just did.
Now, that's great dialogue.
Oh, come on, and you know what? The shootout, of course, is taking place on the dock there.
Why not? Why not?
Because it has happened in a million other movies, and as I said, my biggest problem is these people are so smart sometimes,
but then they fall for the tricks just so the story can have an inclusion.
Don't do that. Don't do that. I mean, I think it's really an entertaining movie.
So they're smart, then they're stupid. See, that doesn't work for me at all.
Okay, coming up next, Jack Black and Gwyneth Paltrow form an odd couple in Shallow Howl.
And looking ahead to next week's openings, we'll review Heather Graham and Edward Burns
as just two of the millions trying to find love on the sidewalks of New York.
Are you flirting with me?
I was hoping it was kind of obvious, but I guess I'm not doing an accurate job.
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Has there been a time when you were like, especially shallow, where you looked at a woman and just thought you were better than she was?
All the time. All the time. Oh yeah.
Do you think of one specific time when you're really shallow? Oh yeah. I got one.
Think about that. Devils! Come out!
Positive thinking guru Tony Robbins is trapped in an elevator with Shallow Hal, played by Jack Black, and cures him of bimboitis in that scene.
Thanks to Tony, the compulsive womanizer can now see the inner beauty in women.
Soon after, he meets a woman named Rosemary, who looks exactly like Gwyneth Paltrow in his eyes anyway.
But to everyone else, she looks like Gwyneth Paltrow at 300 pounds.
He falls instantly in real love, but she doesn't know if she can trust him.
Hal, you've been really nice to me today. I really appreciate it, but...
What, your other boyfriends aren't nice to you?
Hal, do me a favor and stop saying that I'm pretty and that I'm not fat, okay? Because it makes me uncomfortable.
The movie was directed and co-written by the Farrelly brothers, who have developed a specialty in embarrassing things that can happen in restaurants.
Go on.
Oh my God! Are you okay?
Oops.
Shallow Hal's best friend is Mauricio, played by Jason Alexander from Seinfeld.
He can only see the external Rosemary, who weighs 300 pounds, and so he thinks Hal is out of his mind.
Right where?
Straight ahead, across the field.
Is she behind the rhino?
Some people are going to say the movie cheats, since although Hal falls in love with the inner beauty of Rosemary,
what he sees is the outer beauty of Gwyneth Paltrow, so inner beauty is equated with thinness.
The movie shows Paltrow both weights, though, and I think it needs the visual difference in order to dramatize Hal's conversion.
Shallow Hal has big laughs, but also a warmth that's kind of sweet.
I like the way it uses Renee Kirby as Walt, the character who has spina bifida.
Gwyneth Paltrow is touching, and Jack Black, in his first starring role, has a wonderful bluster and vulnerability, and he isn't so thin himself.
No, he's not, which is why he's an inspired choice for the lead in this.
It's so funny that you've got Jack Black and Jason Alexander, who are so superficial and blowing off even good-looking girls,
which, you know, happens sometimes in real life.
You know when you go to movies sometimes and everyone's laughing and then you hear somebody laughing afterwards?
That was me at this movie.
I mean, I think it really is the funniest movie I've seen in a long time, and it's smart, and it's sweet, and I liked its message,
and it's, you know, it's the kind of thing you think about it.
How did they pull this off?
Because there's a neighbor character who lives across the hall from the Jack Black character, and she's beautiful,
and even when he's conceding her beauty, she stays beautiful, and they're telling us, wait a minute,
she's more than just a shallow, good-looking woman.
So they keep a perspective going where each character stays true to themselves.
It's pretty smart stuff.
You know, one thing the Fairleys do here is a running joke that they never really pay off on until the end involving Jason Alexander's hair.
And I'm looking at it, and I'm saying, what is that hair made out of?
What substance? You know, is it kryptonite? What is going on up there?
Finally, at the end, you get a little hint as to what is going on in it, but it's funny all the way through because the shoe never drops.
Yeah, exactly. They know how to do it.
We've seen so many crummy comedies that try to be there's something about Mary or something like this,
and the Fairley brothers come to the rescue and show us how it's done.
And who would have thought that you would feel kind of good after this movie?
Yeah, I felt great after this movie.
Okay, our next movie is Maze.
Now, Laura Linney, you might remember, was nominated for an Academy Award for last year's You Can Count on Me,
and she's equally impressive here.
But the film itself, though loaded with lofty and artsy pretensions, is really mostly just annoying.
Rob Morrow, who was in Northern Exposure, directed, co-wrote the script, and plays the title character.
He's Lyle Maze, a talented artist who has Tourette syndrome.
Now, Maze is deeply attracted to the longtime girlfriend of his best pal who's gone overseas without knowing that she's pregnant.
Lyle.
Oh, Jesus, Jesus.
Lyle. Lyle.
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
Lyle, relax.
Maybe you should go. You should go.
Lyle, it's okay. I'm fine.
No, I think you should go.
Lyle tries to forget about Kelly by going on a date with her friend, Julianne.
The result is predictable.
For me, it's a city that has statues silvered against the sky.
At night, at sunset, you get these spectacular colors.
It's like they come alive, you know, the whole city with these people, these gods flying around.
Oh, my God. Oh, I'm so sorry.
Not to minimize Lyle's affliction, but is red wine and a light blouse a good combination around someone who cannot control his movements?
There are two other scenes of Lyle spilling liquids on people, a model in his studio and a tough guy in a bar.
Okay, we get it.
Tourette's is a devastating and greatly misunderstood condition.
But Morrill's direction is heavy-handed, especially when we see the world through Lyle's blurry vision.
And Lyle really isn't very sympathetic when he's humping the pregnant girlfriend of his best friend, who happens to be a crusading doctor.
May's is elevated by Linney's sparkling performance, but other than that, I thought it was a tangled and tortured mess.
Okay, I concede that basically you're right, and yet I give this movie a marginal pass.
Is that a thumb up?
It's a thumb slightly above the horn.
You can change your mind if my argument was so convincing that you now want to say thumbs down.
The things that you have said can be said about this movie, but other things can be said about it, too.
And one thing that can be said is that I think Rob Marrow does a very good job of showing someone with this condition,
and he also has obsessive-compulsive disorder as well, which gives him a lot of trouble with the TV remote.
This is not a condition that we see in the movies very often, and usually it's exaggerated into some kind of guy in a crowded theater,
shouting out obscenities and so forth, but here we see how the everyday life is affected,
and how trust and communication help this guy to overcome his almost paralyzing shyness and get out into the world a little bit,
and I think that's worth seeing the movie for.
Well, that's a real marginal thumbs up from you, but if you're saying people should see it, I stick to everything I said about this movie.
Of course, it's a topic worth exploring, but I think they really botched it here.
Okay, coming up next in our video spotlight, a gentle giant is let loose on DVD.
Man, I like you. What's your name?
Uh, Shrek.
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Um, how do you like your eggs?
Good morning, Princess.
Newly out on home video is the monster summer hit Shrek, kind of a bilingual film with one language for kids and another for grown-ups.
This is one of those classic animated films that's perfect for kids with all the yucky sight gags and jokes about belching and passing gas,
but also filled with lots of inside jokes and wicked gags for older viewers.
The two-disc special edition DVD is loaded with creative extras, including a karaoke medley.
I'm gonna tape things down a little bit with one of my personal favorites.
Don't go changin'.
There's also a clever play on those tiresome junket interviews.
Did you do all of your own stunts?
Uh, no, there's actually a couple of gnomes in the suit with some great special effects.
What are you planning to do next?
I'm working on taking Don Quixote to Broadway as a musical.
I'm playing the role of Dunkey, of course, and I'm also in discussions with the original Mr. Ed about a remake of The Odd Couple.
I'm gonna be playing Felix.
If you haven't seen Shrek, you'll appreciate its wicked charm.
If you have, you'll appreciate the care and the humor behind all the extras on the DVD.
Coming up next, the movie Answer Man answers complaints that Steven Spielberg is messing with E.T.
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Join Roger and Richard for the second annual Ebert and Roper Film Festival at Sea.
Set sail to the Bahamas, February 28th through March 3rd, 2002, aboard the Disney Wonder.
With a stop at Disney's own private island paradise, Castaway Key.
Call your travel agent or 1-800-945-3806.
The movie Answer Man has been swamped with complaints about Steven Spielberg tinkering with his 1982 classic E.T. for the 20th anniversary release of the film.
Guns will be replaced by walkie-talkies in one scene, and a digitally improved E.T. will take a bath with little Elliot in another.
Those changes are debatable, but I was stunned that Spielberg plans to remove the movie's single funniest line of dialogue.
It was nothing like that, penis breath!
Elliot!
Well, it's Spielberg's movie and he can do what he wants with it, but wouldn't it be better to preserve this great movie instead of tinkering with it?
And if he really takes out that classic dialogue, Spielberg the Whiz Kid will be looking a lot like Spielberg the Old Foggy.
Okay, recapping this week's movies, two thumbs way up for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
It opens next week.
A split boat on heist, two thumbs up for Shallow Hell, but we split again on Maze.
And also in release around the country is an engaging and surprising documentary named Fighters, about two holocaust survivors named Jan Wiener and Arnos Lustig,
who go on a trip to revisit old and painful memories and end up in surprising, spirited arguments about what it all meant.
They don't agree.
Yeah, I give a thumbs up as well.
Even if these guys hadn't each gone through so much strife and, you know, real tragedy in their life, they're just interesting right now to see them going back and forth.
It's great to see that.
Remember, you can visit our website at ebranandroper.tv and read his imprint at suntimes.com.
Next week, we'll be back with Steve Martin and Helena Bonham Carter and Nova Kane.
And until then, the balcony is closed.
You know, there was some concern, too, about Harry Potter because it's two and a half hours, but it proves once again if a movie's good, the length doesn't matter.
My rule, no good movie is too long, no bad movie is short enough.
Yeah, 80 minutes for some of these comedies is too long, but a movie like Castaway or Schindler's List or even something like Harry Potter,
two and a half hours.
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