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CNN He Said/She Said

`The Score,' `Final Fantasy' Get Mixed Reviews; `Thirteen Days' is a Riveting Rental; Movies All About Blondes

Aired July 14, 2001 - 10:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE SCORE")

ROBERT DE NIRO, ACTOR: After this, no more jobs. This is the last one I'm doing. I'm quitting.

MARLON BRANDO, ACTOR: How many times have you told me that in 25 years?

You got to admit that this kid's got a pretty good show.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Thank you, thank you.

DE NIRO: I run this operation down to the smallest detail. If I think for one second you're not living up to your end of it, or if you hold out on me in any way, I walk. Understood?

EDWARD NORTON, ACTOR: That doesn't work for me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PETER TRAVERS, CO-HOST: Lisa, I've got you under surveillance, do you feel it?

LISA SCHWARZBAUM, CO-HOST: Well I know that the cameras are on us.

TRAVERS: The cameras are on us because we're here at The Counterspy Shop in Manhattan, to talk about a movie, a heist movie called "The Score." And I'm Peter Travers.

SCHWARZBAUM: I'm Lisa Schwarzbaum and welcome to "He Said/She Said" the movie review show.

TRAVERS: So I'm going to get right to this movie, OK, because we've got all the equipment. This is a movie starring Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, and Edward Norton in the same movie. And you think, I'm going to get acting, I'm going to really see something here. These are guys that I would pay good money to just read the telephone book.

What do I get? I get a heist movie. I get a movie where they rob things with super state-of-the-art equipment like you see around here. What I wanted was to see some acting, Lisa. I wanted to see Marlon Brando do more than say, "Bonjour Nicky" and mince around in a white suit. The only suspense I got from this movie was watching Brando get on and off a bar stool. Edward Norton is doing a kind of "Rain Man" act in this movie

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE SCORE")

DE NIRO: You go to the corner, you make a right, you go two blocks...

NORTON: Two?

DE NIRO: Two blocks, then a left for one block.

NORTON: Again say it.

DE NIRO: Two blocks on the corner, two blocks this way, one block that way to the left, and you're right there.

NORTON: OK, thank you. Thank you Nick.

DE NIRO: What? What did you say?

NORTON: I said thank you Nick. I'm Max's guy in the customs house.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TRAVERS: De Niro looks like he's miserable.

SCHWARZBAUM: I don't understand what you are saying, it was nothing but acting. It was acting large.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE SCORE")

BRANDO: You're a sweetheart. Bravo, making sense.

DE NIRO: Look, because of the risk involved, my hand's got to be $6 million.

BRANDO: Operator, I've got a nut down here that says you said $6 million.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TRAVERS: I don't see any acting.

SCHWARZBAUM: De Niro was doing his number, Edward Norton was doing his number. Marlon Brando, who was ad-libbing, and I don't know what he was doing. You know, originally he wanted to play an even broader and more like a stereotype than he did.

TRAVERS: That would have been so wonderful.

SCHWARZBAUM: He plays a kind of gay, rich man who -- I don't know -- has plans of trying to get -- to steal this scepter.

What it comes down to is the point where there is the heist, when they are actually breaking into the customs house in Montreal and there is a nice kind of tension going on. You know I do like Frank Oz as a director, but this is the first time that he has done an action film, and I don't think that he has the same chops that he used when he did comedy.

TRAVERS: The talk is that Marlon Brando disliked Oz so much that, basically, he called him Miss Piggy because he had done that...

SCHWARZBAUM: Yes, isn't that amusing?

TRAVERS: ... and basically worked with him through remote control, that Frank Oz wasn't allowed on the set when Brando was there.

When you watch this movie, you're seeing the two guys, De Niro and Brando, who played Don Vito Corleone -- I wanted to see something.

SCHWARZBAUM: I know, I know. But still, I think it is fun to watch them act. They do a lot of it. Its OK as -- as a heist movie, it's OK given what's out there.

TRAVERS: No...

SCHWARZBAUM: But you know what, if you don't like that, there is something else out there.

TRAVERS: OK, what is it?

SCHWARZBAUM: It is called "Final Fantasy, the Spirits Within."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN")

VOICE OF ALEC BALDWIN, ACTOR: I don't see how any living thing could survive out here.

VOICE OF UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: This is it.

VOICE OF JAMES WOODS, ACTOR: Dr. Ross has opened the door for us.

VOICE OF UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: I say we go in.

VOICE OF UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: What the hell is that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHWARZBAUM: Now this...

TRAVERS: Now this indeed.

SCHWARZBAUM: Now this, by Hironobu Sakaguchi, who invented the video game on which it's based.

TRAVERS: He did.

SCHWARZBAUM: What is extraordinary about this strange film is that it is entirely made by computers. The actors who star in it are made by computers. The voices are by real people: We have Ming-Na and Alec Baldwin; we have Ving Rhames doing voice-overs. But actually, everything is computer generated.

And I think that although the story is silly, it's kind of basic sci-fi story about who knows what -- about aliens and the future and war and peace -- visually it is knockout. And there were times when I was sitting there that I didn't care what the story was, I just wanted to see the images on the screen.

TRAVERS: Didn't you get bothered about, not just the fact that the actors are not actors -- we're just hearing those voices -- but it seems hearing the voice of, like, James Woods coming out of something that doesn't look anything like him just freaks me out. Also, there's a deadness about the eyes.

SCHWARZBAUM: I loved it, it didn't matter to me. I think that -- I loved how much emotion they did get in the eyes, how much the hair can blow. But aside from...

TRAVERS: I can blow into your hair, I can get more motion into that.

SCHWARZBAUM: But that we'll do after this segment...

TRAVERS: I thought it was dead, it was like when I play a video game for too long. Everything has that dark background. I couldn't get that...

SCHWARZBAUM: I thought it was what it was supposed to be. I thought it was dazzling. As I said, the story...

TRAVERS: I must be in a bad mood this week, I think I'm not like this other one, I'm knocking this poor Hironobu Sakaguchi.

SCHWARZBAUM: Don't forget, this is summer, and so what you have is an OK heist movie and you have this amazing computer generated movie which is the new interface of video games...

TRAVERS: Well, you know what I am going to say to people, because I can't deal with it, I'm going to say, when we come back, we're going to talk about videos, and there are real people in them. I mean, you are going to see a clip from a movie called "Thirteen Days," and it's really Kevin Costner.

SCHWARZBAUM: Stuffy people like you will like it.

TRAVERS: That's right.

SCHWARZBAUM: Come on back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THIRTEEN DAYS")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: I've got a bad feeling about what's going on in there.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Sir, I think we have to issue pre-invasion orders for our forces.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: There's no choice; it's going to cost lives any way we go.

KEVIN COSTNER, ACTOR: We're talking about possible nuclear war.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: We've got a bunch of smart guys. We lock them in a room, they come up with some solutions.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: The whole spectrum of air strikes is minimal response, the Joint Chiefs will accept.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: No, no, no! There is more than one option here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THIRTEEN DAYS")

COSTNER: What does that look like to you?

BRUCE GREENWOOD, ACTOR: I don't know. What is it?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: On Sunday morning one of our U-2s took these pictures. The Soviets are putting medium-range ballistic missiles into Cuba.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: They appear to be the SS-4: range of 1,000 miles, three megaton nuclear warheads, seen here in this year's May Day Parade in Red Square.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHWARZBAUM: Peter, a clip from "Thirteen Days." That's Bruce Greenwood playing John F. Kennedy Jr., and that is Kevin Costner playing a special assistant friend of his, Kenneth O'Donnell.

This is a really good film that's out on video. This tells a story of a moment in history that was almost catastrophic, when we had the eyeball-to-eyeball face-down with Cuba and there was the question of whether we were going to go to nuclear war. This is a dramatization of a moment in history that is hard to explain to younger people who haven't been around during that time. But what I like is how intelligently performed this is.

Bruce Greenwood, Canadian actor, does such a fantastic job playing Kennedy. It's very hard to play a Kennedy and have it come off where it's not, you're doing an accent and you're doing a thing. But he really sets the tone. He sets the tone, in fact, so well that I think that he controls Kevin Costner, who can sometimes get away from himself. TRAVERS: Oh, did he ever.

SCHWARZBAUM: He really keeps him nicely shaped. This is a good duo.

TRAVERS: Kevin Costner, there was some criticism of the movie because Kenny O'Donnell, people said, wasn't playing that pivotal a role, and because Kevin Costner was in the movie that was the reason for it. And you have to get past Costner's, you know, I'm going to the "caa," and I'm going to the "baa," you know. But once you do...

SCHWARZBAUM: But it was easy...

TRAVERS: ... it takes over. Once those photographs come in there -- this is drama, and it's a riveting drama. And you know what it is, too? It gives you the spectacle of men thinking. They're actually thinking, which is something to watch.

OK, well I'm going to go up to the spectacle of everybody that rents this movie not thinking at all, because it's a comedy -- but that's OK. So we'll look at this scene right now from "Down to Earth" with Chris Rock.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "DOWN TO EARTH")

CHAZZ PALMINTERI, ACTOR: You're very, very -- what's the word -- very...

CHRIS ROCK, ACTOR: Funny?

PALMINTERI: No. You're spunky.

ROCK: Spunky? What the...

PALMINTERI: Spunky. So here's the story. Your body is gone, adios, sayonara; comprende? But, I spoke to my boss.

ROCK: Did you talk to God?

PALMINTERI: Yeah. What we can do for you is put you in somebody else's body as long as no one knows he's dead yet, OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TRAVERS: Well you see there Lisa, there's Chris Rock. You see Eugene Levy, Chazz Palminteri all these wonderfully funny people. And I know you want to rent this, because I know you want to see Chris Rock be funny. I did too. I really did.

It's a remake of "Heaven Can Wait," "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" before that. Chris Rock dies in an accident, he's a stand-up comic. He has to take another body, gets a fat 50-ish white guy -- what a premise. It just lays there, to me. I'm just sorry to say it.

SCHWARZBAUM: Except when Chris Rock does his riffs, don't you enjoy that? TRAVERS: Yes, when he has his few moments -- and that's very few moments of a two-hour movie. So I can't say, hurray, hurray, you've got to rent it; but I like Chris Rock.

SCHWARZBAUM: But I do too, and so I would say rent it just to keep seeing what he is doing because the next time perhaps there will be more of a movie that has even more of him. And you get to see how he works with a director, because it's very different to be a stand-up then to be an actor.

TRAVERS: Oh yes.

SCHWARZBAUM: Now, speaking of a movie that has to be seen to be believed, and even then I don't know if you're going to believe it, take a look at this clip from "Monkeybone."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "MONKEYBONE")

VOICE OF JOHN TURTURRO, ACTOR: I'm reporting this to my union.

BRENDAN FRASER, ACTOR: What union?

VOICE OF TURTURRO: The sidekicks union -- me Tonto, Robin the Boy Wonder. You top bananas better watch -- oh! Stop it!

That's it, enemy fire, I'm coming in. Aooga, da, da, da, da, da.

I left my phone number in your undies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHWARZBAUM: OK, you know that was Brendan Fraser. You know that this was an animated monkey in there. I cannot really tell you what this is about. It's about a man who is inhabited by his own id, or the id takes over. He's a cartoonist.

What I need to say about this film is, that when it came out it was hugely panned, except by me, thank you very much. It is wild, it is out of control, it is almost bursting with more stuff than it knows what to do with. And this is the very movie you should rent because you have got to take a look at this and start to understand what was going on in this movie. I think it's extraordinary.

TRAVERS: Well, you do. You know, we all have our enthusiasms in this. You know, I look at Lisa and say, how could you, I don't get "Monkeybone," I don't do it. I'll say something about "Knights Tale" and she'll say, what are you talking about?

That's the way this whole world is; that's what video rentals are for. And I would say, because there's such talent behind "Monkeybone"...

SCHWARZBAUM: Thank you for allowing me my little indulgence.

TRAVERS: People should have that -- we're going to be nice to each other. But you know the one I would rent, is the DVD... SCHWARZBAUM: We're going to agree on this one.

TRAVERS: You know I'm the DVD man. It goes back to 1957. It's called "Sweet Smell of Success." It's in black and white -- so when you look at the theme, don't go adjusting everything, you know. It's in black and white, but let's take a peak first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS")

BURT LANCASTER, ACTOR: Mr. Falco, whom I did not invite to sit at this table tonight, is a hungry press agent and fully up to all the tricks of his very slimy trade. Match me, Sidney.

TONY CURTIS, ACTOR: Not right this minute, J.J.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TRAVERS: So you see that? This is Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster. Burt Lancaster is playing a very powerful gossip columnist. And in the 1950s, when this movie is set, they were powerful. Walter Winchell was very powerful.

Tony Curtis, in what I think is the best performance of his life plays Sidney Falco -- great name -- a press agent who's so hungry to get his clients into those columns. And he -- Burt Lancaster just looks at him with this -- looks of complete detestation and says, "I wouldn't want to take a bite out of you, Sidney, you're a cookie full of arsenic."

SCHWARZBAUM: "A cookie full of arsenic."

TRAVERS: So you get black and white, you get film noir, you get the DVD restoring this movie to perfection.

SCHWARZBAUM: You also get a script that is like no other. You get a sense of New York at that time -- the black and white-ness of this movie works perfectly with that kind of spiky sense of the city and what was going on in sophisticated life. And this completely nails it.

TRAVERS: And you look at something like this, and you say why don't they make movies like this any more? This is that kind of movie. It makes you want to go back to those 1950s.

SCHWARZBAUM: Well, when we come back, we're talking about nothing like that at all. We're talking about the age of blondes -- the newest age of blondes. We're talking about "Legally Blonde" and the whole look of golden hair. So come on back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LEGALLY BLONDE")

REESE WITHERSPOON, ACTRESS: Girls, I'm going to Harvard.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: You mean like on va-ca? Let's all go!

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: Road trip! Yeah! WITHERSPOON: No, I'm going to Harvard Law School.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LEGALLY BLONDE")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Do you have a resume?

WITHERSPOON: Yes, I do. Here it is.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: It's pink.

WITHERSPOON: Oh, and it's scented. I think it gives it a little something extra, don't you think?

OK, well, see you next class.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Do you think she just woke up one morning and said, "I think I'll go to law school today?"

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TRAVERS: Blondes, blondes, blondes, Lisa.

SCHWARZBAUM: I wish I could toss my hair like that.

TRAVERS: Oh yeah, I can just -- it's like a shampoo commercial.

But we're talking about blondes. We're talking about two movies that feature two actresses playing blondes. And that was Reese Witherspoon in "Legally Blonde," which immediately puts blondes in the title. And we have Kirsten Dunst out there now in a movie called, "crazy/beautiful" -- an irritating lowercase "C" and a lowercase "B."

SCHWARZBAUM: It's sort of so blonde to do it like that.

TRAVERS: Blonde, blonde, blonde. But you know from Jean Harlow to Marilyn Monroe to Alicia Silverstone in "Clueless," there's this appeal. And we're here to tell you where that appeal comes from. So tell me, where does it come from?

SCHWARZBAUM: Well, I'm not going to tell you so much where it comes from, as to where it is right now because this movie is about blondes -- it sort of deconstructs the idea of what it means to be blonde.

Of course, the joke is that if it's blonde it's dumb -- I mean, that's the stereotype. And the whole twist of this is that she maybe perky, she may have scented pink stationary and a pink resume. But actually she does have basic brains.

Now one of the things that I love about this: Reese Witherspoon is it. She really does have the smarts to be a great actress. She is a great actress. In "Election," she just ruled the roost... TRAVERS: She was terrific in it.

SCHWARZBAUM: And anything she's in, I think, she brings a little kind of pointedness. You know, she's not all perky and toasty. She really has a kind of edge to her.

What I don't quite get is whether this particular blonde really does have a world plan, or whether she just kind of lives in a little bubble and is very happy. But what I do like is that there is enough kind of lightness to make fun of the whole blonde sense.

This is a movie that has a lot of women who were involved in the making of the film, and I think that it shows. There was a kind of girl sensibility to it that I think works really well, and I think teenagers are going to love.

TRAVERS: Well it's like "Clueless" was. But I think "Clueless" worked completely as a movie, and I think this movie sort of goes off the deep end and becomes very silly.

SCHWARZBAUM: Yes...

TRAVERS: And it gets very much like "Perry Mason," where's she's in a courtroom, and it's depending on her knowledge of hair care products. I think it pushes too hard on that angle.

Well, talking about a more serious kind of blonde, there is Kirsten Dunst in "crazy/beautiful," and we should look at her first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "CRAZY/BEAUTIFUL")

KIRSTEN DUNST, ACTRESS: I'm not going to let you just walk out of your midterm.

JAY HERNANDEZ, ACTOR: I already did.

DUNST: You know, Annapolis is going...

ACTOR: You're not listening to me. I want to be with you. I don't give a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) about anything else right now, OK? Midterms, grades, Annapolis, your father. I want to be with you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TRAVERS: So you're seeing blondes here. Kirsten Dunst, remember, was in "Interview With the Vampire." She was about 13 years old when she co-starred with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.

And through movie after movie she is really showing some amazing talent: "Virgin Suicides," the cheerleader movie "Bring it On" was a guilty pleasure of mine, I thought she was terrific in it.

She is, to me, the only terrific thing about "crazy/beautiful," which plays like one of those afternoon TV specials. She is the rich daughter of a California congressman, played by Bruce Davison, and she falls in love with a Latin boy from the wrong side of the tracks. So, see, they've reversed the boilerplate here for us.

And yet she brings so much to this part. She really acts like there's something that matters about...

SCHWARZBAUM: You know, I wonder could you play this role and be dark-haired? You know, I mean, sometimes we talk about casting being its own things, you know, that these are blonde actresses. Could this character have...

TRAVERS: I think she could've.

But I'm going to toss now to something that isn't a blonde at all. This is going to be Sean Combs making his acting debut...

SCHWARZBAUM: You mean P. Diddy...

SCHWARZBAUM: P. Diddy to you and Puff Daddy to everybody else out there. But we're going to come back and talk about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "MADE")

JOHN FAVREAU, ACTOR: What he has to do?

SEAN COMBS, ACTOR: Come here. Now here's the plan. Take the money to the Welshman. He's going to check it. He's going to hand you his marker, and you're done. That's it; as long as you hand off the bag.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "MADE")

COMBS: Give me four eggs Benedict and a mimosa.

You all want mimosas?

VINCE VAUGHN, ACTOR: No thank you, man, I don't think I could eat anything.

COMBS: Four mimosas; you'll love them.

COMBS: All right, now Tom, the Welsh dude, he don't do nothing but dabble a little bit. He's small time. Max, he had me hook up this loan background through Oceanic (ph) Passbook Account.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TRAVERS: So here we are back at the Counterspy Shop to talk about the movies that we really want people to see.

SCHWARZBAUM: The small stuff that you might miss if you're busy seeing "Final Fantasy."

TRAVERS: Well my small stuff movie is called "Made." And the scene that you saw has a guy in it who isn't small stuff at all. He is Sean Combs, known to you, I'm sure Lisa, as Puff Daddy or...

SCHWARZBAUM: No, P. Diddy.

TRAVERS: P. Diddy -- new CD is out there and everything.

And this is a heist movie, nothing like "The Score." I think all the actors were actually on the set with the director, as opposed to what happened with "The Score" and Frank Oz. But yes, it's a simple heist flick, and John Favreau who we have seen on "The Sopranos," we've seen many times, teams up again with Vince Vaughn his co-star in a movie called "Swingers" that was made a few years back.

SCHWARZBAUM: Good team.

TRAVERS: Favreau now directs. It's his directing debut. There's no Doug Liman, the guy that did "Swingers." And so you don't quite get a great movie, but you get great characters.

He and Vince Vaughn -- John Favreau and Vince Vaughn are wannabe boxers, wannabe mobsters in L.A. And their boss, Peter Falk, sends them to New York to do an easy job with a gangster who is played by -- yes, himself, Sean Combs, who has such an easy grace, such charm on the screen it's like a natural thing. The camera just loves him.

SCHWARZBAUM: It's all about P. Diddy for you.

TRAVERS: It's about P. Diddy, and I'm saying it's worth it to see this movie and to watch these two guys.

SCHWARZBAUM: Well I am talking about a great movie, and I can say this unequivocally. It's called "Lumumba." It's by Raoul Peck, and it is about Patrice Lumumba, who very briefly was Prime Minister of the Congo back in the 1960s when that country gained independence from Belgium.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (SPEAKING FRENCH)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (SPEAKING FRENCH)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TRAVERS: This is a true story about his brief rise. And he was assassinated. It's a sad story, too. But the filmmaking in this is so extraordinary. And the French actor who plays Lumumba, Eriq Ebouaney is so intense and so passionate in his role.

The story is told -- whether you know the history or not -- does not matter if you cannot follow all of it because in a way this is so restless. This is about the chaos of revolution. Really extraordinary stuff, and not the kind of film that you would see otherwise, and you learn a lot; and you also learn what a good filmmaker can do when he is retelling history.

TRAVERS: And the actors are real, nothing computer-generated... SCHWARZBAUM: Absolutely.

TRAVERS: ... we're talking about two movies with the real thing. So, when we say good-bye, which we're going to do right now, we're going to go out with a blonde who is real, our old friend Reese Witherspoon...

SCHWARZBAUM: Well, her hairdresser knows for sure.

TRAVERS: Well, we don't know anything, but we like to hear a little music from "Legally Blonde." And we'll see you next week.

SCHWARZBAUM: Bye.

(MUSIC)

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