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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview With David Sterritt
Aired June 01, 2003 - 09:45 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.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: "Bend It Like Beckham," that's the movie you're watching right there. Move over, "Matrix." Cross out the "X-Men." Well, don't do that, that's a good movie. There's room in your multiplex this summer for anti-blockbusters. And we want you to check out the best of these alternative movies with David Sterritt. He's a film critic with the "Christian Science Monitor." He joins us from New York.
Good morning, David, thanks for being with us.
DAVID STERRITT, FILM CRITIC, "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR": Good to be here.
COOPER: All right, let's just start talking movies here. Your favorite, let's start off with "The Mighty Wind," which I actually saw. I love this director. Talk about it a little bit.
STERRITT: Yes. Christopher Guest made this movie. And he's really developed his on little niche in the movie world, doing these kind of faux documentaries. A really hard kind of movie to pull off, because usually, I think, they look very hokie and stilted. He did a really good job with "Waiting for Guffman" and then "Best in Show," which was a hugely popular movie. Funny thing about "A Mighty Wind" is that the subject of it is not one everybody in America's going to be fascinated with.
COOPER: It's about a legendary, allegedly, folk band reuniting?
STERRITT: Exactly. It's all about that great folk music boom of the 1960s. I remember it well. I think a lot of the parodies in this movie are really right on. I just hope that people who weren't even around for that, or maybe don't remember it, will still take an interest in this movie. Because, even if you have no idea what that scene was about and how accurate the parodies are, it's just got a lot of very funny stuff in it.
COOPER: He's got such a great track record. "Spinal Tap" is legendary, "Waiting for Guffman," of course, and as you mentioned, the - what was the...
STERRITT: "Best in Show." That one had all the terrific looking dogs in it. You can't go wrong. Dogs and babies are what people really love to look at.
COOPER: Exactly. OK. Let's talk about this next movie, "Bend it Like Beckham." STERRITT: Yes. "Bend It Like Beckham" is another really interesting film. We've seen movies like this before, including some from the same director. "East is East" was out not long ago.
This one is probably doing the best of the whole lot. It's about a young woman who wants to shape her own life. Her idol is David Beckham, the great British soccer player, and she wants to go out and be a sports person like him. The trouble is that her very traditional Indian family just cannot believe that their decent young daughter would want to run around on a playing field in a skimpy costume showing her legs to strangers.
So, it's partly about this young woman wanting to shape her own life. But it's also about how nowadays, people not only want to blend in with the modern world, people from kind of old world, ethnic communities, but they also want to celebrate and preserve their own traditional values. So it's about this girl's attempt to kind of balance both of these things together.
COOPER: And it's definitely a feel-good story. Huge hit in Europe; actually, I think I saw it in London before it came here. Huge hit there.
STERRITT: Gigantic hit in Europe.
COOPER: And something of a sleeper hit here as well. Definitely a feel-good movie. A far less feel-good movie, "The Shape of Things."
STERRITT: Oh, I'll say. Directed by Neil LaBute. And he became famous with movies like "In the Company of Men" and "Your Friends and Neighbors." And more recently he's tried to go commercial. A little under a year ago he made the movie "Possession," which was a big Hollywood type romance. And I think that Neil LaBute on his best behavior is really not very interesting. Now he's back to being Neil LaBute again.
This is story about, basically, a college romance. It's about a young man who comes under the influence of a new girlfriend, who kind of shapes his life and changes him. And it turns out to have a whole other story line that's been going on all along, which is revealed to us, oh, maybe about two-thirds of the way through the movie.
So it's a real surprise ending, a very cynical, skeptical take on love and romance. And, I think, a really interesting picture, also beautifully acted.
COOPER: I saw the play. All I can say is, it's not a date movie, all right?
STERRITT: That it is not. In fact, you may never fall in love again.
COOPER: Yes, exactly, yes, believe me, it's true. Just have time briefly for one more. "Owning Mahowny."
STERRITT: "Owning Mahowny" is a movie about gambling, and gambling addiction, which has certainly been in the news lately. Directed by Richard Kwietniowski, who made "Love and Death on Long Island."
The great Phillip Seymour Hoffman playing another one of the kinds of characters he does best, a loser, a loaner, in this case, an ordinary bank clerk who gets insanely over his head with gambling debts. And it just shows you how something like this can happen.
It gets you very sympathetic with him, while at the same time realizing that, in a way, he's just under the spell of a compulsion that he cannot resist. It's as dramatic as any Hollywood blockbuster could ever be. At the same time, very intimate. Really gets under your skin. A movie to see for Hoffman's performance alone.
COOPER: I wonder if some political pundits have watched this movie. It'd be interesting to know.
STERRITT: I know. Really, they could never have expected that this movie would tap into current headlines the way it has.
COOPER: David Sterritt, I appreciate you joining us. I enjoy your reviews, and it was good to talk to you. Thank you.
STERRITT: Thanks. A pleasure to talk about these other kinds of movies.
COOPER: I know. It's all too rare we do. We'll try to do it again. Appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired June 1, 2003 - 09:45 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: "Bend It Like Beckham," that's the movie you're watching right there. Move over, "Matrix." Cross out the "X-Men." Well, don't do that, that's a good movie. There's room in your multiplex this summer for anti-blockbusters. And we want you to check out the best of these alternative movies with David Sterritt. He's a film critic with the "Christian Science Monitor." He joins us from New York.
Good morning, David, thanks for being with us.
DAVID STERRITT, FILM CRITIC, "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR": Good to be here.
COOPER: All right, let's just start talking movies here. Your favorite, let's start off with "The Mighty Wind," which I actually saw. I love this director. Talk about it a little bit.
STERRITT: Yes. Christopher Guest made this movie. And he's really developed his on little niche in the movie world, doing these kind of faux documentaries. A really hard kind of movie to pull off, because usually, I think, they look very hokie and stilted. He did a really good job with "Waiting for Guffman" and then "Best in Show," which was a hugely popular movie. Funny thing about "A Mighty Wind" is that the subject of it is not one everybody in America's going to be fascinated with.
COOPER: It's about a legendary, allegedly, folk band reuniting?
STERRITT: Exactly. It's all about that great folk music boom of the 1960s. I remember it well. I think a lot of the parodies in this movie are really right on. I just hope that people who weren't even around for that, or maybe don't remember it, will still take an interest in this movie. Because, even if you have no idea what that scene was about and how accurate the parodies are, it's just got a lot of very funny stuff in it.
COOPER: He's got such a great track record. "Spinal Tap" is legendary, "Waiting for Guffman," of course, and as you mentioned, the - what was the...
STERRITT: "Best in Show." That one had all the terrific looking dogs in it. You can't go wrong. Dogs and babies are what people really love to look at.
COOPER: Exactly. OK. Let's talk about this next movie, "Bend it Like Beckham." STERRITT: Yes. "Bend It Like Beckham" is another really interesting film. We've seen movies like this before, including some from the same director. "East is East" was out not long ago.
This one is probably doing the best of the whole lot. It's about a young woman who wants to shape her own life. Her idol is David Beckham, the great British soccer player, and she wants to go out and be a sports person like him. The trouble is that her very traditional Indian family just cannot believe that their decent young daughter would want to run around on a playing field in a skimpy costume showing her legs to strangers.
So, it's partly about this young woman wanting to shape her own life. But it's also about how nowadays, people not only want to blend in with the modern world, people from kind of old world, ethnic communities, but they also want to celebrate and preserve their own traditional values. So it's about this girl's attempt to kind of balance both of these things together.
COOPER: And it's definitely a feel-good story. Huge hit in Europe; actually, I think I saw it in London before it came here. Huge hit there.
STERRITT: Gigantic hit in Europe.
COOPER: And something of a sleeper hit here as well. Definitely a feel-good movie. A far less feel-good movie, "The Shape of Things."
STERRITT: Oh, I'll say. Directed by Neil LaBute. And he became famous with movies like "In the Company of Men" and "Your Friends and Neighbors." And more recently he's tried to go commercial. A little under a year ago he made the movie "Possession," which was a big Hollywood type romance. And I think that Neil LaBute on his best behavior is really not very interesting. Now he's back to being Neil LaBute again.
This is story about, basically, a college romance. It's about a young man who comes under the influence of a new girlfriend, who kind of shapes his life and changes him. And it turns out to have a whole other story line that's been going on all along, which is revealed to us, oh, maybe about two-thirds of the way through the movie.
So it's a real surprise ending, a very cynical, skeptical take on love and romance. And, I think, a really interesting picture, also beautifully acted.
COOPER: I saw the play. All I can say is, it's not a date movie, all right?
STERRITT: That it is not. In fact, you may never fall in love again.
COOPER: Yes, exactly, yes, believe me, it's true. Just have time briefly for one more. "Owning Mahowny."
STERRITT: "Owning Mahowny" is a movie about gambling, and gambling addiction, which has certainly been in the news lately. Directed by Richard Kwietniowski, who made "Love and Death on Long Island."
The great Phillip Seymour Hoffman playing another one of the kinds of characters he does best, a loser, a loaner, in this case, an ordinary bank clerk who gets insanely over his head with gambling debts. And it just shows you how something like this can happen.
It gets you very sympathetic with him, while at the same time realizing that, in a way, he's just under the spell of a compulsion that he cannot resist. It's as dramatic as any Hollywood blockbuster could ever be. At the same time, very intimate. Really gets under your skin. A movie to see for Hoffman's performance alone.
COOPER: I wonder if some political pundits have watched this movie. It'd be interesting to know.
STERRITT: I know. Really, they could never have expected that this movie would tap into current headlines the way it has.
COOPER: David Sterritt, I appreciate you joining us. I enjoy your reviews, and it was good to talk to you. Thank you.
STERRITT: Thanks. A pleasure to talk about these other kinds of movies.
COOPER: I know. It's all too rare we do. We'll try to do it again. Appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
