Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • Page 306

Chicago Tribune, Friday, March 18, 1994 Section 7 Friday Siskel's Flicks Picks By Gene Siskel VI I 1 Tour Weddings' holds our interest about love on hold ur Flick of the Week is "Four Weddings and a Funeral," which is a better film about love delayed than "Sleepless in Seattle." It's funnier, more credible, more bittersweet and the characters are a whole lot brighter. Naturally, it won't be as big a hit 1 -spaaing "T-r Andie MacDowell (left) as an American writer in London In "Four Weddings and a Funeral." BIS II The fresh, young British actor Hugh Grant (also starring in "Sirens" and Roman Polanski's "Bitter plays a confirmed bachelor who keeps bumping into an American woman (Andie MacDowell) who intrigues him at mutual friends' weddings. They have a brief fling, and, yes, he really likes her but marriage is not for him. And although the film is basically a light romantic comedy, it couldn't be more psychologically astute in its portrait of a man who defines himself by his bachelorhood, which empowers him to get past his fear of commitment Another strength of the script is the bright group of friends who form the ensemble crew that attends and participates in the various weddings and that funeral. I particularly enjoyed Hugh Grant's deaf brother as well as the women who fantasize about bringing Grant to the altar.

Andie MacDowell continues to be one of the sunniest most watchable, and yet unpredictable actresses around. Of course, it's her beauty that gets our first glance, but there's also an independent streak and a small dark corner in her psyche that keep us enthralled. "Four Weddings and a Funeral" is playing at the Water Tower Place. Rated R. Vi.

Aura of realism envelops 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' Flicks Picks guide he trouble with most romantic comedies that are foisted upon the moviegoing public is that they are neither romantic nor comedic. Sappy? Yes. Saccharine? Perhaps. Goofy? Quite often. But creating a true romance that is stitched together with lasting lines of humor and more than a dozen or so big laughs is a daunting task.

"Four Weddings and a Funeral," scripted by well-known British writer Richard Curtis, not only meets the challenge, but conquers it It is so good, it is playing in a league with the Philip Barry classics of the 1930s, "Holiday" and "The Philadelphia Story." That may sound like overblown praise, but when you compare this gem to some of the dime-store glass we've been forced to handle, examine and dispose of over the years, it is well-deserved applause. The story is a perfectly structured series of vignettes, that contain the titular four weddings lush, sumptuous affairs filled with oohs and aahs and one solemn funeral. Through these holy events, we get to know the seven good friends who have been together since university days, and who seem to spend an inordinate number of Saturdays going to other people's weddings. There's Charles, the perpetual bachelor, who all too often runs into angry old girlfriends at receptions. There's Tom, from the seventh wealthiest family in England, who lives in a castle, always looks disheveled, and though sweet-natured, seems to a fce a tutyre candldata for Monty; Python's "upper-class twif of the' to get up the courage to ask a woman out, it looks as if the lovely Carrie is going to get away.

Thankfully, she isn't nearly as prim and proper, and soon the chase is on, in both directions, with the weddings acting as rest stops in the long, difficult pursuit Each wedding has its own crisis, some hilarious, some bizarre. The funeral contains one of the most moving speeches you'll ever hear in a film, with a little help from W.H. Auden. As for the acting, it is near-flawless. Hugh Grant as Charles, in his thick glasses, is reminiscent of a young Cary Grant This Grant may not be as physical as the other, but he has already mastered the reaction shot and the double-take to perfection.

And Simon Callow, as the larger-than-life Gareth, should be remembered come Academy Award time for his performance as a man who loves life so much, he not only swallows it in massive gulps, but always seems eager for more. The others in the cast each give us generous helpings of exasperated looks, forlorn ex-pressions and even a few longing gazes across crowded rooms. Director Mike Newell has already presented us with two great films in his short career "Dance With a Stranger" and "Enchanted April." "Four Weddings and a Funeral" can be added to that list It is smart and ironic perceptive and observant, witty and poignant, moving and sad, all at the same timev fhig is more than ar 4 cor.p!isrment for' a tdiiifcdy.This is a small miracle. Movie review John Petrakis "Four Weddings and a Funeral" Directed by Mike Newell; written by Richard Cutis; produced by Duncan Kenworthy: photographed by Mi-chaei Coulter; production designed by Maggie Gray. A Gramercy release; opens Friday at the Water Tower Theatres.

Running time: 1:56. MPAA rating: R. Strang language, sexual situations. THE CAST Charles Grant Came Andie MacDowell Tom James Fleet Gareth Simon Callow Matthew John Hannah Fiona Kristin Scott Thomas year" award. There's Fiona, cool and distant, elegantly dressed, who hides her true emotions as well as the quivers around her lips and eyes.

There's David, Charles' deaf and mute brother, who is frank, direct and unquestionably the most emotionally stable of the lot There's Scarlett, named after Scarlett O'Hara, who looks and acts like a refugee from the Cindy Lauper fan club. And finally, there are Matthew and Gareth, the only established couple in the group. Matthew is quiet and unassuming, while Gareth is robust and outrageous. He also loves to "torture" Americans he meets at the weddings. "No, I don't know Oscar Wilde personally," he tells a wide-eyed Yank at one of the blessed events, "but I know someone who can get you his fax number." Into this charming lot of misfits one day walks Carrie, a beautiful American who works for Vogue.

Charles is immediately, smitten, but, in, true reserved British fashion if akes' hint "at 1 feast three 'weeks" to cash a crook's check for $1 million. The problem with the picture: The kid doesn't do anything interesting with the money. His big expenditure is a fancy party for adults at an ugly mansion. The bad guys are boring, too. PG.

BLUE CHIPS (Burnham Plaza and outlying). A lightweight movie about an important subject within the sports world illegal payoffs to prospective college athletes. The sport here is college basketball; most of the kids involved are black, and the bribes go to them, their families and their coaches. Coach Nick Norte, encountering his first losing season, caves in and allows alumni to bribe a trio of hoop stars to attend his college. He's caught, and as the film ends, he condemns the practice.

End of movie. A parade of famous basketball faces Orlando Magic stars Shaquille O'Neal and Anfemee Hardaway as the Illegally recruited players; Hall-of-Famer Bob Cousy as the college athletic director and Indiana ccach Bobby Knight as himself. O'Neal and Hardaway are likable enough in limited roles; Cousy seems a little ill at ease. But forget all that. "Blue Chips" is only a triumph of marketing.

Its casting suggests an official basketball picture, but Its script belongs on the bench. PG-13. BLUE (Fkw Arts). A major fHm from director Krzysztof Kieslowski, following the attempt of an unhappily married woman (Juliette Binoche) to put her life back together after her famous composer husband and young daughter die in a car accident. The style of the fHm is almost that of an impressionistic documentary as she dabbles with affairs and discounts fame and fortune.

The first part of an intended trilogy. R. FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL (Watar Tower). This week's Flick of the Week. See above.

R. Vt FIORILE (Fine Arts). A strong, mul-tigenerational drama about a century-old curse that haunts the descendants of an Italian family. During the Napoleonic era, a young French lieutenant is denied the love of an Italian woman through no fault of his own. Meanwhile, through succeeding generations, a great fortune is built on a crime.

Directors Paolo and New this week ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE (Webster Place, Esquire' and outlying). An appallingly bad movie, a certain candidate for worst of the year. Jim Carrey, the star and co-writer of this mess, Is such an obnoxious whiner he makes Jim Vamey and his Ernest character seem as brilliant as Chaplin's Little Tramp. The pet detective tries to help locate a missing dolphin (the Miami Dolphins' mascot) much to the consternation of police detective Sean Young and kidnapped team quarterback Dan Marino. Don't ask how this was financed.

PG. Zero stara. ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES (outlying). "Ad-dams Family Values is just as well made and just as empty and probably will be as commercially successful as the original cartoon-TV-movie hit. We spend too much time inside the Addams family mansion and not enough time outside with family members mixing it up with regular folk.

We break out of the household darkness and into the light of day as the Addams children go off to summer camp. The image of saturnine Wednesday Addams (Christina Rica) in a dowdy black bathing suit, standing amid golden campers, provided one of my biggest smiles. Over and over we get jokes about the pleasure of pain between Mor-tlda (Anjelica Huston) and her husband, Gomez (Raul Julia). A main story line also Is beaten into the ground as brother Fester (Christophef Lloyd) is pursued by a gold digger (Joan Cusack). And jokes about Morticia new baby being tortured by its siblings are about five too many.

The movie Isn't really bad; It's just safe. PG-13. V4 ANGIE (Biograph, Esquire and outlying). A fresh melodrama that Is unfairly being sold as a fuzzy comedy. Geena Davis plays a New Yorker who gets pregnant by a jerk but decides to have the baby anyway, which triggers a series of surprising crises as "Angle" stuns us by not taking the predictable route to entertainment.

A couple of scenes lapse Into melodrama; the ending is way too warn) and fuzzy, but there are undeniable-moments of raw reality that recommend "Angie." R. 1 BLANK CHECK A dismal ehiM dren's comedy ebpoyt a kid, who is able (- (SeE lfUCKpiCK.