The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 93

THE BOSTON GLOBE FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1997 Movie Review Movie Review Today's movies A guide to movie reviews in today's paper, organized by their star ratings (4 stars best) as determined by Globe critics. Knockout performances in 'In Out- 'LA Confidential' won't remain a secret for long A too, with his Brad Pitt sendup on Oscar night, carried away by for playing a GI whose sexual zons are expanded in a film deliber-i ately combining the worst features', of "Platoon" and "Coming Shalom Harlow, as his vacant model girlfriend who can't figure out how to use a rotary-dial phone, is a hoot, too. 1 Paul Rudnick's writing is wickedly on target in his opening Awards night parody. And he neatly makes a few points about our star-( driven culture, in which identity is, bestowed like knighthoods from the mouths of celebs. It's also something of a relief to see a film take on gay, identity as comic fodder, without dacticism.

That being said, it must be added that the only disappoint- ment in "In Out" is the way it up gay stereotypes as if it means to, demolish them, a la "Birdcage," but winds up reinforcing them. Also, it's naively condescending to the Midwest, where people are more hard-i headedly realistic than either coast; realizes, and where gay identity has -become familiar TV sitcom material; Ultimately, "In Out" retreats to the level of sitcom after promising something stronger that most audiJ ences would have no difficulty ac? cepting. Still, it's hard to begrudge "In Out" what will certainly be mainstream success. You'll certainly laugh at the heads-up performances. But youU also be aware of the film's limitations.

"LA. Confidential" (R), PageE3 "Sunday" (Unrated), Page E4 PageE3 "The Keeper" (Unrated), PageES "MURDER and murder" (Unrated), Page E6 Vi "A Thousand Acres" (R), Page E4 "Aaron's Magic Village" (G), Page E4 Vintage Films Abbas Kiarostami retrospective, Page E5 Note "Wishmaster" was not screened in advance for critics. A review will appear in these pages tomorrow. Globe staff chart is, you can follow it clearly. One of the things the film conveys, in addition to institutionalized corruption, is the energy and excitement of a city that knows it's on the move.

"L.A. Confidential" is juicy dynamite. (This is an expanded version of the review published here when this film premiered at the Boston Film Festival) By Jay Carr GLOBE STAFF "In Out" is a funny but also compromised comedy about an Indiana high school teacher's life knocked upside down when a former student turned Hollywood superstar salutes him as a great gay teacher during an Oscar acceptance speech. The premise of course arises from Tom Hanks's memorable Oscar moment when he saluted a gay teacher. But "In Out" quickly heads off in its own broad crowd-pleasing direction when we cut to the horrified reaction of the paragon in question, Kevin Kline poetry teacher, track coach, and bridegroom-to-be of his English department colleague, Joan Cusack.

His friends and students start attaching significance to the fact that he's neat, smart, and uses a napkin. To clinch it, Debbie Reynolds, current Hollywood queen of steely mom roles, and who plays his mom in this film, fixes him with a gimlet eye and tells him she needs a wedding on schedule that weekend. Although he isn't exactly obscure, Kline is underappreciated as a comedian. So is Cusack. Both take some rather ordinary sitcom moves and spin them off into delight.

Kline is light on his feet. His clean, crisp movements are the best-executed of anybody's in the business. The exuberant physicality of his clowning allows him to underplay some lines, which, considering the broad brush with which they're inscribed, is a It's a (and an instant New Directed by: Frank Oz Screenplay by: Paul Rudnkk Starring: Kevin Kline, Joan Cusack, Matt Dillon, TomSelleck, Debbie Reynolds, WilfordBrimky, BobNewhart At Cheri, suburbs Running time: 90 minutes Rated: PG-13 (sexual content and some strong language) good thing. Cusack, too, is one of the most reliably brilliant comedians around, especially when it comes to playing sweet consternation. You can't imagine what a hilarious comic prop she makes of a wedding gown.

Her way of putting together what in most hands would be routine ingredients makes you want to hug her -as soon as you stop laughing. Together or apart, they're knockouts. As "In Out" mostly rides the panache of its performances, the virtuosity of Kline and Cusack comes as no surprise. But Tom Selleck's terrific performance does. As a sleazy tabloid TV journalist oozing around town in search of scandal, he's shameless and he's a stitch.

Cheerfully admitting he's a hack and impervious to insult, Selleck is unden-tably good-natured. His furthering of the plot is heroic. He actually moves it to Act 2 just when you thought "In Out" was going to wind down as one-joke stuff. He should try more light comedy. He has a flair for it, hitherto underused.

Matt Dillon is devastatingly funny, book! York Times bestseller) LA CONFIDENTIAL Directed by: CitrtU Hanson Script by: Brian Helgekttd, Hanson (novel James Ellroy) Starring: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, David Straitliairn, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, Ron Rijkin, Paid Guilfoyle At: Nickelodeon, Harvard Square, suburbs Running time: I 'M minutes Rated: (strong violence and language, and for sexuality) Crowe and Pearce as the American cops, but it pays off big. They've got the moves, they set the pace for the film's explosive vitality, and define its moral polarity as well, embodying the yin and yang of LA justice. Kevin Spacey is perfect, drolly superb as a smooth, vain, savvy veteran attached to a TV show. Showing TV how it's done, the film slyly convinces us he's lack Webb's cool role model, wearing a smile that suggests he's enjoying a joke he'd better not tell you. On his wide, alpaca-clad shoulders rest the themes of media manipulation and the tabloid journalism and celebrity culture of the '90s so cleverly presaged by the film.

While doing more than anyone else to sell the white-knight image of the LAPD, he's also on the take, just aware enough of why he became a cop to feel vaguely sad about what he's become and wonder if he shouldn't try a last-minute rescue of his honor. There are a lot of facets to Spaces suave, intelligent performance. Without ever overdoing it, the film bolsters its credibility by inserting actual '50s characters, too Johnny Stompan-ato, for instance, the small-time hoodlum made famous by being stabbed to death by Lana Turner's daughter. Here we see him get the worst of an exchange in that venerable LA landmark, the Formosa Cafe. But then there are lots of performances furthering the notion of LA as a theme park of American corruption, metaphorically emerging right alongside Disneyland.

David Straith-airn's arrogantly well-connected pimp skillfully embodies up-market rot. Ron Rifkin is right on target as a kinky district attorney. James Cromwell is solidly malignant as the grand old man of the corrupt police faction, reveling in an evil leprechaun brogue. Danny DeVito brings amusingly shameless enthusiasm to his scandal-mongering. The film also unflinchingly faces up to the racist outrages in the LAPD's bag of tricks.

Throughout, director Curtis Hanson wisely opts for narrative thrust instead of nostalgic noir flourishes a must, given the complex narrative. Complicated as the story I "I By Jay Carr GLOBE STAFF I "L.A. Confidential" is a lush, throbbing return to the sleazy Hollywood allure of the '50s, when the postwar American dream was still flooring it, all big and shiny, but stained by corrosion around the edges. The reason it's so steamy and riveting it'll be one of the hits of 1997, and deserves to be is that it's more than taxidermy and production design. The narrative density and dark ferocity that made James Ell-roy's novel so compelling are transferred to the screen with visual style and a dozen jolting performances.

It tingles like a tuning fork, resonating aptly and caustically with the '90s as it recreates an era when a lot of the usual suspects were members of the LAPD instead of being chased by it. With its unreeling of twisted doings creating the first of the scandal sheets, it is in some ways the perfect entertainment for the '90s. "L.A. Confidential" is "Chinatown" with redder lipstick on the women and the bad guys carrying badges. Although anchored in the '50s, it reaches into the '90s like a red-hot branding iron.

Hot, seamy, filled with the cinematic equivalent of big padded shoulders and gleaming chrome bumpers, its lavish helpings of violence, corruption, racism, and perversity never move the film into easy cynicism. There's a core of idealism wedded to the anger in the heart of its two-fisted, hair-trigger cop played by Russell Crowe. He's the. film's holy thug, moved by a sense of mission to protect women, the product of lifelong guilt at being unable to stop his own mother's murder when he was a boy. (Novelist Ellros mother, too, was murdered when he was a boy.

That murder was never solved.) Crowe's tarnished romance with Kim Basinger's call girl turned by plastic surgery and peroxide into a Veronica Lake look-alike is believably feelingful and anguished, inthe best traditions of noir. One of her assets is the ability to seem comfortable in her own body a quality used to emphasize, by contrast, the cops' uptightness. As the strains of Johnny Mercer's "Ac-cen-tu-ate the Positive" ironically fill the soundtrack, corrupt Southern California turns into a feeding frenzy when real-life mobster Mickey Cohen is jailed and the rackets are up for grabs. The only barracuda swimming against the tide is Guy Pearce's clenched, prissy, career-strategizing but also heroic straight-arrow cop, who has the zeal and guts to rat out his fellow officers after they beat up some jailed Mexicans, knowing what will follow. It was a brave move to cast Australians TV Where's Whether old you're looking for an favorite or a new show, The Globe's reader-friendly improvements to the daily coucrvpotato life much easier.

This new all-grid format features more channels and easy-to-read listings. And with a new television season come new Globe TV critics, Matthew Gilbert and Don Aucoin. page will surely make SP 92197 The New TV Page Starting Monday, September 22 TfY) 'A Vf llfT) pi f'O'1 P' W) i L. I Our Boston CELEBRATING OUR 125TH YEAR. I i 5.