PRESENTING ... A DISASTER OF MORE THAN 2 HOURS.Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic CLAUDE LELOUCH has been tricking audiences into believing he has something to say about men and women since, well, ``A Man and a Woman,'' his Oscar-winning, 1966 dumb-down of French New Wave themes and techniques. But even those who find charm in Lelouch's superficial, scattered takes on life, love and fate will be hard put to sit through ``And Now Ladies & Gentlemen,'' as unstructured, tone deaf and tedious a romantic epic as any ever filmed. Lelouch, who co-wrote this thing's script (which he then, in typical and ungainly evident fashion, barely followed while shooting) with Pierre Leroux Pierre Leroux (April 7, 1798 - April, 1871), French philosopher and political economist, was born at Bercy near Paris, the son of an artisan. His education was interrupted by the death of his father, which compelled him to support his mother and family. and Pierre Uytterhoeven, outdoes even his usual indulgence of cheap glamour cliches here. Ranging incontinently in·con·ti·nent adj. 1. Not restrained; uncontrolled: incontinent rage. 2. Lacking normal voluntary control of excretory functions. 3. Lacking sexual restraint; unchaste. across time, space, dreams, wishes and film stocks that go all black-and-white when somebody's about to swoon (that is, every two or three minutes "Three Minutes" is the 46th episode of Lost. It is the twenty-second episode of the second season. The episode was directed by Stephen Williams, and written by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. It first aired on May 17, 2006 on ABC. ), he tells the tale of a gentleman thief In the Victorian vernacular, a gentleman thief is a particularly well-behaving and apparently well bred thief. A "gentleman" is usually, but not always, a man with an inherited title of nobility and inherited wealth, who need not work for a living. who wants to sail around the world alone and a cabaret singer who wants to forget that her musician boyfriend and female duet partner ran off together. Oh, and there is also something to do with a boxer and a couple who run a seaside restaurant and some philandering rich Italian woman and the thief's long-neglected wife and a friend of hers who wants to be more and ... But the main story, as much as you can call it that, is Valentin the con man and Jane the chanteuse chan·teuse n. A woman singer, especially a nightclub singer. [French, feminine of chanteur, singer, from chanter, to sing; see chant.] . He's played by Jeremy Irons (once again proving himself the greatest actor with the worst taste working today). She's played by French singer Patricia Kaas. They are clearly meant for each other because both suffer from blackouts and that's, you know, fatefully romantic. But it takes awhile for him to crash his racing yacht (it's called the Ladies & Gentlemen) on the Moroccan coast and then work his way to the city of Fez Fez: see Fès, Morocco. , where she's singing at a resort hotel. The lead-up to this provides too much time for us to savor Valentin's scampish Scamp´ish a. 1. Of or like a scamp; knavish; as, scampish conduct s>. past escapades. These primarily involved hoodwinking the most gullible Bulgari jewelery store managers in the world and wearing awful disguises that make him look just like Jeremy Irons as an old man or old lady. In these sequences, Lelouch utterly succeeds in staging the least suspenseful heists on cinematic record. Until, hours-that-seem-like-days later, there's another jewel theft at that Fez hotel, from that philandering Italian matron (Claudia Cardinale). The local cops get wind of Valentin's past, so naturally he becomes their prime suspect. But due to one of those convenient blackouts, he can't remember if he committed the crime or not. Anyway, he's more interested in climbing some desert mountain with Jane, to the shrine of a healing saint who may cure whatever's wrong with their brains. Which, of course, would be too little too late, since they've already made this idiotic movie. Viewers of ``And Now Ladies & Gentlemen'' may wish for their own merciful blackout: that all memory of this hokey hok·ey adj. hok·i·er, hok·i·est Slang 1. Mawkishly sentimental; corny. 2. Noticeably contrived; artificial. hok , swelling-scored paean Paean (pē`ən), Paean was an epithet for Apollo, the healer. The paean, a hymn of praise to Apollo and often to other gods, was sung as a prayer for safety or deliverance at battles and other important occasions. to - um, love and brain tumors, I think it is - be washed from their time-wasted psyches. Bob Strauss, (818) 713-3670 bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com AND NOW LADIES & GENTLEMEN - one star (PG-13: violence) Starring: Jeremy Irons, Patricia Kaas, Claudia Cardinale. Director: Claude Lelouch. Running time: 2 hr. 6 min. Playing: Marketplace, Pasadena; ArcLight, Hollywood; Westside Pavilion, West L.A.; South Coast, Costa Mesa. In a nutshell: Meandering nonsense about a thief and a lounge singer who connect with each other in Morocco. Moronic mo·ron n. 1. A stupid person; a dolt. 2. Psychology A person of mild mental retardation having a mental age of from 7 to 12 years and generally having communication and social skills enabling some degree of academic or romanticism at its French worst. |
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