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ANGER MANAGEMENT (Sony Pictures), Rated PG-13

Anger Management is a film that pairs the unlikely duo of Jack Nicholson (hot from his critically praised performance in About Schmitt) and Adam Sandler (fresh from getting good reviews for his acting, believe it or not, in Punch Drunk Love) with a script ostensibly about a very real therapeutic concern. A large percentage of the populace has anger management “issues,” but it would have been silly to expect any insights or revelations on the subject from the director (Peter Segal) who gave the world Tommy Boy and Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. Segal is going for laughs here, and he wants to keep the audience on edge about who really needs the therapy more, mild-mannered ad exec Dave Buznik (Sandler) or unconventional, abrasive therapist Dr. Buddy Rydell (Nicholson). Segal is only sporadically successful with these aims.

The hapless Buznik is on a flight one day and, after another passenger refuses to vacate Dave’s rightful seat, ends up seated next to the odd, unhinged-looking Rydell. A contrived altercation results in Dave being blamed for assaulting a flight attendant, and he soon finds himself in court facing a no-nonsense judge (Lynne Thigpen). Dave’s ordered to attend an anger management session with Rydell, who presides over a motley crew of screwballs that include Luis Guzman, John Turturro (a guy with serious anger problems), and a pair of lovey-dovey porn chicks that are really into public displays of finger sucking. Dave is glad when the session ends, but events conspire to force him into further treatment with Rydell. In fact, another altercation ends up with Dave facing either prison time, or taking Rydell as his full-time live-in therapist.

Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler star in a disappointing Anger Management. Photo courtesy Sony Pictures.

This is just one of many credulity-straining events to come.

Rydell doesn’t seem to be following any standard “anger management techniques” with Dave; he’s abrasive, frustrating, and downright weird. When he makes lewd comments to Dave’s girlfriend, Linda (Marisa Tomei), and goads Dave into doing seemingly irrational things like hitting on another woman at a bar (Heather Graham, in one of several curious cameos), you’re left really wondering what the doc is up to, and why Dave keeps putting up with it. As well, you’re wondering what the hell the director is trying to do, as the plot continually frustrates the viewer and makes Rydell seem wackier than Dave. There are some laughs, to be sure, but most are of the lowbrow variety. Some are just jaw-droppingly weird, as when Woody Harrelson turns up as a German crossdresser...or something. Nicholson is in shining mode here for the most part; he’s edgy, irritating, and unpredictable, and we’re supposed to wonder if it’s just part of the treatment, or if this doc is a quack. The surprise is that Adam Sandler actually underacts, and I can’t believe I’m saying that. I’ve never been a Sandler fan, but he genuinely seems to be trying to learn a bit of craft lately, and he plays a decent, sincere character that is mostly free of “Sandler-isms.” His meekness contrasting with Nicholson’s bizarreness is one of the film’s conceptual twists, but it’s not as effective as the filmmakers think because of some poorly wrought scenes and childish humor that tend to undercut the proceedings.

The many surprise cameos are entertaining, but gimmicky. John Turturro is a hoot in his brief scenes; this guy seems incapable of giving a bad performance. My biggest problem with Anger Management was the waste of the theme. Therapy is a subject ripe for parody; even Analyze This scored more points then this film on the topic. I think it was a mistake to contrive Sandler’s treatment in the manner depicted here; what he’s made to go through seems misguided and sadistic, reflecting more on the “issues” everyone else around him seems to have. And there’s no real revelation at the end, despite an interesting climactic romantic scene set in a baseball stadium. But hey, if you like cheap comedies and Jack Nicholson having a good time, you might enjoy parts of Anger Management. Oh, and that “goosfraba” word? They don’t explain where it came from, but it’s as good a word as any to say to yourself next time you wanna slug somebody, run some asshole off the road, or tell your boss/coworker what you really think. Popularizing an obscure word is likely to be this film’s lasting cultural contribution. —Kevin Renick

CONFIDENCE (Lions Gate Films, Rated R)

“So I’m dead.” Thus begins the flashback confession of Jake Vig (played by Edward Burns) as he lays motionless in a filthy alley behind an even filthier bar. Confidence is a film about the seedier side of the streets, a world filled with two kinds of people, con artists and marks (the latter a term used by the former to mean victim), with a considerable amount of crossover between the two. This film has a dash of Snatch and a pinch of Pulp Fiction, but its main ingredient is more in keeping with the maturity and (albeit grittier) elegance of The Sting. There are times during this movie when we don’t have the slightest idea what is going on, but there is always the comfort—that quiet confidence—that Jake Vig does.

There are some incredibly good actors in this film, although a few of them do feel miscast.

Edward Burns and Dustin Hoffman play con men in Confidence. Photo courtesy Lions Gate Films.

Dustin Hoffman as the crime boss whom Burns crosses (and then must make amends) isn’t able to make you forget he’s Dustin Hoffman, as he as done so well in other films. Likewise, it’s hard to buy the lovely Rachel Weisz as the sleazy yet vulnerable small-time pickpocket looking to trade up for a bigger score. Weisz comes across as more of a sweet, beautiful woman trying to dirty up her sexuality to make Burns forget she’s sweet and beautiful, rather than a seductress from the streets using sweetness and beauty to make Burns forget she’s as much of a con artist as he is. This part of the casting was a bit surprising given that the film’s director is James Foley, who orchestrated one of the most incredible ensemble performances of all-time when he directed David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross.

Foley did, however, nail it pretty good with the other actors. Burns gives a great performance as the smooth-talking, slightly conceited grifter with “integrity,” as does the barely recognizable Andy Garcia who plays the frumpy, unshaven, and paunch-laden federal agent. Other supporting roles are filled with cream of the crop “know the face, but can’t think of the name” actors such as Paul Giamatti, Luis Guzman, Donal Logue, and Morris Chestnut.

Confidence has all of the plot twists and turns you would expect (or not) and want in a film of this genre. There are more than a few good lines and great moments. And ultimately, it’s the journey, not the destination, that makes Confidence a fun film to watch. In the end, it doesn’t necessarily show us something we haven’t seen before, but the ride it takes us on to get there is pretty good fun. —Wade Paschall

MORVERN CALLAR (Cowboy Pictures, Not Rated)

There is an interesting corner of films that often goes unnoticed by the general onlooker: films that are based on books, and wind up being exponentially better than the source material. The number of times I’ve heard people say that they thought “the book was better than the movie” or some similar line has to be close to infinite, but the number of times that I’ve heard people say “the movie was great, but the book really sucked” is zero. Why is this? Cases where the film is considerably better than the book aren’t all that uncommon; take The Silence of the Lambs, Out of Sight, or Trainspotting, for example. It is something that happens.

The newest addition to this category is the new Lynne Ramsay film Morvern Callar,which is based on Alan Warner’s book of the same name. The book, while having an interesting plot, is suffocated by two things: it suffers from the Forrest Gump problem of being composed of sentences made up of no more than three or four monosyllabic words, in an annoying attempt to create a narrative voice akin to a stupid person (this is a valid device, I guess, but it makes the book as annoying as hell to read); and it tries, Trainspotting-style, way, way too hard to be hip and nihilistic.

Filmwise, comparisons between Morvern and Trainspotting are plentiful. Among other things, between them, they have two of the greatest soundtracks of the past decade. However, and even though the genre of music featured on the two soundtracks is decidedly similar, the music in the respective films is used in two completely different ways. Trainspotting was amazingly fast-paced, feeling like it was about as long as a commercial break rather than a feature-length movie. Morvern, on the other hand, is undeniably slow, so much so that one has to wonder how a soundtrack littered with tracks from bands such as Can and Stereolab can result in a film that is almost maddeningly slow-paced.

Morvern’s namesake is the title character, played headache-inducingly well by the alwaysbrilliant Samantha Morton. The plot is as follows: Morvern wakes up Christmas morning to discover her boyfriend (who is also her flatmate) dead on the floor next to her; he’s committed suicide. He has left Morvern a handful of Christmas presents: a jacket, a mix tape called “Music For You” (which is where pretty much all of the soundtrack is derived from; we hear the music only as Morvern hears it, and we do not hear music as an audience if Morvern is not listening to any, borderline Dogme 95-style), a suicide letter, some money for his funeral, a recently finished novel, and instructions on which publishers to send the manuscript to. When Morvern discovers her dead boyfriend, she walks around her neighborhood is a state of disorientation (she seems to do this because she feels obligated to, and not out of any kind of sadness or mourning), then eventually gathers herself and goes to a party with her friend Lanna (feisty newcomer Kathleen McDermott), with her dead boyfriend still untouched on the floor of her flat. Morvern isn’t particularly smart, but she is extremely street-smart, which makes her and the way she deals with her boyfriend’s death an interesting counterpoint to the way most characters deal with death in films.

Another thing that Trainspotting and Morvern Callar have in common: their two respective greatest scenes (where Renton overdoses and sinks into the carpet in Trainspotting and where Morvern finally decides what to do about her dead boyfriend in Morvern), among the best scenes in contemporary film, period, are both played to the strains of Lou Reed songs (it was “Perfect Day” in Trainspotting and now it is continued on next page

A conversation With Confidence’s Edward Burns

I’ve been doing this for a few years now; I don’t generally get nervous before an interview. But for Ed Burns,I was ridiculously nervous. I’ve been a fan of his since 1995’s The Brothers McMullen,a film he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in. Since then, he’s been creatively involved with a handful of other films (She’s the One,No Looking Back, and Sidewalks of New York,notably), and also starred in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. Perhaps, I reasoned, it’s because he’s “big,” a name most people would know. That interpretation was quickly shot down when Itold my parents who I was interviewing. “Ed ‘Kooky’ Burns?” my dad asked, sounding—for the very first time—geniunely interested in my pursuits.

Burns was on the second stop of an eightcity tour to promote his new movie, Confidence. Produced by James Foley, Confidence was an anomaly for Burns, being that he hadn’t written the script, yet had the starring role. Which begets the obvious question, then: How hard is it to switch from doing everything—writing, acting, directing—to merely acting?

“It’s pretty easy, quite honestly, because it’s such a relief to show up on the set and not have to worry about all the details that a filmmaker has to worry about,” Burns said. “It kind of frees you up as an actor to focus on just that. The first thing I acted in that wasn’t my own was Private Ryan; showing up on that set, I knew I wasn’t going to be offering any suggestions to Spielberg about where to put the camera or what have you.”

For the complete interview with Edward Burns, as well as additional photos, go to www.playbackstl.com.

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Samantha Morton plays a very confused Morvern Callar in a film of the same name. Photo courtesy Cowboy Pictures. the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Sticking With You”). This kind of odd coincidence might lead to some people thinking that Ramsay borrowed Danny Boyle, but she didn’t at all, really; which are very uncommon in any country (both Boyle and Ramsay were born, raised, and made their films in the U.K.).

Ramsay’s only other film to date was 1999’s equally brilliant but little-seen Ratcatcher, which was an original story by Ramsay, so the theory that she has the singular ability to make films that are better than the books upon which they are based cannot be tested. There have been rumors, which, as far as I know, are unconfirmed, that Ramsay’s next project is an adaptation of last year’s runaway bestseller and critical success The Lovely Bones,by Alice Sebold. It makes one wonder: if Ramsay can make an incredible film from a crappy book, how would a film of hers be if it were based on a great book? —Pete Timmermann

TILL HUMAN VOICES WAKE US (Paramount Classic, Rated R)

In Till Human Voices Wake Us, Guy Pearce plays opposite an amnesiac but displays the same deadpan stoicism that so purely defined his character in Memento. Writer/director Michael Petroni creates a semi-supernatural tale of loss of innocence, loss of memory, and the attempt to regain both. In his previous screenplay, The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys, Petroni captures a unique impression of adolescence. Till Human Voices Wake Us sketches a picturesque portrait of youth but never reaches Alter

a little too heavily from Trainspotting’s director Morvern is a very individualistic film, the likes of

Boys’ idiosyncrasy.

Helena Bonham Carter is a woman without a past in Till Human Voices Wake Us. Photo courtesy Paramount Classics.

Pearce plays Melbourne psychiatrist Sam Franks, a memory and repression specialist who travels to the rural town Genoa to attend to his deceased father’s final arrangements. On the train, Sam meets Ruby (Helena Bonham Carter), a slightly disheveled otherworldly woman with whom he senses an inexplicable connection. From Sam’s first step onto the platform, Genoa evokes memories of a momentous summer when 15-year-old Sam (Lindley Joyner) returns from boarding school to stay with his father but spends most of his time falling in love with childhood friend Silvy (Brooke Harman). Between flashbacks, Sam meets Ruby again, saves her from drowning, and learns she has amnesia. The remainder of the film alternates between present and past, with Sam trying to help Ruby recover her memories while she helps him confront his own.

The film begins with a series of scenes establishing both Sam’s cool, distant character and his buried past. He lectures to a class on active and passive forgetting and the loss of identity, shortly thereafter learning his father has died. What follows is a mixture of supernatural Australian

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wilderness film (Picnic at Hanging Rock, Walkabout) and Vertigo, Sam playing the lovesick Stewart character who closes off emotionally after a traumatic event, then tries to relive and undo the past. Although the photography is lush and enchanting, the story has neither the disquietingly uncanny effect of classic outback films nor the perverse tension of Hitchcock. Additionally, Petroni strains to draw parallels between Ruby and Silvy, past and present, and self-consciously lays on the irony of a psychiatrist who cannot dream.

Beautiful images of moonlight swims and the quaint Victorian town bolster Till Human Voices Wake Us,and Carter plays a compelling Ophelia figure, neither here nor there. The film, however, never quite evokes the wonder and emotion to which it aspires. —Ben Weinstein

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LUCINDA WILLIAMS: WORLD WITHOUT TEARS (Lost Highway)

Lucinda Williams long ago mastered the art of using music to transmute pain to pleasure,

and that mastery remains on blissful if sometimes blistering display on her new Lost Highway release, World Without Tears.

Although it may not quite equal her 1988 eponymous disc or 1998’s Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, the new CD fascinates; like much of Williams’ work, it has a loveliness bordering on the abhorrent, the aural equivalent of stigmata. Not coincidentally—we are, after all, contemplating an artist whose last release, Essence from 2001, included a track entitled “Get Right With God”—certain of the 13 songs here seek to bridge the chasm between flesh and heaven. “Atonement,” the bluesy longest number, rumbles like the end of the world, “Ventura” lyrically blends the everyday and the ineffable with breathtaking skill, and in the treatment of its title, “Righteously” fuses the front pew and the back seat. (Four tracks later, incidentally, the hesitation of “Righteously” shades into the excoriating doubt of “Those Three Days,” a straight-razor anthem for the jilted.)

Other highlights of the disc include the languorous opener, “Fruits of My Labor”; Williams’ stinging paean to rock ’n’ roll in general and (perhaps) Keith Richards in particular, “Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings”; and “Sweet Side,” the shortest track here, which movingly sketches both the blight of childhood abuse and the redemptive potential of adult love.

On the chorus to the eleventh track, “American Dream,” Williams (who will open for Neil Young at the UMB Bank Pavilion Sunday, August 10) drawls, “Everything is wrong.” Happily, on World Without Tears, the obverse mostly obtains. —Bryan A. Hollerbach

YO LA TENGO: SUMMER SUN (Matador)

It’s fit that Summer Sun starts out with a drone. But the sound that has defined a past five amazing efforts, the inimitable murmur of Yo La Tengo, is beginning to sound slightly different to me. Could it be there’s something predictable? No. No way, I tell myself. Since the release of Painful, back in 1994, the Hoboken threesome has made, at worst, one imperfect album. So what do I make of Summer Sun, a very pleasing 13 tracks that let me ease on down the smooth, paved road toward the horizon? Do I just up and ask for a little difficulty? Well, maybe. Much like their last widely

from page 9 available LP, When Nothing Turns Itself Inside Out, Summer Sunis an album for the evening, one that plays with quietude, that speaks volumes while saying little, like soundtracks to Raymond Carver stories. But there’s always a jolt in there somewhere, something to make me rethink the album entirely. Since Nothing Turns,the Yo La family has widened, with guest musicians regularly adding their expertise this time around, including jazz heavyweights Roy Campbell Jr. and William Parker. The result is a fuller, almost orchestral feel to the songs. “Nothing But You and Me” and “Tiny Birds” are a testament to this rounder sound, but instead of toying with different textures, the band seems content to keep rhythms and tempos fairly uniform throughout. So I ask myself: “Cherry Chapstick” and “Sugarcube” can’t be on every record to spike the silence, right? But that’s exactly what Summer Sun needs: a slap of brusque steely guitar, the grind of unforgiving feedback. Something that stands apart, if for no other reason than to stand apart. The aforementioned “Nothing But You and Me” does a satisfactory job, and it’s a great song nonetheless. It just doesn’t hit that decibel level so important in creating a perfect Yo La Tengo album (or so the formula has gone in the past).

This album has a hell of a lot going for it, too. More than most albums this year, in fact. Ira, James, and Georgia’s ability to get damn funky while simultaneously staying nerdy and unassuming is unparalleled in the world of rock; no exception on Summer Sun. Tracks like “Georgia vs. Yo La Tengo” and “Moonrock Mambo” are some of their most playful since coming to Matador. This album is good, very good by most bands’ standards. But Yo La Tengo has upped the ante with each successive effort, so that finally they pay for their own greatness by having to deal with only a very good album. May most bands have half as much luck. —Andrew Rea

PETE YORN: DAY I FORGOT (Sony)

On Day I Forgot,Pete Yorn continues compiling his resume to be this generation’s Springsteen. Yorn shares more than the Boss’s blue-collar fashion sense, Jersey roots, and brooding good-looks; Pete’s knack of finding the universal in his personal stories echoes the elder statesman of rock ’n’ roll singer/songwriters.

Day I Forgot takes Yorn fans down a similar path as his previous effort, the critically acclaimed musicforthemorningafter. The first single on the new record, “Come Back Home,” is a classic endof-the-road song. Like much of the album, the song was written and recorded at the end of a year-and-a-half marathon touring schedule. The resulting sound is a mix of euphoria and exhaustion; it captures that 3:00 a.m. rush of energy continued on page 26