NOTES ON A SCANDAL
In Richard Eyre's Notes on a Scandal, Judi Dench appears to be having an amazingly fine time playing an evil harridan. Why does the movie itself have to be such a dud? In the film, Dench portrays prickly history teacher Barbara Covett, who becomes pathologically obsessed with Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), a younger colleague in the art department. (As Barbara's last name suggests, Eyre's film, based on the novel by Zoë Heller, won't be much concerned with subtlety.) When Barbara discovers that the married Sheba has been carrying on with a 15-year-old student (Andrew Simpson), she uses the knowledge to surreptitiously gain Sheba's trust, in the hopes of turning their friendship into something more, shall we say, Sapphic. Subsequently, threats are made, careers are jeopardized, relationships are destroyed ... and why oh why isn't the movie more fun?
Last week, I received an e-mail from a reader asking whether I thought Ang Lee's wildly acclaimed Brokeback Mountain would be playing in the area any time soon. She also referenced Capote and The Squid & the Whale - two other small-scale, independently financed films with a whole slew of end-of-the-year accolades and no current release date set for Quad Cities venues - and concluded her correspondence with a cry often heard from we Midwestern art-film fans: "Are we not grown-up enough to see these films?"
BE COOL
IN THE CUT
TRAINING DAY
