City By the Sea9/19

By Gus Bode

Robert De Niro plays it up in true form in this excellent police drama from Michael Caton-Jones. Starring as Detective Vincent LaMarca, a homicide officer sent to his old home of Long Island after his estranged son is pegged as the prime suspect in a murder case, De Niro turns in one of his most compelling performances in recent years, and he is helped along by a strong Frances McDormand. Rated R, 1 hour, 48 minutes. Playing at University Place 8.

Stephen Dorff stars in this oh-so-pathetic horror movie about a website that causes it’s visitors to die oh-so-gruesome deaths exactly 48 hours after first logging on. What starts off as a semi-clever premise turns to recycling every horror clich there is within the first five minutes, but the filmmakers think they can make up for this by using sharp editing techniques. They were wrong. Directed by William Malone. Rated R, 1 hour, 38 minutes. Playing at University Place 8.

The wonderful Erika Christensen stars in this passable high-school version of “Fatal Attraction” that succeeds only as a guilty pleasure in terms of actual cinema. Lacking any true originality beyond its obviously-stolen premise, “Swimfan” may be fun for the kids but will make most others wish they had waited for the video. Rated PG-13, 1 hour, 25 minutes. Playing at the Varsity Theater.

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Presented in conjunction with the Saluki Rainbow Network, this documentary by director Sandi Simcha DuBowski digs into the world of faith and sexuality among gay and lesbian Orthodox and Hasidic Jews. It will be presented at 7 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday in the Student Center Auditorium. Admission is $2 for SIU students and $3 for the general public.

Video Pick:The Truman Show (1998)

Writer-director Andrew Niccol has had his share of hits (“Gattaca”) and misses (“Simone”), but never has he hit the nail so well as with this screenplay about an everyday guy (Jim Carrey) who realizes that his life is actually a 24-hour TV show. Stylishly directed by Peter Weir, “The Truman Show” is a complex and often funny guessing game that turns out to be one of the best films of the past decade. Oh yeah. It also showed us that Jim Carrey can do more than be a clown, too. PG, 1 hour, 43 minutes.

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