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CITIZEN RUTH

During the 1930s and '40s, filmmakers such as Frank Capra and Preston Sturges enjoyed tackling social issues on film within a format of easy-to-swallow satire. That type of filmmaking is alive and well today - witness last summer's heroin addiction satire Trainspotting, and the darling of this year's Sundance Film Festival, Citizen Ruth.

Laura Dern stars as Ruth Stoops, an alchoholic vagrant woman who's told she's pregnant again after being jailed for the umpteenth time for spray paint inhalation. Fed up with her reckless behavior, the small town D.A. decides to charge her with endangering the feotus, and the judge offers her a lighter sentence if she'll have an abortion. In jail, she meets Mary Kay Place, and is taken in by the born again Christian and her husband Kurtwood Smith. They give her a place to stay and a chance to clean up her act, but before this can turn into Ramblin' Rose 2, they also try to use her as a rallying point for their anti-abortion group, the Baby Savers.

The situation turns sour, and Ruth falls in with a group of pro-choice activists led by lesbian spy Swoozie Kurtz. The struggle over Ruth escalates to ridiculous proportions, leading to protest seiges, armed biker gangs vs. Viet Nam vet mercenaries, bribery, Tippi Hedron in a helicopter, and Burt Reynolds in his most obvious toupee ever. We're used to seeing Dern thin, but if the camera adds 10 ounds, then she must have been close to weightless for this role. It's unusual for an actress to inhabit so fully such a thoroughly unglamorous part, and she ought to draw some nominating votes for her work here come Oscar time. Usually while reviewing a film with a "relevant" theme I try to chip in my own views on the subject, so that you know what kind of axe I'm grinding, and I'll do the same here. On the subject of abortion, I try real hard not to have any opinion, which probably leaves me in the pro-choice camp by default. I don't have a womb and I've got no business telling anybody what to do with theirs.

First time director Alexander Payne seems to share this view. Instead of pointlessly trying to settle this issue (which has much in common with the debate between proponents of flat- and round-earth theorists during the 8th century), he instead keeps circling back to the real issue at stake, which is what Ruth will decide to do with her life. Oh, and if you think he may have copped out at the ending, please stick around through the end credits scroll, where he provides a clue.

JINGLE ALL THE WAY

I'm all in favor of Peace on Earth (for the most part), but Christmas has gone too darn far. Every year, the holiday tries to capture more territory. Now retail chains start putting up the holly and tinsel in September, an unending glut of holiday specials choke the airwaves to the point where an all-Xmas cable channel may be inevitable, and as much depression is spread as joy.

But fear not, a major Yuletide backlash may be coming. A few years back, Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas bravely declared Halloween as the last stand, a date of demarcation worthy of celebration on its own merits without danger of being overshadowed by greedy holidays from other months. Now, even Christmas' own movies are taking on an anarchic tone, such as this latest big budget Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy.

Here, Arnold is your typical Austrian bodybuilder and family man, trying too hard to sell mattresses in Minnesota. Caught up in his career, he breaks one too many promises to his wife and son, and a crisis is at hand: to save his family, he takes on a hopeless quest to find the Turboman doll his son wants on Christmas Eve.

At every turn, he finds new evidence that something unclean is gnawing steadily at the nation's candy canes, meeting with mobs of rioting shoppers, a Santa Claus mafia selling bootleg toys, lunatic postmen ditching packages, rabid reindeer, etc. This is a marvelous premise for a comedy film, and Schwarzenegger just gets better with every role - he's learned to use his face as well as his body to sell a scene. Then why doesn't it work?

Though he's good, the casting of Arnold proves the films undoing, just as it did with his action film Eraser last summer. Hiring the biggest box office star in the world is very expensive, and that high price tag demands that the entire production is expanded far beyond any artistic logic. Almost every scene tries too hard, and the results are forced. When Arnold finds himself mistakenly shoved into the Turboman costume for the big parade, it's not enough that he saves the day. For a spectacular finish, the Turboman costume's gadgets really work, and Arnold becomes a real superhero. Not only doesn't this make any sense, it's just not as impressive a spectacle as it wants to be. Phil Hartman, as Arnold's seemingly perfect neighbor, gets more mileage out of a line reading than all the special f/x in the picture. And does anybody believe for a moment that this takes place in Minnesota? ½

101 DALMATIONS

The second Disney adaptation of this classic children's novel about dotty dognapping, though in no way as charming as its animated predecessor, is nevertheless fine entertainment when taken on its own terms. It draws you in with lush images and simple emotion. The decision to leave the animals voiceless robs the puppies of their individual personalities, but allows a more elaborately visual telling of events.

As Cruella DeVil, Glenn Close turns up the star power to full wattage, making a full meal of one of the movies' all time great villains. Jeff Daniels and Joely Richardson fill the roles of the charming young dog-owning couple, nearly as cute together as their pooches. The fly in the ointment here is writer/producer John Hughes, who nearly sabotages the whole show. Hughes used to write very funny stories for the National Lampoon, one of which became his first film Animal House.

But as Hughes has aged, his sense of humor has become more infantile. Now he believes a comedy needs a pratfall every 5 minutes, and so the story gets bogged down for a while in a canine version of Home Alone, with the puppies and their barnyard friends violently besting the bad guys. But overall, the honest charm of the story overcomes the obstacle of Hughes. When it comes to pure cinematic poetry, it's hard to beat the sight of 99 dalmation puppies romping purposefully across a snowy English meadow. ½

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