OK, fans of story-free, disassociated-image films with cutting-edge music,
get ready for "Naqoyqatsi." No, I didn't misspell "Koyaanisquatsi," how
could I?

"Naqoyquatsi" is the son of "Koyaanisquatsi" and the grandson of
"Powaqqatsi," with Philip Glass' music, still cutting the edge of the late
1930s.  But in addition to the same composer and the same "non-narrative"
nature (isn't that a great marketing phrase?), Son-Of has some serious
assets over the previous two "chronicles of the transition of the natural
word to a `new' nature, a world consumed by technology and violence."

Here are the plusses:  Steven Soderbergh as producer, Godfry Reggio as
director, and - most importantly - the saintly Yo-Yo Ma as featured artist.

It's amazing how the cellist can bring out from the tired old Glass score
occasional stately, even majestic passages.  As to Glass, he is following
the good-to-excellent Cocteau opera trilogy with the same old:  every mode,
from surging to twirling, clearly signaled in advance, each repeating the
monotonous going-nowhere-fast ostinato endlessly, lazily.

The images - empty buildings, faces turned into X-rays, clouds, the ocean
- are well photographed, but why not get your own, free at home, from
Google's enormous image bank?

Going along with the hazy business plan for "Naqoyquatsi," there is a
clueless publicity campaign, presenting previews five months ahead of the
planned opening.  How many sleeps to November?

* * *

Continuing with our "Music & the Cinema of the Weird" report, there is an
opening tomorrow, Spielberg's "Minority Report," an engrossing movie until
the last half hour of lamentable Salute to Hollywood.  Note plenty of
Schubert as the Pre-cogs float in brine, thinking up bowling balls with
future murderers' names engraved on them.  Then comes Haydn (for an ad of
the 2054 model Lexus) and Tchaikovsky.  What would science fiction be
without Philip K.  Dick?

* * *

Rachel Portman's music for "The Emperor's New Clothes" is first-class,
quite unlike the rest of the project.  What an American director (Alan
Taylor) is trying to establish with a British cast (Ian Holm!) enacting
French historical characters is what happened to Napoleon who, your history
books will tell you, died on the island of St.  Helena in 1821.

Not so, according to the movie based on Simon Leys' novel.  The truth is -
and you may want to stop reading here if you're planning to see the movie
- that Napoleon escaped from St.  Helena by having a look-alike substituted
for him - Ian Holm again, regarded dismissively by Holm-as-Napoleon:  "you
don't look like me at all."

Plans for another military campaign (such as after the escape from Elba) are
spoiled, however, and Napoleon ends up commanding the sale of watermelons
in the hot Paris summer, and then settling down with Pumpkin, the lovely
fruit-seller widow, played by Iben Hjejle, pronounced Ee-ben Yai-La.
(Movies are so educational!)

My favorite item in all this tomfoolery (not really played for laughs,
alas) is the director's explanation for Hjejle's accent.  The Danish-born
actress lives in New York and speaks the patois of that region.  Is she
able to match the British accents that stand for French in the movie? No,
but that's OK, says Taylor, as the character is. . . Dutch.  Get more out
of life, go to a movie today.

Janos Gereben/SF
[log in to unmask]