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Sunday, March 16, 2003

Catch a 'Quiet' Moment

By Leanne Potts
Of the Journal
    One of the best movies of the year wasn't nominated for a best picture Oscar. "The Quiet American," based on the 1955 Graham Greene novel of the same name, is pure brilliance.
    It's also more relevant than ever as our nation sits at the brink of a war many believe to be ill-conceived.
    The film is set in 1952 French Indochina (which went on to become Vietnam and the site of a U.S. war with a nebulous enemy). Michael Caine plays a dissolute British journalist with an opium habit and a drop-dead gorgeous young mistress (Do Thi Hai Yen).
    Caine's tidy indifference to events in the country is shattered when a young American aid worker (Brendan Fraser) steals his girl and forces him to see the perfidy going on right under his nose. By the movie's end, you won't be sure who is the hero and who is the villain — you may even feel the very idea of good guys and bad guys is simplistic.
    Miramax almost didn't release "The Quiet American," fearing its content would be deemed un-American in these times when the definition of patriotism is muddled. Caine used his friendship with Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein to get the film screened at the Toronto Film Festival in September, where the film drew a standing ovation.
    A few months later, "The Quiet American" got a limited release in U.S. theaters. It just made it to Albuquerque a few weeks ago.
    Caine was nominated for the best actor Oscar, and he deserves to win. He's won two Oscars for supporting roles and been nominated four times for best actor, but this is the role of his career.
    Of course, a tour de force performance guarantees nothing at the Oscars, which are as merit-based as a high-school prom king election.
    Caine's performance as a man coming to grips with his mortality and his rotted ethics shouldn't be missed. Go see "The Quiet American" before it's gone from theaters.
    Pop goes the kids' lit scene
    LIKE A DR. SEUSS: How times change. Eleven years after publishing a controversial book of nude photos titled "Sex," Madonna has signed a deal with Penguin to write five children's books.
    The first book, titled "The English Roses," will be released in September.
    Madonna isn't the first pop star to venture into children's book publishing, but she may the most surprising.
    Jimmy Buffett and Carly Simon have written books for kids. Simon has written four, beginning in 1989 with "Amy The Dancing Bear"; Buffett wrote two, 1986's "The Jolly Mon" and 1990's "The Trouble Dolls."
    Maybe aging pop stars view children's books as a way of tapping into the pockets of their aging fan base for more than just records. It's a case of resourceful marketing replacing cutting-edge music, of singer as brand name.
    The thought is that Parrotheads and granola girls-turned-moms will buy Buffett's and Simon's books, respectively, for their kids. Buffet's first kiddie book got a second printing, so Parrotheads must be biting.
    Now Madonna is counting on women who spent their mid-'80s girlhood in "Boy Toy" belts and fingerless lace gloves to rush to bookstores to buy her books for their tots.
   

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    Leanne Potts can be reached at lpotts@abqjournal.com.