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TIP OF THE WEEK
Nine Queens

Ray Pride

(Nueve Reinas) While comparisons to Hitchcock and Mamet were made on the festival circuit, writer-director Fabian Bielinsky's first feature has the cool classicism of directors like Wilder: The story is where the faces are. He's got Wilder's cynicism down as well, in this satisfying collection of reversals and an utterly implausible and totally convincing series of swindles, prevarications and cons. Devil-goateed Gastón Pauls, playing the older figure on the make, is nicely paired against baby-faced Ricardo Darin as two con artists who work their confident magic on each other. Letitia Bedrice, as Pauls' angry, beautiful sister, runs and creates interference as they work to settle in one day the sale of a forgery of a famous set of stamps, the Nine Queens. What I like most about Bielinsky's work in his following these small-time grifters through their day is his confident use of public space, capturing them at work with long lenses on the teeming streets of Buenos Aires, or observing how some urban dwellers nest and rest in a shabby cafe but can also stride confidently through the lobby of a Hilton on the whiff of a few hundred grand. 115m.

"Nine Queens" opens May 10 at the Music Box.

(2002-05-09)

Also by Ray Pride

SCREEN KISS
At the sight of her massively swollen belly, you can only inquire, How are you? "I'm eight months," she says, leaning back in her chair. "Any time. I'm very sensitive, y'know. I'm very pregnant. We take things very personally."
(2002-05-02)

TIP OF THE WEEK
Performing Arts Chicago's annual celebration of dance on film brings a roster of contemporary avant-garde performance from Canada and Europe to town, including an appearance by Belgian director Walter Verdin on opening night.
(2002-05-02)

WORLD WIDE WEB
"Spider-Man" doesn't have a calculated feel, but it is a superhero origin story, intended to launch a series of blockbusters. "We weren't looking at it like that," says Raimi, 42, in the ever-present suit and tie he copied from Alfred Hitchcock.
(2002-05-02)

TIP OF THE WEEK
"The Cat's Meow," based on a play by Steven Peros, has a polite refinement that resembles his earlier work, drawing from the unpretentious, classical camera style of the likes of Howard Hawks and John Ford, with several Wellesian sustained takes, some from relatively low angles.
(2002-04-25)

PLUG & PLAY
(2002-04-18)

TIP OF THE WEEK
(2002-04-18)

TIP OF THE WEEK
(2002-04-11)

CRAZY LOVE
(2002-04-11)

TIP OF THE WEEK
(2002-04-04)

TIP OF THE WEEK
(2002-03-28)

PANIC BUTTONS
(2002-03-28)

GLOVE AND MONEY
(2002-03-21)



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