"What Women Want" & Disney's "Groove"

"What Women Want" & Disney's "Groove"
REUTERS

LOS ANGELES: Mel Gibson's romanticcomedy "What Women Want" and Disney's animated "The Emperor's New Groove" debut in theaters on Friday, marking the start of a rush of films opening over the holidays to qualify for Oscars.

The two movies join teen comedy "Dude, Where's My Car?" asthe three films opening around the country, while Oscar-hyped movies "Chocolat" and "Pollock" debut in large cities just in time for the awards season now getting under way.

Two of the United States' prominent critic groups havealready issued their lists of favorite movies and actors. Marcia Gay Harden of "Pollock" was named best supporting actress by the New York Film Critics Circle.

The New York group also put Steven Soderbergh's drama"Traffic" atop its list of favorite films, while the National Board of Review declared drama "Quills" as its favorite film.

Los Angeles critics unveil their picks on Saturday, andthe Hollywood Foreign Press Association names nominees for its Golden Globe awards on Thursday. Taken as a whole, the choices give an idea of what media writers think are 2000's top films.

The Oscars -- the U.S. Film industry's highest honorsawarded each year by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences -- are awarded in March, and their selections are sometimes influenced by critic picks.

While industry watchers focus on the Oscar race, movie fansget a glimpse of action star Gibson of "Braveheart" and the "Lethal Weapon" dancing to Frank Sinatra tunes and trying on panty hose in "What Women Want."

The role of Nick Marshall, a skirt-chasing advertisingexecutive who finds his feminine side, is different for Gibson because he doesn'T carry a gun or wage a war against bad guys.

"There was a lot of freedom to get in there and be naturaland have weaknesses and not have to be the square-jawed dude with the gun," he said in a recent interview.

Nick thinks he's God's gift to the fairer sex, and hedoesn'T listen to what the women around him say.

He is an aggressive businessman on the fast track to a bigpromotion when Darcy McGuire (Helen Hunt) hires on at Nick's ad agency and steals the promotion out from under his feet. She becomes Nick's boss with the mandate to bring in more accounts for the lucrative business of marketing products to women.

After a fluke electrical shock gives Nick the ability tolisten to women's thoughts, he at first sets out to destroy Darcy's career. But his new gift soon leads to a better understanding of women in general and himself in particular.

"It's an outrageous premise, but it's also charming andvery funny," said Gibson.

DISNEY FINDS A NEW GROOVE

"The Emperor's New Groove," too, is leaving audienceslaughing in ways they haven'T before for Disney animated movies with comedian David Spade of TV's "Just Shoot Me" as the voice of a smart aleck emperor turned into a llama in a palace coup.

In reviewing the movie, trade newspaper Daily Variety saidthe movie "will be remembered as the film that established a new attitude" at Disney due to its up-to-date style.

For instance, Spade's Emperor Kuzco doesn'T so much firehis evil sorceress Yzma (Eartha Kitt) as he fails to pick up the option on her contract.

In a fit of revenge, Yzma casts an evil spell that turnsKuzco into the llama, enabling her to rule over the palace. Kuzco escapes with a shepherd, Pacha (John Goodman), and the two set out on a fast-paced road trip through the wilderness.

If only the slackers in "Dude, Where's my Car?" could go ona road trip, they'D Probably be out of a lot of trouble. After a full night of partying and trashing their girlfriends' home, the "dudes," Jesse (Ashton Kutcher of TV's "That '70s Show") and Chester (Seann William Scott of "American Pie") have lost their car and their girlfriends' gifts in the back seat.

Director Philip Stark calls the film "a take-off onteen/high school comedies ... withan absurd logic to it."

For Oscar watchers, romantic comedy "Chocolat" starringJuliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, tells a fable-like story of a mysterious woman who sets up a chocolate shop in a French town and changes the way the town's people perceive outsiders.

"Pollock" stars Ed Harris as controversial artist JacksonPollock and retraces his rise in the New York art world through the mid-20th Century to his eventual downfall. Marcia Gay Harden plays his wife, Lee Krasner.