Who is Lindsay Lohan

I remember seeing this opening night in a theater full of 14-year old girls, expecting another Just My Luck, but always willing to plunk down my money for Lohan, who exerts -- I'll confess -- a complete fascination over me. But I was shocked as the film played out. Imagine Ron Howard directing a giallo with a rewrite by Ingmar Bergman at his most tortured and you are getting somewhere close to the perversity of Georgia Rule.

This movie is Lindsay Lohan's finest hour on screen, though I Know Who Killed Me is another major surprise that may take a couple years for people to catch up with. From the opening shot, storming down a country road screaming at her mom, she burns with charisma that is close to a female James Dean. She is one of the most contradictory actors I've ever seen; brazen, even demonic, but covering immense pain, waiting for a chance to show vulnerability, and mistrusting everybody. She also comes off, at least in her movies, as quick-witted, cultured, and immune to B.S.



What makes Lohan work so well on screen is she pushes the limit of awful behavior to the maximum while still being able to come off as fundamentally decent, with a good soul buried underneath so many layers of grime that it would take a miracle to dig it out. There's something about her that makes any sort of evil or malice she commits seem like it's not really her, but an alternate personality. Whether this happens to be true, or just a convenient excuse for getting what she wants, is the question mark that hangs over Lohan and makes her interesting. Some might say, are you talking about the actress or the characters she plays? Well, Lindsay Lohan plays Lindsay Lohan. But that is the highest form of acting. Point a camera at most people and they will become unreal, fake, imitating what they've seen in other movies or T.V.; point a camera at Lohan and she is an original.



The movie is very respectful of its audience and doesn't spell things out. There are moments, on first viewing, where you'll be confused as to what's really happening, who is lying and whose reality we're even witnessing.

We have to make up our own minds about the characters almost like in an Eric Rohmer film, based on their behavior and how trustworthy they seem -- until the masks finally crumble in the final reels. Everyone in this movie is suffering horribly from betrayal and irreparable emotional damage, except for Jane Fonda, who for once has an almost calming presence as the grandma. Lohan's behavior is both disturbing and totally understandable in this fractured, twisted world. Yet the movie is filled with humor that borders on the sublime, because it reveals character. It's funny even when it's appalling, such as when Lohan's crush has to confess a sin committed with Lohan to his clean-cut girlfriend, who is so pristine that she can't even imagine anything beyond the 6th grade: "Did you kiss?" There is another scene where Lohan tries to run people over in a huge truck, art mirroring life once again, as it always will for this girl.



I still find it hard to believe that Garry Marshall directed this; his sole contribution seems to have been to change the character of Lohan's boyfriend from a Christian, which he must have been in the script, to a Mormon, because otherwise this makes no sense -- Mormons in Idaho? The fact that a local says he "lifts like a Basque" also suggests the original script had a huge Christian influence. But the Christian-ness that Hollywood as usual tries to smother or ignore still comes through in the story's unflinching presentation of big sin, and even bigger redemption. And hopefully redemption also lies at the end of the tale of Georgia Rule's fantastic, troubled star. -- AllOverWith "cannes2000" (L.A.)

Jane Fonda, Lindsay Lohan, Felicity Huffman, Dermot Mulroney, Cary Elwes
Director: Garry Marshall

Brainy student Aubrey Fleming (Lindsay Lohan) disappears one night after a football game. She's found days later, barely alive and horribly mutilated. She doesn't recognize her parents or her name - she insists her name is Dakota Moss, and claims to be a stripper. She goes home with Aubrey's parents to recuperate but is oddly uncooperative with the police investigation, claiming she never saw her kidnapper. She starts having strange dreams, violent flashes of an attack she doesn't remember.

This film has all the earmarks of a low-budget shockfest: pointless nudity, slashing violence, and dialogue that is so corny it's laughable. The script is so convoluted and wacky that when I wasn't covering my eyes from the gore, I was rolling them at the dumb things the characters did and said (the crew from Mystery Science Theatre 3000 would have had a field day with this flick).

I'm sure none of the actors will want to put this film on their resumes. Lohan doesn't put much effort into her acting but does wear an excessive amount of eye make-up and Julia Ormond is wasted as her long-suffering mother. The worst part of it is that the villain's motive is never explained (don't blink or you'll miss the perp altogether). "I Know..." has sickeningly graphic torture, the dullest pole-dance ever filmed, and a ludicrous plot. For strong stomachs only. -- Kona (Emerald City)

In the final quarter or so of Bobby, writer-director-actor Emilio Estevez finally starts tightening his grip on the viewer as we head inexorably toward the film's climax: the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in a Los Angeles hotel kitchen. In the course of these scenes--among them Kennedy's acceptance speech after winning the California Democratic presidential primary (the senator is seen only in file footage), his death at the hands of gunman Sirhan Sirhan, and the chaos and despair that ensued.

Estevez steadily ratchets up the sense of tension and dread. Knowing exactly what's coming, while the characters onscreen don't, is excruciating, as is our grief at hearing RFK's own words, so eloquent, so hopeful and inspiring, as we watch the horrible events unfold and wonder what might have been (sure it's manipulative--but it works).

But the rest of Bobby isn't nearly as compelling. Nor is it really about Kennedy, despite its obvious adulation of the man whom many thought would defeat Richard Nixon in the '68 general election. In the tradition of, say, an Irwin Allen disaster flick, we're invited into the lives of nearly two dozen folks, most of them at least partly fictional, who were at the Ambassador Hotel that June day, including guests, staff (kitchen workers, switchboard operators, management, etc.), campaign workers, reporters, and more. There are lots of movie stars in the cast, and some of them (Sharon Stone, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy) are very good.

But caring about the quotidian minutiae of these people's existences is a chore, and Estevez crams so many issues into his story (the Vietnam war, drugs, alcoholism, voting irregularities, adultery, racism, immigration, communism - even L.A. Dodgers pitcher Don Drysdale's streak of consecutive shutouts) and tries so obviously to establish parallels between then and now that too much of the movie feels gratuitous and forced. A warts-and-all film about Robert Kennedy's extraordinary life and career would be welcome. Unfortunately, Bobby isn't it. --Sam Graham

Product Description
(Drama) A re-telling of the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in 1968. The film follows 22 individuals who are all at the hotel for different purposes but share the common thread of anticipating Kennedy's arrival at the primary election night party, which would change their lives forever. This historic night is set against the backdrop of the cultural issues gripping the country at the time, including racism, sexual inequality and class differences.

Demi Moore, Anthony Hopkins, Lawrence Fishburne, Lindsay Lohan, Elijah Wood
Director: Emilio Estevez