The team behind Open Water emphasizes drama as much as scares

By Steven Rosen

Beverly Hills -- There was a strange quality, surreal enough to impress Salvador Dali, to the media-day activities for the suspense film "Open Water." Publicists had festooned a cabana by the large, inviting courtyard pool of the boutique Avalon hotel with cute blow-up sharks -- one was hanging down from the rafters like bite-sized mistletoe. Journalists were free to take "Open Water" notebooks with chomped-out chunks missing from the covers, and "Open Water" Frisbees.

The movie is an absolutely terrifying story about a scuba-diving couple abandoned by a careless excursion-boat crew in the shark-filled ocean. But the mood was more jocular than jugular. All that was needed was for Chevy Chase to show up doing his "land shark" bit from the early days of "Saturday Night Live."

Night vision

By Steven Rosen

Los Angeles - Although it isn't featured on the somberly urgent, pulsating score, the theme song for Michael Mann's new film, "Collateral," could be "I Love L.A."

But not the L.A. of sun-drenched dreamers, Beach Boys songs, and movie-star blonds that Randy Newman affectionately and immortally sang about. "Collateral," set entirely in the City of Angels, captures a far different place.

COUNTERPUNCH
Not enough hours 'Before Sunset' to mention 9/11

By Steven Rosen

Since we're living in a post-9/11 world - it's the equivalent of year zero on our new psychic calendar - we assume our serious contemporary arts will reflect and acknowledge that fact. How could they not? The day changed everything.

It's possible, of course, to give movies a lot of slack on this - especially summer movies, good or bad, which primarily are meant as a respite from the everyday concerns of contemporary life. However, when an American fictional film grounded in naturalism attempts to be serious about the meaning of life right now, one expects 9/11 as a shared point of painful reference. That's certainly true for a movie that primarily consists of two earnestly sincere young people talking about how the past nine years have changed them.