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A pair of smaller, more artfully minded films also entered movie houses, yet fared little better with Christian critics. A new version of Hamlet, which updates the action in modern-day New York, prompts Christian Spotlight guest reviewer Christopher Heyn to say "Lawrence Olivier must be laughing in his grave." In particular, Heyn grouses at how writer/director Michael Almereyda edits the play to a meager running time. "The roles of Gertrude and Ophelia are cut down to almost nothing, so when both of their death scenes arrive, they pass with barely a ripple of emotional impact." The Dove Foundation was "left cold" by star Ethan Hawke—"a fine actor, but here [he] finds it difficult to muster any expression beyond blank and blanker." Preview's John Adair feels this new version exploits the play's inherent violence: "Two confrontations are portrayed in an overly bloody and graphic way. As people are shot and killed, the incredible amount of blood may elicit a sick feeling from viewers." However, for J. Robert Parks of The Phantom Tollbooth, this new rendition rings true. He explains that this Hamlet is a video hound, and watches old James Dean movies for inspiration. "This sort of contemporizing is useful as a commentary both on Hamlet and our society. How often do people, particularly of Hamlet's age, take their cues from contemporary culture, especially film? How does our culture's obsession with self echo in a play 400 years old?"

Also experimenting with new media is Time Code, a film from Mike Figgis that splits the movie screen into four sections, each camera following the story from a different character's vantage point. The movie is 93 minutes long and was filmed entirely in one take with the newly invented and much-hyped digital movie cameras. The Dove Foundation calls the gimmick inventive, but was less impressed with the story, featuring "characters and lifestyles [that] are depressing." The largely improvised plot centers on an actress who's in a love triangle with a married movie executive and a jealous lesbian lover. Movieguide calls this setup a "shallow, ill-defined story," and questions whether Time Code's "rough, unique style [will make] viewers either enthralled or annoyed with trying to keep up with four different screens." Paul Bicking of Preview sides with the annoyed group, saying the split screens "add to the viewer's confusion," and rejects the plot for its "many degenerate factors."

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May (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44