Julian Schnabel's second film is, like his Basquiat, a conventional, celebratory biopic on an unconventional, subcultural hero: this time the homosexual Cuban author Reinaldo Arenas. We take up his story in his female-dominated childhood (the boy lays his head against a tree trunk, stroking it, gazing at a group of masculine skinny-dippers), then follow him through the Revolution (both Communist and Sexual), into political disfavor ("People who make art are dangerous to any dictatorship"), prison, and finally exile in New York City, where he arrives in time for the AIDS plague. (His writing predictably has little place on screen: only a couple of brief "readings.") Javier Bardem acts his heart out, but it's not easy to match him up to his ostensible age, much less to his younger predecessor in the role. Nor is it easy simply to understand his English. Sean Penn shows up foolishly in a straw-hatted, gold-toothed, greasepainted cameo ("I hah seex brodders. Zee ole one, he yoyn dee rabbles"), and then Johnny Depp tops him with two cameos: a transvestite prisoner and, in the next moment, a sadistic prison guard. The cinematic highlight is a lyrical escape attempt in a hot-air balloon. (2000) — Duncan Shepherd