This is almost as much fun as it sounds: a Cuban feature-length animated film (by Juan Padron) that makes fun of horror and gangster movies in a bawdy and caricatural style. Among the heavies who are out to steal Professor von Dracula’s formula, which allows vampires to survive in sunlight, are the European Group of vampires from Dusseldorf and the Vampire Mafia from Chicago. Although the animation style is less than brilliant, there are enough action and high spirits here to make this lively and amusing. With a good Afro-Cuban jazz score by Rembert Egues, featuring Arturo Sandoval’s trumpet (1985). (Facets Multimedia Center, 1517 W. Fullerton, Friday and Saturday, May 20 and 21, 7:00 and 9:00; Sunday, May 22, 5:30 and 7:30; and Monday through Thursday, May 23 through 26, 7:00 and 9:00; 281-4114) Read more
This first film of Japanese writer-director and former actor Juzo Itami lacks the freewheeling episodic form and comic exhilaration of his second, Tampopo; but as a sustained social satire, it succeeds more than either that film or his third, A Taxing Woman. Itami’s subject is a family funeral that lasts three days and the elaborate preparations, considerations, and rituals that accompany it–from expenses to the videotape advising both the family and the guests what to say to one another. The results are perhaps a mite overlong, but Itami’s vigorous filmmaking keeps things lively, and Ozu veteran Chishu Ryu is especially welcome in a cameo as the officiating priest. One also gets some early indications of Itami’s handling of food and sex, which reaches full flower in Tampopo. With Nabuko Miyamoto (Itami’s wife) and Tsutomu Yamazaki (1984). (Music Box, Friday through Thursday, May 20 through 26) Read more
Although it only runs for half an hour, Angelo Restivo’s cunningly ordered, well-crafted, and locally made adaptation of a Julio Cortazar story makes use of so many free-floating narrative signifiers–including an adept use of sound and music–that it comes across as an outline for a novel. Circling around an ambiguous murder mystery that isn’t so much solved as multiplied and varied like a musical theme, this tantalizing short provides a kind of do-it-yourself fiction kit; what you bring to it is what you get. With Marika Turano, Celia Lipinski, and Mark Dember. (International House, 1414 E. 59th St., Friday, May 20, 8:00 and 10:00, to be shown with Luis
Buñuel‘s Susana, 753-2274) Read more
