David Lean’s 1962 spectacle about T.E. Lawrence’s military career between 1916 and ’18, written by Robert Bolt and produced by Sam Spiegel, remains one of the most intelligent, handsome, and influential of all war epics. Combining the scenic splendor of De Mille with virtues of the English theater, Lean endeared himself to English professors and action buffs alike. The film won seven Oscars, including best picture and direction, yet the ideological crassness of De Mille and most war movies isn’t so much transcended as given a high gloss: the film’s subject is basically the White Man’s Burdendespite ironic notationswith Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, and Omar Sharif called upon to represent the Arab soul, and Jose Ferrer embodying the savage Turks. The all-male cast helps make this one of the most homoerotic of all screen epics, though the characters’ sexual experiences are at best only hinted at. 221 min. (JR) Read more
Bill Donovan’s documentary feature, eight years in the making, about Michael Hernstadt, a gun-toting millionaire who ran for political office twice as a libertarian candidate, advocated cutting taxes and televising executions, and was shot to death by the chief of police of Aspen, Colorado, after an argument at an all-night drug party. The subject is fascinating, but the treatment is disappointingly cursory for the most part. Friends and relatives offer bite-sized psychoanalytical theories about Hernstadt’s isolated childhood, and the subject offers several spiels of his own. But on the whole we seem to get too much theorizing about the man and not enough straight information. (JR) Read more
The title refers to a cameraman (Byron Thames) who accompanies a six-man reconnaissance unit in the central highlands of Vietnam in 1969 (Mopic is a contraction of motion picture). A tour de force, this first feature by Patrick Duncan shows us only what the cameraman recordsan intensely physical rendering of the unit’s experiences on a mission, with the sound often carrying as much impact as the images. By dedramatizing the material and at the same time contriving to hold an audience’s interest, Duncan takes a courageous dive straight into the contradictions of what makes an honest yet compelling film about combat in Vietnam; what we see and hear certainly registers as real, although the verisimilitude seems at times to get in the way of storytelling (we don’t always make out everything that the characters are saying). Effectively shot in super-16-millimeter (by Alan Caso) and persuasively acted (by Jonathan Emerson, Nicholas Cascone, Jason Tomlins, Christopher Burgard, Glenn Morshower, and Richard Brooks), this uncompromising bug’s-eye view may not be for everyone, and it’s far from an unqualified success, but it certainly commands respect and attention. (JR) Read more
Despite expert performances by Billie Whitelaw and Joan Plowright (among others) in this adaptation of Beryl Bainbridge’s novel (known in the U.S. as The Secret Glass), the spirit and feeling of high-tone British TV is never very far away. Set in Liverpool in 1944, the plot concerns the problems that arise in a family of three women when the youngest (Jane Horrocks) becomes involved with an American soldier (Tim Ransom). Competently written by John McGrath and directed by Jim O’Brien, with an acceptable period flavor, this rather morbid tale about respectability and sexual repression never really catches fire, although fans of Whitelaw and Plowright will certainly get their money’s worth. With Peter Postlethwaite, Rosemary Martin, and Pippa Hinchley. (JR) Read more
Jim Kouf, the writer of Stakeout, scripted and directed this shaky heist film, which is a comic variant on The Asphalt Jungle and its numerous successors. Four crooks (Lou Diamond Phillips, Ruben Blades, Fred Gwynn, and William Russ) are summoned to Montana by a criminal mastermind (Corbin Bernsen) to pull off a bank robbery, but their leader gets arrested by two New Jersey cops, obliging his four recruits to fend for themselves. There’s a great deal of bungling on everybody’s partcops, crooks, criminal mastermind (after he breaks away), and also, alas, the filmmakers, who never manage to give this the right amount of snap and periodically fall back on stale scatological jokes and silly plot contrivances. Apart from a nice use of Montana locations, this is strictly routine. (JR) Read more
One of Satyajit Ray’s greatest early films (1962), full of sensuality and ironic undertones, Devi is sufficiently critical of Hindu superstition that it was banned from foreign distribution until Nehru interceded. The plot concerns a wealthy and devout landowner in the 19th century who believes his daughter-in-law (Sharmila Tagore) is the reincarnation of the goddess Kali and convinces her that he’s right. With Soumitra Chatterji and Chhabi Biswas. In Bengali with subtitles. 93 min. (JR) Read more
A thriller filmed in ‘Scope near Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, directed by Phillip Noyce (Newsfront) and coproduced by George Miller. The plot concerns the dark events that unfold after a couple on a sailing yacht (Nicole Kidman and Sam Neill) encounter an enigmatic and crazed lone survivor from another ship. The screenplay by coproducer Terry Hayes is based on Charles Williams’s novel of the same title, a book that also served as the basis for an unfinished Orson Welles film known as The Deep, shot in the late 60s. The main problem with this adaptation is that it takes a suspense story that is already stripped down to essentials and jettisons practically everything that gives it psychological interest. What results is a semiserviceable if formulaic thriller that steadily becomes more contrived and ludicrous, ending with a resurrection out of Fatal Attraction that is silliness incarnate. A depressing sign of decline from a director who once showed some promise. (JR) Read more
Unpleasant and highly derivative, this postapocalyptic bone cruncher (1989), directed by former Kurosawa assistant Albert Pyun and written (after a fashion) by Kitty Chambers, tries very hard to work up a Road Warrior atmosphere in American settings, but the foreign accents tend to run so thick that even with the North Carolina locations (a sign reading Lumberton seems left over from Blue Velvet), the precise location of this Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus special appears to be nowhere. With Deborah Richter, Vincent Klyn, and Dayle Haddon. R, 86 min. (JR) Read more
This second featureafter The Escape Artistof Black Stallion cinematographer Caleb Deschanel stars Aidan Quinn as an early-19th-century American slave trader who becomes shipwrecked and finds himself alone on a desert island with only a dog for company. The first part of the story is a sort of reductive version of Robinson Crusoe, made somewhat contrived by the arch conceit (and coincidence) of the hero being named Crusoe; then a group of natives turn up in a boat, Crusoe saves one of them (Ade Sapara) from a sacrificial death, and most of the remainder of the plot becomes a humanistic allegory a la The Defiant Ones about interracial understanding. The settings are beautiful, but this is pretty simpleminded stuff, and the fact that dialogue is kept to a minimum doesn’t hold back the banality very much. (JR) Read more
Subtitled A Rustbowl Fantasy, this very agreeable and funny low-budget documentary by Tony Buba, set in a steel-mill town just outside Pittsburgh, follows the decline of the area as the mills shut down, as well as Buba’s own 15-year activity as a local independent filmmaker. Concerned with union organizing, his temperamental and eccentric star “Sweet Sal” Carullo, his dwindling finances, and his own soul, Buba has a lot of interesting things to say and show, and this witty and intelligent portrait of him and his community has charm to spare. (Film Center, Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson, Saturday, March 18, 4:00 and 7:45, 443-3737) Read more
David Lean’s 70-millimeter spectacle about T.E. Lawrence’s military career between 1916 and 1918, written by Robert Bolt and produced by Sam Spiegel and released in 1962, remains one of the most intelligent and handsome of all war epics. It is also one of the most influential–films as diverse as Patton and Apocalypse Now, and even The Green Berets, Star Wars, and Dune, have all borrowed liberally from it. And as one of the first “thoughtful” blockbusters built around ambiguity, it also helped pave the way for such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey. Combining the scenic splendor of a De Mille epic (enhanced by Freddie Young’s remarkable desert photography) with virtues of the English theater–including literate, epigrammatic dialogue and superb performances–Lean endeared himself to English professors and action buffs alike, and the film won seven Oscars, including best picture and direction. What seems apparent more than a quarter of a century later, however, is that the ideological crassness of De Mille and most war epics is not so much transcended here as given a high gloss: the theme is still basically the White Man’s Burden–despite all the ironic notations on the subject–with Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, and Omar Sharif called upon to represent the Arab soul, and Jose Ferrer embodying the savage Turks. Read more
The most intricately and cleverly plotted of all the recent body-exchange and/or heaven movies, written by the sisters Perry and Randy Howze (Maid to Order, Mystic Pizza), and directed by Emile Ardolino (Dirty Dancing). I don’t want to give away too much of the story, which invites the spectator to flirt with the idea of at least two kinds of incest, but suffice it to say that the setup involves a happily married young lawyer (Christopher McDonald) who dies and is then reincarnated (as Robert Downey Jr.), and becomes involved with his former family. Because the presiding angel neglected to zap out his memory, he develops an advanced case of deja vu when he encounters his former wife (Cybill Shepherd) and best friend (Ryan O’Neal), while his 22-year-old daughter (Mary Stuart Masterson) poses still other complications. Despite the sudsy, overlit look of William A. Fraker’s cinematography and Downey’s varying success with sight gags, this is still a lot of fun. An additional kicker is added by the picture’s crazed doublethink morality, which implies that incest is OK as long as you’ve got amnesia. (Harlem-Cermak, Burnham Plaza, Chicago Ridge, Golf Mill, Orland Square, Water Tower, Woodfield, Hillside Square, Norridge, Webster Place, Old Orchard) Read more
Winner of the Golden Bear at the 1988 Berlin International Film Festival, Zhang Yimou’s 1987 feature from the People’s Republic of China mixes local history and legend. It follows the adventures of a young bride who is sold by her father to an elderly and wealthy leper, then is carried off by a chair bearer posing as a highwayman, and eventually becomes the head of a sorghum-wine distillery. This is the first feature directed by the cinematographer of Yellow Earth and The Big Parade, and its main virtues are visual — handsome ‘Scope compositions of landscapes and sorghum waving in the wind, and a deft use of color filters. Narrated offscreen by the heroine’s grandson, the plot is set in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and ends with the Japanese invasion of the area. While the action is often intriguing — lyrical in the early sections, whimsical toward the middle, and bloody and suspenseful toward the end — the overall narrative gets broken up quite a bit by the episodic structure, and the film registers mainly as detachable set pieces. (Music Box, Friday and Saturday, March 3 and 4) Read more
Michael Lehmann’s first film as a director and Daniel Waters’s first film as a screenwriter, this misanthropic 1989 black comedy about the cruelty of high school teenagers succeeds at least in being offbeat, but its inanities and glib pretensions are so thick that it mainly comes across as tacky and contrived. The plot centers on Veronica (Winona Ryder), member of an exclusive girls clique whose three other members all call themselves Heather (Kim Walker, Shannen Doherty, and Lisanne Falk), and her nihilistic boyfriend J.D. (Christian Slater), whose pranks quickly turn into a string of murders made to look like suicides. The dialogue is relentlessly fancy without being witty, and the specious moralizing of the plot looks like it was tacked on to appease square adults; the real narrative force behind this movie is nihilist camp, as in Roger Corman’s 1966 The Wild Angels but without the same degree of filmmaking skill. If you’re in a low mood, you might find it funny in spots. R, 102 min. (JR) Read more
Based on the late Maryse Holder’s collection of letters published as Give Sorrow Words, this remarkable and unique Canadian feature follows Holder, as portrayed by Jackie Burroughs (The Grey Fox), on the extended sexual and sensual quest in Mexico that ultimately led to her death. Far from being depressing, the film is life embracing and often exhilarating, thanks in large part to Burroughs’s extraordinary presence and charismatic performance, and the beauty and intelligence of the letters. (Although Holder wrote at one point that she was on vacation from feminism, feminist insights about power and pleasure are still central to her writing.) The film’s methods of conveying the text are original but never simply contrived or clever; Burroughs neither recites nor acts the letters in any conventional manner, but often delivers them straight to the camera (or to the characters she’s with) with a disarming directness. Although the film is very much her show, it is also a collective effort, codirected by Burroughs, producer Louise Clark, cinematographer John Walker, sound person Aerlyn Weissman, and John Frizzell; the unity of their conception really works, and the film breathes with a single fiery voice and vision. (JR) Read more
