After being deposited by his crack-addicted mother (Halle Berry) in a Chicago inner-city garbage can, a baby is adopted by an upscale social worker (Jessica Lange). The natural mother, out of rehab, decides she wants her child back, and a court battle ensues. The highly charged tug-of-war, adapted by Naomi Foner from a novel by Seth Margolis and directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal, is certainly given force and distinction by the actors. But lamentably, the PC climate seems to have ensured that the racial questions being debated here would overwhelm the economic ones, and viewers never come close to learning enough about the characters to reach an intelligent verdict on their own. A studio that dared to make such a picture 50 or 60 years ago probably would have come up with a solution unthinkable by today’s standards: the original mother going to work as a cook for the social worker. This is an absorbing and involving picture, but the terms propounded here limit the story, which depends almost entirely on emotions rather than on thought. With David Strathairn, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Samuel L. Jackson. (JR) Read more
Yet another daisy chain of narratives in the manner of La ronde, this one a watchable first feature (1994) by writer-director Jeremy Podeswa that uses sex, both gay and straight, to make the various connections. Set in Toronto shortly before a solar eclipse, it circles around ten characters, each of whom figures as seducer and seduced. With Earl Pastko, Von Flores, John Gilbert, and Matthew Ferguson. (JR) Read more
The most famous and probably best film by the late, neglected Russian pioneer Alexander Medvedkin (the last bolshevik in Chris Marker’s video of that title ). This late silent surrealist masterpiece (1934), hilarious and daring, combines the pie-eyed magical realism of a Gogol with what might be described as a mordant communist folk wisdom. Well worth seeing. (JR) Read more
I ‘ve always assumed it would be impossible to photograph such a glorious and mysterious sight as the northern lights, but Canadian experimental filmmaker Peter Mettler has done it. His fascinating, beautiful, and evocative documentary feature (1994) about his trip to the Canadian arctic is a mixture of science and poetry that indirectly recalls Michael Snow’s La region centrale, though it’s much easier to watch. (JR) Read more
Before the late Robert Wise got mired in superproductions like West Side Story and The Sound of Music he was a much-better-than-average noir specialist, and this 1958 account of a real-life prostitute and crook, Barbara Graham, who went to the gas chamber after reportedly being framed for murder, is a good example of his gritty realism and liberal vantage point. Susan Hayward won an Oscar for her lead performance, and Johnny Mandel’s jazz score is a classic; the script is by Nelson Gidding and Don Mankiewicz. With Simon Oakland, Virginia Vincent, Theodore Bikel, and John Marley. 120 min. (JR) Read more
This 1994 Russian fantasy-comedy by Yuri Mamin has a fetching premise: a young music teacher in Saint Petersburg who’s renting a room in a family flat discovers a hidden window inside his closet that leads directly into Paris, and many comic misadventures ensue as he and his flatmates pass back and forth between the cities. There are several pointed satirical details: since the collapse of communism the school where the hero teaches has shifted its emphasis from aesthetics to business, and framed blowups of world currencies now decorate the walls; in dance classes the kids perform like Bob Fosse chorus lines. The film is no less sparing when it comes to the pretensions of the French (in particular a woman taxidermist who lives next door in Paris). But Mamin tends to be a rather scattershot director, and this feature runs out of ideas and energy well before its 90 minutes are over. In Russian with subtitles. (JR) Read more
Judging from what I sampled, this is a silly but enjoyable Hong Kong camp romp (1994), directed by Jeff Lau and with the same basic cast (Leslie Cheung, Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia, Jacky Cheung, Maggie Cheung) and story as Wong Kar-wai’s much more serious Ashes of Time, which was made around the same time. It’s full of swordplay, pratfalls, and other kinds of acrobatics, and the fantasy details include jet-propelled silver boots, a crystal ball, and a magic drum. The decor is gaudy, and the speed is delirious. (JR) Read more
This documentary by Jonathan Blank about contemporary Dutch tolerance regarding prostitution and soft drugs is a video that’s been transferred to film, so the image quality is terrible (the sound-bite and image-bite format is also fairly monotonous). But you may find the content engaging if you aren’t already familar with the commonsensical, humane laws in contemporary Holland and how successful they seem to be. As a commentary on a functioning welfare state with little poverty or extreme wealth, this may ultimately be more a film about this countryor at least a film addressed to the U.S.; there’s a pointed segment, for instance, about the relative scarcity of guns. (JR) Read more
This 1980 romantic comedy, set in Pasadena, Texas, and loosely inspired by an Aaron Latham article in Esquire, was supposed to have been a John Travolta vehicle, but its lasting importance is arguably more its function as a showcase for the unbridled sensuality of Debra Winger, his costar. Undoubtedly dated in terms of sexual politics, it remains one of her most memorable efforts. Directed by James Bridges, who scripted the movie with Latham; with Scott Glenn and Madolyn Smith. 135 min. (JR) Read more
Appropriately and suggestively, the title of Francoise Romand’s first feature (1994), based on Frederic Dard’s thriller The Executioner Weeps, translates as Past Imperfect. Like her inventive documentaries Mix-up and Call Me Madame, it deals with the construction of personal identity. On the Mediterranean coast of Tunisia a gloomy Jewish war photographer fleeing his past saves the life of a mysterious woman suffering from amnesia and carrying $300,000 (Helas pour moi’s heroine, Laurence Masliah). In helping her discover who she is and how she came by the money, he enters a metaphysical labyrinth that produces more questions than answers. This movie doesn’t offer many of the satisfactions of a conventional thriller, and the action flags a bit toward the end, but it’s a provocative, troubling, and haunting spellbinder just the same, beautifully shot and originally conceived. The sound track is especially striking. (JR) Read more
Sam Raimi tries to do a Sergio Leone, and though this 1995 feature is highly enjoyable in spots, it doesn’t come across as very convincing, perhaps because nothing can turn Sharon Stone into Charles Bronson. Gene Hackman runs a western town like a decadent Roman emperor, obliging various inhabitants to perform shoot-outs with one another, and Stone turns up thirsting for revenge. Raimi has a lot of fun with certain Leone conventions (huge close-ups, hokey flashbacks, hyperbolic lines and gestures), and adds a few of his own (like some morphing effects out of Death Becomes Her), but he flubs some moments (most noticeably by cutting away from several gunfights at climactic junctures) and generally seems hamstrung by Stone’s determination to play simultaneously the most and least macho character in the story. Written by Simon Moore; with Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobin Bell, Roberts Blossom, Kevin Conway, Keith David, Lance Henriksen, Pat Hingle, and Woody Strode (whose talents are wasted). 105 min. (JR) Read more
Gregg Bordowitz’s deconstructive autobiographical essay (1993) about his discovery in 1988 that he was HIV positive and about his subsequent life, including his decision to quit drugs and drinking and to come out to his mother and stepfather. Making semi-ironic use of Jewish music and diverse kinds of silent and sound footage, Bordowitz speaks about his late father and his sex life; he also includes his own documentary footage of AIDS rallies, conversations with friends (including filmmaker Yvonne Rainer), a tour of his bookshelves, and a sarcastic parody of the way the media have treated AIDS. Nothing in this work is taken for granted, and Bordowitz’s bracing anger and inventive playfulness are both life enhancing. 54 min. (JR) Read more
After a decade’s absence, Jerry Lewis made his comeback in 1981 with this movie, which represents a throwback in some respects to the conditions of his first film as a director, The Bellboy: a low budget, discontinuous gags, and Florida locations (in this case suburban). But two decades separate that film from this one, and what Lewis comes up with here is both looser and more tragicnot merely in depicting the vain efforts of an out-of-work circus clown to hold down a steady blue-collar job, but in showing the effects of aging and lessened stamina in its star (reflected also in the tired, memorable features of Lewis’s straight man, Harold J. Stone, who plays his boss at the post office and the father of his girlfriend). The candor of this movie as self-portrait is at times almost terrifying; while some of the gags are genuinely funny, the depiction of an older Lewis trying to adjust to everyday American life also becomes a searing depiction of the fate of misfits in the Reagan era. Lewis has described this as his worst movie, but it also may be his most revealing one. With Susan Oliver and Steve Franken. (JR) Read more
Insofar as Tsui Hark’s lively and epic (if familiar) original was already something of a twice-told tale, his 1992 sequel, which literally starts off with a reprise of the acrobatic sequence that ended its predecessor, should perhaps be called Thrice Upon a Time in China. It continues the saga of surgeon and martial-arts master Wong Fei-hong in China around the turn of the century; with Jet Li and Rosamund Kwan. 112 min. (JR) Read more
Billed as the first Japanese cartoon attacked for violence, this feature-length SF animation about two kung fu schools doing battle in World War Four for control of the planet will be shown with another banned Japanese SF cartoon, M.D. Geist (Most Dangerous Ghost). Sponsored by the Psychotronic Film Society. Read more
