This energetic 1996 bad-taste comedy about bowling champs, from the dudes who brought you Dumb and Dumber, decides to go scummy and scummier by blatantly ripping off several scenes from The Hustler and The Color of Money and cracking endless gags about an ugly woman, the Amish, the hero’s artificial hand, and the bimbo heroine’s breasts. But at least it has Bill Murray. Written by Barry Fanaro and Mort Nathan, directed by Peter and Bobby Farrelly; with Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, Vanessa Angel, and Chris Elliott. 113 min. (JR) Read more
I don’t imagine the Disney people lost any sleep over this live-action telling of the tale of the famous wooden boy, starring Martin Landau as Geppetto, but it’s a very pleasant version, less cruel and nightmarish than Disney’s cartoon predecessor, lacking a fairy godmother, and probably closer to Carlo Collodi’s original story in other respects as well. (The cricket, voiced by David Doyle, is named Pepe, and most of the effects are charmingly low keythough when Pinocchio lies here his nose grows in yards, not inches.) Steve Barron directed from a script he wrote with Sherry Mills, Tom Benedek, and Barry Berman; with Jonathan Taylor Thomas (as the hero), Rob Schneider, Udo Kier, Bebe Neuwirth, and the delightful Genevieve Bujold. (JR) Read more
Like so many regional melodramas of delayed revelations in the PBS mode, this winner of the audience award at the Sundance festival has characterssuch as the cranky owner of a greasy spoon (Ellen Burstyn) and the young former convict (Alison Elliott) who goes to work for herthat seem fairly potent and interesting as long as their secrets are well guarded. Once the beans get spilled, they come across as cliches. But if one can put up with these cliches, and with Marcia Gay Harden’s overacting, there are some nice compensations here, including most of the other performances and the location shooting. Written and directed by Lee David Zlotoff and set in a small town in Maine; with Will Patton, Kieran Mulroney, and Gailard Sartain. (JR) Read more
To the editor:
I’d like to report on an error that appeared in my review of Charles Burnett’s Nightjohn (July 12), traceable to the Disney Channel, which produced the film. Though I reported that the film exists only on video, I discovered shortly after the review appeared that it’s available in 35-millimeter, the format it was shot in, and I happily was able to inform the Film Center in time for it to acquire and screen a print in the original, nonvideo format.
In the same review, I reported that the Disney Channel was sending free copies of the video to people requesting them, and included the appropriate phone number. The day after this number was published, the same PR person who gave me this information called back to say that because of the massive response from the Chicago area, Disney was rescinding its offer. I suppose if any lesson is to be learned, it’s that one should look a gift horse in the mouth.
Jonathan Rosenbaum Read more
Cold Fever
Beginning in Tokyo in a standard screen ratio before expanding to ‘Scope in scenic Iceland, this arresting, oddball 1995 road movie by Fridrik Thor Fridriksson–cowritten by producer Jim Stark (a longtime Jim Jarmusch associate)–is the first Icelandic feature to be released commercially in the U.S. (Nearly all of the dialogue is in English.) Strange, often funny, and occasionally beautiful, it concerns a Japanese businessman (Mystery Train’s Masotoshi Nagase) who’s planning a vacation in Hawaii until his grandfather (the late Seijun Suzuki, ace B-film auteur) persuades him to fly to Iceland during winter and travel cross-country to perform a memorial service at the spot where his parents died in an accident. His absurdist, mock-epic adventures involve both a spiritual quest and a comic travelogue–among the strangers he encounters are a murderous American couple named Jack and Jill (Fisher Stevens and Lili Taylor) and a philosophical, self-styled Icelandic cowboy (Gisli Halldorsson). Stark will introduce the screenings on Friday and Saturday at 9:45 and Sunday at 7:45. Music Box, Friday through Thursday, July 19 through 25.
–Jonathan Rosenbaum
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Photo from Cold Fever. Read more
In your face, but not too likely to remain in your heart or mind long after the lights come on, this aggressive horror farce from Peter Jackson (Dead Alive, Heavenly Creatures) bubbles over with special effects. Its convoluted plot has something to do with a psychic handyman (Michael J. Fox) whose rapport with a trio of male ghosts allows him to perpetrate spirit clearance scams. There’s also a standard haunted house sheltering the disturbed former girlfriend of a crazed killer and lots of other attractions. I found it shrill, ugly, and painful, but some people seem to enjoy it. Robert Zemeckis served as executive producer; Fran Walsh collaborated with Jackson on the script. With Trini Alvarado, Peter Dobson, John Astin, Jeffrey Combs, and Dee Wallace Stone. (JR) Read more
An entertaining but fairly unexceptional comedy from Germany, about a heterosexual hunk (Til Schweiger) who’s thrown out of his girlfriend’s apartment after cheating on her and winds up sleeping in the flat of a gay acquaintance (Joachim Krol) who would love to seduce him. Written and directed by Sonke Wortmann, and based on German comic books by Ralf Konig, this is fairly standard bedroom farce sparked by the bisexual element and reasonably high spirits; it was a monster hit in Germany. (JR) Read more
Adapted by Elizabeth White from Joyce Carol Oates’s novel and directed with a great deal of visual flair and imagination by first-timer Annette Haywood-Carter, this is a story of four teenage girls drawn together by their common alienation and oppression when they encounter a mysterious female drifter. Fairly slow as narrative, but Haywood-Carter’s handling of the female bonding and her highly atmospheric mise en scene make this something rather special. Males, incidentally, are treated just as marginally and as stereotypically in this story as females in most male gang moviesthe subjectivity of the five lead girls tends to rule everythingbut the relatively unknown actresses all do a fine job. With Hedy Burress, Angelina Jolie, Jenny Lewis, Jenny Shimizu, and Sarah Rosenberg. (JR) Read more
The original title of Cheick Oumar Sissoko’s striking and vibrant 1995 folkloric feature from Mali, a film literally dedicated to Africa, is Guimba: A Tyrant, an Epoch. A fantasy complete with magic spells and special effects, it recounts the intrigues that ensue when the title king allows his dwarf son to ride roughshod over their village kingdom to satisfy his lust, demanding that a married woman divorce her husband in order to marry him. Definitely worth seeing; with Falaba Issa Traore and Lamine Diallo. Film Center, Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson, Friday, July 12, 8:00, and Sunday, July 14, 6:00, 443-3737.
–Jonathan Rosenbaum
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Photo from “Guimba the Tyrant”. Read more
Predictably, the first Hollywood studio feature about the gulf massacre (1996) keeps the Iraqi victims as faceless as they were in the news. But in most other respects this is a good, solid, intelligent drama about the ambiguities of what does and doesn’t constitute courage under firedirected by Edward Zwick (Glory) from a script by Patrick Sheane Duncan (Mr. Holland’s Opus) with the sort of sincerity and relative seriousness one associates with John Frankenheimer’s 50s television work and some of his 60s pictures. Denzel Washington very effectively plays a lieutenant colonel who in a moment of confusion orders his tank battalion to fire on American soldiers, killing several of his own men. Plagued by guilt, he’s assigned to review the candidacy of a slain captain (Meg Ryan) for the Medal of Honor, and encounters conflicting versions of her behavior from various witnesses. What emerges may not be quite as cut-and-dried as the movie’s structure sometimes implies. With Lou Diamond Phillips, Michael Moriarty, Matt Damon, and Seth Gilliam. (JR) Read more
Stealing Beauty
After 15 years of filming abroad, Bernardo Bertolucci returns to Italy–albeit principally with English dialogue–to fashion a civilized, mellow, and generally graceful chamber piece that’s literary in a good sense. Written by novelist Susan Minot, this film tells the story of a young American (Liv Tyler), the daughter of a deceased poetess, who returns to a villa occupied by family friends in Tuscany hoping to lose her virginity and discover the identity of her father–two concerns the film regards as intimately intertwined. Switching from his usual standby cinematographer, Vittorio Storaro, to Darius Khondji (Seven), Bertolucci seems less rhetorical and more assured than usual; though this is a far cry from the rapturous lyricism of Before the Revolution, he seems to be working his way back toward the warmth of that picture, perhaps because for a change he’s dealing with a milieu he understands well. Though the film tapers off toward the end, the climactic scene of recognition between the heroine and her father is one of the most exquisite pieces of acting I’ve seen in ages. With Carlo Cecchi, Sinead Cusack, Jeremy Irons, Jean Marais, Donal McCann, D.W. Moffett, Stefania Sandrelli, and Rachel Weisz. Fine Arts, Evanston. –Jonathan Rosenbaum
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Still. Read more
Purple Noon
A very elegant and watchable 1960 French thriller starring Alain Delon in his prime, this film was adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripely by director Rene Clement and Paul Gegauff, best known as Claude Chabrol’s key script collaborator in the 60s and 70s. The Hitchcockian theme–transference of personality–is given almost as much mileage here as in Hitchcock’s own Highsmith adaptation, Strangers on a Train, as Delon decides to take over the identity of a spoiled, wealthy playboy he’s been hired to bring home to his father. Henri Decae’s color cinematography is dazzling (though this print does it less than full justice), and the Italian and Mediterranean locations are sumptuous. With Marie Laforet, Maurice Ronet, and Playtime’s Bill Kearns. Fine Arts. –Jonathan Rosenbaum
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Still. Read more
A thrilling and multifaceted Taiwanese feature (1994) by theater director Stan Lai about both vaultingthe Chinese martial art of leaping enormous distancesand contemporary Taipei. The mysterious coexistence of the past in the present and Lai’s visually impressive style (combined with the work of Chris Doyle, the key cinematographer of the Taiwanese and Hong Kong new wave) make this one of the better Taiwanese features I’ve seen; with Ying Zhaode, Chen Wenming, Nai Weixun, and Li Tongcun. (JR) Read more
Danny Boyle’s second feature (1996, 94 min.), a lot more stylish and entertaining than Shallow Grave. Far from nihilistic, though certainly calculated to butt up against various puritanical norms, this feel-good jaunt about young Scottish heroin addicts and their degradation and betrayals of one another draws a lot of its energy from Richard Lester movies of the 60s and 70s and from A Clockwork Orange (the novel as well as the movie). Adapted by John Hodge from Irvine Welsh’s popular pidgin-English novel (which had already been successfully adapted for the stage) and partially redubbed for American ears, it floats by almost as episodically as 94 minutes of MTV. With Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Robert Carlyle (Priest, The Full Monty), Kelly Macdonald, and Shirley Henderson. R. (JR) Read more
This exquisitely filmed 1992 experimental feature by Svetlana Proskurina, starring her husband Victor Proskurin and written by Andrei Chernykh, concerns a famous stage actor undergoing an identity crisisa theme that may call to mind Bergman, though the mesmerizingly slow camera movements often recall Tarkovsky. Much of the film is erotic and lyrical, with a fair amount of nudity, and there’s an eclectic score with jazz elements by Vyacheslav Gaivaronsky. The unidiomatic and often confusing subtitles make this difficult to follow in spots, but the color images are so ravishing that you may not care. (JR) Read more
