A 1979 adaptation by French writer-director Alain Corneau of the Jim Thompson thriller A Hell of a Woman (which Orson Welles once adapted for an unrealized feature)one of those tales of desperation escalating into madness and murder that Thompson seemed to specialize in. The late Patrick Dewaere stars as an unsuccessful salesman living in a Paris suburb whose wife leaves him; he then becomes involved with a woman (Marie Trintignant) whose aunt is hiding a small fortune in her house. You can already hear those James Cain wheels turning. Georges Perec collaborated on the script. In French with subtitles. 111 min. (JR) Read more
A fleet, enjoyable Jackie Chan romp, this belated sequel to the 1979 Drunken Master, which served to launch Chan’s career, brings back his turn-of-the-century folk hero Wong Fei-hong exercising his virtuoso drunken fist sallies against thugs after a long string of provocations. The climactic choreographic rumble is well worth waiting for. The credited director, Lar Kar-leung, who was responsible for the original, was fired by Chan halfway through the shooting, and this appears to be Chan’s show all the way. (JR) Read more
Neither fish nor fowl, Tomas Gutierrez Alea’s touching yet compromised depiction of the persecution of gays in 1979 Havana was directed in collaboration with Juan Carlos Tabio when Alea became ill. It opts for an extremely broad depiction of gay mannerisms and tastes in its treatment of a campy but committed dilettante whom the hero, a university student and ardent communist, comes into contact with. Controversial in Cuba yet only mildly polemical by American standards, this 1993 movie is entertaining and evocative both as storytelling and as a description of intellectual life in Havana, but it also borders on the obvious in certain particulars. Written by Senel Paz; with Jorge Perrugoria, Vladimir Cruz, Mirta Ibarra, and Francisco Calorno. 110 min. (JR) Read more
