If you thought you might be spared yet another replay of Bambi Meets Godzilla in this international assortment of nearly two dozen irreverent cartoons, collectively R-rated, think again (1988). By rough estimate, eight of these shorts are concerned with sex and eight more with extreme violence (including torture and dismemberment), leaving five devoted to bathroom jokes, and a couple more that might be described as eastern European variations of Saul Steinberg concepts. Nearly half of them coast along on their determination to be scuzzy and/or nasty, but my own favorites in the bunch are good simply because they’re inventive and funny: Bruno Bozzetto’s Strip Tease and Guido Manuli’s Erection (both Italian and raunchy), Wes Archer’s punky Jac Mac and Rad Boy . . . Go! and Bill Plympton’s original and oddball One of These Days (both American and violent), and Michel Ocelot’s French, pithy, and scabrous religious parable Four Wishes. (JR) Read more
Despite a hokey prologue and ending (the latter imposed by producer Charles Evans), this 1988 feature is one of George Romero’s most effective and interesting horror thrillersnot as profound as his remarkable Living Dead trilogy, but unusually gripping and provocative. Based on Michael Stewart’s novel of the same title, the plot concerns Allan (Jason Beghe), a law student who becomes a quadriplegic. His best friend (John Pankow), a scientist who has been experimentally injecting human brain tissue into a monkey named Ella, decides to have the monkey trained by a professional (Kate McNeil) to take care of Allan. But Allan, who becomes involved with the monkey trainer, gradually discovers that Ella is both tapping into and acting upon his repressed ragewith dire consequences for his overbearing mother, shrewish nurse, and former fiancee among others, climaxing in a highly suspenseful confrontation. Like other Romero films, this is both crude and powerful on the level of genre and sophisticated and subtle in its social and psychological implications (which, in this case, mainly have to do with sexual undertonesthe competition of various females, including the monkey, for the hero’s care and affection). Certain characters, like the nurse and the mother, are crudely drawn, but their functions in the overall scheme are shrewdly orchestrated, and what emerges represents an interesting variation on themes from Val Lewton (mainly Cat People) and Alfred Hitchcock (mainly Rear Window). Read more
Throwing caution to the wind, producer-director-cowriter-star Warren Beatty sounds off about politics, delivering his funniest and liveliest film to date (1998). Beatty plays a senator up for reelection who suffers a nervous breakdown, takes out a contract on himself, and with nothing to lose finds himself blurting out what he actually believesmostly in the style of street rap. He addresses the lies of the government in general and the Democratic Party in particular, especially regarding black people, and once he starts hanging out with the daughter of Black Panthers (Halle Berry), whether the two of them will have sex becomes more of an issue than whether he’ll get reelected. This lacks the craft of Preston Sturges or Frank Capra, but it offers a personal statement that may be just as important, and some of it equals Richard Pryor’s concert films in farcical candor and reckless energy. Coscripted by Jeremy Pikser; with Oliver Platt, Jack Warden, Paul Sorvino, Don Cheadle, Amiri Baraka, and lots of enjoyable cameos. R, 108 min. (JR) Read more
Yet another comedy about a boy occupying a man’s body, this one produced by James L. Brooks and Robert Greenhut, written by Anne Spielberg (sister of Steven) and Gary Ross, and directed by Penny Marshall (1988). A teenager attends a carnival, makes a wish about growing up to a fortune-telling machine, and promptly turns into Tom Hanks. While this is marginally better and more serious than most of the other movies in the cycle, the psychological ramifications of the change still aren’t very convincing. The hero in this case becomes an ace executive at a toy company and wins the heart of Elizabeth Perkins (acquitting herself rather well here), but ultimately decides to become a Norman Rockwell teenager again. Once again, the overall premise is milked for some mild titillation involving the hero’s sexual innocence, making one wonder if the genre’s popularity might involve some deeply sublimated form of kiddie pornarguably the distilled ideological essence of squeaky-clean Reaganism. In keeping with the overall Spielbergian metaphysics, even skid row has a scrubbed look here; but as far as the movie’s message is consideredif only grown-ups could be more like kidsJerry Lewis did an infinitely better job of plugging it in the 50s. Read more
Set in Paris in 1926 among American expatriates, this Alan Rudoph feature (1988) isn’t everything one might hope for; Rudolph had wanted to film his and Jon Bradshaw’s script since the mid-70s, and it probably stewed in his consciousness too long. But for the first hour it’s very nearly as good as Choose Me and Remember My Name, and even when it isn’t working it remains fascinating. Set in a claustrophobic world of cafes, studios, and other cluttered interiors, with a great many smoky close-ups and drifting camera movements, the film is about the public profile of modernism more than its inner workings. Rudolph treats all his characters as contemporaries rather than historical figures, and as usual in his work the cover stories of the characters count for more than anything else, even when slipping away. The cast is by and large superb: Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Linda Fiorentino, Genevieve Bujold, Kevin J. O’Connor (as Ernest Hemingway), Wallace Shawn, and John Lone. 128 min. (JR) Read more
An unexpected triumph. Writer-director Ramon Menendez’s 1988 account (based on a true story) of how a math teacher at the mainly Hispanic Garfield High School in East LA (Edward James Olmos) turns a group of students into whizzes at calculus makes for a lively and rousing show. Working with a talented cast (including Lou Diamond Phillips, Rosana DeSoto, and Andy Garcia) and cowriter Tom Musca, Menendez reworks the theme of Blackboard Jungle without the sensationalism or the sexism, and proves that they aren’t needed to give his material a jolt. It’s virtually impossible to dramatize the actual teaching of mathRichard Brooks had even less success in showing the work of an English teacher in Blackboard Junglebut Menendez tells the rest of the story with verve and apparent authenticity, and Olmos is especially effective in focusing the story with a minimum of liberal homilies and a great deal of unglamorous charisma. 105 min. (JR) Read more
