Daily Archives: April 1, 1992

Leaving Normal

Although I’m a sucker for just about everything Christine Lahti does, not even she can save this messy, incoherent movie about an abused housewife (Meg Tilly) and a hardened cocktail waitress (Lahti) who decide to start a new life together in Alaska after leaving the town of Normal, Wyoming. It’s possible that Edward Solomon’s script originally may have had something going for it, but in its present form, as directed by Edward Zwick (Glory), it’s a movie that seems less authored than deauthored by someone hacking at random into the original material. With Lenny Von Dohlen, Maury Chaykin, Patrika Darbo, and Eve Gordon. (JR) Read more

Last Chants For A Slow Dance

My own favorite among Jon Jost’s experimental narratives, this chilling portrait of an embittered, misogynistic lumpen proletarian (Tom Blair) driving through western Montana consists mainly of a series of virtuoso long takes. Jost’s highly original technique and Blair’s searing performance combine to create one of the most powerful and provocative psychological profiles of a motiveless killer to be found on film (1977). (JR) Read more

Korczak

A black-and-white 1990 biopic about the last years of Henryk Goldszmit, aka Jan Korczak (Wojciech Pszoniak), the celebrated Polish Jewish saint — a children’s doctor and author of children’s books who accompanied 200 Jewish orphans to the gas ovens of Treblinka. It’s directed by Andrzej Wajda from a script by Agnieszka Holland, and shot by Robby Muller, but despite the talented people involved, the problems of dealing unsentimentally with a Polish national hero are not always solved, and the film has also been understandably criticized abroad (by Shoah‘s Claude Lanzmann, among others) for whitewashing the role played by Poland in facilitating the Nazis’ work. Apart from these serious caveats, the handling of locations and period detail is carefully done, and the film’s sincerity makes up at times for its oversimplifications. (JR)

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K2

Not a prequel to K-9, but still a dog in every other sense. The story, adapted by Patrick Meyers and Scott Roberts from Meyers’s play, is basically an exercise in mawkish pretension with some pretty scenery, about two Americans (Michael Biehn and Matt Craven) who join an expedition to climb K2, the treacherous northern Pakistan peak. Franc Roddam directed, and Raymond J. Barry, Hiroshi Fujioka, Patricia Charbonneau, and Luca Bercovici costar. (JR) Read more

Ferngully . . . The Last Rainforest

This may be the most enjoyable animated feature I’ve seen since Walt Disney dieda passionate ecological fable that combines more wit and wonder than the entire output of some animation studios. Basically a collaborative effort between Australians and Americans, directed by Bill Kroyer (a Disney-trained animator) from a script by Jim Cox based on the FernGully stories by Australian writer Diana Young, it benefits greatly from the voices of Robin Williams, Tim Curry, Samantha Mathis, Christian Slater, Grace Zabriskie, Cheech Marin, and Tommy Chong, as well as from a canny sense of how to use them. The simple story involves the multiple creatures of an enormous rain forest and the grim encroachments of humans, one of whom gets shrunk to insect size and learns what toxic love (as one of the songs calls it) is all about. The rain forest itself is invested with an imaginative depth and variety and a sense of immensity that hark back to the best early Disney features, and the expressionist depiction of deforestation and pollution is equally rich and potent. The score (by several hands) isn’t as memorable as Beauty and the Beast’s, but the dialogue is arguably even funnier. In other words, you should see this (1992). Read more

Faces

John Cassavetes’s galvanic 1968 drama about one long night in the lives of an estranged well-to-do married couple (John Marley and Lynn Carlin) and their temporary lovers (Gena Rowlands and Seymour Cassel) was the first of his independent features to become a hit, and it’s not hard to see why. It remains one of the only American films to take the middle class seriously, depicting the compulsive, embarrassed laughter of people facing their own sexual longing and some of the emotional devastation brought about by the so-called sexual revolution. (Interestingly, Cassavetes set out to make a trenchant critique of the middle class, but his characteristic empathy for all of his characters makes this a far cry from simple satire.) Shot in 16-millimeter black and white with a good many close-ups, this often takes an unsparing yet compassionate documentary look at emotions most movies prefer to gloss over or cover up. Adroitly written and directed, and superbly actedthe leads and Val Avery are all uncommonly good (and the astonishing Lynn Carlin was a nonprofessional discovered by Cassavetes, working at the time as Robert Altman’s secretary)this is one of the most powerful and influential American films of the 60s. 129 min. (JR) Read more

The Double Life Of Veronique

An exquisite enigma by Krzysztof Kieslowski (Decalogue) following the parallel lives of two 20-year-old women, one in Poland and one in France, both played by the beautiful Irene Jacob. The Polish Veronika is a talented singer with a heart condition; the French Veronique quits her voice lessons and gets involved with a puppeteer who writes children’s books. Masterfully directed, this rather dreamlike 1991 French-Polish production explores a dual nature that seems to grow uncannily out of the coproduction situation itselfalmost as if Kieslowski were dreaming of a resurrected artistic identity for himself as Polish state financing went the route of Polish communism. With Philippe Volter, Halina Gryglaszewska, Kalina Jedrusik, and Aleksander Bardini. In French and Polish with subtitles. 98 min. (JR) Read more

Delicatessen

Not surprisingly, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, the directors of this 1991 postapocalyptic French comedy about a tenement and butcher’s shop, come from experimental video and animation, and Gilles Adrien, who helped them write the macabre script, comes from comic books. Some pale echoes here of French poetic realism (mainly Clair and Carne), Gilliam, Lynch, and the Coen brothers, but despite the singular appearance of the hero (Diva’s Dominique Pinon), there are no characters to care about or remember afterwardjust a lot of flashy technique involving decor, some glib allegorical flourishes, and the obligatory studied film-school weirdness. With Marie-Laure Dougnac, Karen Viard, and Jean-Claude Dreyfus. In French with subtitles. 95 min. (JR) Read more

Deep Cover

Larry Fishburne plays a cop who poses as a Hollywood drug dealer to infiltrate and destroy a cocaine cartel, but gradually discovers that the U.S. State Department has another agenda. Amply fulfilling the promise shown in A Rage in Harlem, director Bill Duke does a terrific job in spelling out the grim implications of this exceptionally violent 1992 picture, scripted by Henry Bean and Michael Tolkin (The Rapture). What emerges is a powerhouse thriller full of surprises, original touches, and rare political lucidity, including an impressive performance by Jeff Goldblum as a Jewish yuppie gangster. With Victoria Dillard, Charles Martin Smith, Sydney Lassick, Clarence Williams III, Gregory Sierra, and Roger Guenveur Smith. 92 min. (JR) Read more

City Of Joy

Patrick Swayze stars in a Christian parable of sorts about a disgruntled American doctor who reluctantly resumes practicing at a combination school, clinic, and dispensary run by a middle-aged woman (Pauline Collins) in one of the poorest sections of Calcutta. This story alternates with and eventually joins that of a poor laborer (Om Puri) who brings his family to Calcutta, where he gets a job pulling a ricksha for the local godfather-extortionist (Shyamanand Jalan) while his wife works as the doctor’s assistant. Both characters wind up in violent conflict with the godfather and his son (Art Malik) after the clinic decides to treat lepers. Adapted by Mark Medoff from a book by Dominique Lapierre, this is a bit lumpy as narrative, as director Roland Joffe’s movies often turn out to be, but at times sincerity helps to make up for the long-windedness. With Shabana Azmi and Nabil Shaban. (JR) Read more

Chameleon

This 1978 feature about a slick Los Angeles coke dealer (Bob Glaudini), winner of the best of the festival award at the U.S. Film Festival, represents Jon Jost’s earliest effort to make a fairly straight commercial narrative film. For this reason, some viewers prefer it to his more experimental works, but I find it relatively familiar and literary in its existential conceitsthough nothing Jost does is wholly without interest. (JR) Read more

The Addams Family

If macabre one-liners are your poison, you should probably make a beeline for this 1991 big-budget adaptation of the Charles Addams cartoons and the TV sitcom derived from them. Otherwise there’s not much to flesh out the slender sitcom plot, and little attempt to make up for the lack of character development in the original material. Anjelica Huston and Raul Julia certainly make a sporting effort by being as charming as possible, and the director (Barry Sonnenfeld) and screenwriters (Caroline Thompson and Larry Wilson) seem to have worked overtime trying to come up with fresh ideas. But it’s still an extended collection of one-liners and not much more. With Christopher Lloyd, Christina Ricci, Jimmy Workman, and Judith Malina. PG-13, 102 min. (JR) Read more