Writer-director Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead and its sequel) hits the big time with a fantasy thriller about a scientist (Liam Neeson) disfigured by villains, who transforms himself into a grisly avenger, unable to feel pain and getting angrier by the minute. Raimi’s flair for jazzy visual effects and extravagant action sequences, combined with direction that is full of punch and energy, makes this the best pop roller-coaster ride around. Unlike Tim Burton’s work on Batman, this shows a sensibility that really likes and understands comic books (although echoes of such classics as Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame aren’t far behind, and be prepared for a fair amount of nastiness and gore). Frances McDormand plays the hero’s dour girlfriend, and Raimi collaborated with Chuck Pfarrer, Ivan Raimi, Daniel Goldin, and Joshua Goldin on the script. With Colin Friels and Larry Drake. (Biograph, Bricktown Square, Burnham Plaza, Edens, Lincoln Village, McClurg Court, Ford City, Evanston, Hyde Park, Bel-Air Drive-In, Double Drive-In) Read more
Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterpiece, which, like his earlier Solaris, is a very free and allegorical adaptation of an SF novel (Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic). After a strange meteorite hits the earth, the region where it fell is sealed off; known as the Zone, it is believed to have magical powers that can grant the most secret wishes of those who enter it, but it can be penetrated only illegally and with special guides. One such guide (Alexander Kaidanovsky), the stalker of the title, leads a writer and a professor (Nikolai Grinko and Anatoli Solonitsin) through the grimiest litter of industrial waste that you’ve ever seen to reach the Zone’s epiphany. What they find is pretty harsh and it has none of the usual satisfactions of SF quests. But Tarkovsky, who regards their journey as a contemporary spiritual quest, does such remarkable things with his mise en scene–particularly very slow and elaborately choreographed camera movements–that you may be mesmerized nonetheless. The film’s final scene is absolutely breathtaking. Not an easy film (and it runs 161 minutes), but almost certainly a great one. With Alice Friendlich (1979). (Facets Multimedia Center, 1517 W. Fullerton, Monday through Thursday, August 27 through 30, 7:30, 281-4114) Read more
Jack Nicholson directs and stars as upscale Los Angeles detective Jake Gittes in the much-awaited, much delayed sequel to Chinatown (1974), scripted, like its predecessor, by Robert Towne and set 11 years later, when Gittes is fatter and even more cynical about his work. Harvey Keitel costars as the other Jake, Meg Tilly plays his unfaithful wife, and this time the local real estate issue is oil rather than water. Despite an extremely complex plot that’s not always easy to follow, Towne’s script, brimming with witty and cynical dialogue, has the functional beauty of a well-made car. Nicholson’s eclectic direction, which occasionally strains after unorthodox angles, doesn’t always have the story-telling mastery that the script requires (although it’s well served by Vilmos Zsigmond’s lush cinematography and evocative production design), but otherwise this is a worthy successor to Chinatown–full of ecological and geological insights into Los Angeles history that recall Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald and give a view of southern California that probably could be written only by a native. With Madeleine Stowe, Eli Wallach, Ruben Blades, Frederic Forrest, David Keith, Richard Farnsworth, Joe Mantell, and Perry Lopez. (Bricktown Square, Burnham Plaza, Golf Mill, Esquire, Old Orchard, Webster Place, Ford City, Harlem-Cermak) Read more
A highly intriguing if not always fully successful first feature by independent writer-director Hal Hartley, shot in his hometown on Long Island, gives us, among other characters, a mechanic mistaken for a priest (Robert Burke) returning from a prison sentence, a politically alienated teenager (Adrienne Shelly), and the teenager’s mercenary redneck father (Christopher Cooke). Fantasies about global annihilation obsess the teenager, fantasies about money obsess her father, and fantasies about a pair of murders apparently committed by the mechanic obsess almost everyone else. The unvarnished quality of some of the acting limits this effort in spots, but the quirky originality of the story, characters, and filmmaking keeps one alert and curious. With Julia McNeal, Mark Bailey, and Gary Sauer. (Fine Arts, Old Orchard) Read more
MO’ BETTER BLUES
** (Worth seeing)
Directed and written by Spike Lee
With Denzel Washington, Lee, Wesley Snipes, Giancarlo Esposito, Robin Harris, Joie Lee, Cynda Williams, Bill Nunn, Dick Anthony Williams, and John Turturro.
First the good news: strictly as an exercise de style, Spike Lee’s fourth joint is in certain respects the liveliest and jazziest piece of filmmaking he’s turned out yet. From the arty close-ups behind the opening credits of–and liquid pans past, and dissolves between–trumpet, lips, and lovers’ grasping hands in blue, yellow, amber, and green to the matching semicircular crane shots that frame the story, this is a movie cooking with ideas about filmmaking. Bringing back a good many of the featured players in Do the Right Thing, and introducing to the Spike Lee stable the highly talented Denzel Washington, Cynda Williams, Wesley Snipes, and Dick Anthony Williams (among others), it’s a movie bursting with personality and actorly energy as well.
Unfortunately, when it comes to characters, story, music, and the relationships between the three, Mo’ Better Blues is both confused and unconvincing–a lot of loose ideas and platitudes rattling around in search of a movie. If I hadn’t expected more from Lee than simple diversion, the fair-to-middling music and the razzmatazz visuals might have sufficed. Read more
An interesting if unevenly acted independent feature by Chicago native Norman Loftis, strikingly shot in black and white on the streets of New York, about a young black petty criminal (Richard Barboza) and his relationships with other criminals, his mother, and his girlfriend (Carolyn Kinebrew). Eclectic in its brushes with modernist techniques, it’s not always successful, but it’s certainly worth a look (1988). (JR) Read more
A moody wartime Fred Astaire musical (1943), full of period flavor, in which Astaire plays a flier on leave who meets and falls for a news photographer (Joan Leslie); musical highlights include My Shining Hour and Astaire dancing alone to his own choreography in One for My Baby. With Robert Benchley, Robert Ryan, and Elizabeth Patterson. (JR) Read more
This campy horror movie about the Lilith legend is dreadful on every countscript (coproducer Joe Augustyn and Walter Josten), direction (Dominique Othenin-Girard), and acting (Isa Andersen as Lilith, and, as her diverse victims, Karen Black, Linden Ashby, Doug Jones, and Gary Hudson), although the fact that it regards sex with even more disgust than the darkest moments of David Lynch may give it some limited distinction. Still, it’s so strident and unpleasant that I suggest you take a pass. With Debra Feuer and Helen Martin. (JR) Read more
Dagmar Beiersdorf’s West German feature about an intense friendship between two womena successful filmmaker and a young black rebel. Featuring director Lothar Lambert as a meddling transvestite friend. Read more
Barry Gifford’s beautifully written picaresque novel about southern lovers on the run, though essentially literary, could have worked as a movie had David Lynch shown some fidelity to the realistic context. Despite several over-the-top interpolationsmainly references to Elvis and The Wizard of Oz and a nutty mobster straight out of Twin PeaksLynch manages to shoehorn in a surprising amount of Gifford’s material, but uses most of it like sofa stuffing. Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern give their all to the lead parts, but they’re handicapped by Lynch’s indifference to characters (as opposed to figures), and the other actors are used so narrowly that they’re mere icons. Willem Dafoe is outfitted with stumpy teeth and a pencil mustache a la John Waters, leading one to the grim hypothesis that the most aesthetically nuanced of the former midnight moviemakers is taking his cues from the least. At least Waters cares about most of his freaks; for Lynch they’re mainly exploitation fodder that seems to come straight out of junior high. 124 min. (JR) Read more
Clint Eastwood assuredly directs this adaptation of Peter Viertel’s roman a clef about the events preceding the filming of The African Queen, with Eastwood himself playing the John Huston characterwho decides to shoot a movie in Africa as an excuse to hunt elephants. In a daring departure from his usual roles, Eastwood doesn’t so much impersonate Huston as offer a commentary on him and on macho bluster in general, and thanks to the beautifully structured script by Viertel, James Bridges, and Burt Kennedywhich also has a lot of interesting things to say about colonialism and Hollywood (both separately and in conjunction with one another)it’s a devastating portrait of self-deceiving obsession, and a notable improvement on Viertel’s book in terms of economy and focus. With Jeff Fahey, George Dzundza, Alun Armstrong, Marisa Berenson, Timothy Spall, and Mel Martin (1990). (JR) Read more
An exceptionally kinky and violent Japanese experimental feature by Shinya Tsukamoto (1989) that’s a prime candidate for midnight cult status. The dialogue is minimal, but the principal meanings are clear enough: this is a highly fragmented, frequently pixilated account of a man and woman, both partially transformed into metal, copulating and mutilating each other with passion and energy. Basically a surreal heavy-metal fantasy like the Mad Max pictures, with gory, slimy textures that recall Eraserhead, and over the top in every respect, Tetsuo: The Iron Man contains enough frenetic motion that you probably won’t be bored, though you may find yourself worn out before the 67 minutes are over. This is obviously not for every tastebut if you like it, there’s a fair chance you’ll like it a lot. (JR) Read more
This is a pretty stupid comedy in spots, with holes wide enough to drive trucks through, and director Arthur Hiller is as clunky as ever, but the cast is so funny and likableabove all, costars Jim Belushi and Charles Grodin, and newcomer Loryn Locklinthat they almost bring it off in spite of itself. The plot is basically Trading Places with added complications: Belushi plays a car thief who contrives to break out of jail in order to attend a Cubs game in Los Angeles; Grodin is an overorganized advertising executive with a neglected wife (Veronica Hamel) who gets sent to LA by his boss to clinch an account. Their paths cross in the LA airport, and thanks to various mishaps, the convict finds himself impersonating the executive at the boss’s Malibu mansion and romancing the boss’s daughter (Locklin) while the executive is mugged, loses his identity, and gets chauffeured around by a former classmate (Anne DeSalvo) whom he can’t stand. The script by Jill Mazursky (daughter of executive producer Paul Mazursky) and Jeffrey Abrams is strictly hit-or-miss, and at times not very nice to some of the female characters, but the charisma of the actors glides one past many of the rough edges. Read more
A beautiful European woman who speaks no English is relentlessly pursued through a cemetery, Chelsea, and a London flat by a camera crew in this 76-minute feature made by Yoko Ono in collaboration with John Lennon in 1969. Though this is no more boring or vapid than the other Ono and Ono-Lennon films I’ve seen, it lasts much longer; candor compels me to admit that I didn’t make it all the way to the end, but I didn’t have the impression that any further revelations were in store. The apparent inspiration was Ono’s anger about the photographers who hounded her and Lennon during this period, and the familiar notion that camera surveillance constitutes a form of rape; what makes it exceedingly unpleasant is that the film seems to be perpetuating this form of cruelty without conveying any new insights about it. (One hopes the victim was at least paid well for her distress.) (JR) Read more
Directorial debuts by actors are most often inauspicious, and films set in no particular country or period are usually worth avoiding. But Bob Hoskins’s first feature as a director, with an original script that he cowrote (with Nicole De Wilde), is a remarkable effort in many respects. During a long war in an unspecified European country, a young recruit named Tom (Dexter Fletcher) injures his officer during an enemy attack and flees from the camp. Disguising himself as a mute madwoman, he is taken in by a gypsylike band headed by Hoskins, whose daughter (Zoe Nathenson) becomes Tom’s lover. This film, which feels like a western in certain spots and a medieval fantasy in others (without ever really becoming either), belongs to no clearly established category, though the ambiguity about both genre and gender, as well as the picaresque and pastoral qualities, occasionally suggests the equally uncategorizable and even more exquisite Sylvia Scarlett (1935). From the opening shot, Hoskins shows a genuine camera sense, and he proves to have a fine sense of ensemble acting as well. He also knows how to take full advantage of the beauties of nature and landscape (the film was shot in Czechoslovakia, with production design by Jiri Matolin). Read more
