FILM LIST
University Film Society.
I Sugarbaby (15) (Percy Adlon. W. Germany. 1985) Marianne Sagebrecht. Eisi Gulp. 86 mins. The unlikely romance between an overweight. middle-aged undertaker‘s assistant and a young subway driver is the engaging focus ofthisquirky offering: a strange beguiling work at once warme appealing and slightly repellent. that forces us to re-examine our notions of sexuality and desirability. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I Tank Malling ( 18) 1k (James Marcus. UK. 1989) Ray Winstone. Amanda Donohoe. Peter Wyngarde. 105 mins. See review. Glasgow: Cannon The Forge or Cannon Sauchiehall Street.
I Teen Wolf ( 15) (Rod Daniel. US. 1985) Michael J. Fox. James Hampton. Susan Ursitti. 91 mins. Pleasant but bloodless comedy with Fox as a teenager who discovers he is also a werewolf. which does wonders for his popularity at school. Strathclyde: Odeon Ayr.
I Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser ( U) (Charlotte Zwerin. US. 1988)Thelonious Monk. Charlie Rouse. Teo Macero. 90 mins. Drawing on fourteen hours of material shot on tour in 1968 for a German TV special. this portrait of modern music‘s pianistic genius is crammed with fascinating footage of Monk on the road. in the studio. and on stage. While the testimonies and narration supply the bare facts. much of the material here shows how bebop’s high priest remains something of a personal enigma. This priceless documentary for music fans is brought to you courtesy of Executive Producer Clint Eastwood. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I The Thin Blue Line ( 15) (Errol Morris. US. 1988) Randall Adams. David Harris. 95 mins. 1n the tradition ofTruman Capote's In Cold Blood comes this astonishing effort from documentary film-maker Errol Morris. who while researching a project in Dallas came
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“A gloriously funny comedy”
International Herald Tribune
“Outrageous, Hilarious and Heartless” 20/20
“John Waters filtered through the bile of Bunuel... Hilarious and savage”
Empire
“For sheer
it can’t be faulted! A fine cast plays it to the hilt” City Limits “The performances are a joy”
“You’ll be too busy trying to get your breath back to mutter anything more than ‘Brilliant’ ”
Time Out
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- I" N ( r. From Sunday 3 December at GFT
across prisoner Randall Adams. sentenced to death for the 1976 murder of a policeman. However. the director-detective became convinced that the case against him had been a tissue of lies. and he set out to track down the man he believed to be the real killer. Combining a number ofshocking interviews with haunting reconstructions of the crime and intriguing fictive elements. Morris has created an innovative and completely compelling piece of work. Glasgow: GFT.
I The Three Amigos (PG) (John Landis. US. 1987) Steve Martin. Chevy Chase. Martin Short. 105 mins. A rare Martin misfire as Steve and the boys go vainly searching for laughs in old Mexico as silent screen stars mistaken for real cowboy heroes. A dreadful comedy-musical fiesta turkey that barely musters a sympathetic . chuckle. Strathclyde: Paisley Arts Centre. i I Torch Song Trilogy ( 15) (Paul Bogart. ' US. 1988). HarveyFierstein. Anne ‘ Bancroft. Matthew Broderick. 119 mins. The story of Arnold. a New York drag queen‘s search for acceptance of his sexual orientation from his mother (Bancroft) and a steady relationship with his lover (Broderick). Adapted from the hit stage show with writer Fierstein taking the lead role. its theatrical roots lead to a sucession of sharp one liners and knock 'em dead musical numbers. The result is a heady mixture of laughter and tears. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I The Toxic Avenger ( 18) (Michael
HerL Samuel Weill. US. 1984) Andree Maranda. Mitchell Cohen. Jennifer Baptist. l()(1mins. Ultratrash offering from the Troma stable. which also brought you Stuff Stefanie In The Incinerator and SurfNazis Must Die. This one has the high school nerd fall into a vat of toxic waste only to emerge as a do-gooding mutant killer. Action highlight: the psycho-bimbo who masturbates over pictures of car crash victims. Ho hum. Edinburgh: Cameo.
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Tank Malling (18) (James Marcus, UK, 1988) Ray Winstone, Amanda Donahue, Peter Wyngarde, Glen Murphy. 105 mins. Embittered and boozing investigative journalist, John ‘Tank’ Malling (Winstone), is reduced to covering society gymkhanas after failing to stand up an expose of politician Sir Robert Knights. In public, Knights (Wingarde) is chairman of the Moral Revival Campaign. In private he runs a massive vice ring, servicing the depravities of top politicians, judiciary and clergy.
With the Establishment in his pocket and the psychotic Cashman (Murphy) to look after his Iicentious property, Knights seems invulnerable. But, surprise, surprise, he keeps a diary which prostitute Helen Searle (Donahoe) has managed to steal. That’s a relief. Let’s hope ‘Tank’ can write his expose before being bumped off.
Baldly stated, the plot has potential. Potential which Tank Malling never achieves. It is the sort of film where the most insulting thing you can call a man
TANK MALLING If It
is ‘poofter’ and women exist because they have breasts.
To be blunt, this is the worst movie I have ever seen. It is sexist, racist, homophobic and London-centric, with no redeeming features. Not even a nomination for a Golden Turkey award. Perhaps the author of ‘The One Thousand Most Banal Lines in Cinematic History’ will find it useful, or a drama student wanting to know how not to stage a fight. But they will be alone.
Writer and director James Marcus should know better than to make such dross as this. After all he played Georgie Boy, one of the droogs in ‘A Clockwork Orange’. Now there was a film about sex and violence, but this is just a nasty little film, prurient and pernicious, with some tits and thumping thrown in to make it commercial. It is precisely this sort of voyeuristic titillation that Kubrick was trying to warn against. As this film so aptly illustrates, he failed.
(Thom Dibdin)
ITrack 29 ( 18) (Nic Roeg. UK. 1988) Theresa Russell. Gary Oldman. Christopher Lloyd. 90 mins. Middle America. bored housewife Russell becomes increasingly lonely in her marriage with eccentric surgeon Lloyd. a man with more time for his train set than his unhappy spouse. ()ne day however. there appears strange Britisher ()ldman. who might be her long-lost son from a brutal teenage sexual encounter at a fair. Brash but unfruitful psychodrama. Central: MacRobertArts Centre.
I The Unbearable Lightness of Being ( 18) (Philip Kaufman. US. 1987) Daniel Day-Lewis. Juliette Binoche. Lena ()lin. 167 mins. Ambitious adaptation of Milan Kundera‘s elliptical. complex novel about a womanising Czech brain surgeon who falls in love for the first time with a doe-like beauty from a small spa town. Abandoning his freewheeling former existence. he faces commitment and togetherness at the time ofthe Prague Spring and Russian invasion of 1968. A dawdling and rather austere narrative is given some spice and interest by an overwhelming eroticism. a beautifully judged evocation of Prague and gorgeous photography. otherwise vastly overlong and uninvolving. Glasgow: (iF'I‘.
I Vamp ( 18) (Richard Wenk. US. 1986) Chris Makepiece. Sandy Baron. Grace Jones. 94 mins. ()ut-of—town undergrads come to town in search of a stripper fora frat party and wind up in the After Dark Club. where the exotic dancers turn out to be voracious vampires. La Jones finally gets the role she was born to play in this engaging recent addition to the Hollywood catalogue of vampiric lore. Glasgow: Cannon The Forge.
I La Vie Est Belle (PG) (Ngangura Mweze
& Benoit Lamy. Zaire/Belgium/France. 1987) Papa Wemba. Bibi Krubwa. 83 mins. Zairean star Wemba more or less plays himself in this high-spirited comedy that looks at an ambitious artist‘sgamc attempts to break into Kinshasa‘s music biz. Engaging frolics with a winning soundtrack. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. I Way Down East (PG) (ow. Griffith. US. 192(1) Lillian Gish. Richard Barthelmess. Lowell Sherman. Seduced and abandoned. a country girl attempts suicide but is saved from drowning by a kindly farmer. Melodrama with all the stops out in the director‘s best style. with the classic sequence on the drifting ice noted for its nail-biting realism. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. I The Wedding ( 15) (Andrzej Wajda. Poland. 1972) Ewa Zeitnek. Daniel ()lbrychski. 110 mins. When a small-town girl marries a poet. her painter brother-in-law invites a welterofartists and intellectuals. a priest and a possessed Jewish woman to the wedding. with all manner ofdisruptive effects on the local rural community. Elaborate fusion of fantasy and reality from the period when Wajda was forced to make non-political movies. Edinburgh: Film Guild. I West Side Story (PG) (Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins. US. 1961) Nathalie Wood. Richard Beymer. RussTamblyn. Rita Moreno. 155 mins. Romeo andJuliet revisited. against a background ofNew York gangs. Great songs ofcourse. but the playing of the stylised dancing against a realistic background contrives to make it all look rather camp these days. Strathclyde: Odeon Ayr. I Who Framed Roger Rabbit?(PG) (Robert Zemcckis. US. 1988) Bob lloskins. Joanna Cassidy. Christopher
18The List 24 November— 7 December 1989