And now live from a cellar near Glasgow the Videos on offer during the fortnight. I Soccer Legends: Law, Best and Charlton Remember them'.’ They were the ones in the pre-Gazza era that football pundits used to talk about. Needless to say. Best steals the show. which is no mean feat considering the quality of the opposition. Charlton used to accuse him of ‘llangingonto the ball— he'd dribble it out to the corner flag and back in and he'd be waltzing around doing nothin‘. So then I opened my mouth and said “pass the ball you little - oh. great goal George." (BBC Video. £9.99)
I Cinema Paradiso Guiseppe Tornatore‘s loving tribute to the cinema of his childhood won this year's Best Foreign Film Oscar. Told in flashback. it begins with a film-director attending the funeral of an old projectionist (Phillipe Noiret). The whole is both a lament for lost innocence and a tribute to the power of the cinema. Part of an impressive range of foreign films. including Monsieur Hire and Jesus ( )f Montreal which Palace have released for sale. despite resistance front the conservative tastes of most video shops. (Palace. £l-199)
.. A} I Born On The 4th OfJuly Tom Cruise gets serious in Oliver Stone’s Oscar- winning anti-Vietnam war film. The former ( 'ocktuil shaker and all-round hunk portrays ‘Nam vet Ron Kovic with a fair degree of integrity. Having grown up and joined up he ‘catches a bad one‘ and finds his country just isn‘t interested in him anymore. Kovic himself was involved in the 3 making of the movie. j which may have helped » temper some of Stone's l unsubtle edges. (CK‘. j rental)
' Eccentrics
Television needs eccentrics, the way tuna needs mayonaise. In the forthcoming series of Home At Large, on BBC Scotland, the ubiquitous Mr
Hume devotes an entire episode to
eccentric Scots. Will they add to the list of eccentrics that TV has already made famous, some of whom are several stamps short of the full license fee.
1. Will Lunn: A Heath Robinson for the 703, the gnome-like Lunn first appeared on Vision 0n and quickly became known for his ability to make a complete balls-up of a simple task. If it didn't have a train, marbles or a cuckoo
: in it, then itjust wasn‘t worth tinkering
with. Currently rumoured to be working
on a cold nuclear fusion device, using a
I jam jar and a Lego Techno set. 2. Professor Heinz Wolff: The undoubted star of BBCZ’s annual
sporting contest for boffins —The Great Egg Race. As the teams laboriously addressed the problem of propelling an
' egg as far as possible, using only an
elastic band and some of Will Lunn's
a left-overs, Wolff would decry their
efforts from on-high using an accent that Hammer House of Horror actors would have given their eye-teeth for.
3. Dr Magnus Pyke: Plucked from obscurity as a high speed semaphorist, he made his name on Don’t Ask Me and other psuedo-scientific programmes of the 70s. A propensity to talk very fast and windmill his arms, a la Mike
Investigative reporter George Hume onlhe trail of outlandish characters, Monday3 (BBC1)8—8.30pm.
Channon, made him equally attractive to Blue Peter producers and Mike Yarwood.
4. Ian McCaskilI: Hallo.
5. Keith Floyd: Boozey, fun-loving chef of the — here’s one I prepared earlier, and here are several I drank earlier— brigade. His attempt to escape the kitchen, in Floyd On TV, was roundly panned and he is now back at the cooker controls.
6. Patrick Moore: Host of the BBC’s interminable The Sky At Night, where he always looked like he had just bumped into his viewfinder. His true claim to fame came when he was invited to play his xylophone on The Morecambe And Wise Show.
7. Giles Brandeth: Wordsmith of a thousand jumpers and stalwart of Give Us A Clue and Countdown. Recently voted: Man On TV I Would Most Like To Punch. (Ross Parsons)
_ Hot and bothered
Billing it as THE visual treat of 1990 may be overselling it, but there‘s little doubt that the talent on display in Red
f Hot And Blue will make Top OfThe Pops I
look like an episode of Come Dancing. The 90-minute televisual extravaganza features an array of
; talented musicians performing their interpretations of Cote Porter's T sophisticated songs. The film crew are
no slouches either, with a host of top directors lending a hand for the sake of
charity. Among the highlights will be:
U2 (Night and Day) directed by Wim Wenders, Neneh Cherry (I've Got You Under My Skin) directed by Jonathan Demme, k.d. Iang (So In Love) directed by Percy Aldon, Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop (Well, Did You Ever) directed by
a Alex Cox, Jim Jarmusch directing Tom
Waits and David Byrne directing
himself. Other arists appearing are: the
Jungle Brothers, Erasure, the Fine
Young Cannibals, Sinead O’Connor and
: Lisa Stansfield.
The show will be broadcast on World
3 Aids Day, 1 December, and according
I to its producer Leigh Blake, it provides
jg "A perfect vehicle to educate peogle
with. We are targetting a young
: audience who need responsible
: information about HIV infection, and
| we are using popular culture to get the
| information across in a very positive way.‘
Red. hot and bothered Cole Porter atthe controls.
If the prospect of yet more proselytising overAlDS, no matter how well wrapped up in popular entertainment, doesn’t appeal there are other programmes throughout the week which tackle the subject and actually attempt some form of analysis. Women HIV And AIDS (Channel 4, 27 Nov, 9—10pm) takes a long-awaited look at the problems of HIV infection from a female point of view. Too often perceived as a gay male disease, there has a been a tendency to ignore women’s perspectives in pamphlets and TV programmes. This film which took two years to research and make hopes to go some way to redressing the balance;
(Ross Parsons)
Red Hot And Blue (Channel 4) Saturday 1 Dec, 10—11.3me. Women HIV and AIDS (Channel 4) Tuesday 27 Nov, 9—10pm.
I Enemies, A Love Story New York. post World
War ll. and Herman Broder (Ron Silver) isa hopeless and hapless philanderer. not long out of a concentration camp. Life gets complicated for him when he marries his erstwhile maid (Margaret Sophie Stein) and throws himself into an affair with fellow camp survivor Masha (Lena Olin) only to find that his first wife Tamara (Angelica lluston) is still alive. Hence the well known Yiddish phrase ‘Ten enemies can‘t harm a man as much as he can himself.‘ Paul Mazursky manages to sensitvely distil despair and self hatred with just the right amount of black humour. (20:20 Vision. rental)
I Torch Song Trilogy Arnold. a New York drag artist searches for acceptance from his mother. Anne Bancroft. and for a steady relationship with lover. Matthew Broderick. in this touching. off-beat comedy. llarvey Fierstein successfully transfers the role he created for himself on Broadway onto the big screen. maintaining the succession of sharp one-liners. (RCA/Columbia. £9.99)
I Pretty Woman An early release into the world of video for Garry Marshall's enormously successful romantic comedy. Having fallen on hard times in l lollywood. pretty country girl Julia Roberts takes tip with some racy company and ends tip walking the streets. One night. she finds herselfwith hard-nosed businessman Richard (iere and in time-honoured box office tradition the two fall for each other. llackneyed'.’ (‘lichedi’ Without a doubt. Although it has a refreshing lightness of touch and is a cert to make it to number one in the rental charts over ('hristmas. (Warner. Rental) IThe Best of PeterSellars Consisting mainly of well-worn gags front the Pink Panther films. it also contains a few gems from his old black and white film days. All of his comic creations are works of genius however, and he warrants a video of his own best moments more than many another who has received this accolade. (Virgin. £9.99)
82 The List 23 November - 6 December 1990