his band. Worth seeing all the same. but patience is required. Edinburgh: Cameo. Filmhouse.
I Mother Malj ( 15) (Gleb Panfilov. USSR. 1990) Inna Churikova. Dmitrij Pevsov. 201 mins. Pevsov won the European Film Award for Supporting Actor. of the Year playing the son in Panilov‘s adaptation (the third to be made) of Gorky’s novel. The story tells of a much-beleaguer woman who follows her son into political idealism and — eventually — exile in Siberia. Glasgow: GET.
I My Blue Heaven (PG) (Herbert Ross. US. 1990) Steve Martin. Rick Moranis. Joan Cusack. 96 mins. Jolly but unremarkable pairingof Martin and Moranis. as a retired gangster and his FBl minder. assigned to keep him straight in a suburban hell. Guess what‘.’ It ain't easy. The script by Nora When Harry . . . Ephron helps keep the comedy rolling. though. and all in all it's quite good fun. though too basically safe for any serious belly laughs. Edinburgh: UCl. Strathclydc: UCl East Kilbridc.
I Near Dark ( 18) (Katherine Bigelow. US. 1987) Adrian Pasdar. Jenny Wright. Lance l'lenriksen. 98 mins. A chance sexual encounter for a Texas youth leads to his abduction by a group ofmarauding bloodsuckcrs and his difficult transformation to their parasitic mode of existence. As vampire-biker westerns go. this is a pretty good one. Glasgow: Grosvenor.
I The Neverending Story 2: The Next Chapter(U) (George Miller. US. 1990) Jonathan Brandis. Kenny Morrison. Clarissa Burt. John Wesley Shipp. 90 mins. Returning to the mysterious landof Fantasia via the magic book preserved in Mr Corcander‘s bookshop. Bastian Balthazar Bux (Brandis) meets up with friends old and new. and when imagination comes under threat. he once again participates in the struggle between good and evil. Lots of special cffcctsand philosophical intricacies make this an entertaining and absorbing follow-up to the 198-1 original. Glasgow: Cannon Clarkston Road. Cannon The Forge. Cannon Sauchichall Street. Salon. Edinburgh: Cannon. UCI. Central: Cannon. Strathclydc: Cannon. La Scala. UCI Clydebank. L'Cl East Kilbride. WMR Film Centre.
I Points East: Polish Films and Latvian Videos A seven-hour programme offering a wide range of work from liberated Eastern Europe. part of a major event organised in conjunction with the Third Eye Centre. Sec GET programme for full listing of titles. See also Art preview. Glasgow: GET.
I Presumed Innocent ( 15) (Alan J. Pakula. US. 1990) Harrison Ford. Greta Scacchi. Bonnie Bedelia. Brian Dcnnehy. Raul
Julia. Paul Winfield. 120 mins. Courtroom
drama with l larrison Ford as the upright state prosecutor accused of the murder of his colleague. Greta Saatchi. with whom he was having an affair. Raul Julia shines as the brilliant defence lawyer determined to get him off. Ex-lawyer Scott Turow‘s best seller gets the prestige big-screen treatment from veteran director AlanJ Pakula who returns to the themes ofhis 7(ls' movies The Parallar View and All The President's Men. in this thoughtful vision of corruption running through America‘s Corridors of power. Glasgow: Cannon The Forge. Edinburgh: Dominion. UCI. Strathclydc: UCl Clydcbank. I Queen Christina (U) (Rouben Mamoulian. US. 1933) Greta Garbo. John Gilbert. Lewis Stone. 100 mins. A great performance from the girl Greta lifts this above the usual level ofhistorical romance. as she portrays the l7th century Swedish queen falling for Gilbert‘s ' Spanish Ambassador. Edinburgh University Film Society. I Ba: The Path of the Sun God (U) (Lesley Keen. UK. 1990) 72 mins. Scots animator Lesley Keen and her team worked for four
FILM
MIAMI BLUES
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Miami Blues (George Armifage, US, 1990) Alec Baldwin, Fred Ward. JenniferJason Leigh. Fresh out of jail, Junior (Baldwin) arrives at Miami Airport, murders a flare Krishna fanatic in the arrivals hall and checks into a hotel where his first engagement is with call girl Pepper (Leigh). The two of them instantly move beyond a business relationship and Peppertells him about her college studies and her plans to stake out a little portion of the American Dream with the immoral earnings she's saved up. But Junior’s big ideas go along very different lines and mostly involve confidently muscling in on the local crooks out on the street. Drug dealers and muggers are brutally relieved of their foot and then, when cop Hoke Moseley (Ward) loses his badge and false teeth to him, the trickery is taken a stage further with Junior doling out his eccentric brand of lawless enforcement to any bad guy unlucky enough to cross his path. Based on the Charles Willeford novel, Miami Blues is heavy on offbeat detail and quirky charcter traits but very weak on pace and plotting. A
.3 satirical demolition job on the gloss and glamour ofthe likes of Miami Vice, the Florida on display here is enthusiastically shallow, sleazy and superficial and thus the perfect backdrop to Junior‘s brand of bare-faced trickery. Ward's scruffy cop spends most of the film lamenting the loss of his favourite set of choppers; wide-eyed Pepper's biggest ambition is to buy a Burger World franchise and the home she soon shares with her new lover is straight out of a TV soap opera. Too insistent in its eccentricity to work as a whole and never quite pulling off the hitch between slick action movie and social satire. Miami Blues gets by on a trio of very keen performances with Baldwin, Ward and Leigh all turning their characters' tiny minds to comic advantage in a world where violence and humour go hand in hand. A likeable, funny and above all, different, game of cops and robbers. (Torn Tunney)
From Fri 14 Dec. Glasgow: Cannon The Forge, Odeon. Edinburgh: UCI.
years. painstakingly drawing and assembling this remarkable feature. a visual panorama of the art and ideasof ancient Greece that further expands the director‘s interest in animated filmmaking with a definite intellectual content expressed through formal innovation. Glasgow; GET.
I The Reflecting Skin (15) (Philip Ridlcy. UK. 1990) Jeremy Cooper. Lindsay Duncan. Viggo Mortensen. Sheila Moore. Duncan Fraser. 91 mins. In a remote Canadian farming community. 8-year old Seth (Cooper) decides that a harmless but desperately lonely widow (Duncan) is a vampire. His two buddiesarc mysteriously murdered. his father's response is appalling. and his brother returns from Bikini Atoll with nuclear
sickness. The ending could be described as
tragic if there were any catharsis. but instead this is a nastily unresolved
catalogue of pain. heralding Seth's unhappy and premature arrival into adulthood. The photography and acting are fine. but there's no light at the end of the tunnel. Comparisons with Lynch are. unfortunately. inevitable. Glasgow: Gl’l‘. I Bepossessed ( 15) (Bob Logan. US. 1990) Linda Blair. Leslie Nielsen. Ned Beatty. Lana Sch“ ab. 85 mins. Ms Blair made her name by vomiting copious green ectoplasm. rotating her head and growling obscenities in the voice ofSatan. Nowshc returns in a silly send-up of The Ifxoreis! which. despite the inclusion ofa few nods to devotees of that still-popular barrel of fun. and a televised exorcism-athon . sets the sights ofits humour far too lowand leaves the intelligent moviegoer feclinga bit cheated. Glasgow: ('annon The Forge. ()deon. Edinburgh: ()deon. L’CI. Strathclydc: l'('l (‘lydebank. [.7( ‘l liast Kilbridc.
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The List 7 -— 20 December 1990 23