22 The List 12 — 25 July 1991
FILM INDEX
I Dumbo (U) (Ben Sharpsteen, us, 1941) I 64 mins. The rest of the circus animals make fun of the little elephant with the
huge ears, but he discovers they have a use after all. Classic Disney: timeless entertainment. Glasgow: GFT.
I Everybody Wins (15) (Karel Reisz, UK. 1989) Debra Winger, Nick Nolte, Will Patton, Judith Ivey. 97 mins. To the small New England town of Highbury comes Nolte‘s private investigator, hired by an enigmatic local woman (Winger) when a young boy is framed for a murder. Classically, he finds that his employer is
the real centre of the mystery, but what does she really know? Written by Arthur Miller, and directed by the man behind
The French Lieutenanr’s Woman, this is a
complex and subtle character movie, which will intrigue but may also confuse. Glasgow: GF'T. I The Exorcist (18) (William Friedkin, US. 1973) Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn, Max Von Sydow. 110 mins. Earnest priest Von , Sydow steps in to save poor little obsessed girl in this hugely effective scarefest. Dead good, dead scarey, dead priest. Strathclyde: Odeon Ayr. I Fahrenheit 451 (15) (Francois Truffaut. UK, 1966) Oskar Werner. Julie Christie, Cyril Cusack, Anton Diffring. Shades of 1984 in this depiction ofa fascist future 1 state where firemen burn books in orderto ! uphold a society where television deadens - the mind. Werner is the man who becomes a small scale rebel by refusing to set literature alight. An underrated film, interestingly shot by Nic Roeg in his pre-directing days. Edinburgh: Cameo. I Fear ( 18) (Rockne S. O’Bannon, US, 1990) Ally Sheedy, Lauren Hutton. Michael O‘Keefe. 95 mins. Sheedy stars as an LA psychic with a talent fortracking down psychopaths by reading their thought patterns, a pursuit on which she‘s i built a thriving career as an author. She foresees an early retirement writing : books, but takes on one last case, failingto 1 predict that thistime her quarry has i psychic powers too. Po-faced and rather l l l l l
silly chiller, with nothing new to add to the genre and an uncertain hand on the suspense controls. Glasgow: GFT.
I The Field (12) (Jim Sheridan, Eire,
1990) Richard Harris, John Hurt, Tom Berenger, Brenda Fricker. 110mins.
Based on John B. Keane’s stage play, i Sheridan‘s follow-up to the immensely l successful My Left F00! is a rural tragedy i set in 1939. Harris stars as The Bull, an lrish farmer in competition with an American for the purchase ofthe field he‘s 1. worked for years. As their struggle intensifies, so violence and revelations are unleashed which draw him inexorably to an awful fate. Glasgow: GFT. Edinburgh: I Filmhouse.
I The Flavour Of Green Tea Over Bice (PG) (Yasujiro Ozu, Japan, 1952) 115 mins. GFT‘s Ozu season continues with one of his funniest films on his familiar ground of marriage and relationships. Shaken out of the routine drudgery of middle-age by 1 their over-enthusiastic niece, a childless ' couple begin to reappraise their marriage. Full of classic set-pieces. Glasgow: GF'T. I The Freshman (PG) (Andrew Bergman, US, 1990) Matthew Broderick, Bruno Kirby, Marlon Brando, Maximilian Schell. 102 mins. The youthful-looking Broderick arrives in New York to begin a ' course in film studies, and immediately falls prey to Kirby‘s hustler. Worse isto come, though, When Kirby makes amends by introducing him to Uncle Brando, a wealthy but shady figure, who makes him an offer he can‘t readily refuse. The Godfather parodies are of course deliberate (Broderick‘s course even ' includes a seminar on the film) and the movie's knowing humour, spot-on casting t and escalating suspense give it an irresistible charm. Central: MacRobert Arts Centre.
I La Gloire De Mon Pere (PG) (Yves Robert. France, 1990) Philippe Caubere,
HUDSON HAWK
. HudsonHawk(15)(MlchaelLehmann, USA, 1991) Bruce Willis, Danny Aiello, ‘
Andie MacDowell, James Coburn.100 mins. ‘I’m no good at the witty repartee, so I'll just paralyse you straight away,’ says James Coburn’s character, ultra villain and CIA agent George Kaplan, to our heroes, Hudson Hawk and Tommy Five-Tone (Willis and Aiello), as he attempts to blow them away for the umpteenth time. Sadly, no one gave the writers of this so-called movie such good advice. That this is a turkey is never in doubt: from the opening pun down, it has ‘carve me up, and eat me for Christmas dlnner' writ large all over. The question is, how much stuffing to order.
Hawk is the would-be reformed cat burglarwho, having recently spent so much time in Sing Sing that he never got to see ET, just wants to sit back with a cappuccino for a wee while. But the world’s richest villains, Darwin and Minerva Mayflower, have other ideas, and he soon finds himself stealing a priceless series of Leonardo da Vincl treasures. But is that mysterious dame, played by Andie MacDowell, really
working for the Vatican? And could the ,
Maytlowers’ insistence on smashing their newly acquired treasures be part of their dastardly plot to destablise the world?
It soon becomes clear that the Byzantine plot owes more to the sort of production line cartoons they show on afternoon TV than to those Bond movies it so rislbly tries to send up. To be sure, there are some excellent pyrotechnics and beautiful locations forthe one dimensional characters to wander round. But what do you expect for $60 million? There is only one way to carry this sort of gulf off with any panache, and that is to ham it up like crazy. Which is why only Richard E. Grant and Sandra Bernhard (whose pneumatic lips could give a kitchen plunger a good time), as the Mayflowers, are the only
3 and Anais Nin and Miller‘s wife June isthe I backbone of this well mounted biopic,
two actors to come out of this mess with %
any sort of credibility intact. Make that two portions of sage and onion. (Thom ledin)
From Friday 12 July. Glasgow: Cannon the Forge, Odeon, Grosvenor. Edinburgh: Odeon, UCI. Strathclyde: Odeon Ayr, Odeon Hamilton, La Scala, UCI Clydebank, UCI East Kilbride.
Nathalie Roussel, Didier Pain,Theresc Leotard. 105 mins. The first oftwo films based on the memoirs of Marcel Pagnol (of Jean De Florerre/Manon Des Sources fame), this is a story of the remembered joys of childhood, focusing on Pagnol‘s father (Caubere), a successful schoolteacher, and on a summer holiday in Provence, where the young Marcel (Ciamaca) discovers the beauty ofthe countryside, the value of friendship and the sad fact that holidays come to an end. Charming and summery, ifsomewhat sentimental. Glasgow: GFT.
I Guilty By Suspicion (15) (lrwin Winkler, '
US, 1990) Robert De Niro, Annette Bening, George Wendt, Sam Wannamaker. 105 mins. A new attempt by the American film industry to come to
terms with the McCarthy era. when Hollywood was purged of anyone deemed to have communist connections, with devastating effects. De Niro stars as a highly successful director destroyed by rumours, with Bening as his supportive ex-wifc, Wannamaker — who was himself blacklisted — as an attorney, and Martin Scorsese in a minor role as another harassed director. Despite cumbersome
pacing, the performances and good intentions are strong enough to make this a very watchable movie, and the courtroom climax is well worth waitng for. Central: Regal. Strathclyde: UCI East Kilbride.
I Hamlet (U) (Franco Zeffirelli, US. 1990) Mel Gibson, Alan Bates. Glenn Close, Paul Scofield, Helena Bonham-Carter, Ian Holm. 135 mins. A young man returns home from university to find his father dead and his mother marrying his uncle. Then Hamlet senior‘s ghost shows up, whispering to him of murder most foul, and it‘s all downhill after that. More than twenty years after Zeffirelli‘s Romeo AndJuIier comes this colourful and lively production of Shakespeare‘s greatest play, with a very strong, mostly British cast and the best performance in years from Gibson in the title role. Edinburgh: Dominion.
I The Handmaid's Tale ( l8) (Volker Schlondorff, US, 1989) Natasha Richardson. Elizabeth McGovern, Faye Dunaway. Robert Duvall. 108 mins. Despite the excellent cast and the screenplay by Harold Pinter. Schlondorff‘s adaptation of Margaret
Atwood‘s anti-Utopian novel disappointsw Set in near-future America, the plot revolves around the tribulations of fertile white women; who are forced to act as child-bearers for the ruling elite. Predictable resistance-movement adventures follow the heroine‘s capture, and the novel’s subtlety drowns despite everyone‘s efforts. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (15) (Robert Ellis Miller, US, 1968) Alan Arkin. Sondra Locke, Stacey Keach, Laurinda Barrett. 123 mins. Built on the familiar small southern town territory ofCarson McCullers, the film is a moving portrayal ofthe loneliness of a deaf mute, and features the screen debuts of Locke and Keach. Glasgow: GFT.
I Heathers (15) (Michael Lehman. US, 1989) Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Lisanne Falk. '02 mins. An ultrablack parody of the high school teenflick, Lehman‘s first feature film managesto combine box office success with artistic merit. This cult hip hit of its year has Slater and Ryder starting a suicide craze to muscle in on the cliquey Heathers running the joint. Tune in, turn on, drop dead. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I Henry And June ( 18) (Philip Kaufman. US, 1990) Fred Ward, Uma Thurman. Maria de Maderios, Richard E. Grant. 137 mins. The triangular relationship between the erotic writers Henry Miller
which suffers from the slightly incongruous explicitness of Kaufman's previous Unbearable Lighrness Of Being and the same uncomfortably slow pace. Central: MacRobert Arts Centre.
I Hidden Agenda (15) (Ken Loach, UK, 1990) Frances McDormand, Brian Cox, Brad Dourif, Mai Zetterling. 103 mins. One of Britain‘s most respected political film-makers takes on the big one — the security forces in Northern Ireland. When an American lawyer is killed, details begin to emerge which are neither palatable nor - in the view of the British government— suitable for public consumption. Fortunately for all concerned, the characters and narrative are fictional, but Loach's research revealed some unsavoury facts about Britain‘s record on civil and human rights, and he's not i keeping them to himself. A bitter pill.
5 I Honey I Shrunk The Kids (U) (Joe Johnston, US. 1989) Rick Moranis.Matt Frewer. Thomas Brown, Amy O'Neill,
Glasgow: OFT.
Robert Oliveri, Jared Rushton. 92 mins. Hapless father and would-be inventor : (Moranis) does just what the title suggests. The kids find themselves cut j down to size (a quarter of an inch) and swept out with the trash. Their mission: to 1 escape from the garbage bag and
somehow attract their father's attention to their height problem. Well, we might
think it‘s old hat but Walt Disnae. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I The Hot Spot (18) (Dennis Hopper, US. 1990) Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen. Jennifer Connelly. 130 mins. Hopper‘s homage tofilm noir is set in small-town Texas, where Johnson‘s amoral drifter sweet-talks his way into a job as acar salesman, and soon finds himselftorn between two women, one ofwhom
happens to be married to his employer. As I tensions begin to rise, it transpires that everyone has a few secrets they‘d rather 3 not share. Suspenseful and astute. Glasgow: Grosvenor.
I Hudson Hawk (15) (Michael Lehmann, US, 1991) Bruce Willis, DannyiAiello, Andie MacDowell, James Coburn, Richard E. Grant. 100 mins. See review. Glasgow: Cannon The Forge, Odeon, Grosvenor. Edinburgh: Odeon, UCl. Strathclyde: Odeon Ayr, Odeon Hamilton, La Scala,UC1Clydebank,UCl East Kilbride.
I Jesus Of Montreal (18) (Denys Arcand. Canada. 1989) Lothaire Bluteau, 4