FILM REVIEW
I As You Like It(U) Taking the opposite direction from the period
feel of her earlier works 3 (Little Dorrit. The Fool). Christine Edzard updates
Shakespeare's tale of troubled young lovers to
contemporary London
Docklands. complete with a cardboard city Forest of Arden. A production for the arthouse audience rather than the masses of the malls.
I Dead By Dawn Serious fans ofall things scary should head for the Edinburgh Filmhouse this weekend for a horror film festival that boasts more than most. The British premiere ofJohn Landis‘s Innocent Blood does for the vampire flick what the director's An American Werewolfin London did for lycanthropes everywhere. while Peter Jackson‘s Braindead is a gorehound's delight. On Fri 15 there‘s a party for ticket-holders. and on
Sat 16 author Ramsey Campbell gives a reading of his work. The cinema screamathon begins at midnight on Sat 16 with the original Nosferatu. Details from Adele Hartley on 031 229 2551. I Electric Moon (15)The
European visitors and going too often for crude laughs. but its cynical view
. of mutual exploitation is
; refreshingly witty.
I Man Bites Dog ( 18) Brutally funny mock-doc
on the daily life ofan
amiable hitman with a 3 psychopathic dislike of
postmen. The blackest of black humour is set
against some genuinely
nasty segments that force
the audience to confront
cinematic violence head-on. See preview.
i ISottTop,llard Shoulder [15)ASeotlivingin
London has to return to
.. his native Glasgow for a
family party. but meets various hazards on the road north. not the least of which is the slightly bizarre Yvonne. Capaldi‘s script perfectly captures that typically Scottish
balance of innocent charm and sly humour. Not in the
fast lane. perhaps. but motoring steadily towards its destination. See
feature. I Tale ofa Vampire ( 18) { Beautifully paced.
hauntingly poetic vampire movie with Julian Sands at
his detached and noble
best as a vampire livingin
} London and searching for the reincarnation ofhis
r..l\..
. . _ 5‘ \ 0 ~ I ~ . “h.
amt-t .:
E
i Chaplin: ‘the rewards reside chiefly inthe acting department' acting department, and while it’s always fun spotting stars in small roles (here’s Dan Aykroyd as Mack Sennett, there’s James Woods as an unscrupulous prosecution lawyer), particularly impressive are Kevin Kline as an initially swaggering, latterly ailing Douglas Fairbanks, and the protagonist’s real-life grand-daughter Geraldine Chaplin pulling out all the stops as his mentally unstable mother. Towering above them all, however, is Downey’s portrayal of the troubled clown, capany pulling off his model’s acrobatic panache and even emoting away under loads of latex for the touching finale which captures the elderly Chaplin’s 1974 acceptance of an honorary Oscar.
Attenborough’s affectionate tribute may not tell the cineastes anything they didn’t know already, but Downey helps immensely in making it a much more approachable prospect for regular moviegoers than you'd expect. Lay your prejudices aside for an evening and check out a performance that has
Crammlng in a full lifetime of comic
; creativity, political forthrightness and 3 an ongoing thang forvery young girls, 5 Dickie Attenborough's craftsmanlike
, biopic of the cane-twirling celluloid clown never quite overcomes the
; scissors-and-paste compromises
. inherent in the genre. Wheeling on
I Anthony Hopkins’s (fictitious) literary
, editor to string together the action
j highlights, the end result retains just
! enough distance from its not overly
i sympathetic subject to escape the trap
of mere hagiography. But one wonders whether the mass youth audience the
i moviemakers need to attract to run a
j profit from the $40 million budget
i really gives a toss about The Little
l Tramp in the first place.
i The rewards here reside chiefly in the
MAN TROUBLE
Man Trouble: ‘an embarrassing shambles'
Oh dear. 'I'heJack Nicholson revival stops here. Reunitingthe star. writer and director of early 70s movie milestone Five [2'1st Pieces must have seemed like a good idea at the time but. not to put too fine a point on it. the end result isan embarrassing shambles.
Nicholson's Harry Bliss runs a down-at-heel LA guard dog agency. somehow contriving not to turn the barest nickel from the city‘s escalating crime wave. Concert soprano Joan Spruance (Ellen Barkin) would seem to be the answer to his prayers. however. for just aftera split from her conductor husband. a break-in forces her to stay alone at the swanky pad of her glamorous sister Andy (Beverly D'Angelo). She needs a canine guardian. he's just the man to provide it. and before long they‘re romantically linked. Then Harry gets involved in the confusion surrounding Andy’s new book about life with
hard-up family of a former Maharajah cash in on the tourist trade by re-creating the old days of
lost love. No less worthy for eschewing the opulence of Coppola or the goriness of its peers. it
Dscar Nomination written all over it. (TrevorJohnston) Chaplin (12) (Richard Attenborough,
corrupt tycoon lover Red Layls ( 1 larry Dean Stanton ), who‘s not
the Raj on their plantation home. This comic twist on culture clashes suffers a bit from overly stereotyping the
' is probably the best screen : portrait yet of the vampire ; as the most tragic and
lonely of monsters. See
preview.
i I BeservoirDogs(18)As 3 violent as it is stylish.
j QuentinTarantino‘s
: debut explodes ontothe screen when a botched
i heist has the gangsters at I each other's throats as
theytry to discover who
l
It
it ' §
“‘
} set them up. With acouple
l ofsequencesthatreally
push the audience to its
l limits, even the hardy may
1 fall by the wayside. But
otherwiselcan’t recommend it enough. Sec feature. (AM)
20 The List 15— 28January 1993
UK/US, 1992) Robert Downeer, Moira Kelly, Geraldine Chaplin. 144 mins. From Fri 15. Ddeons: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Ayr, Hamilton. All UCls. Glasgow: MGM Parkhead.
ELENYA
Ayoung girl—half Italian, half Welsh— abandoned by her parents in the Welsh countryside during World War II discovers a wounded German pilot and decides to hide and care for him. What ' could have been a genuinely haunting tale of two outsiders is marred by an unappealing vocal narrative (Elenya as an old woman looking back) that lntrudes on the dreaminess of the main story and an editing style that renders , some sequences impenetrable. The 1 film is strongest when it falls back on its visual power, underlining its theme that dialogue is often unnecessary as a means of communication. Beautiful to Pascale Delalogue Jones, Klaus look at, but hopelessly muddled. (AM) Behrendt, Sue Jones Davies. 81 mins. Elenya (PG) (Steve Gough, UK, 1992) , From Wed 27: Glasgow Film Theatre.
Elenya: ‘haunting but muddled“
exactly happy about the controversial manuscript.
Starting off as a wryspin on urban paranoia. Carole Eastman’s screenplay flicks aimlessly through a succession of moods and half-ideas— firsi a mismatched lurve story. then switching into screwball comedy gear. Rafelson‘s sagging pace fails to improve matters much as Jack reprises his familiar amiable rogue bit and Barkin slumps into a morass of cutesy mannerisms. It’s hard to believe that this many talented people could combine to create something so shambolic. (T1)
Man Trouble (15) (Bob Rafe/sort. US. 1993) Jack .N'icholson, [fl/en Barkin. Beverly l) 'A ngelo. ()0 mins. From Fri 15.
Glasgow: ()rleon. i Iz'rlinburgh: L'( 'I.