FILM LIST
I o This section aims to provide a review ‘
of every film to be seen in central Scotland overthe next iortnight. For programme times see individual cinema listings.
U - Universal, suitable lor all ages.
PG - Parental Guidance suggested as some scenes may be unsuitable lor younger children.
15 - No-one underthe age ol15 admitted.
18 - No-one underthe age ol18 admitted.
O Alphaviile (15) (Jean Luc Godard, France, 1965) Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina. 98 mins. Special Agent Lemmy Caution (Constantine) travels across space to investigate what happened to his predecessor, and finds himself in a totalitarian loveless society. A Godardian sci-fi movie, noted for Sixties-style pop art sets, which looks like an even more austere 1984 set in outer space, and offers an impressive dissection of tyranny typifying the overtly political concerns of the director at the time. Edinburgh; Filmhouse.
0 Amadeus (PG) (Milos Forman, US, 1984) F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge. 160 mins. Genius and mediocrity clash in this epic saga of vengeful rivalry between gifted but God-less composer Mozart and his mortal enemy Salieri who is consumed with jealousy.
Gaudy, delirious melodrama made bearable by the undiminished beauty of the Mozart music, otherwise pretty silly. Glasgow: Grosvenor.
0 Another Country (15) (Marek Kanievska, UK, 1984) Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Michael Jenn. 90 mins. Fictional exploration of the milieu and circumstances that may have led to the nest of traitors that emerged in the 19505 led by Guy Burgess.
The Guy here is called Bennett and the setting is an English public school
Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Dorothy Malone. 114 mins. Never mind the torturously twisted plotline savour the crackling atmosphere, vivid characters and slangy verbal exchanges as Bogie and Baby tangle with murder and love in one of the best screen versions of Chandler’s tough ’tec Marlowe. Recommended late-night viewing. Glasgow: Grosvenor.
0 Blood Simple ( 18) (Joel Coen, US. 1984) Dan Hedaya, M. Emmet Walsh. 98 mins. A Texan bar-owner hires a private eye to kill his wife and her lover, but the detective tries to trick him by faking their deaths. Not a wise move, in the circumstances, as it plunges all four parties into a welter of confusion and violence. The machinations ofa fiendisth constructed narrative are at the centre of this blackly enjoyable saga, which seems to bear more than a passing resemblance to the steamy. tangled tales of James M. Cain. Sometimes a little too studied for its own good, but the gleefully devious climax is a real teeth-gritter. Glasgow; GFI‘.
0 Brazil (15) (Terry Gilliam, UK, 1985) Jonathan Pryce, Michael Palin, Robert de Niro. 142 mins. A bureaucratic metropolis somewhere in the twentieth century. A dreamy clerk in the Ministry of Information, meets the girl of his fantasies and becomes drawn into a fight against the state to win her heart, as she is marked down as a suspect terrorist. Disturbing and overpowering fantasia refracting Orwell into a massive, darkly comic satire. Unbelievable visuals are a foil to some memorable performances (De Niro as a gung-ho heating engineer) and the whole thought-provoking rollercoaster is probably one of the films of the year. Edinburgh; Filmhouse.
O Camille (PG) (George Cukor, US, 1936) Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore. 108 mins. Dying courtesan Garbo finds true love in the arms of the impossibly handsome Taylor. The apotheosis of Garbo’s reign as the screen’s greatest tragic heroine; tubercular,
they swim in an out-of-bounds pool infested with alien pods.
An engaging central idea is treated with wit. warmth and delicacy but is compromised by the apparent need to appeal to the lucrative youth market in America. Director Ron Howard eschews overt sentimentality and the consummate veteran talents on display afford considerable pleasure but Cocoon fails to fulfil all its early promise. Edinburgh: Odeon. Glasgow: Odeon, Salon. Lothion: Regal. Strathclyde: La Scala, Odeon (Ayr) O The Cotton Club ( 15) (Francis Coppola, US, 1985) Richard Gere. Gregory Hines. Bob Hoskins. 128 mins. Harlem 1928. A white cornet player saves gangster Dutch Schultz from assassination, but is later to cause friction because of a relationship with his girlfriend. A black dancer, on the other hand, faoes racial discrimination in his
career and personal life. Coppola's expensive and loving recreation of the famous nightclub of the prohibition era is compromised by the need to kowtow to the box office dependability of Richard Gere. The more talented Gregory Hines is pushed to the background. Some bravura sequences, but slipshod and uninvolving as a whole. Edinburgh; Filmhouse. 0 Country (PG) (Richard Pearce, US, 1984) Jessica Lange, Sam Shepard, Wilford Brimley. 109 mins. Iowa couple Lange and Shepard face a personal and financial crisis when government policies and harsh economics combine to threaten their farm with foreclosure. Devastated by the impending loss, Shepard seeks solace in the contents of a bottle but Lange rages against the injustice of it all and refuses to give in.
An Admirable companion piece to
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The Emerald Forest (15) (John Boonnan, US, 1985) Powers Boothe, Charley Boorrnan. 113 mins. Inspired by actual events, John Boorman's new lilm tells the story of an American engineer working in the depths olthe Amazon on a construction project, whose seven year-old son is kidnapped by a tribe of Indians and brought up by them as one or their own. Ten years later, as lather searches for son, the two meet by chance in the jungle, but the parent acknowledges the gull that has grown between them. With the encroachment ol technology proving ever more threatentlng to the tribe however, son is eventually lorced to go back to the city to seek his lather’s help to take on the unscrupulous entrepreneurs who have enslaved the
other's surroundings. The coming of the modern world to the last wild places is portrayed as a disruption ol the order that has existed there for centuries, as seen through the
' massacre perpetrated by one tribe with
guns on another without. Boorman's point at view is that in our technological development we have lost touch with the mystical forces at work In nature -the trlbesmen are eventually able to defeat the construction workers by invoking the rain gods and destroying the dam they have just linlshed. A final title prods the point home: “They still know what we have lorgotten’.
Now, it that sounds rather trite and naive on paper, Boorrnan somehow manages to make it work on lilm.
trlbeswomen in a brothel lorthe construction workers.
At the heart or The Emerald Forest lie two major concerns: the gap between ‘natural' and civilised man; and the destructive effect at modern technology upon the unspoilt environment. Focusing upon ‘natural’ son and civilised lather the lilm works through a strategy of juxtaposition to disguising serious meditation as an show them equally ill at ease in each 1 adventure movie. (Trevor Johnston)
Excalibur proved him to be a great visual stylist, and the stunning widescreen compositions here continue the trend. Although Powers Boothe is a little wooden as the lather, Charley Boorrnan is a suitably innocent presence as the son. Probably overlong, but delinitely a worthy companion piece to Deliverance in its
in the 19305 where both the espousal of communist principles or the pursuit of homosexual romance are apparently what turned Guy and his peers into betrayers. The substance of the film may be facile but the sharpness of the script and excellence of the lead performances make this worth seeing. Edinburgh: Playhouse.
0 The Big Sleep (PG) (Howard Hawks, US, 1946) Humphrey
poverty-stricken, self-sacrificing, stoically enduring the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and breaking a million cinema-going hearts. Great stuff. Glasgow: Grosvenor.
1985) Don Ameche. Wilford Brimley. Hume Cronyn. 117 mins. Veteran inhabitants of a Florida retirement community discover a veritable fountain of youth when
The List 1—14 November 27