FILM LIST
Glasgow; Grosvenor o The Dead Zone (18) (David Croneneberg. US. 1983) Christopher Walken. Brooke Adams. Martin Sheen. 103 mins. Five years after a serious road accident. a man discovers he has gained psychic powers in the process The uniformly chill atmosphere pervading the film‘s wintry landscapes give this commendable King adaptation a genuinely unsettling feel Edinburgh; ABC 0 Desperately Seeking Susan (15) (Susan Seidelman, US, 1985) Rosanna Arquette. Madonna, Aidan Quinn. 103 mins. Bored suburban housewife Roberta. looking for escape from her humdrum existence through the personal columns, becomes fascinated with a series of ads ‘desperately seeking Susan‘ and plucks up the courage to spy on the next rendezvous. By a sequence of coincidences she unwittingly swops identity with Susan and her life is changed forever. Lothian; Regal. Strathclyde; Kelburne O Boln’ Time (15) (George Mendeluk, US, 1984) Richard Mulligan, John Vernon, Muhammed Ali. 85 mins. Low-brow comedy plummets to a new nadir with this dreadful mish-mash enjoying a quick cinema exploitation prior to a December video release. Irredeemablv abominable. Glasgow; ABC (Sauchiehall Street) 0 The Emerald Forest ( 15) (John Boorman, US, 1985) Powers Boothe. Charley Boorman. 113 mins. The son ofan American engineer working in the Amazon Jungle is kidnapped by an indian tribe while still a young boy. Ten years later, after a desperate search, his father manages to track him down, but he has been brought up by the tribe as one of their own and a great gulf has grown between them. Glasgow: Odeon. Salon '0 Fantasia (U) (Walt Disney Production, US. 1940) Generally tedious Disney attempt to make a self-consciously artistic cartoon. Edinburgh; Playhouse. 0 Fire Festival (18) (Mitsuo Yanagimachi, Japan, 1985) Kinya Kitaoj. 120mins. Puzzling, intense account, based on a true story, of a 40-year-old man who massacred his family then committed suicide, seemingly for no reason. The thrust onanigimachi's unsettling film is that he was driven on by the preternatural forces within the astoundineg beautiful landscape around his home to hit back against man‘s ecological devastation of the area. Glasgow; GET 0 Fletch (PG) (Michael Ritchie, US, 1985) Chevy Chase, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, Tim Matheson. 98 mins. Popular American star Chase finds an ideal character for his smarmy, casually flippant style as l. M. Fletcher, an investigative reporter with a penchant for disguise Lothian; ABC 0 The Goonies (PG) (Richard Donner, US, 1985) Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, JeffCohen. 114 mins. See caption review.
BED LETTER DAY
Letter to Brezhnev (15) (Chris Bernard, UK, 1985) Peter Firth, Alfred Molina, Margi Clarke, Alexandra Pigg. 95 mins. Liverpool on a Friday night, two ‘scallies’ hit the city centre determined to paint the town red. Teresa stuffs chickens and Elaine is one of the great mass of unemployed. However, the drudge and monotony of everyday cares are put aside in their exuberant aim to have a good time.
These Liver birds meet two likely lads in visiting Russian sailors Peter and Sergei. The men have only one night in port but when it is time to part Peter and Elaine have fallen seriously in love. Absence makes the heart grow ever fonder and Elaine's only wish is to be reunited with her dream romance. There’s nothing for it but to state her case in a letter to the Russian Leader.
A Letter to Brezhnev is another notable low-budget triumph of the British cinema. The romance portrayed is indeed heady and Peter tells Elaine to follow his twinkling North Pole star in much the same mannerthat Gable beguiled Monroe in The Misfits, but any threat of whimsical sentimentality is shrugged off by a gritty, vivacious script of rough charm and ready wit. Underpinning this comedy-romance is the harsh world of inner-city decay, youth unemployment, dashed hopes and uncertain futures. However, it is
Edinburgh: ABC. Glasgow; ABC (Clarkston Road), ABC (Sauchiehall Street), Cinema. Grosvenor, Rio. Lothian; ABC. Regal. Strathclyde; ABC (Greenock). ABC (Kilmarnock). Kelburne, Odeon (Hamilton), La Scala
O Gremlins (15) (Joe Dante, US, 1985) Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Harry Carey Jnr. 106 mins. Cute little mogwais become malevolent if not properly cared for and wreak havoc in an idealised smalltown America. A tongue-in-cheek Yuletide romp filled with in-jokes. Glasgow; Rio
0 Hallowe’en 2 (18 (Rick Rosenthal, US. 1982) Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance. 90 mins. Continuing on from the events ofthe first film, Ms Curtis is taken to hospital suffering from shock and the killer goes after her. Edinburgh; ABC
0 Hallowe’en 3: The Season of The Witch (15) (Tommy Lee Wallace, US, 1983) Tom Atkins, Dan O‘Herlihy, 98 mins. A mad Irish genius, for reasons best known to himself, hopes to wreak havoc on Hallowe’en night Edinburgh; ABC 0 The Jerk ( 15) (Carl Reiner, US, 1979) Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Catlin Adams. 94 mins. Martin’s first, funniest and best. The inspired tale of a country-boy made good through an amazingly successful invention Glasgow: Grosvenor.
0 Leave All Fair ( 15) (John Reid, New Zealand, 1984) John Gielgud, Jane Birkin, Feodor Atkine. 88 mins. Katherine Mansfield, one of New Zealand's greatest writers, fought long and hard for control over her
fie} ' -- ‘ also supremely entertaining too, fresh and funny with two central performances by Alexandra Pigg and Margi Clarke that light up the screen and showcase their blazing talents. A real winner. (Allan Hunter)
life and the integrity of her work. Glasgow: GFI‘.
0 Letters to an Unknown Lover (PG) (Peter Duffell, UK-France, 1985) Cherie Lunghi, Yves Beneyton, Ralph Bates. 101 mins. Escaping from a prisoner ofwar camp a man reaches the woman whose letters have sustained him throuah his captivity. Edinburgh; Filmhouse
o Letterto Brezhnev (15) (Chris Bernard, UK, 1985) Peter Firth, Alfred Molina, Margi Clarke, Alexander Pigg. 95 mins. Edinburgh; ABC. Glasgow; ABC (Sauchiehall Street) 0 Lost in America (15) (Albert Brooks, US, 1985) Albert Brooks, Julie Hagerty, Michael Greene. 91 mins. The upward mobility ofa go-getting business executive is stopped dead in its tracks when he is passed over for promotion. Glasgow; GET 0 A Love in Germany ( 15) (Andrze j Wajda, France/Germany, 1983) Hanna Schygulla. Set during the Second World War Wajda’s film tells a true story of an illicit love- affair between a small-town shopkeeper and a Polish P.O.W.
0 La Luna (18) (Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy, 1979) Jill Clayburgh, Matthew Barry, Alida Valli. 144 mins. Overblown, soap operetta in which a male adolescent’s identity crisis leads to an understanding with his mother bordering on the incestuous. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
o Mlshlma: A Life in Four Chapters (15) (Paul Schrader, US/Japan, 1985) Ken Ogota. 120 mins. Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima,
through an intriguing inter-weaving of straight biographical narrative, stylised dramatisation of excerpts from his novels (where the protagonists can be seen as substitutes for the author), and documentary reconstruction Edinburgh; Filmhouse o Monterey Pop (18) (James Desmond, Barry Feinstein, D. A. Pennebaker, Albert Maysales, Roger Murphy, Richard Leacock and Nick Proferes, US, 1969) Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Animals etc. 88 mins. One of the first major rock concert films and still one of the best. Edinburgh; Classic. 0 Mutiny on the Bounty (PG) (Frank Lloyd, US, 1935) Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, Franchot Tone. 132 mins. Vivid Hollywood classic of Laughton and Gable at odds on the ill-fated voyage of The Bounty. Oscar winner of the year, half a century ago and streets ahead of recent remakes. Glasgow; Grosvenor. 0 My First Wife (15) (Paul Cox, Australia, 1984) John Hargreaves, Wendy Hughes, Lucy Angwin. 94 mins. Radio disc- jockey John and his wife of fourteen years Helen endure love, pain and the whole damned thing as their union is split asunder Glaseow: OFF. 0 A Nightmare on Elm Street ( 18) (Wes Craven, US, 1984) John Saxon, Ronee Blakely, Heather Langenkamp. 91 mins. In smalltown America a quartet of teenagers share a terrifying communal dream in which they are terrorised by a long-dead local bogey man. Glasgow; ABC (Clarkston Road), Cinema, Odeon. Lothian; ABC. Strathclyde; ABC (Greenock), ABC (Kilmarnock), Kelburne, Odeon (Hamilton) 0 1984 (15) (Michael Radford, UK, 1984) John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanne Hamilton. 110 mins. faithful to the novel, this film adaptation boasts impressive sets and laudable performances from Hurt and Burton as prisoner and interrogator, but fails to imbue the proceedings with any emotional resonance. Edinburgh; Filmhouse. O No Man’s Land (15) (Alain Tanner, Switzerland-France, 1985) Hugues Quester, Myriam Mézieres. 110 mins. Ponderous sounding Tanner film set in the no man’s land on the border between France and Switzerland Edinburgh; F ilmhouse. o The Outlaw Josey Wales (15) (Clint Eastwood, US, 1976) Clint Eastwood, Chief Dan George, Sondra Locke. 135 mins. The closest thing yet to a masterpiece from Eastwood the actor-director. A gothic saga set against the backdrop of the American Civil War Glasgow; Grosvenor o Plenty (15) (Fred Schepisi, US, 1985) Meryl Streep, Charles Dance, John Gielgud, Sting. 124 mins. To be reviewed, Edinburgh: Filmhouse. 0 Police Academy (15) (Hugh Wilson, US, 1984) Steve Guttenberg, Kim Cattrall, Bubba Smith. 96 mins. Witless vulgarisation
28 The List 29 Nov - 12 Dec