' 0 Nightmare on Elm Street ( 18) (Wes i Craven. US. 1984)John Saxon.
master and must choose between her lover and her career.
Heather Langenkamp. 91 mins. Communal nightmares among the teen set and their mutual terrorisation by a long dead bogey mand are the ingredients ofthis superior shocker.
Edinburgh; Odeon. Glasgow; Cinema.
0 El None ( 15) (Gregory Nava. Us. 1983) Ernesto Gomez Cruz. David Villalpando. Zaide Silvie Gutierrez. 140 mins. Two peasant children flee San Pedro after their father is slain and their mother imprisoned by the ruling military elite. Facing untold hardships and privations they strike out for El Norte and Los Angeles where the promised streets ofgold contain as many problems as life in the old country.
Well-meaning. schematic and fatally over-sentimentalist low-budget melodrama. Strathclyde; Haldane Film Society 0 Notorious (PG) (Alfred Hitchcock. US. 1946) Cary Grant. Ingrid Bergman. Claude Rains. 101 mins. In Rio shady lady Bergman. daughter of a convicted traitor. marries a Nazi renegade to help the American cause but true romance is nearby in the form ofsuave government agent Grant.
Top notch Hitchcock suspenser with incomparable performers. Edinburgh; Filmhouse 0 Di Mice and men (PG) (Lewis Milestone. US. 1939) Burgess Meredith. Lon Chaney Jr. Betty Field. 107 mins. Chaney gave one of his finest screen performances as the pitiable Lenny. a mentally retarded giant ofa man unaware of his own strength. An itinerant worker on the road with his brother he finds solace in the latter's talk ofa peaceable life and a spread oftheir own.
Tragic drama from the Steinbeck novel. sensitively made. Glasgow: GFT o A Passage to India (PG) (David Lean. UK. 1984) Judy Davis. Peggy Ashcroft. James Fox. Victor Bannerjee. 163 mins. A young English girl. in search of the ‘real‘ India. finds herlife in turmoil. the combined effect of her awakening sexuality and an ambiguous experience in the famed Malabar caves.
Excellent performances by Ashcroft and Fox grace this characteristically overblown latterday Lean epic but pretty pictures help to conceal a frail plot. GlasgoszFT o The Philadelphia Experiment (PG) (Stewart Raffill. US. 1984) Michael Pare. Nancy Allen. Bobby Di Cicco.
!()1 mins. During World War II a top secret naval experiment goes disastroust awry creating a time vortex through which two ordinary gobs are transported to 1984.
Back to the future showcased the potential for fun in a time travel adventure but this film adopts a resolutely jokey approach and some appalling dialogue thus wasting a
, good idea by not taking it seriously. ; Edinburgh; EU Filmsoc
7 0 Pixote (18) (Hector Babenco. Brazil. 1981 ) Fernando Ramos da
28 The List 7 — 20 Feb
A led and Two Noughts (18) (Peter Greenaway, UK, 1985) Andrea Ferreol, Brian Deacon, Eric Deacon, Frances Barker, Joss Ackiand. 115 mins. Peter Greenaway's second ieature bears the hallmarks at his earlier short tilms rather than the relatively more accessible The Draughtsman’s Contract, which achieved a surprise commercial success on its release in 1982. His work owes little to established British film-making tradition, with its emphasis on theatrical and realist conventions, but would be readily assimilabie within the rather more experimental cinema ot mainland Europe, where he is highly regarded.
To summarise the plot oiled and Two Noughts is rather beside the point; tor what it is worth, two brothers attempt to make sense oi the deaths of their wives in a car accident outside the zoo in which they work. In doing so, they torm an unlikely alliance with the driver at the car, Alba (Ferreoi), who loses
A ZED AND TWO NOUGHT
limbs at a disconcerting rate, and come into conilict with the stall at the zoo (including an even more unlikely Jim Davidson) over their tendency to tilt the labs with corpses decaying in iront oi time-lapse cameras, and release the live exhibits.
Greenaway’s film is about serious things: the great cycle at birth through lite to death and decay, the nature and experience at griet and loss. To say so is to give little sense of the experience at the film on screen; it is allusive, oblique, teasing, highly amusing, not a little perverse, and sometimes irritating, while those with an aversion to snails— and who hasn’t? —should prepare for some uneasy moments. its elegant visual symmetries and abstruse intentions will not be everyone's cup at tea, but it you believe thatthe cinema can accommodate intellect as well as emotion, metaphysics as well as action, then it should be yours.
(Kenny Mathieson)
Silva. Jorge Juliano. Gilberto Moura. 127 mins. Babenco‘s third feature is an uncompromising portrait of a young Brazilian boy's involvement with the massive juvenile crime problem in that country where drug-dealing and prostitution are an everyday occupation for a youngster surviving life in the streets. Edinburgh; Filmhouse
O Plenty ( 15) (Fred Schepisi. US. 1985) Meryl Streep. Charles Dance. John Gielgud. 124 mins. One woman‘s disillusion with her lot in post-war Britain symbolises the malaise of a class-bound nation in decline. ‘Plenty‘ is a weighty. literate and overly ambitious epic with the expected high standards of performance throughout. However the characters are made to carry too overtly emblematic a burden in'the depicted slide into mediocrity and the film fails to realise the full potential of David Hare‘s play. Edinburgh; ABC. Glasgow; ABC (Sauchiehall Street).
0 Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (PG) (Jerry Paris. US. 1985) Steve Guttenberg. 87 mins. Witless Keystone Kop shenanigans.
i Strathclyde; Kelburne
0 Prizzi's Honour( 15) (John Huston. US. 1985)Jack Nicholson. Kathleen Turner. Anjclica Huston. 129 mins. Slow-witted Mafia hit man Nicholson beds and weds his female counterpart Turner but middle-aged bliss is not to be his. She has dishonoured his family with a double-dealing casino scam and no one violates the code of the Prizzis with impunity. even blood relatives. Skilful black comedy directed with assurance by veteran Huston and distinguished by a rogue‘s gallery of performances. Nicholson is a front runner to nab another ()scar Edinburgh; Dominion. Glasgow; Odeon. Salon.
0 The Purple Base at Cairo ( PG) (Woody Allen. US. 1985) Mia Farrow. Jeff Daniels. Van Johnson. 85 mins. Unhappy waitress Mia Farrow escapes her sorrows at the local fleapit and falls in love with a dashing fictional leading man. A shining gem of ingenious wit and dazzling invention. Glasgow;GF1‘ 0 Red Shoes (PG) (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. UK. 1948) Anton Walbrook. Moira Shearer. Marius Goring. 136 mins. A young ballerina is groomed for world-class
[ stardom by an autocratic dance
i
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Superny stylized ballet melodrama shot in ravishing Technicolour. Edinburgh: EU Filmsoc 0 Rocky IV (PG) (Sylvester Stallone. US. 1985) Sylvester Stallone. Dolph Lundgren. Talia Shire. 91 mins. East meets West in the boxing ring as southpaw slugger Rocky Balboa tackles Soviet superman Ivan Drago.
The usual mixture of unsubtle direction. tight editing. meaningful close-ups. improbany protracted fisticuffs and pounding rock beat. Yawn.
Edinburgh; Odeon. Glasgow; Odeon. Lothian; ABC. Strathclyde; ABC (Greenock), ABC (Kilmarnock). Odeon (Ayr).
o The Rocky Horror Picture Show ( 15) (Jim Sharman. Uk. 1975) Tim Curry. 1(1()mins. Cult musical horror spoof. Appealingly perverse. Edinburgh; Classic
0 Rumble Fish ( 18) (Francis Ford Coppola. US. 1983) Mickey Rourke, Matt Dillon. Diane Lane. 94 mins. Electrifying expressionist monochrome visuals grace an existentialist parable about the need to forge one's own identity. and the alienation it can bring. Edinburgh; Filmhouse
0 Scum ( 18) (Alan Clarke. UK. 1979) Ray Winston. Mick Ford, Phil Daniels. 98 mins. Brutal. harrowing no-holds-barred depiction of the living hell of life in a British borstal. Brilliantly visceral filmmaking. Edinburgh; Edinburgh Film Guild 0 The Servant ( 18) (Joseph Losey.
Uk. 1963) Dirk Bogarde. James Fox.
Sarah Miles. 116 mins. An aristocratic but ineffectual young man moves into a London residence and comes under the sinister influence of his manservant. Losey’s outsider’s fascination with the English class system combines with screenwriter Pinter‘s effortless menace in this claustrophobic melodrama. which benefits from a superbly steely performance from
Bogarde. A key film in the baroque. '
unsettling and detached cinema of Joseph Losey. Edinburgh; EU Filmsoc 0 Silverado (PG) (Lawrence Kasdan. US. 1985) Kevin Kline. Linda Hunt. 13(1mins. Traditional. over-extended oater in the Magnificent Seven mould. Glasgow; Salon 0 Spellbound (PG) (Alfred Hitchcock. US. 1945) Ingrid Bergman. Gregory Peck. Leo G Carroll. 111 mins. Psychiatrist Bergman delves into the tormented psyche ofamnesiac Peck. a ‘ suspected killer whose innocence she also doubts. Innovative Salvador Dali dream sequences. resplendent Miklos Rosza music and Hitchcock‘s master‘s touch prevent a ropey plot from running offthe rails. , Edinburgh: Filmsoc j 0 Spies Like Us (PG) if! (John Landis. US. 1985) Chevy Chase. Dan Ackroyd. 102 mins. Espionage comedy with a host ofdirectors in guest shots— Terry Gilliam. Joel Coen. Sam Raimi. Costa Gavras.