FILM LIST
Grosvenor
; Turner. Angelica Huston. 129 mins.
Edinburgh: Filmhouse , o Repo Man ( 18) (Alex Cox. US.
decides to abdicate in favour of the next
Stanton. 92 mins. Bored LA punk takes up a job as a repo man (one who repossesses cars for finance companies) and an old hand shows him the ropes. They find themselves on the trail ofa vehicle with something decidedly strange in the boot. deserved cult classic Edinburgh; Filmhouse o The Right Stuff ( 15) (Phil Kaufmann. US, 1983) Sam Shepard, Barbara Hershey, Kim Stanley. 193 mins. Exhilarating. panoramic paean of celebration to the heroes of the last frontier ofhuman endeavour-flight. Winner ofa measly three Oscars. Glasgow; GET 0 Rocky IV (PG) (Sylvester Stallone, US. 1985) Sylvester Stallone, Dolph ' Lundgren. 91 mins. East meets West : in the boxing ring as southpaw ! slugger Rocky Balboa faces Soviet Superman Ivan Drago. Predictably patriotic pugilism.
Grosvenor
0 Police Academy 2: Their first Assignment (PG) (Jerry Paris. US. 1985) Steve Guttenberg. 87 mins. More ofthe above although less crude to achieve the lower certificate and even more box-office takings. Number 3 is currently the top film at the US box-office. Glasgow:
0 Prizzi's Honour(15) (John Huston, US. 1985) Jack Nicholson. Kathleen
Skilful black comedy directed with assurance by veteran Huston and distinguished by a rogues gallery of performances. Strathclyde; Kelburne 0 Ban (15) i? (Akira Kurosawa. Japan-France. 1985) Tatsuya Nakadai. Miedo Harada. Peter. 16] mins. See Caption Review.
1984) Emilio Estevez. Harry Dean I
RAN
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Ran (15) (Akira Kurosawa, Japan—France, 198.5) Tatsuya Hakadai, Satoshi Terao, Mieko Harada, Peter. 162 mins. Ran, Kurosawa’s King Lear, was inspired by the legend of Mori, a feudal warlord in 16th century Japan. The lather of three faithful sons, Mori illustrated the value of filial loyalty with the use of arrows; one solitary arrow can easily be broken but when three are sheathed together they are unbreakable. Kurosawa accepted the wisdom oi his story that there is strength in unity but wondered about the obverse of the statement about chaos in disunity. Ran can be literally translated as turmoil and proves a sombre distillation of Shakespeare’s themes of old age, moral dilemmas and human fallibility.
Lord Hiderota, a respected and powerful leader, has foughtthe good fight for many a year and, having reached his three score and ten,
as a costly and deadly struggle for power in which there is no honour, no victors, just victims.
In the manner one has come to expect from the director of Throne of Blood and Kagemusha, Ban is a vastly ambitious canvas teeming with the spectacular , horrors of battle and the intimate
despair of a once potent leader reduced
by age and bitter experience to a pathetic, heartbroken lost soul. The
battle scenes are effectively choreographed and the acting indludes : noteworthy workfrom Peter as the
Lord's loyal fool and Mieko Harada as . the Lady Kaede, the power behind
much of the mayhem and a venal
creation who would put Lady Macbeth ' to shame.
However, for all the accomplished fusion of Japanese history and Shakesperean drama one senses that this is Kurosawa a shade below the peak of his form. The pacing ls unduly sluggish and the lavish praise
accorded the film is explicable in some
part by the venerable status of the
j director and the ten-year wait for its appearance.
Ban then marks the proficient
' recapitulation of Kurosawa’s previous most dutiful and loving of the offspring, preoccupations not the attainment of rejects the notion of compromised ; dizzy new heights in his undeniable communal leadership and is banished l artistry. Let's call it a three-star
for his lmpertlnence. His departure success rather than a four-star heralds a vast family feud that unfolds I triumph. (Allan Hunter)
generation. His eldest son Taro will rule with support from sons Jiro and Saburo whilst Hiderota plans to enjoy the fruits of his labours visiting the castle of each son in turn. However, the youngest son Saburo, ultimately the
STREETWISE
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Streetwise (18) (Martin Bell, US, 1984) Tiny, fiat, DeWayne, Shadow, Shellie, Pattie, Kim. 90 mins. Streetwise is a campaigning investigative documentary that has shifted onto the cinema screen from its natural province, television, doubtless because such programmes are no longer welcome on an American broadcasting network increasingly given over to escapist entertainment. The film follows up a LIFE magazine feature on the dispossessed street kids of Seattle’s skid row, living the underside of the American Dream in appalling conditions; the kids talk frankly enough to camera about their experiences in child prostitution, pimping, drugs, prison, scavenging, and hustling for dimes from the better off residents ofthe city.
Perhaps the most poignant message from the film is that these children are not the reverse polarity of some Dallas-style fantasy; their hopes and dreams are forthe kind of ‘normal' family life they so obviously lack. They represent a curious, grotesque parody of mainstream American values; even in their destitution, they cling to friendships, to remnants of home life,
Edinburgh: Odeon. Glasgow; ABC (Clarkston Road), Cinema. Odeon. Strathclyde; Odeon Hamilton.
0 Hope (PG) (Alfred Hitchcock, US, 1948) James Stewart, Farley Granger, John Dall. 80 mins. Two homosexual students murder a friend just for kicks and to enact the philosphies of their professor about ‘superior men‘ who are above the law. They hold a dinner party, serving food from an old chest containing the body, but from their manner and the absence ofthe deceased their crime is suspected.
A blackly comic diversion on the ethics of murder with Stewart miscast as the donnish academic. Historically interesting for Hitchcock‘s experientation with the ten-minute take and his characteristically devious guest appearance. Edinburgh; Filmhouse 0 Sex Mission (15) (Juliusz Machulski, Poland, 1984) Jerszy Stuhr, Olgierd Lukaszewicz. 121 mins. Two male volunteers in a hibernation experiment wake up decades later to find themselves in an
O CINEMA TIMES AND DATES PAGE 290
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to a better (if inevitably circumscribed) idea of themselves. They are at once engaging and tragic, hustlers and ; victims; it is hard to come out of the cinema with any real hope for them, a conclusion pointed up in the most dramatic fashion by DeWayne's suicide.
In a film with such obvious good intent, it seems almost churlish to be critical, but there are problems with Streetwise. It is a little confusing, particularly chronologically, although that does not necessarily deflect its larger aims. A more serious reservation about any such
i documentary concerns the role of the
camera itself. We have to take the word of the principals on trust, as though there were no mediating, and almost certainly interfering lens: on at least
one crucial occasion, the conversation in prison between DeWayne and his convict father, the latter is
transparently playing to the watching eye. The camera is almost never an innocent recorder; to pretend it does
not influence the events it observes is
to undermine the credibility of the
whole enterprise.
, (Kenny Mathieson)
all-female society. Aleaden exercise in titillation. Glasgow; GET 0 She’ll Be Wearing Pink Pyjamas ( 15) ' 1% (John Goldschmidt. UK, 1984) Julie Walters, Anthony Higgins. Jane Evers. 90mins. In the Lake District eight women embark on an outward bound course designed to test their mettle. Largely isolated from male company they rant and rage against the multifarious woes repressing the modern female. Contrived, schematic comedy- drama exploring sisterhood. Glasgow; GET 0 Spies Like US (PG) (John Landis. US, 1985) Chevy Chase. Dan Aykroyd. 102 mins. Dim espionage comedy Glasgow; ABC (Sauchiehall Street) 0 Streetwise (18) fl (Martin Bell, US, 1984) Alabama. Peehole. Rat, Red Dog. 91 mins. See Caption Review. Edinburgh; Filmhouse 0 Subway (15) (Luc Besson. France, 3 1985) Christopher Lambert, Isabelle Adjani, Michael Galabru. 102 mins. j A smooth, stylish thriller likened 5 to Diva but with a drive, energy and ’
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