Belushi and Aykroyd. the Abbott and
Costello of the 80s. strike up their band to raise lucre for a children‘s orphanage and wind up destroying most of
i
0 This section aims to provide a review = at every lilm to be seen in central Scotland over the next lortnight. For programme times see individual cinema listings.
U - Universal, suitable tor all ages.
PG - Parental Guidance suggested as some scenes may be unsuitable tor younger children.
15 - No~one underthe age 0115 admitted.
18 - No-one under the age 0:18 admitted.
0 After Hours ( 15) (Martin Scorsese. US, 1985) Griffin Dunne. John Heard, Rosanna Arquette. 97 mins. Mild-mannered word processor Dunne spends an unforgettably I nightmarish night on the town in this fast, furious and extremely funny black comedy. i He loses all his money. is caught in 1 torrential rain. can‘t afford the increased tube fares. discovers a corpse, is mistaken for a burglar . . . and the night is yet young. Who'd ever complain about a dull existence , again? i Breathless. brilliant filmmaking. Edinburgh; Cameo. Glasgow; GF'I‘ ‘ 0 Another Way ( 18) (Karoly Makk. Hungary, 1982)Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieslak. Grazyna i Szapolowska. 109 mins. The Tears ol Treacle season begins with this impressive Hungarian feature that depicts a lesbian relationship in a much wider context ofpolitical. l social and personal freedoms. Set in the late 1950s it focuses on the affair between an uncompromising journalist and an unhappin married colleague. Her professional life is 1 undermined by her unquenchable desire to report the truth while the complexities of her private life further frustrate her fulfillment. Powerful and assured. Glasgow; GFT 0 Apocalypse Now (18) (Francis Ford Coppola, US. 1979) Martin Sheen. Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall. 150 mins. Searing. staggering nightmarish vision of ‘Nam as special agent Sheen journeys into the heart of darkness to confront the near-mythical figure of errant officer Brando. Glasgow; Grosvenor. o The Blues Brothers (15) (John Landis. US, 1980) Dan Aykroyd. John Belushi. Carrie Fisher. 133 mins. Bloated. self- indulgent. anarchic comedy-adventure.
Chicago. ()bnoxious. overlong and hardly funny. Edinburgh; Cinema.
0 A Chorus Line (PG) (Richard Attenborough. US. 1985) Michael Douglas. Alyson Reed. 118 mins. Lavish. splashy. showbin drama— musical; 42nd Street meets Freud as played by the Kids from Fame. Competent entertainment. no more. Glasgow; Grosvenor.
O Clockwise (PG) (Christopher Morahan. UK. 1985) John Cleese. Alison Steadman. Penelope Wilton. 97mins. A pathologically punctilious headmaster is chronically late for an important conference. Basically a one-joke farce this is an enervated vehicle of (‘leese‘s incisive comic timing— the film‘s raison d‘etre and saving grace. Glasgow: GF'I‘
O Cobra (18) (George Pan Cosmatos. US. 198()) Sylvester Stallone. Brigitte Nielsen. 87 mins. Stallone
FILM.._LIST
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and Rambo director Cosmatos do a 1 Dirty Harry for the Reagan era with i a no-bullshit cop determined to ' combat the crime wave by blowing l the scum off the streets. Nastv. Edinburgh; ABC. Glasgow; ABC Sauchiehall Street. Strathclyde: Odeon Hamilton.
0 The Color Purple (15) (Steven Spielberg, US, 1985) Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Margaret Avery. 152 mins. Spielbergturns serious, transforming Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, a milestone of Black American Feminist fiction, into what comes across as a Black American Feminist David Lean-style epic. Whoopi Goldberg is unutterably splendid as the protagonist. the film being the story of her awakening from her role of female servitude to a tyrannical husband and realising her potential as an independent woman. One is always aware of the skilful manipulation at work. but this does not stop one capitulating to the film’s emotional onslaught. Edinburgh; ABC. Glasgow; ABC Sauchiehall Street.
0 Down and Out in Beverly Hills (15) (Paul Mazursky. US. 1986) Nick Nolte, Richard Dreyfuss. Bette Midler. 103 mins. Sugar coated reactionary update of Boudu Sauve des Eaux. A glib. crass, class—divide comedy where the humour is very American and overly reliant on slapstick and cute dogs.
Edinburgh; Dominion. Glasgow; ABC Clarkston Road. Cinema. Grosvenor. Rio. Lothian; ABC, Regal. Strathclyde: ABC Greenock. ABC Kilmarnock. Kelburne. La Scala. Odeon Ayr. Odeon
Hamilton, Rialto.
o The Emerald Forest (15) (John Boorman. US. 1985) Powers Boothe, Meg Foster. Charley Boorman. 113 mins. The son ofan American engineer working in t1. 3 Amazon jungle is kidnapped by 81‘ Indian tribe while still a young boy Ten years later his father manages t ) track him down and attempts to bridge the gap that now exists between them.
Woodenly acted. visually grand ‘serious‘ action movie typical of its director. Edinburgh; Filmhouse o Fool for Love ( 15) rt: (Robert Altman. US. 1985) Sam Shepard. Kim Basinger. Harry Dean Stanton. 108 mins. See panel. Edinburgh; Filmhouse O The Glenn Miller Story (U) (Anthony
Mann, US, 1953) James Stewart. June Allyson, Harry Morgan. 113 mins.
' Engaging sentimental biopic of the big
band leader and his quest for the ‘sound'. Stewart offers a well-mtxlulated impersonation of Miller and there is a relaxed confidence and easy warmth in his relationship with screen wife Allyson. Dolby stereo enhances this particular reissue. Strathclyde: ()deon Hamilton.
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 (is there such a thing?) for reasons best known to himself plans to wreak havoc on Hallowe‘en night. Enjoyable daffy horror farce. Glasgow; Grosvenor
0 Hannah and Her Sisters ( 15) (Woody Allen, US. 1986) Woody Allen. Michael Cainc. Mia Farrow.
It’s a strange tact that, despite its nostalgic name, Highlander is being billed as another action movie. Someone, somewhere, must have decided that Celts in kiits, even it they are Christopher Lambert, don't sell pictures.
in reality the film is a curious mixture oi romance in 15th-century heather and car-chases in present-day New York. The unusual theme of a handiul ol immortals battling through the centuries to win a mythical ‘prize‘, allowed the film-makers to juxtapose scenes irom any pair 01 centuries they cared to imagine. The resultant cuts are sometimes elegant-irom neon Japanese women on a hoarding to genuine Mona Lisa for example— but more olten slightly untidy. Highlander was pruned in a tairly arbitrary fashion lor US audiences and still looks as il it could lose or gain scenes without much loss to artistic iorm.
Pulling it together is the magnetic Lambert, whose screen glower is not diminished by his admission that in real liie he ‘can’t see a thing without my glasses'. The French-born actor, who starred in Greystoke and later in Subway, seemslinally to have found a partto match his strange English accent. As the time-wandering Highlander, he comes irom ‘lots at dltierent places', as he pointedly snubs ; a taunting New York cop.
— i . .1
HIGHLANDER
* was r
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Lambert handles the growth of the character well irom impetuous clansman, Connor McLeod, through to the world-weary New York citizen ol the iirst scene, in which he sits unimpressed through what looks like the US wrestling match to end all wrestling matches.
He is well matched by Clancy Brown as the evil Kurgan, clad in black leather jacket whateverthe century and ' endowed with a wicked sense 01 humour, and by his two leading ladies, Roxanne Hart and Beatie Edney.
Edney, the daughter of Sylvia Sims, gives a luminous pertormance as his one and only wife, and despite the
ludicrous theatricality of ageing
makeup, manages to be quite touching in her deathbed scene with the ever young and virile Lambert. Sean Connery, mis-cast as an immortal Spanish nobleman with an accent more Scottish than Lambert’s, is the weak linkthat threatens to turn the lilm's gentle humour into unintentional larce.
Highly enjoyable, this is a film worth seeing on several levels, notably tor its action and romance, and the unusual dimension given to both by the theme of immortality. As Lambert Iitts his sword to swipe the head irom yet another deadly enemy, the comiorting phrase ‘It will be the same a hundred years hence', has never had more meaning. (Stephanie Billen)
The List 22 Aug- 4—Sept 41