FILM LIST
wearied by age and the changing world. testily reacting to the dawn of a new era. Edinburgh; EUFS
0 Lost in America (15) (Albert Brooks. US. 1985) Albert Brooks. Julie Hagerty. Michael Green. 91 mins. The upward mobility ofa go-getting business executive is stopped dead in its tracks when he is passed over for promotion. Understandably miffed he decides to opt out ofthe rat race. sells up and begins a nomadic existence with his wife Linda. However. the charms of a freewheeling. easy-going lifestyle soon begin to pall.
Mild-mannered. rambling light-fingered comedy. Edinburgh: EUFS 0 Men ( l5) (Doris Dorrie. West Germany. 1985) Heiner Lauterbach. Uwe Ochsenknecht. Ulrike Kriener. 99mins. Droll German production in which a complacent. philandering middle-class businessman reacts to his wife's infidelity by secretly moving in with her hippy lover and attempting to transform the man into a carbon copy of himself.
A mildly mirthful. entertainingly performed comedy of manners. Edinburgh; Filmhouse o The Mission ( 15) (Roland Joffe'. UK. 1986) Jeremy Irons. Robert De Niro. Ray McAnally. 125 mins. In 18th century South America. a Papal Prelate is called in to resolve a territorial dispute between Spain
and Portugal. His decision is dictated by the political climate in Europe and has harsh ramifications for a mission run by Jesuit priests.
Both a study of male friendship and an exploration of man‘s capacity for the noblest altruism and the most treacherous selfishness. The Mission is an operatic film of depth and considerable power. Glasgow; ABC Sauchiehall Street.
0 Mona Lisa ( 18) (Neil Jordan. UK. 1986) Bob Hoskins. Cathy Tyson. Michael Caine. 104 mins. Brilliantly acted. multi award-winning British poetic realism with a striking emotional punch. Essential viewing. Edinburgh: Dominion ‘ 0 My First Wife ( 15) (Paul Cox. Australia. 1984) John Hargreaves. Wendy Hughes. 98 mins. A radio DJ and his wife of fourteen years split up. and his obsessive love leads to a suicide attempt and an abortive kidnapping ofthcir young daughter. Intensely emotional. well-acted Paul Cox film, with the director adeptly handling an expressionist technique. Edinburgh; EUFS 0 9% Weeks ( 18) (Adrian Lyne. US. 1985) Kim Basinger. Mickey Rourke. Margaret Whitton. 113 mins. Divorce’e Basinger becomes a slave to love when she succumbs to the well-disguised charms of smug commodities broker Rourke. Such is the extent of her addiction that she willingly submits to the numerous humiliations and domination games that he deems essential to their relationship. Lovely to look at. empty-headed ‘designer bonking‘ Glasgow; ABC Clarkston Road. Edinburgh; Cameo 0 Nightmare on Elm Street Part 11: Freddy's Revenge (18) (Jack Sholder. US, 1986) Mark Patton. Kim Myers.
Gothic (18) (Ken Russell, UK, 1986) Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, Natasha Richardson. 87 mins. Take a bunch of poets, writers and hangers-on, fill them full of alcohol and drugs, toss in the odd orgy, have them tell ghostie stories and taking part in a seance so that you can fill the screen with horrifying and hallucinatory images and — shazam! — you have before your entirely appalled eyes a parody Ken Russell movie. Except that Gothic just happened to be directed by the lad himself. And if the excellent Crimes Of Passion was an indication of what he can do when he tries, this current, execrable offering is an awful warning of what he can churn out when he doesn’t.
This wild farrago has its roots in actual events, when in 1816 the bad Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and his wife Mary Wollstonecraft, and one Dr Polidori gathered together in Byron’s exclusive Swiss pad to mull overthe supernatural. The results included Polidori’s The Vampyre and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, both milestones in creating a new genre of Gothic literature. Mad bad Ken Russell, of course, shows a total lack of reverence towards his source material that is refreshing and unsurprising — poets run up and down corridors screaming and stoned out of their brains just like the rest of us- as he's been gleefully riding roughshod over Tchaikovsky, Mahler and the like for years now, though admittedly to much greater effect than he does here.
Robert Englund. 85 mins. Weak sequel to Wes Craven‘s ghoulishly effective original with bogeyman Freddy slicing up another cast list of witless American youngsters. Glasgow; Cinema
0 Peggy Sue Got Married (PG) (Francis Ford Coppola. US. 1986)
What is so surprising about Gothic is that it should be so shoddy in so many respects. Russell is very often a technicallyfluid film-maker, but this shambling procession of inept dementia is crammed to the point of tiresomeness with supposedly ‘Shocking’ non-sequiturs (insects crawling out of mouths, buckets of pus, lashing of leeches and the like), and continues along at such an annoyingly high pitch of hysteria that the hapless viewer simply becomes numb to the increasingly risible action on screen. The actors have been allowed to get away with swaggeringly hammy performances all round which does little to improve matters, Steven Volk's scriptthough obviously well-researched piumbs hitherto unfathomed depths of pseudo-poetic Iudicrousness, and the goblin which jumps onto the hall-naked lady in homage to Fuseli’s painting ‘The Nightmare' must be one of the least menacing in cinema history.
Perhaps the most shameful thing about his sorry affair is that it happens to be Russell’s first British film for ten years, and although he is already working on his section of Don Boyd’s Aria, he may have scuttled his chances of ever working in this country again.
To lose such a flamboyant, though occasionally wayward talent would be a shame indeed, but if he continuesto pick up on scripts like Gothic and execute them in such a clumsy manner he may only have himself to blame. (TrevorJohnston)
Kathleen Turner. Nicolas Cage. Catherine Hicks. 103 mins. Light and likeable Coppola confection in which the always magnificent Turner collapses at her high school class reunion and regains consciousness in 1959. She has the body of an energetic teenage girl but retains the
accumulated wisdom of a middle-aged woman. She eagerly grasps the opportunity to change the course of her future life but discovers that destiny is perhaps immutable.
An entertaining. irresistibly sloppy romantic drama with a real regard for its characters and their modest preoccupations. Glasgow; ()deon. Edinburgh; Odeon 0 Les Portes de la Nuit (Marcel Came. France. 1946) Yves Montand. Nathalie Nattier. Pierre Brasseur. 121) mins. A memorably acted tale ofordinary people in post-war Paris. Edinburgh; French Institute 0 The Postman Always Rings Twice (18) (Bob Rafaelson. US. 1981 ) Jack Nicholson. Jessica Lange. Anjelica Huston. 121 mins. Sizzling. steamy version of the James M. (‘ain novel with Nicholson and Lange swept away on a tide of bonking and lust that leads to murder and the souring of their seemingly perfect and uncontrollable passion. Glasgow; GET 0 Prizzi’s Honour( 15) (John Huston. USs, 1985) Jack Nicholson. Kathleen Turner. Angelica Huston. 129 mins. ‘Do I ice her or do I marry her‘." puzzles Nicholson‘s Neanderthal hit-man when he discovers that the woman who shares his bed also shares his lethal
profession. A delicious black comedy. crafted with a veteran's touch by Huston and graced by a rogues‘ gallery ofsuperior performances. Glasgow; Grosvenor o The Purple Rose of Cairo (PG) (Woody Allen. US. 1985) Mia Farrow. Jeff Daniels. 82 mins. Unhappy Depression-era waitress Mia Farrow escapes her sorrows at the local fleapit and falls in love with a dashing fictional leading man who steps down from the screen. A shining gem of ingenious wit and dazzling invention. Glasgow; GFI‘ 0 Raging Bull ( 18) (Martin Scorsese. US. 198(1) Robert De Niro. Cathy Moriarty. Joe Pesci. 129 mins. 1949 middleweight boxing champ Jake La Motta finds it difficult to sustain his early success and. as his career fades. he declines into a travesty of his former self.
De Niro‘s stunning physical performance dominates Scorsese‘s savagely bleak study of self—destructive male machismo. Edinburgh;Fi1mhouse 0 Rate lix ( 18) (Paula de Koenigsberg. US. 1985) 93 mins. Skilful feminist documentary comprising a series of interviews with men involved in the sexploitation industry. Edinburgh; Filmhouse 0 The Right Stuff ( 15) (Philip Kaufman. US. 1983) Sam Shepard. Barbara Hershey. Dennis ()uaid. 193 mins. Exhilarating. panoramic paean ofcelehration to the heroes of the last frontier of human endeavour
— flight. Winner ofa measly three Oscars. this is an unmissable big screen experience. Edinburgh; (‘ameo
0 Room With A View ( PU) (James Ivory. UK. 1985) Helena Bonham Carter. Maggie Smith. Denholm Elliott. 117 mins. Elegantly mounted with an agreeable lightness of touch.
14 The List 6— 19 March