FILM LIST
1986) Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella
Lumberton, middle-America. Would-be boy detective Jeffrey Beaumont finds a severed ear on some waste ground and when the police shoo him away he decides to do some investigating of his own. Astonishineg seductive, sensual mystery thriller. Intensely cinematic. Glasgow; Grosvenor. Edinburgh; Cameo 0 Brazil (15) (Terry Gilliam, UK, 1985) Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Michael Palin. 142 mins. Ambitious. dazzling Orwellian romance with Pryce as a cog in the bureaucratic wheel finally stirred to oppose the system by the power of love. Glasgow; GET 0 The Brood (18) (David Cronenberg, Canada, 1979) Samantha Eggar, Oliver Reed. 91 mins. Eggar‘s maternal instincts run wild as she devours her own afterbirth and deposits dozens of midget clones in the world who turn very nasty ifshe‘s upset. Pretty unstomachable horror but, according to the director it‘s ‘my version of Kramer vs Kramer. Edinburgh; Cameo O BuiletFroid (15) (Bertrand Blier. France. 1979) Gerard Depardieu. Bernard Blier. Genevieve Page. 93 mins. Various inhabitants ofa Paris block of flats, police inspector Blier and criminal Depardieu amongst them discover that they rather enjoy killing people. Blacker than black comic capers from director Blier which fitfully achieves the air of careering lunacy Tenue de Soirée seemed to be vainly straining for. Edinburgh; EUFS O Cactus (PG) (Paul Cox. Australia. 1986) Isabelle Huppert. Robert Menzies. Norman Kaye. 96 mins. Static, slow-moving sensitive romance as Huppert visits friends in Australia to escape from a failing marriage and loses the sight of her left eye following a car crash. Her remaining sight may also be impaired. but as she wrestles with the medical options she meets Robert who has been blind since birth and is now himself a teacher of the blind. Major decisions about her future must be faced when her husband arrives to encourage a reconciliation. Edinburgh; EUFS o The Cheviot, The Stag and the Black, Black Oil (TV) (John Mackenzie, UK. 1974) 90 mins. Celebrated BBC (London) version ofJohn McGrath‘s radical play that humorously and insightfully detonates a host of Scotch Myths. Edinburgh; Filmhouse 0 Citizen Kane (PG) (Orson Welles, US, 1941) Orson Welles. Joseph Cotten. Agnes Moorehead. 119 mins. A newspaper tycoon dies mumbling the single word ‘Rosebud‘. A reporter inverviews his friends and associates to uncover the significance ofthe remark and unlocks a kaleidosc0pic mosaic of one man’s life and times. Brilliant. seminal film that tingles with the raw energy of a cinema
0 Blue Velvet ( 18) (David Lynch, US,
Rosselini, Dennis Hopper. 120 mins.
_ EL EART
AND
Angel Heart (18) (Alan Parker, UK, 1987) Mickey Rourke, Lisa Bonet, Robert De iliro, Charlotte Rampllng. 113mlns. English director Alan Parker has always shown a distinct leaning toward very American toms, and his best iilms- Midnight Express, Bugsy Malone, Blrdy— have characteristically taken those toms and twisted them around in distinctive ways. Angel Heart, set in the 1950s, promises to do much the same tor the private eye thriller, but doesn’t ultimately quite deliver.
Mickey Rourke is Harry Angel, a downbeat private detective hired by a mysterious employer, one Louis Cyphre (De iiiro, all restrained, smouldering menace until Parker blows it with a needless special eilect in the closing reel), to ilnd a missing crooner, Johnny Favourite, who has disappeared irom a nursing home where he was confined by war injuries.
Angel's search lorthe singer takes him
novice reinventing screen grammar. An enduring cinema milestone that has stood the test of time. Edinburgh; Cameo
o Comrades (PG) (Bill Douglas, UK, . 1986) Robin Soams, Michael Hordern, Vanessa Redgrave. 180 mins. Douglas’s long-awaited epic account of the Tolpuddle Martyrs attempts to capture the human story behind the persecution of these icons of the early labour movement with a minimum resort to dialogue and a relish in carefully composed images. It is ultimately a film about the indomitable nature of the idea of freedom, equality and justice. Well worth the wait. Glasgow; GET
0 Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (PG) (Carl Reiner, US, 1982) Steve Martin, Rachel Ward and a cast of thousands. 87 mins. Film noir spoof has Martin involved with femme fatale Ward and fiendish Nazi scientist Reiner. Much ofthe humour stems from the intercutting with actual Forties movies, in a device now copied by adverts for a certain lager. Glasgow; GET
0 The Death oi the White Horse (PG) (Christian Ziewer, W. Germany) 111 mins. 16th century epic detailing the circumstances surrounding the peasant revolt in Germany. The screening will be followed by a
to a seedy New Orleans dominated by voodoo cults and a trail oi dead bodies. Angel is sucked deeper and deeper into a conirontatlon with his own past, and ti his llnal, anguished realisation oi identity hardly strikes the viewer with the lorce oi revelation by this stage, it remains a poweriul moment. The explicit Faustian resonances oi the story tend to get lost, however, in an overdose oi gore and a seeming lack oi faith in the power oi the script and his splendid cast to convey the lilm’s message in more subtle ways. It is undoubtedly violent, although the carnage generally tends to take place nit-screen, leaving only the bloody altennath, and this apparent pandering to the iashionable demand tor explicit nastiness detracts irom what might have been a very line iilm indeed. As it stands, it otters Parker’s usual visual delights, excellent perionnances irom the principals, and a stylish testimony to a wasted opportunity. (K Mathleson)
discussion with the director and a member of the production company. Edinburgh; Filmhouse
o Desperately Seeking Susan ( 15) (Susan Seidelman, US, 1985) Rosanna Arquette, Madonna, Aidan Quinn. 104 mins. Fun and fizzy, role-swapping feminist fantasy comedy set in the Big Apple. Edinburgh; Filmhouse
0 Destiny (Der Mude Tod) (U) (Fritz Lang, Germany, 1921) 100 mins. A young woman tries to save her lover form the presence of death in this characteristic silent Lang production invoking fantasy and magic. Edinburgh; Edinburgh Film Guild 0 Dirty Dancing (15) a (Emile Ardolino, US, 1987) Jennifer Grey, Patrick Swayze, Jerry Orbach. 100 mins. Unremarkable but watchable (just) wrong side of the tracks romance in which boy (hunky dance instructor) and girl (idealistic, pampered Jewish teenager) meet at a Butlins-like summer camp during the late summer of 1963. Various emotional, parental and other conflicts are resolved over the fortnight’s vacation amidst much whooping to the illicit pleasures of mildly suggestive boogieing.
Glasgow; Cannon Clarkston Road, Cannon Sauchiehall Street, Cinema, Grosvenor. Edinburgh; Dominion.
Strathclyde; Cannon, Kelburne, La Scala, Odeon Ayr, Odeon Hamilton, Rialto. Lothian; Cannon 0 Down By Law (15) (Jim Jarmusch, US, 1986) Tom Waits, John Lurie, Robert Benigni. 106 mins. Two abrasive hepcats with women trouble and a haplessly innocent Italian tourist with a penchant for American poetry in translation are thrown together in a New Orleans prison cell, but miraculously manage to shamble their way out of confinement and across the Louisiana swamps in this offbeat, joyously hip comic divertissement. Glasgow; GFT o Dreamchild (PG) (Gavin Millar, UK, 1985) Coral Browne, Ian Holm, Peter Gallagher. 94 mins. The aged Mrs Alice Hargreaves, who, as a little girl, was the child to whom Lewis Carroll told the Alice stories, is in town to receive an Honorary Degree from Columbia University. The confrontation with a brash New World sends the eighty year-old back to the sunny days on the Isis of her childhood. Dennis Potter‘s first original cinema screenplay is a careful and evocative study of the way in which the memories of old age can fit together the half-understood experiences of youth. Browne is imperiously outstanding. Glasgow; GET 0 Dune (PG) (Uavrd Lynch, US, 1984) Kyle MacLachlan, Francesca Annis, Sting. 136 mins. An intergalactic trade war rages over the possesson of the spice melange which is exclusive to the planet Dune. Unwieldy, uninvolving big-budget spectacular, bereft of any emotional resonance. Edinburgh; Filmhouse 0 Easy Rider (18) (Dennis Hopper, US, 1969) Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson. 94 mins. Artless, archetypal ‘road‘ movie in which two dope-loving bikers travel the highways and by-ways of America. Dated, low-budget feature with Nicholson especially memorable as a booze-drenched, straitlaced lawyer who is persuaded to join up for the trip. Glasgow; GET 0 The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (PG) (Werner Herzog, W. Germany, 1975) Bruno S, Brigitte Mira. 110 mins. A man kept in confinement from birth inexplicably appears on the streets of Nuremberg in the 18205. Unable to speak the language he is a stranger in a strange land and this stunning film explores his alternative vision of society and his attempts to fit in with his surroundings. Great performance from Bruno S. Edinburgh; Cameo 0 file Evil Dead (18) (Sam Raimi, US, 1982) Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker. 85 mins. Five unsuspecting youngesters head off to a healthy weekend in a mountain cabin only to fall foul of wicked demons whose purpose is wholesale slaughter. Stylish, ultra-cheapo shocker-schlocker made with imagination by an inventive young team. Edinburgh; Cannon 0 Evil Dead Ii: Dead Beiore Dawn (18) (Sam Raimi, US, 1987) Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks. Those pesky evil forces in the woods
10The List 16— 29 October