FILM LIST
Odcon Ayr.
I Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (PG) (Carl Reiner. US. 1982) Steve Martin. Rachel Ward and a cast of revived luminaries. 87 mins. Film noir spoof has private eye Martin involved with femme fatale Ward and fiendish Nazi scientist Reiner. Much ofthc humour stems from the intercutting with actual Forties movies in a device now copied by the adverts for a certain lager. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I Les Diaboliques ( 15) (Henri—Georges Clouzot. France. 1955) Simone Signoret. Vera Clouzot. Paul Meurisse. 107 mins. Fiendishly clever and much imitated thriller in which a tyrannical schoolmaster is murdered by his wife and mistress. Except that he doesn't stay dead for long. The famous bathroom finale has most recently been borrowed by Adrian Lyne's FaraIArrraaion. but this is the original and best. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Film Guild. I Dirty Dancing ( 15) (Emile Ardolino. US. 1987) Jennifer Grey. Patrick Swayzc. Jerry Orbaeh. 100 mins. Remarkably ordinary but staggeringly popular girl meets boy from the wrong side ofthc tracks musical set in an American summer camp in the year 1963. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I The Dressmaker( 15) it (Jim O'Brien. UK. 1988) Joan Plowright. Billie Whitelaw. Jane Horrocks. Will Sampson. 94 mins. See panel. Glasgow: Grosvenor. I Drowning By Numbers ( 18) (Peter Greenaway. UK. 1988) Joan Plowright. Bernard Hill. Joely Richardson. 118mins. in a narrative as straightforward and complicated as the title. three generations of women. all of them called Cissie Colpitts. dispose of their husbands in a series of aquatic murders. whilst the numbers 1 to 100 run through the filmin the backgrounds.
Full ofthc usual ravishing visual symmetries and a highly developed sense ofthe incongruous. Greenaway’s latest sports a number of highly polished and sympathetic performances. that along with the enjoyable pastime ofnumbcr spotting. makes this current effort his most accessible and pleasurable to date. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I Les Enfants Terribles (PG) (Jean-Pierre Melville. France. 1950) Nicole Stephane. Edouard Dermithe. 100 mins. The intense relationship between an adolescent brother and sister eventually produces tragic results. Committed performances from the two young leads achieve moments of real power in this sure-footed adaptation ofJean Cocteau. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I The Exorcist (18) (William Friedkin. US. 1973) Ellen Burstyn. Max Von Sydow. Linda Blair. 11()mins. Earnest priest Von Sydow steps in to save poor little possessed girl Blair in this hugely convincing and effective scarefest that has stood the test of time. Edinburgh: Cameo. I Exorcist 2: The Heretic (18) (John Boorman. US. 1977) Richard Burton. Louise Fletcher. Linda Blair. 110mins. The horror film that once turned heads receives an unworthy sequel in this silly mumbo-jumbo about priest Burton trying to understand the demons still lurking within the hapless Miss Blair. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I Fatal Attraction (18) (Adrian Lyne. US, 1987) Glenn Close. Michael Douglas, Anne Archer. 119 mins. Happily married lawyer Douglas discovers the high price of infidelity when his casual one night stand turns out to be a dangerously psychotic woman who will st0p at nothing to gain her man’s affection. Glossy. well-acted misogynistic Hitchcock-style thriller. Strathclyde: AMC Clydebank 10.
I A Fish Called Wanda (15) (Charles Crichton. UK, 1988) John Cleese.Jamie Lee Curtis. Kevin Kline. Michael Palin. Tom Georgeson. 108 mins. Stuffy English lawyer Archie Leach (Cleese) gets unwittingly involved with a gang of diamond thieves, including brash American Kline and stammering animal
MAPANTSULA
Mapantsula (15) a (Oliver Schmitz, 3. Africa, 1988) Thomas Mogotlane, Thembi Mtshali, Peter Sephuma.106 mins. Filmed in Soweto underthe noses of the white authorities, this is the most authentic screen examination so far to deal with the experience of living under apartheid in today's black townships.
Co-writer Thomas Mogotlane plays Panic, a small-time crook who ventures into the white world only to snatch the odd handbag, and who is more interested in drinking and womanising around the local shebeens. However, when his girlfriend Pat (Thembe Mtshali) is unjustly sacked from heriob as a maid, she takes her grievance to union activist Duma (Sephuma), and gets involved in organised resistance. Before long however. both Duma and Panic find themselves behind bars after a police round-up, and as the latter is brutally interrogated, for once in his life he is forced to take a stand, and so at last comprehend what his
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fellow countrymen are fighting for. Probably the main interst here is just to observe what life must be like for a substantial number of black people living in South Africa, for not only does Mapantsula offer us the pictures of violent struggle that the government media clampdown has now denied to news cameraman, it also attempts to
explore the broad‘sp‘ectrum of awareness that does exist amongst the majority population. The film shows that many are interested in merely keeping their heads down and staying out of trouble, or, like Panic, selfish and wilfully blasé about the political situation. The film’s particular strength lies in the way that it takes Panic and Pat out of their cosy self-centredness and puts them in a position that makes them realise the short-sightedness, it not blindness, of such a way of life within the context of the struggle against apartheid.
While at times, director Schmitz‘s efforts to give the film a documentary feel result in a certain lack of narrative drive, the obvious risks that have been taken to get the film made at all do generate a feeling of total commitment that cannot but engage the viewer’s sympathy. While not operating in the same field of skilled emotional caiolery as an Attenborough or Menges, the quiet power generated here comes from the total conviction conveyed by hard realism. (Trevor Johnston)
lover Palin. because he has access to information that will help them lay their hands on the swag. Glamorous Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis) steps in to romance him into talking. but love is to rearits head.
Remarkably effective comedy. with the absurdly black humour of the Python generation given a narrative control and sense of timing that only a veteran‘s steady hand could provide. And it makes a wonderful romantic lead out of the rather unlikely Mr Cleese. Glasgow: Cannon Sauchiehall Street. Edinburgh: Dominion. Strathclyde: AMC Clydebank 10.
I Fox (18) (Rainer Werner Fassbinder. W. Germany. 1976) Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Peter Chatel. Karlheinz Bohm. 123 mins. Fassbinder himselfplays Fox. an unemployed carnival worker who is picked up by a middle~class antiques dealer and introduced to a new milieu where he is exploited. Compassionate. overheated and politically astute homosexual melodrama in the director‘s most controlled style. Glasgow: GFT.
I Freebie And The Bean ( 15) (Richard Rush. US. 1974) Allan Arkin.James Caan. Loretta Swit. 113 mins. Anarchic buddy cop movie as our incompetent heroes try to track down a numbers racket. Much automotive mayhem. and a winning star combination make this genuinely funny action comedy one ofthe best of its kind. Glasgow: Grosvenor.
I The French Lieutenant's Woman (15) (Karel Reisz. UK. 1981) Meryl Streep. Jeremy Irons, Leo McKern. 123 mins. Past and present, reality and artifice , passion and scandal are artfully juxtaposed in Harold Pinter‘s masterful adaptation of the John Fowles novel that contrasts the Victorian romance of a scholarly gentlemen and a fallen woman with the contemporary affair between actor and actress portraying them in a film. Slightly starchy but rich and satisfying. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I Friday 13th Part 6: Jason Lives (18) (Tom MeLouglin. US. 1986) Thom Matthews. Jennifer Cooke. David Kagan. 87 mins. Camp Chopemup has been quiet for a few years, so a gaggle of nubile teens spend the weekend there. They get off with each other, then a dead psycho in a hockey mask slices them to pieces. And they say real movie entertainment‘s dead. huh? Strathclyde: AMC Clydebank 10.
I The Fruit Machine ( 15) (Philip Saville. UK. 1988) Emile Charles. Tony Forsyth. Robbie Coltrane. Bruce Payne. 103 mins. Two young scouse rs on the run from a gay nightclub slaying hitch a ride south to Brighton. where the situation oftwo trapped dolphins seems to mirror their own sense ofentrapment. Meanwhile. the killer is still stalkingthem.
Frank Clarke‘s script is an ambitious attempt at showing how a growing relationship between two sexually uncertain adolescents is affected by the atmosphere of Eighties’ Britain. though even Philip Saville‘s stylish direction can‘t help the separate thematic strands from pulling in several directions at once. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I Full Metal Jacket ( 18) (Stanley Kubrick, UK. 1987) Matthew Modine, Dorian Harewood. Lee Ermcy. 109mins. Technically effective but soulless depiction of raw Vietnam recruits as they endure basic training and the even greater horrors ofthc 1968 Tet offensive. A disappointment. Edinburgh: Cameo. Edinburgh Film Guild.
I Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (PG) (Howard Hawks. US. 1953) Marilyn Monroe. Jane Russell. Charles Coburn. 91 mins. Two girls from Little Rock make it big in Paris. Inconsequentiai comedy musical from the Anita Loos novel, made watchable by the ebullient stars and the number ‘Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend‘. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I Hairspray (PG) (John Waters. US. 1987) Ricki Lake, Divine. Debbie Harry. Sonny Bono. 92 mins. Baltimore. 1962. Uproar breaks out on the Dance Council oftop TV pop extravaganza The Corny Collins Show when hefty teen queen Ricki Lake deposes the former star of the show, and begins to make friends with (gulp) black people. thus breaking down the programme‘s strict racial segregation.
Unflagging entertainment as former trash king Waters does his own bizarre version of mainstream comedy. Definitely one of the fun movies of 1988. Edinburgh: Odcon.
I High Spirits (15) (Neil Jordan, US/UK. 1988) Peter O‘Toole. Daryl Hannah, Steve Guttenberg. 92 mins. O‘Toole stars as the financially desperate owner of a decaying Irish castle, facing the prospect of coming up with some swift cash or facing foreclosure. he cooks up a scheme to pass off Plunkett Castle as the most
haunted house in Ireland. When a group of American tourists arrive however. the real ghosts eventually do come out for them and a complicated double supernatural romance is the result.
Lacklustre slapstick farce. with poor timing and a cluttered narrative curtailing any interest in the sometimes charming special effects. Perhaps comedy isn't Jordan's forte. or the compromisesof international production have spiked his authorial independence. but this loadof mularkey does him and his stellar cast no credit at all. Glasgow: Grosvenor. Odcon. Edinburgh: ()deon. Strathclyde: AMC, Clydebank 10. ()deon Ayr. Odcon Hamilton. I House of Games ( 15) (David Mamet. US. 1987) Lindsay Crouse. Joe Mantegna, Lilia Skala. 102 mins. A workaholic psychiatrist. the author of a bestselleron compulsive behaviour. becomes hopelessly interested in a group ofcon men and the seams they perpetrate on gullible suckers. Attraeted by the vicarious thrill of their games. she is eager to graduate from observer to participant but then finds that herlighthearted escapism has led to larceny. intrigue and murder.
Although slow to start this develops into a gripping and pleasurany serpentine thriller of ingenious twists. hard-boiled Chandleresque dialogue and surprise double-crosses. A Chinese box of a film to be seen and savoured. Glasgow: GET. Edinburgh: Cameo. I The Killing Fields ( 15) (Roland Joffe. UK. 1984) Sam Waterston. Haing S. Ngor. John Malkovich. 142 mins. Oscar-winning true life drama ofthe friendship between American journalist Sidney Schanberg and his guide-interpreter Dith Pran. which endures beyond the horror of war in Cambodia and its aftermath. Overrated Puttnam epic. too self-conscious to be truly powerful. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. I Kiss Of The Spiderwoman ( 15) (Hector Babenco. US-Brazil. 1985) William Hurt. Raul Julia. Sonia Braga. 119 mins. Two meen share a prison cell. each of them in their own way victims of an unspecified fascist regime. One is a flamboyant homosexual. the other a macho revolutionary. The pain oftheir confinement eventually brings mutual understanding. love. and a change of roles. Glasgow: Grosvenor.
The List 13 - 26 January 15