FILM LIST
s4 "7. ,1. :.‘ 'M‘g' 42' I
DIAMOND LIVES
While the wisdom of the box office proclaims that sports movies die. Hollywood seems to have fallen in love with baseball. With a whole spate of films following the quest for the home run due for release. TREVOR JOHNSTON wonders whether uncomprehending
British audiences and distributors are going to be able to cope.
Bull Durham at Cannons. Glasgow from 1 Sept; Clydebank l () from
3 Sept and Edinburgh Filmhouse
ONES TO WATCH Our pick otthe iortnight's highlights on the commercial and repertory circuits. . . For more
comprehensive reviews and
venue details see the Film Index. while complete programme details can be found in the Film Listings. SEE NO EVIL. HEAR NO EVIL Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder team up again for more comedic capers. The former blind. the latter deaf. they‘re the combined witnesses to a murder. Wide release from 1 Sept.
SEX. LIES AND VIDEOTAPE Steven Soderbergh‘s Cannes winner is a sexually intimate chamber piece wittily detailing a familial sexual triangle and the recordingof
true-life confessions on tape. Glasgow Cannon Sauchiehall Street and Edinburgh Cameo from 8 Sept.
REPERTORY SELECTIONS
EIGHT MEN OUTJohn Sayles‘ addition to the current baseball cycle centres on the World Series rigging scandal of 1919 to show how greed and corruption permeate America‘s national pastime. Edinburgh Filmhouse 10—12 Sept. LA SENYORA Weird Spanish sexual melodrama following a young woman‘s death-strewn quest to find a capable partner after the
passing away of her aged I husband. Like Bunuelon
I
front 3 Sept. E igltt Men Out at Edinburgh Film/louse 10—12 Sept.
heat. Glasgow Film Theatre 6 Sept.
While the favourites around the Film Festival included Ann Turner's
dark Australian childhood
adventre Celia and Matthias Allary‘s boldly expressionist Franta. Percy Adlon and the members of the jury gave the first Charles Chaplin New Directors Award to the Indian film-maker Shaji for his debut feature Piravi. Based on true incidents during Mrs Gandhi’s period of Emergency Rule during the 19705. the film examines the death ofa student in police custody. More than that your correspondent cannot say.
THE FLY ll BrundleJnr
You are offered a simple choice: sex or baseball? And obviously. you‘re not going to be slipping on a catcher‘s mitt (well. you might if you‘re a bit pervy but that‘s another story). However. what ifthings are a bit more devious than that. and while you plump for the sex. what you actually get is a lot of baseball chuckedin.
Such is the case with Ron Shelton‘s Bull Durham. a romantic comedy with Kevin Costner and the ever-engaging Susan Sarandon. Just check out the tag-lines on that poster. ‘He said: [believe in the soul, the small of a woman 's back. good Scotch. and long, slow, deep. soft wet kisses that last for th ree days. She said: Oh. my." Sounds good. and what‘s more Saradon has this habit oftying men to the bed and reading them Walt Whitman‘s most erotic poetry. But sorry folks. it‘s actually a baseball movie.
A lot of the time La Sarandon is not frolicking. not even on screen. and what we have is ex-ball player Shelton‘s tale ofmentor Costner's attempts to coach greenhorn Tim Robbins from the minor league Durham Bulls to major league stardom. Thus we enter the Wunnerful World of Baseball. with all the mysteries of its terminology. the curious catalogue of its rules. the arcane rituals ofthe play itself. For one who remains unmoved by the attractions of American sport. a lot ofthis stuffis gobbledegook.
Over in the US. the audiences know all there is to know about batting averages and the like. so if Stallone can make screen pugilism a nice little earner at the box office,
for he must now shamefully admit that he never got to see the damn thing.
ALSO OPENING
follows in his father's footsteps (all six ofthem) as he begins to horribly mutate in this gloppy sequel to the Cronenberg original. Make-up effects specialist Chris Walas takes over as director.
Key ()deons from 8 Sept.
COUSINS An outbreak of romance affecting two different families is the basis for this American remake ofJean-(‘harles j
why shouldn‘t the excitement and intrigue of the baseball diamond be similarly preserved in celluloid legend. On this side of the Big Pond however. we have to pretend that these films are in fact about something else. Thus Bull Durham becomes a steamy romance. and we can easily read. Eight Men ()ut. John Sayles‘ study ofthe 1919 Chicago White Sox World Series fixing scandal. as an indictment of the greed and corruption endemic to the American Way.
The world dominance of the US film industry means that it has the power to get its product exhibited in territories that may not share all of its cultural enthusiasms. And so we in the GB are about to receive both Major League. David Ward's comic fable about the uniquely talentless team in his hometown of Cleveland; and Phil Alden Robinson‘s Field of Dreams with Costner (again) as a farmer whose lifelong fantasy it is to build his own baseball field. Not to mention Stealing Home. another batting love story with Mark llarmon and post-Oscar Jodie Foster beyond that.
A few years back Barry Levinson‘s vehicle for Robert Redford. The Natural. had some fifteen minutes of ballpark footage snipped out of its running time for the British market. so the next few months should offer the not unentertaining sight of various UK distributors getting the jitters over the baseball movie (that isn‘t really) hard sell. Ifyou thought the Bull Durham campaign was devious. then keep watching the billboards.
'l'acchela's 1975 French ' movie Cousin. ('ousine. I Ted Damon and Isabella ! Rosselinistar.Key Canonsh‘ Sept.
The List 1— 14 September 198925