FILM LIST
I Scenes From The Class Struggle In Beverly I‘lllIS(l8) {5' (Paul Bartel. US. 1989) Jacqueline Bisset. Ray Sharkey. Robert Beltran. Mary Woronov. 104 mins. Years after the splendid Eating Raoul. director and actor Paul Bartel attempts another blend of the urbane and the grossly vulgar with this pervy variant on Renoir and Marivaux. Bisset is an ex-TV soap star attempting a comeback and. as friends and relations gather in her Hollywood mansion for the weekend. the scene is set for all manner of sexual entanglement between masters and servants. The intention is obviously to leaven the comedy of manners with a modicum of low humour. but sadly the jokes just aren‘t fast and funny enough. All round a bit ofa misfire. Glasgow: Odeon. I Sea of Love (18) n (Harold Becker. US. 1989) Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin. John Goodman, Michael Rooker. 118 mins. See feature. Glasgow: Cannon The Forge. Cannon Sauchiehall Street, Grosvenor. Edinburgh: Cannon. Central: Cannon. Strathclyde: Cannon. UCI Clydebank. UCI East Kilbride. I Sex, Lies and Videotape (15) (Steven Soderbergh, US. 1989) Andie McDowell. Laura San Giacomo. James Spader. Peter Gallagher. 101 mins. The scx:John (Gallagher) is conducting a steamy affair with his sister-in-law Cynthia (San Giacomo). The lies: they neglect to tell his wife, Anne (McDowell). The videotape: ' John‘s buddy Graham (Spader) gets his kicks by filming women‘s sexual confessions. 26-year-old Soderbergh‘s first feature is a strikingly assured. funny and thoughtful piece of work. forcing us to examine our own attitudes toward sex. and won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Glasgow: GFT. I Shirley Valentine (15) (Lewis Gilbert. UK, 1989) Pauline Collins. Bernard Hill. Tom Conti. 110 mins. Gilbert's screen version of the celebrated Willy Russell play. now expanded from a monologue to
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Sur (15) it (Fernando Ezequiel Solanas, Argentina, 1988) Miguel Angel Sola. Susu Pecoraro. Philippe Leotard. 119 mins. It’s another instance of the caprices of the British distribution system that while Fernando Solanas won the Best Director prize at Cannes way back in 1988. the film is only now hitting our screens. At least the wait has been worth it however, for Sur is a reminder that the intoxicating artistry of the South American imagination need not be confined to the written word.
That said, the pleasures of the film lie in the manner in which Solanas has been able to draw on the influences oi literary post-modernism and create a self-consciously labyrinthine filmic construction suspended teasineg between fact and fancy.
Set in Buenos Aires after the downlall of the Argentinian military junta, the main thread follows the fortunes of Floreal (Sola) as he is released from prison and trudges through the city at night to be reunited with his wife Rosi (Pecoraro). Along the way, however, he is constantly accosted by the ghosts of the past, literally, in fact, as his departed former friends turn up to relive the shared perils of yesteryear.
and metaphorically, as the memories of his spouse's infidelity during his incarceration come back to haunt him. It’s a story of a relationship and of an entire country, fusing the personal and the political with an ease that would make David Hare envious.
Sur is also a supremely intelligent exercise in paradox, for it uses the evocation of the painful past to bring the issues of the present into clearer focus, and although the device of the spirits is the purest fantasy it works as a calling to account of the harsh reality of loss and guilt that the country is going to have to face up to. If this sounds like impenetrable intellectualism then fear not, for Solanas adeptly uses the appearance of Astor Piazzolla’s tango band to punctuate and shape the ongoing narrative, and the lusth romantic weaving of voice and bandoneon adds a palpable emotional backbone to the central couple’s longed-for reconciliation. Fluidly rhythmical, yet allurineg dark and mysterious, a brief description of the music says much about the film as a whole. (Trevor Johnston)
From Thurs 8. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
include Hill as the insensitive hubby and Conti as the Greek bit of stuffShirley meets on a Mediterranean holiday that turns into a voyage ofself-(re)discovery. Collins is outstanding in the title role of frustrated Liverpudlian housewife. Glasgow: Cannon Sauchiehall Street. Grosvenor. Edinburgh: Dominion.
' Strathclyde: UCI Clydebank. UCI East
Kilbride.
I Speaking Parts (18) (Atom Egoyan. Canada. 1989) Michael McManus. Arsinee Khanjian. Gabrielle Rose. Tony Nardi. 92 mins. Three young residents ofa hotel fall victim to the manipulative possiblities of videotape in this mildly surreal story of their desires and fears. Clara wants to exploit her brother’s death on television. while Lisa is oblivious tothe medium’s capacity to distort. Meanwhile, the man they both love has problems communicating via the video telephone he has linked up with Clara's room. Ambiguous, intellectually challenging and passronate study of sex and the cathode ray tube. Glasgow: GF'I‘.
I Star Trek 14: The Saga (PG)(Robert Wise. Nicholas Meyer. Leonard Nimoy & William Shatner. US. 1979-89) William Shatner. Leonard Nimoy. DeForest Kelley er al. 132 mins; 95 mins; 105 mins; 119 mins; 107 mins. (Parts 2—4 in 70mm). Buddy. can you spare ten-and-a-half hours? Trekkie-maniacs only should consider beaming up for this marathon
voyage toward the Final Frontier; though others may enjoy watching the hairs turn grey over a decade of boldly floggingthe flagging horse Enterprise where each instalment has gone before. Edinburgh: Cannon.
I Sugarbaby (15) (Percy Adlon, W. Germany. 1985) Marianne Sagebrecht. Eisi Gulp. 86 mins. The unlikely romance between an overweight. middle-aged
undertaker‘s assistant and a young subway
driver is the engaging focus of thisquirky offering. a strange beguiling work at once warmly appealing and slightly repellent that forces us to re-cxamine our notions of sexual desirability. Glasgow: GFT. ISunrise (PG) (F. W. Murnau. US, 1927)
George O’ Brien. Janet Gaynor. Margaret
Livingston, Bodil Rosing. 97 mins. Aftera fling with a beautiful broad from the big city, a country boy tries to murder his wife. I When liarry Met Sally ( 15) (Rob Reiner. US. 1989) Billy Crystal. Meg Ryan. Carrie Fisher. 95 mins. Thoughtful sex comedy has Crystal (Harry). Ryan (Sally) and Reiner on top form, with highly entertaining results. Nora Ephron's witty screenplay intelligently ponders the possibility of male/female friendship with or without romance. and guess which side wins. . .Annie Hall forthe late 19803.with now-famous faked orgasm. Glasgow: Cannon The Forge, Odeon. Edinburgh: Dominion. Odeon. Central: Allanpark. Strathclyde: Cannon. Odeon Ayr. UCI
but then repents and spends the rest of the movie making up with her. Lyrical silent love story. with superb monochrome imagery and some genuinely surprising twists. Edinburgh University Film Society. I Slit (15) 1? (Fernando Solanas. Argentina. 1988) Sus Pecoraro. Miguel Angel Sola. Philippe Leotard. ll9mins. See review. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. I The Top Of His Head (15) (Pierre Mettler. Canada. 1989) Stephen Ouimette. Debut feature by noted Canadian cinematographer Mettler. whose narrative. following the Name relationship between a satellite dish salesman and a performance artist. unfolds to the tune of a Frith soundtrack. Showing with animator Pierre Hebert‘s The Technology of Tears, the music from which provided the title track of the busy Mr Frith‘s last album. Glasgow: GFT. I The Toxic Avenger (18) (Michael HeerSamuel Weill. US. 1984) Andree Maranda, Mitchell Cohen. Jennifer Baptist. 100 mins. Ultratrash offering from the Troma stable , which also brought you Stuff Stefanie In The Incinerator and Surf Nazis Must Die. This one has the high school nerd fall into a vat of toxic waste only to emerge as a do-gooding mutant killer. Action highlight: the psycho-bimbo who masturbates over pictures of car crash victims. Ho hum. Edinburgh: Cameo. I Turner and llooch (PG) (Roger Spottiswoode. US, 1989) Tom Hanks, Beazley. Mare Winningham. 108 mins. Hanks plays an obsessively clean and efficent cop who inherits Hooch the pooch. a massive mastiff. The limited comedy revolves around the dog‘s ability to drool gallons of of saliva and dismantle all obstacles while helping the police with their enquiries. Needless to say, the two form a loving relationship and needless to say the film was a winner in the US. but UK audiences had best hope that talents like Hanks, Spottiswoode and even Beazley get better scripts in the future. Glasgow: Cannon Clarkston Road. Cannon The Forge. Odeon. Edinburgh: Odeon. Central: Cannon, Regal. Strathclyde: Cannon. Odeon Ayr. Odeon Hamilton. UCI Clydebank. UCI East Kilbride. I The Unbearable tightness of Being (18) (Philip Kaufman. US, 1987) Daniel Day-Lewis. Juliette Binoche. Lena Olin. 167 mins. Ambitious adaptation of Milan Kundera‘s complex novel about a womanising Czech brain surgeon who falls in love for the first time with adoe-like small-town beauty. Abandoning his freewheeling existence . he embraces commitment at the time of the Russian invasion of 1968. A dawdling and rather austere narrative is given some spice and interest by an overwhelming eroticism. a beautifully judged evocation of Prague and gorgeous photography. Otherwise vastly overlong and uninvolving. Edinburgh Film Guild. I Venus Peter( 12) (Ian Sellar. UK, 1989) Ray McAnally. Gordon R. Strachan, David Hayman. 92 mins. Affecting adaptation shot on Orkney of Scots writer Christopher Rush’s impressionisticA Twelvemonth And A Day, set in a fishing village in the 19505. One of McAnally‘s last roles casts him beautifully as the sympathetic grandfather of Peter. played by nine-year-old Strachan (who is not to be confused with the diminutive Scottish midfield genius) in this moving study of a dying community seen through the eyes of a young boy. Glasgow: GFT. I Videodrome (18) (David Cronenberg. Canada. 1983) James Woods. Debbie Harry. 88 mins. Woods is a programmer for a pirate cable station who becomes intrigued and then obsessed with an untraccable porn channel that triggers hallucinogenic fantasies in this initially intriguing but nasty and ultimately unsatisfactory film with eye-popping special effects. Edinburgh University Film Society.
The List 9 - 22 February 1990 21