FILM
local community send Rose and Sadie (Tomlin and Midler) to the big city tofight their case. Could the resemblances between the women have something to do with a hospital mix-up many years before? Outrageously creaky comic farce. with rampant overacting which pummels you into smiling. Glasgow: GFT.
I Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure ( 1 5) (Stephen Herek. US. 1990) Keanu Reeves. Alex Winter. 91 minutes. Bill and Ted have an ‘excellent' friendship. but their dream of forming a band called the ‘Wyld Stallyns’ is haunted by the spectre of flunking their history exams and being packed offto military academy. However. courtesy of a time-travelling telephone booth. the two dudes canter through the centuries on a breakneck refresher course where they meet up with the likes of Genghis Khan and Beethoven. Problems multiply in this enjoyably manic teen romp when this brace of historical figures make it back to contemporary California with them. Like. totally tubular. man. Glasgow: Cannon The Forge.
I Blue Velvet ( 18) (David Lynch. US. 1986) Kyle MacLachlan. Dennis Hopper. Isabella Rossellini. 120 mins. ln small-town Middle America. would-be boy detective MacLachlan finds a severed car on some waste ground. When the police shoo him away he decides to do some investigating of his own. A singular fusion of the cosy and the terrifying which blends kitsch and nightmare. B-movie detection and brutal sex to deconstruct our complacent vision of normal society. This is film-making of remarkable imagination and skill. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I The Blues Brothers (15) (John Landis. US. 1980) John Belushi. Dan Aykroyd. Carrie Fisher. 130 mins. Bloated. overlong anarchic Chicago comedy with the two stars on a mission from God to salvage the imperilled fortunes ofan orphanage. Lots of guest stars. musical numbers and automotive destruction in a typical product of over-emphatic contemporary American humour. Edinburgh: Cameo. Strathclyde: UCl East Kilbride.
I Camelot (U) (Joshua Logan. US. 1967) Richard Harris. Vanessa Redgrave. David Hemmings. 181 mins. Uncertain filmed version ofthe long-running Lerner and Loewe musical charts the romantic progress of King Arthur. his Queen Guinevere and favoured knight Sir Lancelot. Veteran director Logan isn‘t too sure how stylised he should get however. and the whole effect is undercut by the casting of a central trio ofthen-bankable Brits who can‘t really sing at all. Strathclyde: Paisley Arts Centre.
I Casualties ot War (18) (Brian De Palma. US. 1989) Michael J. Fox. Sean Penn. Thuy Thu Le. 120 mins. De Palma's contribution to the ever increasing pile of ‘Nam films concentrates on the dilemma of the new ‘cherry' recruit (Fox) when confronted with his comrades‘ gang-rape of a Vietnamese girl. The candy coated finale somewhat destroys the film‘s impact. as if it were merely a bad dream in the American conscience. An intriguing contribution to the pile. even if it doesn‘t make it to the top. Central: MacRobert Arts Centre.
I Cinema Paradiso (PG) (Giuseppe Tornatore. ltaly/France.l988) Phillipe Noiret. Jacques Perrin. Salvatore Cascio. 123 mins. Tornatore‘s vision ofhis movie-mad childhood is a wonderful love letter to the cinema itself. Told largely in flashback. it traces the young Salvatore‘s infatuation with his village cinema. and his growing friendship with its projectionist (played to perfection by Noiret). Essentially. it‘s Tornatore's lament forthe joyous movie-going experience ofhis youth and a recognition of the price we pay for our maturity. 1990 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I Cold Feet (15) (Robert Dornhelm. US.
Phantom or The Opera (18) (Dwight a.
Little, US, 1990) Robert Englund, Jill Schoelen, Alex Hyde-White. Atterthe initial Gaston Leroux novel, three movies and a musical already, why would anyone want to make another version at The Phantom Oi The Opera? This pointless rehash has the cheek to claim no relation to any other works at the same title, but its raison d’etre is merely to supply another Freddy Krueger role for Englund. With gore and wise-cracking dialogue aplenty, you could wake up in the middle of this one and think you're watching a period Nightmare On Elm Street.
It all starts off in contemporary New York with our heroine Christine Day (Jill Schoelen) happening across a copy 011ch century composer Erik Destler's unfinished opera Don Juan Triumphant while browsing in a dusty bookshop. Using the material in an audition for a musical she gets the part but narrowly escapes death when a stage weight tlies past her to shatter a nearby mirror. A briet montage later, and she wakes up on stage in Victorian London, unaware at her future existence. Unsurprisingly, she lands
the leading role in the current production, and betore long is the toast of the town. Her success however, has been at the expense ot the various pertormers, backstage employees and even one stubborn critic, all ol whom have been gruesomer slain by a mysterious masked ligure known as the Phantom (or it you preter, Erik Destler aka Robert Englund aka Freddy). There’s very little to recommend here. A plodding screenplay exists solely as an excuse to lurch lrom ettects setpiece (the Phantom skins one victim alive and hangs the result in a cupboard) to special etiects setpiece (we discover the dark secret ot Englund’s mutilated mug). The sole redeeming features are probably Misha Segalon's music and a law snippets of the opera Faust, but they’re hardly worth the price ot admission in their own right. (Dylan Matthew)
From Fri 15. Glasgow: Cannon Clarkston Road, Cannon the Forge, Odeon. Edinburgh: Odeon. Central: Cannon. Strathclyde: Cannon, Odeon Ayr, Odeon Hamilton, UCI Clydebank, UCI East Kilbride.
1989) Keith Carradine. Tom Waits. Sally Kirkland. 91 mins. Flungtogcther by co-writer buddies Thomas McGuanc and Jim Harrison over a 13-year period. this is a shaggy dog story as contemporary Western. Carradine‘s rancher joins floozie Kirkland and dangerously psychopathic gunman Waits in a wacko scheme to smuggle some stolen emeralds inside a horse over the border into the US. As filmed by European Dornhelm. the result is an amiably post-modern melange of Sam Shepard and Jim Jarmusch. Just don‘t expect a rattlin‘ good story. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I The Cook, The Thief, ills Wile and Her Lover ( 18) (Peter Greenaway. UK. 1989) Richard Bohringcr. Michael Gambon. Helen Mirren. Alan Howard. Tim Roth. 120 mins. Greenaway has made a film guaranteed to offend everybody. Though beautifully art-directed. photographed. produced and acted. it deals with the kind of subject matter normally only found under the counter at video nasty stores. Compulsive and unforgettable but you‘d be hard pressed to like the thing. Strathclyde: UCl East Kilbride.
I Dangerous Liaisons (15) (Stephen Frears. US. 1988) Glenn Close. John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer. Keanu Reeves. 120 mins. Madame de Tourvel and the Vicomte de Valmont (Close and Malkovich) are treacherous 18th century aristocrats weaving a web oferotic duplicity around one another. Frears makes a notable Hollywood debut. guiding his east through a difficult set of narrative pirouettes. Yet for all the pent-up emotion on screen. little fervour seeps through. and the result is rathcrcold and calculating. Glasgow: Grosvenor. Edinburgh: Cameo. 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 withfemmefarale Ward and fiendish Nazi scientist Reiner. Much ofthe humour stems from the intercutting with actual Forties movies in a device now copied by the adverts for a certain lager. Edinburgh: Cameo. I Dirty Dancing (15) (Emile Ardolino. US. 1987) Jennifer Grey. Patrick Swayzc. Jerry Orbach. 100 mins. Remarkably
ordinary but staggeringly popular girl-meets-boy-from-the-wrong-side- of-the-tracks musical set in an American summer camp in the year 1963. Strathclyde: UCI Clydebank.
I Doctor Who And The Ice Warriors (PG) (Derek Martinus. UK. 1967) Patrick Troughton. Special presentation of episodes 1.4.5 and 6 of The Ice Warriors. a Dr Who serial of 1967 vintage with Troughton in the heroic Time Lord‘s shoes. Here the Doc lands the Tardis on Earth in the year 3000 to discover a second ice age and revive the body of Martian ice warrior Varga. a horrific alien with dreams of world domination. Glasgow: GFT.
I Do The Right Thing ( 18) (Spike Lee. US. 1989) Spike Lee. Danny Aiello. Ossie Davis. John Turturro. 119 mins. New York‘s deprived Bedford-Stuyvesant district on the hottest day of the summer. and racial tension escalates between ltalian-Amcrican Sal (Aiello). his two sons and the mainly black local community who make up the bulk of his customers. As the situation worsens and violence looks a possibility. Sal‘s black delivery boy Mookie (Lee) ponders how to do the right thing. A forceful exploration of the socio-economic and cultural causes behind white racism. Lee‘s film also operates as a tightly controlled multi-charactcr drama. Glasgow: GFT I Dogs in Space ( 18) (Richard Lowenstein. Australia. 1986) Michael Hutchence. Saskia Post. Chris Haywood. 109 mins. The young and infuriatingly talented director of Strikebound returns with something completely different; a punk-era version of Nashville brimming with raw energy. a multiplicity of characters and the expected interlocking stories. The ramshackle plot centres around Sam. the lead singer in a punk band. and his girlfriend Anna, who are two inhabitants of a drop-in-anytime house populated by punks. vegetarians. students and anyone else interested in parties. gigs. TV. random discussions and loadsa drugs. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I The Dream Team (15) (Howard Zeiff. US. 1989) Michael Keaton. Christopher Lloyd. Peter Boyle. 113 mins. A film which admirably explores its four central characters. but fails overall to create concern for any of them. with mildly dismal results. Dr Weitzman takes a group of four psychiatric inmates for a day out at a baseball game. but the trip gets out of hand and the four embark on ajourney into inner city corruption and violence. uncovering a world crazier than themselves. This proves to be the film‘s saving grace: it constantly underlines the fact that mental patients can. after all. be intelligent human beings. Central: MacRobert Arts Centre.
I Driving Miss Daisy (U) (Bruce Beresford. US. 1989) Jessica Tandy. Morgan Freeman. Dan Aykroyd. 99mins. The winner of four Oscars. including Best Film and Best Actress for Jessica Tandy. This film adaptation of Alfred L'hry‘s Pulitzer-winning play. charts the relationship between gentlewoman Tandy and her chauffeur Freeman. The narrative spans several decades of gradually shifting attitudes and developing racral consciousness. An affecting mosaic of everyday pride and prejuduce which reveals a deeply laid insight into human behaviour. presented throughout with wonderful pacing. Edinburgh: Dominion. I A Dry White Season ( 15) (Euzhan Paley. US. 1989) Donald Sutherland.Janet Suzman. Jurgen Prochnow. Marlon Brando. 107 mins. Andre Brink‘s novel about the white South African conscience brought Marlon back to the screen for his first cameo in years. As Ben DuToit (Sutherland) investigates the death ofhis black gardener‘s son he becomes increasingly aware of the true nature of the system that he is living in. Though criticised for simplifying the novel. notably by balloon-man Brando. the film
The List 15—28June 199017