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definite opinions'on the whys and wherefores of the world , each hiding a secret that will change their destinies, and each in training for the brutal and unyielding contemporary bullfight of. . . .the debating society. Yes, that‘s right, a movie about the devil-may-care existence of those daring young folks on the er, debating team. High-pitched melodrama of occasionally numbing sentimentality, the sort of thing that only Americans would want to watch let alone actually make. Glasgow: Cannon The Forge. I Look Who’s Talking (12) (Amy Heckerling, US, 1989) John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, Olympia Dukakis. 97 mins. In Travolta’s much-hyped comeback he plays stand-in papa to Alley’s first baby, but is quicker to meet approval from the little brat, via the voiced-over musings of one Bruce Willis, than he is from its confused and binkered mama. Crass. lowbrow and thus extremely popular comedy whose sole redeeming feature is the natural charm of the trusty Travolta. But any movie whose idea of a comic setpiece means filmimg a foetus inside the womb with the dreary Willis intoning on the soundtrack just doesn‘t come near the ballpark. Glasgow: Cannon The Forge, Odeon. Edinburgh: Odeon. Strathclyde: UCI Clydebank, UCI East Kilbride, WMR Film Centre. I LON OHM Files (15) (Harry Hook, US. 1990) Balthanar Getty, Chris Furrh, Daniel Pipoly. 95 mins. See preview. Glasgow: Cannon The Forge, Cannon Sauchiehall Street. Edinburgh: Cannon. Strathclyde: UCI Clydebank, UCI East Kilbride. I "I! Mon Amour (18) (Nagisa Oshima, France, 1986) Charlotte Rampling. Anthony Higgins, Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu. 97 mins. See review. Glasgow: GFT. I McCain and Airs Miller ( 18) (Robert Altman, US, 1971) Warren Beatty, Julie Christie. 121 mins. Ultra-realistic, downbeat western yarn that eschews the traditional approach of glamourising the era. Beatty is in good form as a hustling, two-bit braggart who opens a brothel in a turn-of-the-century boom town. Glasgow: GFl‘. I Monkey SM”: (18) (George A. Romero, US, 1989) Jason Beghe,John Pankow, Kate McNeil. 113 mins. Bankrolled by a major studio for the first time, zombie maestro Romero adapts Michael Stewart‘s Oxford-set blend of mad doctors and killer simians. Experiments on a monkey produce monstrous results when the little blighter becomes a trained home-help for Beghe‘s quadriplegic student. The creature develops a strong psychic link with its master, a bond that is to cause mayhem when the primate picks up on the young man‘s frustrated violent urges. Slow development helps generate narrative excitement, and there's a thrilling finale as the wheelchair-bound hero fights for his life, unable to move anything but his mouth. Edinburgh: Cameo. I Monsieur Hire (15) (Patrice Leconte, France, 1989) Michel Blanc. Sandrine Bonnaire. 82 mins. An elusive neighbourhood recluse (Blanc), whiles away his evenings spying on his alluring neighbour Alice (Bonnaire). Gradually, he becomes entangled in an unsolved murder and a passionate romance. Based on a Simenon novel this sensitive and enthralling film, which was almost overlooked in Britain. Glasgow: GFT. I No.0 44 (15) (Roland Emmerich, US, 1990) Michael Pare, Lisa Eichorn, Malcolm McDowell. 99 minutes. The year 2038 finds internal affairs investigator Pare , experimental helicopter designer Eichorn and station commander McDowell brought together on faraway mining planet Moon 44, and finding themselves the centre of conflict between rival megacorporations fighting over
Joe Versus the Volcano (PG) (John Patrick Shanley, US, 1990) Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Lloyd Bridges. Tom Hanks (as the eponymous Joe Banks) has a lousy job in New York advertising rectal probes. He has been given six months to live. Seeing himself as dispensable he agrees to become the human sacrifice to a Peloponnesian volcano to save a tribe from being punished by the wrathlul Woo God. Joe Versus The Volcano is not just another comic vehicle for the ‘butter wouldn't melt in my mouth' acting abilities of Tom Hanks— Hanks ends up as the prop. For the cinematography (quite apart from a plot which would dwarl John Wayne), is out of this world (literally). Blue moons fill up the sky, white-hot suns burn, and silhouetted sailing-ships sway on turquoise seas. It’s unadulterated arousal ol the his time: Hanks' eyes may go through the motions of anguish, humour and lust but they end up sparkling like the stars. What remains of Hanks’ character is
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lurther subsumed by the film’s inter-cinematic playfulness which brilliantly revels in reconstructing stolen images (lrom Metropolis to South Pacific via Edward Hopper), and then holding on to them until they become its own. Even as lover, Joe is more parody than Hank. As Joe says to Meg Ryan in her final incarnation (she plays three women, from Mouse to Amazon, in a dubious hierarchy of hair-colour), ‘The lirsttime I saw you, I lelt i had seen you belore.’ The joke is he has. Tom Hanks/Joe never stands a chance. The volcano wins hands down which is what‘makes the lllm such an unpredictable joy. (Alice Thompson)
From Fri 6. Glasgow: Cannon The Forge, Cannon Sauchiehall Street, Grosvenor, Salon. Edinburgh: Cannon. Central: Allanpark, Caledonian, Cannon. Strathclyde: Cannon, Kelburne, Odeon Ayr, Odeon Hamilton, La Scala, UCI Clydebank, UCI East Kilbride.
valuable mineral deposits. ()ne ofthe most expensive films ever made in Germany, this would-be blockbuster sci-fi thriller apes Hollywood standards of technical expertise. but fails to come up with the requisite invention in the plotting department that would give it a distinctive identity of its own. Glasgow: Cannon Sauchiehall Street. Strathclyde: UCI East Kilbride.
I MUSIC Box (15) (Costa Gavras. US. 1989) Jessica Lange. Armin Mueller Stahl. Frederic Forrest. 126 mins. See main preview. Glasgow: Odeon. Edinburgh: Odeon.
I My Life As A Dog (PG) (Lasse l lalstrom, Sweden, 1985) Anton Glanzelius. Manfred Server. Anki Liden. 101 mins. Wholly captivating rite of passage tale set in Sweden during the 1950s.
Twelve-year-old lngemar copes with his mother‘s terminal illness and his family‘s general indifference to him by indulging in a high fantasy life, including the pretence that he is a dog. Terrible title, wonderful. unmissable film. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. I National Lampoon’s Winter Holiday(PG) (John Hughes. US, 1990) Chevy Chase. Beverley D‘Angelo, Randy Quaid. 93 mins. Wacko winter japes with the same 01‘ crew and the same ol' sense ofhumor. Give it a rest. lads. eh? Strathclyde: Odeon Ayr.
I A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (18) (Stephen Hopkins, US, 1989) Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox, Danny Hassel. 90 mins. Latest instalment ofthe interminable Nightmare series doesn‘t quite sink to the level ofthe truly dreary Part Two: Freddy 's Revenge but has little
to recommend it. The plot, such as it is, centres on Freddy Krueger‘s appearances in the dreams on an unborn child asthe means to slicing up much of the cast in the usual lavish manner. This time even the fearsome post-slaughter wisecracks are down in number, as if the film-makers themselves were too aware of flogging a dead horse. Strathclyde: UCI Clydebank. I Hun: on the Hun ( 12) (Jonathon Lynn. US, 1989) Eric Idle. Robbie Coltrane. Janet Suzman. 95 mins. There‘s a little more to this slapstick comedy than the title suggests. Idle and Coltrane, both in top form, two small time crooks who bungle their final big heist up and soon find themselves taking refuge disguised as nuns in a convent. The unpredictable gagsthat follow gladly live up to the high standards of the above average Carry-On film. It has proved immensely popular across the Atlantic too. Glasgow: Odeon. Edinburgh: Odeon. Strathclyde: Odeon Ayr, Odeon Hamilton. UCI Clydebank, UCl East Kilbride, WMR Film Centre. I Oliver And Company (U) (George Scribner, US. 1989) With the voices of Joey Lawrence, Billy Joel, Dom DeLuise, Bette Midlcr. 74 mins. Disney studios‘ free adaptation of Dickens‘ Oliver Twistis set in modern New York. with Oliver asa cute kitten hanging out with a bunch of Streetwise dogs. The Artful Dodgeris played by pop-singer Joel. while La Midler turns in a pampered poodle. The usual Disney charm prevails, though Dickens' cutting edge is blunted somewhat. Strathclyde: UCI East Kilbride. I Passionate Summer (PG) (Rudolph Cartier. UK. 1958) Yvonne Mitchell, Virginnia McKenna, Bill Travers. 104 mins. Filmed on location in Jamaica, this overheated effort centres on a divorced headmaster at a local school who finds himselfthe object ofthree different women's attentions. Despite the climactic hurricane. the film fails to convince usthat the terribly stiff upper lip Born Free duoof McKenna and Travers are overcome by the throes of passion. and the photography is distressingly ugly. Glasgow: GET. I Plalll (PG) (Juan Carlos Tabio, Cuba, 1988) Daisy Granados, Thais Valdes, Luis Alberto Garcia. 110 mins. The title refers to the noise made by eggs hitting walls and there‘s a subheading T00 Afraid ()fLife, so the omens are good for this Cuban portrait of racial, sexual and class struggles within a paranoid and gossip-ridden community. A lightly comical treat that parodies any number of film cliches and sends up the movie-making process itself. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. I Pretty Woman (15) (Garry Marshall, US. 1990) Richard Gere. Julia Roberts, Ralph Bellamy. 12(lmins. in this hugely succesful comedy-romance, Gere stars as an unfeeling financial wheeler-dealer discovering he is human after all when he spends a week in the company of Roberts‘ downhome goodtimc girl. Conversely. she rediscovers her self-esteem by flawlessly carrying off the role of his high society companion, so the audience can feel happy for both of them. The outline might be as hackneyed as they come, but television veteran Marshall has just the right lightness of touch. Glasgow: Cannon The Forge. Odeon. Edinburgh: Dominion, Odeon. Strathclyde: Odeon Ayr, Odeon Hamilton, UCI Clydebank. UCI East Kilbride, WMR Film Centre. I The Punisher( 18) (Mark Goldblatt, US. 1990) Dolph Lundgren. Jeroen Krabbe. Louis (iossett Jnr, Kim Miyori. 90mins. llumourless cross between Mad Max and Death Wish has Lundgren as hero-cop-turned-mental-after-the- murder-of—his-family Frank Castle. playing vigilante against the Italian and Japanese mafias. Macho nonsense. Central: Cannon. Strathclyde: Cannon. I Rebel Without A Cause ( 18) (Nicholas Ray. US. 1956)James Dean, Natalie J
The List 29June— lZJuly 199029