Filmhouse. I Flatllners (18) (Joel Schumacher, US. 1990) Keifer Sutherland. Julia Roberts. Kevin Bacon. 111 mins. An arresting new adventure flick in which the bankable Julia Pretty Woman Roberts plus Messrs Sutherland Jnr and Bacon play a band of medical students exploring the fine line between life and death. By tampering with life support machines they‘re able to reach the moment when all the vital signs have stopped and the monitors are showing flat lines (hence the title), before being brought back by their associates but the side-effects of the process are to prove dangerously unexpected. Edinburgh: Cameo. I The Fool (U) (Christine Edzard. UK. 1990) Derek Jacobi, Maria Aitken. lrina Brook, Paul Brooke. Cyril Cusack. Michael Hordern. 139 mins. Set. like her debut Little Dorrit, in the heyday of Victorian values, Edzard‘s second film is the tale ofa shabby clerk (Jacobi) who ingeniously infiltrates high society. which he finds to be every bit as brutal asthe lowlife of the slums. and twice as corrupt. Beautifully mounted on a ludicrously small budget, it’s a triumph for British craft and starkly relevant to our times. Edinburgh: Cameo. I Full Metal Jacket (18) (Stanley Kubrick. UK, 1987) Matthew Modine, Dorian Harewood, Lee Ermey. 109 mins. Technically effective but soulless depiction of raw Vietnam recruits as they endure basic training and the even greater horrors ofthe 1968 Tet offensive. A disappointment. Glasgow: GFT. Iohost(12) (Gerry Zucker, US, 1990) Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Goldwyn. 126 mins. An ersthwile happy couple are split up when Patrick Swayze falls victim to a late night mugging. Not content merely to pass-on however, he returns to try and get back in touch with Demi Moore. via medium Whoopi Goldberg in order to warn her about some financial shenanigans. Jerry Zucker‘s amiable supernatural. comedy-drama has been the surprise box-office success of the year and is charming audiences here. Glasgow: Cannon Sauchiehall Street. Edinburgh: Cannon, UCI. Strathclyde: UCl Clydebank, UCl East Kilbride. I Gilda (PG) (Charles Vidor, US. 1946) Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford. George Macready, Joseph Calleia. l 10mins. A bizarre and disturbing menage a trois builds up in Argentina between roving card-sharp Ford and the couple (Hayworth and Macready) who own the casino where he finds himself. Plenty innuendo and sexual ambiguity from the lens that was later to bring us Last Tango In Paris. Edinburgh University Film Society. I Glory ( 15) (Edward Zwick. US. 1989) Matthew Broderick. Dcnzel Washington. Cary Elwes, Morgan Freeman. 122 mins. The film charts the progress of the fightin‘ 54th, the first all-black regiment (formed during the American civil war). as they gradually emerge as disciplined combat unit under their young. inexperienced and white Colnel (Broderick). lt isthe palpable assumption of dignity by the black troopers. rather than the somewhat hackneyed plot, that sticks in the mind. Glasgow: GFT. I Good Morning Vietnam (15) (Barry Levinson. US, 1987) Robin Williams. Forrest Whitaker. Tung Thanh Tran. 121 mins. At last getting the specially tailored role his comic talent deserves. Williams gives a dazzling performance as the iconoclastic armed forces radio disc jockey Adrian Cronauer. assigned to 1965 Saigon. His morning show. with its healthy doses of soul music and irreverent humour. explodes the authorities‘ notions of broadcasting, but makes him a hero among the troops. A worthy success. though the film‘s attempts to examine the clash of cultures and the escalation of
22 The List 8- 21 February 1991
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s l The Drifters (18) (Stephen Frears, US, 1990) Anjelica Huston, John Cusack, Annette Bening. 119 mins. With this hugely satisfying noir melodrama, the erratic but always interesting career of Stephen Frears seems to have completed a twenty-year cycle. In his 1971 directorial debut Gumshoe, a bingo caller in Liverpool dreams of being an American detective. Now with The Drifters, firmly set in LA, Frears has arrived, and rarely has there been such a successful transatlantic crossing.
Lily Dillon (Huston), peroxide blonde from Hell, dresses knife-sharp and bets at the trackiorthe mob, thus shortening the odds. Her estranged son Roy (Cusaclt) is self-consciously
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baby-faced, prematurely stung by life. He’s medium cool, plays the small con, dresses bland, and lives in a cheap brown hotel. His girl Myra (Bening) dresses to distract and will con anything that moves. She’s presently smalltime cute but with a fierce nostalgia for a better past and a seductive yen for a better future. All three are white trash, free-floating icebergs on the grlft.
On a whim, Lily decides to look up Roy. Without design she loosens her
hold on the unwritten rules of the game, defined in the source novel by Jim Thompson as ‘refaining a high degree of anonymity while remaining in circulation'. Characters’ motives become blurred, messy sexuality, recrimination and envy enter the existential worldview, and we collapse into semi-classical tragedy while remaining firmly on genre territory.
This is the first wholly successful Thompson adaptation. Unexpectedly, the film retains the novel’s dark tones, and Frears has resisted the temptation to make us love these people. Throughout, he creates space to relax with the material, telling the superb story straight. Scenes that begin cool and fun can turn to slam you in the teeth. Each shot is precise and telling. The adaptation by thriller author Donald Westlake (aka Richard Stark) has updated Thompson's savage prose unobtrusively, leaving the fine detail of criminal dialogue and behaviour stylishly intact. Cusack and Bening are great, and Huston has never been better. An intelligent, sexy and playful thriller. (Charlie Cartwright)
From Fri 15 Feb. Edinburgh: Cameo.
conflict fall a little flat. Glasgow: GF'I‘.
I Grease (PG) (Randal chiser. US. 1978) John Travolta. Stockard Channing. Olivia Newton John. 110 mins. The long-running broadway show arrives on screen dripping with Fifties' nostalgia. cheery tunes. a high camp value and the winsome charms of the plastic Newton-John and the toothy Travolta. A nice collection of old timers enhance the cast. Edinburgh: UCl.
I The Drifters (15) (Stephen Frcars. US, 1991)) Anjelica Huston. John Cusack. Annette Bening. 119 mins. See review. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I A Handful of Time ( 15) (Martin Asphaug and Erik Borge, Norway. 1989) Espen Skjonberg, Nigel Hawthorne. Susannah York. 95 mins. Skjonberg plays an elderly man forced to confront a dark secret when he's accosted by two rather pukka angels (Hawthorne and York). Returning tothe western Norwegian wilderness where he abandoned his wife. he relives his disturbing and sometimes violent past in flashback. while wrily observing the rural lifestyle which surrounds him. Entertaining and emotionally charged gothic thriller. Scottish Norwegian Week. Glasgow: GFT.
I Hardware ( 18) (Richard Stanley. US, 1991)) Dylan McDe rmott. S‘taccy Travis. John Lynch. William llootkins. 95 mins. When Mo (Mchrmott) takes a broken robot home as a present for his girlfriend Jill (Travis). he little suspects that it will rebuild itself from their electrical appliances and declare war on humanity. Stanley's debut is a massively
over-the-top, plagiaristic fantasy of machine versus man, but no less enjoyable or imaginative for it. Mental metal madness. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I Havana ( 15) (Sydney Pollack. US. 199(1) Robert Redford. Lena ()lin. Alan Arkin. 144 mins. ln Redford‘s seventh collaboration with Pollack, he stars asa poker king in Havana. Cuba in the unrest of the late 1950s. A semi-respectable figure. he falls for the revolutionary — and married — Olin. Next thing he knows, everything— including his own personal politics — is going topsy-turvy. A romantic drive keeps the action sprightly. but the characters fail to gain our sympathy, and the attractive overall gloss is not enough to compensate. Glasgow: Cannon Sauchiehall Street. Edinburgh: Cannon. I Highlander ( 15) (Russell Mulcahy, UK. 1986) Christopher Lambert. Beatie Edney. Sean Connery. 111 mins. A handful of immortals battle through the centuries to win a mythical prize. A curious mixture of romance in 16th century heather and car chases in present day New York, the film is an inelegant. often ludicrous, but enjoyany daffy adventure. Lambert seems more at home with the contemporary passages and only the ever wonderful Connery has the requisite style for the kitsch Scottish scenes. Glasgow: Grosvenor.
I Home Alone (PG) (Chris Columbus. US, 1990) Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard. Catherine O'Hara. 103 mins. Peter and Kate McCallister (Heard and O‘Hara) have an eight-year-old brat and wisely — albeit
when they go on holiday to Paris. Left to his own devices young Kevin (Culkin) has 2:: deal with two bungling burglars (Pesci I and Stern) who threaten to invade his I peaceful haven. Jolly. if sadistic. scare-comedy antics produced by teenflick veteran John Hughes. Glasgow: Cannon
accidentally — leave him behind in Chicago ‘
The Forge, Odeon. Edinburgh: Odeon. UCl. Central: Cannon. Strathclyde: Motherwell Theatre, Odeon Ayr. Odeon Hamilton, UCl Clydebank, UCl East Kilbride. I The Hunger ( 18) (Tony Scott, US. 1983) Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, Susan Sarandon. Cliff Dc Young. 99 mins. Hugely stylish but somewhat abstruse adaptation of Whitley Strieber‘s novel, in which Deneuve plays the last survivor ofa race of vampires, whose sexual partners enjoy an extended lifespan, followed by a rather sharp decline. Bowie (who looks rather more healthy in his second century than he does now) and Sarandon are her victims. Beautiful and erotic, but pretty darned confusing. Edinburgh University Film Society. I In Country ( 15) (Norman Jewison, US. 1989) Bruce Willis, Emily Lloyd, Joan Allen. 115 mins. Long after her father's ‘Nam death, Kentucky teenager Samantha (Lloyd) obsessively probes his remarkably undisturbed veteran brother (Willis) for details about his life, but finds frustration and tragedy waiting for her at every turn. With a strong script by Frank Peirson and Cynthia Cidre, and a fine performance from Lloyd, this is a well handled, painful yet humorous studyof the long-term emotional effects of war. Glasgow: GFT. I Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (PG) (Steven Spielberg, US, 1989) Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Alison Doody. Denholm Elliot. 127 mins. The third and supposedly final instalment of Spielberg's blockbuster series, in which the archaeological adventurer is joined by his father (Connery) for a romp through the Middle East in search of the Holy Grail. hotly pursued (as ever) by the Nazis. A rather dodgy quasi-Christian morality and j a more-of—the-same-ish plot are offset by strong performances from Ford and Connery and technical bravura. Glasgow; GFT. I Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom (PG) (Steven Spielberg. US. 1984) Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Ke Huy Quan. Amrish Puri. 118 mins. Again the foreignors find it hard going keeping up I with the Jones, as master entertainer Spielberg piles on the action sequences. This time, however, the frantic pace has even less credibility than Raiders had. Glasgow: GFT. I It Came from Outer Space (PG) (Jack Arnold. US, 1953) Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, Charles Drake, Russell Johnson. 81 mins. Made in 3-D, this prototype ‘fricndly alicn‘ movie broke some new ground, but also harbours some pretty familiar stereotypes (tolerant, misunderstood scientist. shoot-first-ask-questions-1ater lawman) and some pretty naff acting. But there‘s are signs here of Arnold‘s talent for atmosphere and composition (he went on to make The Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Incredible Shrinking Man). Edinburgh: Cameo. IJacltnlfe (15) (David Jones, us. 1989) é Robert de Niro, Ed Harris, Kathy Baker. l A familiar scenario has dc Niro and Harris as ‘Nam vets, trying to re-adjust to society. put the gory flashbacks behind them, and relax on a therapeutic fishing trip. Bandwagon-hopping aside, this is an intelligent and original movie (based on the stage play Strange Snow), looking at the twenty-years-on effects of war, and offers a further dimension when de Niro falls for Harris‘ sister (Baker). The emotional battle which ensues is tense, well acted and pacy enough to overcome any idea of a re-hashed Deerhunler.