INDEX FILM
I Bill a Ted’s Bogus Journey (PG) No way! Yes way! Those most excellent dudes are back with another triumphant adventure that takes them to Hell and back. Party on. metal heads. See review.
I Billy Bathgate ( 18) Dustin Hoffman stars as gangster Dutch Schultz. hero of local boy Billy but in danger of losing his empire. in a disappointing adaptation of the EL. Doctorow novel. See
review.
I The Bridge (12) Victorian woman and young family go on seaside holiday and meet an artist on a painting trip. Love is the key to the repressions of the spirit. as it seems to be in all too many British period films these days. I Curly Sue (PG) Home Alone producer and ex-teenflick veteran John Hughes turns in a stinker about a ‘lovable’ father and daughter con team. pulling one over on a stuck-up lady attorney. See review.
I Flirting (12) Worthy sequel to The Year My Voice Broke follows Danny Embling to a boys‘ boarding school. where he finds romance with a girl from the neighbouring college.
I Indian Runner (15) Sean Penn makes his directorial debut with this tale of fraternal rivalry. Settled-down cop and waster sibling find themselves together again in small-town America. See review.
I Liebestrum (l8) Compellingly sordid discoveries abound when an architectural theorist starts examining the cast-iron building his college buddy's firm is about to demolish. Superior adult entertainment from director Mike Figgis. See
I London Kills Me (18) Hanif Kureishi hits rock bottom with his behind-the-camera debut. An unconvincing tale of low-life druggies and their far from exciting world.
FILM .m-
Fllms screening thls fortnight are listed
'below. with certificate. credits. brlelrevieui
and venue details. Full-length reviews ol selected new releases can be round close to the appropriate entry. Programme details appear in the Listings section which follows. Film Index compiled by Alan Morrison.
I The Addams Family (PG) (Barry Sonnenfeld. US. 1991) Anjelica Huston. Raul Julia. Christopher Lloyd. Dan Hedaya. 100 mins. When long-lost Uncle Fester returns from 25 years in the Bermuda Triangle. it disrupts the idyllic lifestyle of the Addams clan. But is this Fester a fortune-grabbing imposter? Big budget movie has all of the macabre sense of fun of the TV series and the original New Yorker cartoons. as well as sets and design that any self-respecting ghoulish household would die for. Literally. General release.
I Alice ( l2) (Woody Allen. US. 1990) Mia Farrow. Joe Mantegna. William Hurt. Keye Luke. 105 mins. Despite living in a designer paradise. Alice (Farrow) has an eye for a fellow parent at her children‘s school and a backache her therapists are at a loss to ease. Cue Doctor Chang‘s mystical. medical herbs and hidden aspects of her personality shine through. Another gem from Mr Allen. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I All I Want For Christmas (U) (Robert Lieberman. US. 1991) Harley Jane Kozak. Jamey Sheridan. Leslie Nielsen. Lauren Bacall. 94 mins. Not content with Barbie dolls and Nintendo games. New York kiddies Ethan and Hallie devise a plan to get what they really want for the holiday season — a family Christmas that will bring their divorced parents together again. Heartwarming yuletide comedy or sentimental American crap. depending on how you look at it. although we tend towards the latter view. General release. I An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West (U) (Phil Nibbelink/Simon Wells. US. 1991) With the voices of Phillip Glasser. Dom De1.uise. James Stewart. John Cleese. 75 mins. Disillusioned with their New York tenement. the Mousekewitcz family head out to the Wild West. where Fievel teams up with Sheriff Wylie Burp and his friend Tiger in order to clean up the town run by evil Cat R. Waul. Not really up to the standard of the original. General release. I Apocalypse Now! (18) (Francis Coppola. US. 1980) Martin Sheen. Marlon Brando. Robert Duvall. Dennis Hopper. 153 mins. Vietnam as The Ultimate Trip. We follow US Army assassin Sheen downriver and deeper into the Heart of Darkness ruled over by Brando‘s mad Colonel Kurtz. Alternately pretentious and visually overpowering (the Valkyries helicopter attack. for example). its grandiloquent folly somehow pierces right to the bone of the conflict. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I The Art of Animation (PG) The programme includes the work of nine multiple award-winning animators from Western and Eastern Europe and North America. A wide selection of styles are on view. from the computer animated work of John (Tin Toy) Lasseter to the pop culture references of Garry Bardin‘s Grey Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (12) (Jon Amiel. US. 1991) Barbara Hershey. Peter Falk. Keanu Reeves. The wierd and erotic world of Maria Vargos Llosa's novel is brought to the screen by Scots-born scriptwriter William Boyd and Singing Detective director Jon Amiel. Pedro Carmichael (Falk) comes to local New
Orleans radio station WXBU to breathe life into its flagging soap opera. and ends up borrowing from the real romance of aspiring scriptwriter Reeves and his vivacious aunt (Hershey). The charismatic Falk shows an effortless display of flamboyand comic invention. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I The BFG (U) (Brian Cosgrove. UK. 1989) 105 mins. Animated version of the Roald Dahl favourite has young Sophie battling against evil. aided and abetted by the Big Friendly Giant. Glasgow: GF'I‘.
I Bill B Ted's Bogus Journey (PG) (Peter Hewitt. US. 1991) Keanu Reeves. Alex Winter. George Carlin. Joss Ackland. 93 mins. See review. General release (from 3 Jan).
I Billy Bathgate (15) (Robert Benson. US. 1991) Dustin Hoffman. Lorin Dean. Nicole Kidman. Bruce Willis. 107 mins. See review. General release (from 10 Jan).
I Blue Steel (18) (Kathryn Bigelow. US. 1990) Jamie Lee Curtis. Ron Silver. Clancy Brown. 106 mins. Curtis stars as an ill fated rookie cop. who kills a gun-toting hood on her first night on the beat. landing herself in terrible trouble when Silver‘s yuppie absconds with the .44-calibre evidence. and prepares to do some killing of his own. There are shades of Sea Of Love when he ominously begins dating her. but the film as a whole is an original. fast-paced and stylish thriller with a pinch of feminism thrown in. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I Brazil (15) (Terry Gilliam. US. 1985) Jonathan Pryce. Kim Griest. Robert De Niro. Peter Vaughan. 142 mins. Extravagantly designed and blackly humorous Orwellian vision of the future. as modest bureaucrat Pryce battles the forces of totalitarianism and fights for his dream girl. feisty trucker Griest. Overlong and ramshackle fantasia. with moments of sheer creative adrenalin and a classic ending. Glasgow: Grosvenor.
I The Bridge (12) (Syd Macartney. UK. 1991) Saskia Reeves. David O‘Hara. Joss Ackland. Anthony Higgins. Geraldine James. 102 mins. A young woman (Reeves) and her three daughters arrive for a holiday at a Suffolk resort. where they meet an artist (O'Hara) on his annual trip. When he tries to capture the moment of their meeting on canvas. the two become close and. hey prestol. fall in love. But then her husband arrives. It may be prettily photographed. but underneath it seems to be yet another British tale of (Victorian) ladies breaking out of social repression. a la Forster. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I Camille Claudel (PG) (Bruno Nuytten. France. 1988) Isabelle Adjani. Gerard Depardieu. Laurent Grevil. 175 mins. Despite its slightly forbidding length. this account of the troubled and eventually tragic life of French sculptress Camille Claudel (Adjani). and her relationship as both pupil and lover with Auguste Rodin (Depardieu) boasts a feast of memorable images and goes to prove that France‘s biggest stars are also two of its best actors. Glasgow: GF'T.
I Celia (18) (Anne Turner. Australia. 1989) Rebecca Smart. Nicholas Eadie. Maryanne Fahey. 103 mins. Set in the 1950s in Australian suburbia. Turner‘s excellent debut feature (similar in spirit to My Life as a Dog) follows the bitter rites of passage of nine-year-old Celia from the death of relatives and pets to doling out cruelty and violence on ‘Communist‘ neighbours. A unique blend of childhood paranoia and political nous. Glasgow: GFT.
I A Christmas Story (PG) (Bob Clark. US. 1983) Peter Billingsley. Darren McGavin. Melinda Dillon. 98 mins. Christmas is coming and our young hero desperately wants a certain type of toy gun from Santa. Appealing Forties-set memoir. with a witty first person narration and a great performance from the bespectacled child star. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I Matador (18) Bizarre and perverse dose of Almodovar from 1986. but now seen in the UK for the first time. A trainee bullfighter confesses to a series of murders he did not commit: unknown to him. his defence lawyer is the culprit. See review.
I Object of Beauty ( 15) John Malkovich and Andie MacDowell star as two jet-setters whose finances have come down to earth even if their expensive tastes have not. See review.
I The People Under The Stairs (18) A poor boy is roped into burgling his rich landlords‘ house. but finds himself in a twisted world of child abuse and cannibalism. Effective horror from Wes Craven. I Suburban Commando (PG) Wrestler Hulk Hogan is an intergalactic bounty hunter spending some time on Earth. whose holiday is interrupted by the arrival of a couple of alien baddies. As ludicrous as it
sounds.
I The Two Jakes (15) Long-awaited sequel to Polanski's Chinatown finally arrives in the UK after disappearing eighteen months ago at the US box office. Jake Gittes unearths some nasty memories when a routine divorce case veers into murder. See preview.
I V.l. Warshawski (18) Tough girls don‘t dance. Kathleen Turner as Sara Paretsky‘s gun-totin'. ball-bustin‘. street-talkin' female private eye brings brains and sex appeal to an over-worked genre. See review.
IYearotthe 6un(lS)John ‘The Manchurian Candidate' Frankenheimer comes up with another superb thriller with a sharp political edge with this dramatisation of the terrorist campaign by Italian group. The Red Brigade.
The List 20 December 1991 — 16 January 1992 25