FILM REVIEW
It takes a $1 million to persuade Demi Moore to sleep with Robert Redford, yet she married Bruce Willis of her own free will? The List looks sceptical as it reviews the films released over the next fortnight.
.1.
I Groundhog Day (PG) Everybody at some time or other has wished that they could relive a particular day over and over again. But not Phil Conners (Bill Murray). a TV weatherman who has been sent to the asshole end of America to cover Groundhog Day. an annual hicktown festival in which early spring or continued winter is forecast by a local rodent. You know: the kind of tacked-on story that used
to come at the end of main
news bulletins. It all becomes even more of a nightmare when Phil - your average. self-centred. egotistical guy — wakes up tomorrow to find it‘s today all over again. And the next day. And the next. February 2nd stretches on into infinity. After initial confusion. Phil realises that if he begins at 6am each day with a clean slate. there‘s no consequences from the day before as yesterday never existed. And so it‘s
‘ time to chat up the babes
and go on mega-binges without the fear of a
hangover. But the party life soon sours when he
falls for his TV producer
Rita (Andie McDowell)
, and each day ends with a slap on the face.
This part was custom-
made for Murray. who
always manages to bring a
: cuddliness to pissed-off
sarcasm. A fairy tale with
adult concerns — this frog can only escape with a ; kiss from his princess — it
shows daily life to be a succession of fresh opportunities that branch off at every Point after the alarm clock rings. With anyone else on board. that scenario would turn into
inoralising mush, but
Murray‘s acidic edge makes his redemption bearable and a scene where he fails to save an old tramp‘s life despite all of his foreknowledge genuinely touching. Excellent — the best
; Hollywood comedy for
ages. See preview. (AM)
I Tabu (PG) F.W. Mumau’s Oscar-winning movie about the doomed love of a young Tahitian girl and a pearl fisherman is set to an original score by Romanian composer Violeta Dinescu. performed by Paragon Ensemble Scotland. The film is unusual in that Mumau. one of the greatest German Expressionist filmmakers. teamed up with renowned documentarist Robert
. Flaherty and tOgether they created a beautiful fictional narrative with roots in real life as lived
in the South Seas.
Dinescu‘s evocative music
alternately reinforces and
{contradicts Murnau's
images. allowing for fresh
3 interpretation of a cinema classic. A rare opportunity
: to experience the
lcombined talents of two
' artists (GET, Wed 19 May. 8pm). See Mayfest preview. (AM)
_ IRDEGENT PROPOSAL
You have to admit it, it is a great hook
- line. if you were offered a million
dollars to have sex with someone, would you do it? If that particular someone just happened to be Robert Redford, would that change things? Or if you had a spare million or so lying around yourself, would you pay that much to knob llemi Moore? These are questions which will surely exercise the finest minds of our generation for years to come, but, quite remarkably, Adrian Lyne has taken this killer base material and made a towerineg abominable movie out of it.
To call the characters cardboard would be to positively enable them. David and Diane Murphy (Woody ’n’ llemi) are happily married former high school sweethearts, respectively successful in real estate and architectural practice until along came the recession and almost wiped them out. Unwisely perhaps, they head to Las Vegas to repair their ill- fortunes on the gaming tables and lose everything they have left. An ‘indecent proposal’ from Redford’s , enigmatic property magnate John i Gage — a night of lurve with Mrs l Murphy in exchange for a cool mil - is ; the only thing that stands between l them and looming poverty. Aye, it’s a
not unattractive bucks-per-fuck ratio, l but can their love survive acceptance of the offer?
BRAINDEAD
You won’t believe the fun that can be had with a rotary blade lawnmower, a cast of zombies and several hundred gallons of gore. Braindead is further proof - not that it was needed - that Peter Jackson (Bad Taste, Meet The Feebles) is more sicko than psycho, a llew Zealander whose humour is most definitely all black. One bite from a rabid rat-monkey in the local zoo is enough to turn the overbearing mother of Lionel, our mild-mannered hero, into a pus-spouting, slime-ejecting corpse that just won’t stay in the ground. Soon her nurse is a zombie, i the priest at her funeral is a zombie - in fact, before the final reel it seems like the entire 4 population of Wellington, with the ; exception of Lionel and his Spanish girlfriend Paquifa, have joined the ranks of the slobbering undead. The most basic of plots is only there ' ,to set up an over-the-top finale with Lionel and Paquita battling their way out of his house
against a zombie army. Jackson, never
one for cinematic subtlety, i decorates the screen with wall-to-wall ‘ intestines as Lionel transforms himself into a Kiwi version of the Evil llead’s Ash, the proverbial wonn who turns and shows himself to be pretty handy with the aforementioned gardening implement.
It’s all played for laughs, of course - slapstick gore rather than
All the lush surroundings, swoony
world can’t transform these people from tosh to truth, so after the top- billed trio dispense with the dilemma in question, there’s nowhere for the story to go. Redford’s a suave bastard in a penguin suit, Woody stays at home and pats his labrador; three guesses which one Ia DM ends up with. This is cavernously empty stuff,
and likely to be every bit as successful. I just laughed, but I don’t f think I was supposed to. (Trevor
i Johnston)
indecent Proposal (15) (Adrian Lyne,
i US, 1993) Demi Moore, Robert Redford, Woody Harrelson. 117 mins. From Fri 7. General release.
s ’4 'v egg
x .3.“
\
out-and-out scares. Timothy Balme hits the right note of nerdiness
as Lionel, proving more than a match for the film’s real star, a
gleefully malicious zombie baby who becomes a bit hyperactive in
a children’s playpark. lt’s Jackson, however, who really emerges blood-splattered and victorious, having wrenched the King of Gore crown away from Sam Raimi once and for all. (Alan Morrison)
Braindead (18) (Peter Jackson, New Zealand, 1992) Timothy Balme, Diana Penalver, Elizabeth Moody. 104 mins.
All UCls.
scoring and reflecting surfaces in the
a worse film even than The Bodyguard
‘To call the characters cardboard would be to positively enoble
them.’
‘Jackson, never one for cinematic subtlety, decorates the
screen with wall-to-wall intestines.’
32 The List 7—20 May l993