FILM INDEX
find a new set soon. or it's the orphanage. And then there's the pressure from the kids of the world who are enjoying the new-found power his antics have given them. A constantly inventive fable that shows respect for all ages of its audience. Rob Reiner's only lets itself down by committing a cardinal sin in the last few minutes. Fife: New Picture House. I Nosferatu the ere (Werner Herzog. W.Gemrany/France. 1979) Klaus Kinski. Lisabella Adjani. Bruno Ganz. 107 mins. Disappointineg turgid remake of the expressionist classic. whose main redeeming feature is the splendid make-up and rnesmerising presence of Kinski. Edinburgh: Cameo. I I. m (PG) (Alain Resnais. France. 1994) See Smoking. I 0*.(15) (Jean Cocteau. France. 1950) Jean Marais. Marie Dea. Maria Casares. 95 mins. Cocteau creates an unrivalled cinema fantasy in this stunning modern version of the Orpheus legend. replete with surprising technical tricks and the director's personal brand of poetry. Glasgow: GFT. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. I Hull“! (12) (Jonathan Demme. US. 1993) Tom Hanks. Denzel Washington. Jason Robards. 125 mins. A lawyer takes his former employers to court. convinced that he has been sacked because he is suffering from AIDS. Demme's film goes as far as any mainstream Hollywood movie on this subject could in the current climate. but for all its compromises. it should be applauded for avoiding any notion of manipulative death-bed sensationalism. Hanks. for once. is allowed to break free from lightweight comic roles. and delivers a moving performance. Edinburgh: UCI. I A Place I! the SI. (PG) (George Stevens. US. 1951) Montgomery Clift. Elizabeth Taylor. Shelley Winters. 122 mins. Steven‘s brough Theodore Dreisler's novel An American Tragedy up to date but. as a consequence. lost most of the social satire and replaced it with romantic melodrama. Clift is the young man. tied down by a pregnant working class girl. who tragically tries to better himself by falling in with a snobbish socialite (Taylor). Edinburgh: Filmhouse. I the Muses: It“. (PG) (Rob Reiner. US. 1987). Cary Elwes. Robin Wright. Mandy Patinkin. Billy Crystal. 99 mins. The princess in question is one Buttercup. chosen by the nasty Prince Humperdinck to be his bride. Her heart. however. belongs to Westley. a farm boy who has disappeared. The princess' kidnapping prompts the return of Westley. who has become a pirate. and launches a series of swashbuckling adventures. after which true love can prevail. Mlliam Goldman‘s heavily ironic fairy tale is given a spirited ueatment by the director of Stand By Me and an enthusiastic troupe. Fife: Robins. I Pulp Fletlee (18) (Quentin Tarantino. US. 1994) John Travolta. Samuel Jackson. Uma Thurman. Bruce Willis. 150 mins. Much more ambitious than Reservoir Dogs. the most awaited second feature of the 905 has many scenes that crackle with Tarantino wit. and a few others that fall flat as the writer-director bravely experiments. Interlocking stories in the pulp crime manner concern hitmen. ailing boxers. gang bosses and their molls. drug fiends. and assorted riff-raff. This year's surprise Cannes Palme d'Or winner is a trip. all the way. Glasgow: Cannon. Odeon. Grosvenor. MGM Parkhead. Edinburgh: Cameo. UCI. Fife: New Picture ~House. Strathclyde: UCI Clydebank and East Kilbride. I w H (Kevin Reynolds. US. 1994) Jason Scott Lee. Not a lot of info available as yet. but this adventure by the director of Robin Hood. Prince Of Thieves was produced by Kevin Costner. and follows a young prince on Easter Island. I am liege (18) (Quentin Tarantino. US. 1992) Harvey Keitel. Tim Roth. Michael Madsen. 100 mins. A gang of hoods. known only to each other by colour-coded nicknames. meets at an abandoned warehouse to figure how out their rigorously planned heist went so drastically wrong. The best debut in years from writer-director Tarantino. whose stylish violence seduces the audience into complicity. Brilliant in every sense of the word. Glasgow: Odeon. MGM Parkhead. Edinburgh: Cameo. Odeon. UCI. INWMFUtWUSHTIm Hunter. US. 1993) Matt Dillon. Danny Glover. 103 mins. An absorbing but downbeat tale highlighting homelessness in America. and featuring stand-out performances from the leads and supporting cast. Dillon is the troubled. sensitive youth taken under the wing of the streetwise Glover. together they dream of apartments and jobs. but have to face the harsh reality of the Fort Washington shelter. Strathclyde: East Kilbride. I the MI (12) (Russell Mulcahy. US. 1994) Alec Baldwin. Jone Lone. Penelope Ann Miller. 107 mins. The pulp radio hero now battles his way onto the 905 big screen. but it
can't pull off the sombre tones of the Batman movies. Here. the mysterious crime fighter finds himself up against the last surviving descendent of Genghis Khan. while his playboy alter-ego finds time to romance the dame. Director Mulcahy shows the same visual aplomb he brought to the set pieces in Highlander. but the storyline is too simplistic to take hold. See review. General release.
I Short MUS) (Robert Altman. US. 1993) Andie MacDowell.'1im Robbins. Lily Tomlin. Tom Waits. et al. 187 mins. Long and absorbing. Altman's patchwork approach shifts Raymond Carver's short stories to Los Angeles. a city socially and geologically on the point of falling apart. The stories cross over. character's lives rub together. threads are picked up after rec‘eeding for a while — this is classy soap opera at its best. with flawless acting and construction. Central: MacRobert. Strathclyde: Clydebank.
I A Short FllI About love (18) (Krzysztof
L Kieslowski. Poland. 1988) Grazyna
Szapolowska. Olaf Lubaszenko. Stefania lwinska. 87 mins. The second offering to be developed as a feature film from Kieslowski's television Dekalog (Ten Commandments). Teenage postal clerk Tomek falls obsessively in love with the enigmatic artist on whom he routinely spies in her apartment. Eventually. he plucks up the courage to approach her. but his notions of love are soon to be dispelled by an experience that is to alter both their feelings. Concentrated and probing investigation of the nature of our affections. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I Slacker (15) (Richard Linklater. US. 1991) Over 100 Texans. 97 mins. Unclassifiable piece of independent American moviemaking which doesn't have a plot as such: instead it provides a snapshot of over 100 ‘slackers' — young. happy- go-lucky drifters — as they get through their daily lives. Structured as a monumental relay (each character briefly appears. meets the next. and so on). it has a loose. experimental. almost jazzy format that you‘ll either love or hate. A sure-fire cult hit if it can find its audience in the first place. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I Sleep Witt! Me (15) (Rory Kelly. US. 1994) Eric Stoltz. Meg Tilly. Craig Sheffer. 94 mins. Co-written by the directorial team behind The Waterdance and Bodies. Rest & Motion. this is another independent American movie that concentrates on contemporary twentysomething relationships. Quentin Tarantino makes an odd appearance. spouting his new reading of the homo-erotic subtext of Top Gun — a reassessment to rival the Madonna speech in Reservoir Dogs. See review. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. _
I Sunkan Sucking (PG) (Alain Resnais. France. 1993) Pierre Arditi. Sabine Azema. 135/142 mins. A beguiling transportation of Alan Ayckboum's Intimate Exchanges: the setting is still Yorkshire. but the dialogue is undoubtedly French. Interlocking lives. unsteady marriages and social embarrassment. all mixed up in time and narrative in that inimitable Resnais manner. The films can be viewed in any order. See preview. Glasgow: GFT. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I Speed (15) (Jan De Bont. US. 1994) Keanu Reeves. Dennis Hopper. Sandra Bullock. 115 mins. A white-knuckle adrenalin ride that is the fastest. most finely tuned fairground attraction of the year. With LA SWAT man Jack Traven (Reeves) up against mad bomber Howard Payne (Hopper) in a tower-block elevator siege. a bus wired to blow if it drops below 50mph and LA‘s as-yet-unfinished subway. this is a movie that will leave you on a high for days afterwards. Glasgow: Odeon. Edinburgh: Odeon. UCI. Strathclyde: UCl C lydebank and East Kilbride. I Splash (PG) (Ron Howard. US. 1984) Tom Hanks. Darryl Hannah. John Candy. 111 mins. Boy meets mermaid. boy loses mermaid. boy gets mermaid. Amiable comedy with relaxed performances by the two leads and a few good visual gags. Very pleasant. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I Stare (Konrad Wolf. East Germany/Bulgaria. 1959) Sascha Kruscharska. Jurgen Frohriep. Erik S. Klein. 95 mins. In a small Bulgarian town in 1943. a German soldier falls in love with. and decides to free. a young Jewish girl awaiting deportation to Auschwitz. His subsequent failure encourages him to join the Partisans and fight against the Nazis. Unsentimental and harrowineg atmospheric. Wolf's film went on to win the Special Jury Prize at Cannes. Glasgow: Goethe lnstitut.
I Stepping 0|lt(PG) (Lewis Gilbert. UK. 1991) Liza Minnelli. Shelley Winters. Julie Walters. Robyn Stevan. 132 mins. Minnelli is the has- been ex-showbiz dancer (this is fiction. honest). now reduced to teaching tap to a group of social misfits while convincing them to work as a team. be better people. and help revive her own dream of the spotlight. etc. etc. Despite a couple of uptempo set pieces. the film drags along. shackled to Gilbert's lacklustre direction and a plot that seems to demand endless rehearsal scenes. Edinburgh: St Bride‘s.
I the Story of Mh(l2)(Zhang Yimou. China. 1992) Gong Li. Lei Lao Fheng. Ge Zhijun. 100 mins. Zhang makes a departure from the opulent beauty of In Don and Raise the Red Lantern with this documentary-style tale of a shy. pregnant woman who refuses to accept the injustice dealt out to her husband. Again the role of women in society is highlighted and again Gong Li is superb as her resilience is pitted against the unfeeling authorities. A masterly performance. Glasgow: GFT.
I Stranger than Paradise (15) (Jim Jannusch. US/West Germany. 1984) John Lurie. Eszter Balint. Richard Edson. Cecilia Stark. Danny Rosen.-89 mins. 1n Jarmusch's debut feature. Lurie (later to star in Down By Law) is a New Yorker playing reluctant host to his cousin from Hungary. When she departs to play cards with her mad aunt in Ohio. he and his mate Edson follow her into the bleak. mid-westem snowscape. All very low-key and monochrome. but there’s a wonderfully dry sense of humour at play. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I Strawberry And Chocolate (15) (Tomas Gutierrez Alea/Juan Carlos Tabio. Cuba/Mexico/Spain. 1993) Jorge Perugorria. Vladimir Cruz. Mirta lbarra. 110 mins. A straight Cuban sociology student becomes the object of affection for a older gay man. As their platonic friendship develops. they find themselves under pressure from the attitudes of other friends and from the political regime. What begins — deliberately — in stereotypical fashion soon transcends sexual and social boundaries and assumptions. See review. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I Stll Seekers (Konrad Wolf. East Germany. 1958) 115 mins. Honest workers. former Nazis. Soviet officers and adventurers are the mixed crew of an East German uranium mine under Soviet control during the 1950s. Centring on two female workers. Wolf uses his protagonists — burdened by the past but facing the economic difficulties of the future — with great compassion. Glasgow: Goethe lnstutut.
I taxi Driver (18) (Martin Scorsese. US. 1976) Robert De Niro. Cybill Shepherd. Jodie Foster. 114 mins. An alienated taxi driver in New York is so repelled by the squalor and the moral decay around him that he is driven to terrible violence. One of the key films of the Seventies with the Scorsese-De Niro partnership at its peak. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I le lament D’Orphee ( 15) (Jean Cocteau. France. 1960) Jean Cocteau. Edouard Dennithe. Jean Marais. Maria Casares. Yul Brynner. 83 mins. The enfanr terrible's second dip into the Orpheus legend was also his last film. and pretty obscure it is too. unless you‘re familiar with his earlier work. This time. there‘s little but recycled imagery to see as Cocteau allows himself to be overwhelmed by a barrage of fantasy and pessimism. eventually giving up on the real world altogether. Glasgow: GFT. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I tetsue 2: the mm (18) (Shinya Tsukamoto. Japan. 1992) Tornoroh Taguchi. Nobu Kanaoka. Shinya Tsukamoto. 83 mins. More sophisticated than its eye-Opening predecessor. Tsukamoto's latest post-modem body horror does have a plot — something to do with‘the murder of a child and the father's
subsequent mutations through rage. However. it
is the relentlessly violent imagery that most sticks in the mind. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
I three Coleus: Blue (15) (Krzysztof Kieslowski. France. 1993) Juliette Binoche. Benoit Regent. Charlotte Very. 100 mins. A young woman tries to isolate herself from friends and any notion of affection following the death of her composer husband and child in a car crash. but she cannot escape from the fragments of his unfinished composition. in which she played a major part. An expressive and symbolic film that is also emotionally satisfying. Binoche's award-winning performance. in a film
‘ of profound beauty. is the best of her career.
Glasgow: GFT. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I three Com Bed (15) (Krzysztof Kieslowski. ance/Switz/Poland. 1994) Irene Jacob. Jean-Louis Trintignant. 96 mins. Kieslowski's tricolour trilogy comes to a close with what may be his greatest masterpiece. A Swiss model (Jacob) discovers that a retired judge (Trintignant) is listening in to his neighbours' phone conversations: but instead of denouncing him. she too opens up her innermost secrets. Superficial details are stripped away as the director concentrates on parallel lives and interwoven destinies. See feature. Glasgow: GFT. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I “I” Coleus: Ihlte (15) (Krzysztof Kieslowski. ance/Switszoland. 1993) Zbigniew Zamachowski. Julie Delpy. Janusz Gajos. 91 mins. Another masterful piece of cinema by Kieslowski. much less lyrical and visually poetic than his most recent works. This time the theme ofthe trilogy is ‘equality'. as a Polish hairdresser sets out to get revenge on his French ex-wife. Glasgow: GFT. Edinburgh: Cameo.
I IW (18) (Andrew Fleming. US.41994) Josh Charles. Lara Flynn Boyle. Stephen Baldwin. 93 mins. A serious. shy gay student and a slacker jock find themselves sharing a college dorm with a girl whose name has caused a bureaucratic error. Pretty soon. they're working out their incompatible triangular desires behind closed doors. A film that dares to challenge. but barely rocks the boat. Threesome stumbles through some incredibly patronising scenes before finding a little more complexity. Far from psychological truth. however.
I M1101 (U) (Don Bluth. US. 1993) Animator Bluth comes close to rivalling Disney with this charming fairy tale filled with little folk. princes. easy-to-follow messages and a Ban*y Manilow soundtrack. Young kids will love it and even the cynically hard-hearted may soften.
I to Live (12) (Zhang Yirnou. Hong Kong/China. 1994) Ge You. Gong Li. Niu Ben. 125 mins. With a gentle injection of humour alongside the tragedy. Zhang returns to the epic scope of his earlier films. following the effects of history on an unimposing family. The ironies thrown up by political changes. taking in the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. may have bizarrely comic consequences. but they also inflict pain at a grass-roots level. Ge You is a magnificent lead. Glasgow: GFT.
I true [108(15) (James Cameron. US. 1994) Arnold Schwarzenegger. Jamie Lee Curtis. Tom Arnold. 141 mins. Arnie masquerades as a computer salesman to keep long-suffering spouse Curtis in the dark about his real job in the hi-tech spy world. At a price tag of over $100"). Cameron's attempt to redefine the visual possibilities of the action genre is thrilling. disappointing and exasperating in altn0st equal measures. but at least the money's up there on the screen. Dodgy value judgements. brilliant wholesale destruction.
I TM 11m (18) (Tony Scott. US. 1993) Christian Slater. Patricia Arquette. Dennis Hopper. 119 mins. Comic bookstore assistant Clarence meets. sleeps with and marries novice hooker Alabama within a matter of hours. then the lovebirds find themselves on the run with an accidentally stolen case of cocaine. Limelight- stealing cameos and writer Quentin Tarantino's verbal set-pieces fire this excellent movie. the epitome of disposable pop culture for the fast- food generation. Glasgow: GFT. Fife: New Picture House. ' I Vertical reality (U) (Warren Miller) For 45 years. American ski expert. Warren Miller has been making films that try to get under the skin of what it is like to participate in the world‘s fastest growing winter sport. Hang on to your woolies. Glasgow: GFT. Edinburgh: Dominion. I '8 at the Buttons (PG) (John Roberts. UK. 1994) Colm Meaney. Gregg Fitzgerald. John Coffey. 94 mins. The rivalry between two villages in the south west of Ireland is taken up in childish skirmishes between local schoolkids. but soon their battles escalate. Colin Welland's script oozes lrish charm and a love ofchildhood. but the repetitive structure begins to wear thin. Glasgow: Cannon. MGM Film Centre. MGM Parkhead. Strathclyde: Odeon Ayr. IMAflanlemAmusnLuis Mandoki. US. 1994) Meg Ryan. Andy Garcia. Ellen Burstyn. 126 mins. Casting Ryan against type as an alcoholic mother going through rehab hell and piecing together her domestic life does add welcome friction to Mandoki‘s follow-up to Born Yesterday. but otherwise it's a rather typical piece about forgiveness. inner strength and reinforced family values. The romantic content and emotional manipulation. however. will please the hankie carriers in the audience. I I." (15) (Mike Nichols. US. 1994) Jack Nicholson. Michelle Pfeiffer. James Spader. 125 mins. If you go to this expecting a full-bloodied werewolf movie. you'll be disappointed. Director Nichols trades traditional settings and gore for a deeper analysis of one man‘s transformation on physical. emotional and psychological levels. Bitten by a wolf. Nicholson's books editor fends off his mid-life crisis and vents his passions on cynical rich girl Pfeiffer. More a date movie with teeth than out- and-0ut horror.
I the Woman in lied (15) (Gene Wilder. US. 1984) Gene Wilder. Charles Grodin. Joseph Bologna. 86 mins. Middle-aged exec (Wilder) begins to fantasise about a stunning model whom he glimpses wearing a dress of a particular hue. Wilder and his chums goof around a bit and do no real damage to the excellent Un Elephant Ca Tmmpe Enormement by Jean-Loup Dabadie which the film apes. Edinburgh: St Bride's.
I Year. Frankenstein (15) (Mel Brooks. US. 1974) Gene Wilder. Gene Hackman. Peter Boyle. 108 mins. A splendidly accurate James Whale pastiche choc-full of memorable one- liners and crazee situations. Brooks' most affectionate and consistently humorous film. Glasgow: Grosvenor.
24 The List 18 November-l December 1994
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