film
video reviews
RENTAL
Evita (PG) 130 mins it H:
It's not Madonna but Antonio Banderas who steals the show in this musical biopic of Eva Peron. He's excellent as everyman narrator Che, drawing us in with knowing looks and actually managing to convey personality while singing. Director Alan Parker indulges in too many repetitive big scenes, thumping us over the head with the scale of the movie and his limitless cast of extras. Some of the numbers stand the test of time, but much of the score's pop-funk is embarrassingly stuck in the 705, so by the end, you'll be Lloyd Webber-ed out. (Entertainment)
Caught In The Act (PG) 92 mins *
Sara Crowe continues her dizzy blonde routine from the Philadelphia Cheese ads when she and a couple of friends enter a talent contest while on holiday in Norfolk. When Leslie Phillips pops up as a pissed pianist, we might hope for some saucy Carry On style one-liners, but no luck. A weak story With weaker laughs and risible romantic subplots, climaxrng With a woeful amateur-hour stage show that confirms the film’s no- hoper status. (Film 2000)
Day Of The Beast
(18) 110 mins * at 1?
Alex de la lglesia hits more consistent form in his follow-up to Accion Mutante. A hangdog-faced priest discovers the time and place of the birth of the anti-Christ, and reckons that only by committing evil acts can he save the day by tricking the Devil into an early appearance. Tearned with a heavy metal freak and a TV psychic, he stumbles through his plan like a clerical Clouseau. (Tartan; also retail £15.99)
The Crow: City Of Angek
(18) 91 mins 1k *
Vincent Perez steps into the late
l
Brandon Lee's facepaint as a back- from-the-dead avenger out to get the guys who killed him and his young son. Music video directOi Tim Pope manages to sustain a melancholy mood despite the stylistic flashes, while Iggy Pop has fun as the main bad guy’s sidekick. But the script is terrible, so let’s let the character rest in peace without any more sequels, eh? (Buena Vista)
Feeling Minnesota (18) 94 mins *
Keanu Reeves and Cameron Diaz take starring roles in this small independent movie, but they really shouldn’t have bothered. The story is a shallow, indulgent mess of existential angst — engaged to sleazy Vincent D'Onofrio, Diaz falls instantly for little brother Reeves when he turns up for the wedding ‘— the characters are walking cliches and the acting is wooden. (Entertainment)
RETAIL
From Dusk Till Dawn (18) 104 mins x it
It's a film of two halves, as George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino kidnap Harvey Keitel and Jennifer Lewis before holing up in a Mexican bar that's really full of vampire zombies. Plenty of splat effects but not enough originality makes Robert Rodriguez's horror flick a bit of a drag. Catch another Tarantino disappointment — directing this time — in one of the segments in the hotel- bound Four Rooms (18, 94 mins, £12.99, at t). (Buena Vista £14.99)
L'Amore Molesto (15) 104 mins * t *
When her mother dies in strange Circumstances, Delia (Anna Bonaiuto) resolves to investigate, but her efforts bring to the Surface painful memories from her childhood As the dead woman's lover haunts the shadows, Delia slips into the deceased's red dress and perhaps tempts fate in her own direction. A key film by Mario Martone, one of the new wave of Neopolitan directors, that uses its sepia flashbacks and chilling mood to create a disconcerting European thriller. (Arrow £10.99)
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Dressed for the occasion: Rhea Perlman is a bingo-loving mum in Matilda (PG,
28 THE LIST 13-3/6 Jun 1997
Columbia Tristar rental, * t i *)
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RENTAL/RETAIL Beyond The Clouds
(18) 103 mins *hlr
Passion player: Ines
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The Clouds
Sastre in Beyond
While cinéastes rally at the thought of a new film by Michaelangelo Antonioni - director of L'Awentura, Blow-Up and The Passenger, and recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Oscar last year - their cheers are tinged with slight disappointment at the final result. The quartet of stories that make up Beyond The Clouds seem slight in comparison with the filmmakers greatest works, but this mixed bag does prove that any Antonioni is better
than no Antonioni at all.
A few years ago the director was incapacitated by a severe stroke and, perhaps fittingly, the tales here deal with the inability to express emotions through words and. occasionally, even by touch. These four heterosexual encounters are sparked by desire at first sight and examine the illusions and ideals that desire thrives upon. The characters combine the compliments of lovers with indirect pseudophilosophical observations on life and melodramatic bursts of expression that cannot be construed as true conversation. This is arthouse romance, if such a genre exists - old- fashioned, distinctly European andweighted with a knowing
intellectualism. (Alan Morrison)
I Beyond The Clouds is available to rent and buy (at f 15. 99) from Mon 23 Jun.
The Outlaw Josey Wales
(18) 130 mins hunt
One of Clint Eastwood’s best self- directed westerns, this revenge drama develops the Man With No Name persona of the spaghetti period by adding a touch of comedy and a family background. Driven by the murder of his Wife and kids by Union soldiers during the CiVil War, Josey Wales tries to go it alone, but on the way picks up a surrogate family of eccentrics. Available With twenty other Eastwood titles in a 'two for a tenner’ deal, taking in westerns (Pa/e Rider), cop thrillers (Dirty Harry) and war movies (Heartbreak Ridge). (Warner Screen Classics, two for £10)
Sgt Kabukiman NYPD
(18) 100 mins ** i
The title isn't as outrageously catchy as other Troma releases which means that, yes, this is a film that outlasts the initial lOke. Ordinary cop Harry Griswold transforms into a greasepainted crimefighter in a kimono in what’s probably the label’s most consistently funny mowe. Police thriller, film noir detective, kung fu and comic-book superhero genres get together on the lowest of low budgets, share some Naked Gun-style Sight gags, poke fun at City power corruption and generally have a party. (Troma £12.99)
The Grotesque
(18) 94 mins it a: *
Gothic mood meets English eccentricity in the country house of palaeontologist Alan Bates when newly arrived butler Sting sets about creating all sorts of devilish mischief. The manservant’s string of sexual conquests — and the double- edged sense of release this brings — turns the film into an uneasy companion to Pasolini's Theorem. Maggots, toads, crows and dead cows bring a whiff of decay that carries over into the human characters, all of whom are revealed as 'grotesques' as the film develops. For the chance to Win a copy, see Readers' Offers, page 112. (Imagine £12.99)
Lust In The Dust
(15) 85 mins * it *
Divine takes time out from the works of John Waters to search for hidden treasure in Paul Bartel’s spoof western. The film sticks close to the conventions of the genre, but With a camp tWist — this time, the map is tattooed on the buttocks of two of the leading 'ladies’. Tab Hunter is in ponchoed Eastwood mode, Lainie Kazan does her best Mae West impression, and the result is a film that has more sass than Blazing Saddles. (Arrow £9.99)
STAR RATINGS * t t it * Outstanding (ii at e t Recommended * t it Worth a try it it 50-50 1r Poor