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 BLOOD AND WINE. Bob Rafelson, the director of Five Easy
Pieces, teams up with Jack Nicholson to once again probe the
dark side of human existence. A cheesy and familiar action script
dilutes any true sense of inquiry, and there's an insufferable,
Oedipal subplot thrown in just to make sure the audience feels
good and insulted. Nicholson plays Alex Gates, a greedy, aging
wine merchant who's inexplicably alluring to a hot, gorgeous Cuban
girl half his age (Jennifer Lopez). There's a wife, a son, a diamond
necklace, a car crash, and Michael Caine, hacking up pieces of
lung, overacting as usual. --Richter
CRASH. A trippy, pointless exercise in style from David
Cronenberg, director of Naked Lunch and Videodrome,
among others. Crash looks great but delivers little. The
story, based on the novel by J.G. Ballard, tracks the adventures
of a bored, empty movie producer (James Spader) whose erotic sensibility
and sense of physicality are radically altered after he suffers
a serious car accident. He's discovered by a subculture of like-minded
individuals, headed by a sleazy character named Vaughan (Elias
Koteas), who abandon themselves to their "benevolent psychopathology."
This basically involves engaging in sexual activity in, around,
or after violent car crashes. Like a super-8 porno loop, Crash
contains only a rough idea of beginning, middle and end--and there's
so much sex that after a while, it just gets boring. The wonderful
cast, including Holly Hunter and Rosanna Arquette, is so poorly
directed they literally seem to be wandering around aimlessly.
Crash received a special jury prize at Cannes "For
Originality, For Daring, and For Audacity," but obviously
not for intelligence, artistic merit or even entertainment value.
--Richter
DONNIE BRASCO. Zesty Italian mobsters shoot, hack and smash
each other to smithereens one more time in this reprise of the
Mafia flick. There's nothing new here, but if you're a fan of
the mobster drama, this one's entirely passable. Johnny Depp,
that pretty, pretty man, is really quite good as Donnie Brasco
(a.k.a. Joe Pistone), an undercover agent burrowing deep into
the structure of the Brooklyn (or is it Queens?) Mafia. His special
gangster friend is Al Pacino, an aging, rat-like professional
killer who somehow elicits more love and loyalty from Brasco than
his adorable daughters and hot-fox wife. The sweeping themes of
loyalty, honor, manhood, and manly death seem to aim for some
sort of marriage of the worlds of Shakespeare and John Wayne;
but Brasco lacks sincerity and originality and really only
succeeds in invoking other, better, gangster movies. --Richter
PRIVATE PARTS. The movie version of the life of Howard
Stern, the wildly popular New York disc jockey known for his adolescent
humor, doesn't even attempt to be a comedy. Instead, Private
Parts is a shamelessly self-congratulatory eulogy for Stern,
whose hair will surely continue to grow long after he's dead.
Stern's rise to fame and his fierce commitment to maintaining
a monogamous relationship with his wife form the core of this
movie; a joke or two are thrown in now and then for good measure,
but really, it's all about family values. Okay, it's also about
Stern's quest for unconditional love from everybody in the world.
Will he find it? Do we love him? --Richter
PRISONER OF THE MOUNTAIN. A really good Russian film about
a pair of soldiers captured by mountain people (who are sort of
a warlike, Eastern European version of the Amish), Prisoner
of the Mountain deserves its Academy Award nomination for
best foreign film. Hokey, out-of-date production values combined
with a story that's moving without being manipulative, Prisoner
of the Mountain bears a rough relation to American films from
the 1970s. Not only does one of the leads have a center part and
blown-dried hair, but the general understatement and attention
to detail recalls the days before bad soundtracks dictated the
entire emotional tenor of movies. --Richter
ROSEWOOD. In the early 1920s, a small, prosperous black-owned
and -operated town was brutally wiped out by an angry mob of whites
from next door. This true story, which only came to light recently
when the few remaining survivors finally broke their silence,
would seem a powerful statement of prejudice and mob-rule hatred
against well-adjusted, self-empowered African Americans. But in
the hands of director John Singleton, it instead descends disappointingly
into vacuous, hokey Hollywoodism. There are moments, especially
in the first half, of anxiety and outrage, and credible acting
from Ving Rhames and Jon Voight, among others; but Singleton and
his screenwriters veer wildly from known accounts in order to
make the film "marketable," mixing in elements of westerns,
after-school special sermonizing, and unlikely (however welcome)
moments of good fortune on which the actual survivors almost certainly
could not have counted. Care and effort have been put into this
film. It's a shame Singleton was unable to trust the material
to stand on its own. --Marchant
SLING BLADE. A movie that's both grim and oddly feel-good,
this low-key, independent production has a terrific script and
an even better cast. Billy Bob Thorton plays Karl, a man who,
as a child, murdered two people with a big knife; 17 years later
he's "well," according to the state institution where
he's been warehoused, and is summarily ejected into the big, wide
world. He meets up with kind strangers, including a little boy
(Lucas Black), who adopts him like a lost puppy and takes him
home to live in his mother's garage. The mother's boyfriend (Dwight
Yoakam) is a prick, though, and soon Karl finds himself in the
middle of a domestic drama that seems to remind him of his own
twisted childhood. Sharp, understated performances from J.T. Walsh
(who's really terrifying as a sex offender), John Ritter, and
Robert Duvall round out the movie, but it's really Thorton's performance
as the practical, slow-witted, vaguely monstrous Karl that helps
make this one of the best movies of 1996. --Richter
WAITING FOR GUFFMAN. A savage little piece of satire, very
funny and equally cruel. Christopher Guest, the guitarist from
Spinal Tap, directs and co-writes this fake documentary
about a small-town theatrical production of Red, White and
Blaine, a musical greeting card to the salient moments in
the rise of a tiny town known for its production of stools. From
the earnest and pathetic auditions of the townsfolk--including
Catherine O'Hara and Fred Willard, travel agents who do their
own rendition of Midnight at the Oasis--to the final production,
complete with paper maché spaceships and the dopiest choreography
ever captured on film, Waiting for Guffman captures all
the sad and funny nuances of being a nobody in the middle of no
place. Guest plays Corky St. Clair, a frustrated refuge from off-off
Broadway who collects My Dinner With Andre action figures
and throws one mean little temper tantrum. If you hated your high
school music teacher, this film will finally bring you revenge;
the rest of the citizens of small-town America probably don't
deserve such rough treatment, even when it's this funny. --Richter
Special Screenings
THE FALLS. Director Peter Greenaway's first feature, The
Falls (1980), plays Friday through Sunday at The Screening
Room, 127 E. Congress St. The Falls is a post-modern chronicle
of 92 characters, all with the word "fall" as part of
their names. They're among the 19 million victims of a catastrophe
called the "Violent Unknown Event." Hailed as an absurdist
masterpiece, The Falls delivers all the lush visual imagery
and downright weirdness for which Greenaway is famous. Call 622-2262
for information and show times.
SILVER LININGS. A local film production company, Ruby Moon,
is in the pre-production stages for a documentary tentatively
titled Silver Linings: Paths of Gay and Lesbian Elders.
The project, sheltered by the Arizona Center for the Media Arts
and endorsed by the Tucson AIDS Project, Shanti Foundation and
People with AIDS Coalition of Tucson, aims to bring the empowering
stories of gay seniors to the screen via personal interviews,
home movies and photographs. Ruby Moon is looking for interested
gay or lesbian elders (born prior to 1940) of all ethnic backgrounds
and from any part of the country to tell their stories (pre-interviews
began mid-March); and they also welcome community support by way
of technical and legal assistance, and donations of old photos
and home movies that pertain to the gay lifestyle. Send inquiries
to: Ruby Moon Productions, 4642 E. 26th St., Tucson, AZ 85711.
For information, call 750-8636.
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