THE ADDAMS FAMILY
***
USA
A visually memorable, well-cast but weirdly unfunny adaptation of the
cult TV show.
dir: Barry
Sonnenfield
ph: Owen Roizman, Gale Tattersall
pd: Richard MacDonald
cast: Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd,
Elizabeth Wilson, Christina Ricci, Judith Malina, Dan Hedaya
AMANTES
***
Spain
A young soldier, engaged to a
virginal maid, gets involved with a kinky, slightly older widow.
A witty, sexy but ultimately misguided melodrama based on a true
story.
dir: Vicente Arnada
cast: Victoria Abril, Jorge Sanz, Maribel Verdu
THE ADJUSTER
***˝
Canada
The sexual perversions of two couples.
Evocative imagery, haunting music, bizarre characters, seemingly
unrelated until the elusive plot gradually and patiently reveals itself.
Egoyan gaining confidence and on his way up with this unique and
compelling study of voyeurism.
dir: Atom Egoyan
cast: Elias Koteas, Arsinée Khanijan, Maury Chaykin, Gabrielle Rose,
Jennifer Dale, Rose Sarkisyan
BARTON FINK
***˝
USA
An intellectual playwright goes
to Hollywood in the 40s, and is told to write a wrestling picture for
Wallace Beery.
A dark, moody and unsettling Coens picture, which from a Hollywood satire
turns into a disturbing character study.
dir: Joel Coen
cast: John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
****˝
USA
A girl bored with rural life
offers herself to a reclusive beast to save her father's life.
Disney's first actual classic in decades. A dark yet joyous, magical
and captivating cartoon feature.
dir: Kirk Wise, Gary Trousdale
voices of: Paige O'Hara, Robby Benson, Rex Everhart, Richard
White, Jerry Orbach, David Ogden Stiers, Angela Lansbury
A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME
****˝
USA
In a sense, all of Errol Morris' pictures are centrally concerned with
our place in the universe. So
he was the obvious candidate to adapt Stephen Hawking's best-selling
autography. The end result is a sprawling, absorbing and, naturally,
profound picture that manages to integrate a remarkable portrait of a
remarkable man into a meditation on our place in the universe.
dir: Erroll Morris
ed: Brad Fuller
m: Philip Glass
BUGSY
***
The life of 40s gangster Ben
"Bugsy" Siegel.
Polished, romanticized and uninventive Hollywood biopic.
dir: Barry Levinson
cast: Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Harvey Keitel, Ben
Kingsley, Elliot Gould, Joe Mantegna, Bebe Neuwirth
CAPE FEAR
***
USA
A psychotic ex-convict
terrorizes the family of the lawyer who unsuccessfully defended him on a
charge of rape.
A shamelessly overblown remake with strong acting and some memorably
creepy confrontations.
dir: Martin Scorsese
cast: Robert de Niro, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange,
Juliette Lewis, Joe Don Baker, Robert Mitchum, Gregory Peck, Martin
Balsam, Illeana Douglas
CITY SLICKERS
**
USA
Three friends facing mid-life
crisis spend a vacation at a cattle drive.
A generally unfunny star vehicle with a script better suited to
television.
dir: Ron Underwood
cast: Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Bruno Kirby, Patricia Wettig,
Helen Slater, Jack Palance
DOGFIGHT
***˝
USA
On a final night's shore
liberty, several friends have a competition to see who can find the
ugliest date.
A sensitive and touching indie love story.
dir: Nancy Savoca
cast: River Phoenix, Lili Taylor
THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VÉRONIQUE
***˝
France/Poland/Norway
Two young women, one from
Poland, the other from France, share a name, identical looks, heart
problems, a musical talent and seemingly, a single life.
A puzzle without a solution. The point is open to interpretation and
possibly related to destiny and connection.
dir: Krzysztof Kieslowski
ph: Slawomir Idziak
m: Zbigniew Preisner
cast: Irčne Jacob, Halina Gryglaszewska, Kalina Jedrusik,
Aleksander Bardini
EDWARD II
****
UK
The downfall of King Edward II
who rejects his queen for a male lover.
A clever, stylish re-interpretation of Marlowe's play, modernized and
bearing a powerful statement against modern-day homophobia.
dir: Derek Jarman
cast: Steven Waddington, Andrew Tiernan, Tilda Swinton, Kevin
Collins, John Lynch, Dudley Sutton
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
***
Czechoslovakia
Growing up in a small village
in post-war Czechoslovakia.
A warm, beautifully lensed though sanitised account of a
childhood, with an over-insistent score.
dir:
Jan Sverák
ph:
F.A. Brabec
cast: Václav Jakoubek, Jan Triska, Zdenek Sverák, Libuse
Safránková, Rudolf Hrusínský
THE FISHER KING
***
USA
A former DJ befriends a
mentally unstable tramp, who was once a medieval historian.
A warm and bizarre fable, with likable performances.
dir: Terry Gilliam
cast: Robin Williams, Jeff Bridges, Amanda Plummer, Mercedes
Ruehl, Michael Jeter
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JFK
****
USA
New Orleans DA Jim Garrison
investigates the Kennedy assassination.
A fascinating, engrossing, controversial and absorbing piece of true-life
inspired paranoia. It plays around with the facts but stays consistently gripping for over three
hours.
dir: Oliver Stone
ph: Robert Richardson
ed: Joe Hutshing, Pietro Scalia
cast: Kevin Costner, Sissy Spacek, Joe Pesci, Tommy Lee Jones,
Gary Oldman
MADAME BOVARY
***
France
A bored wife of a provincial
doctor engages in extra-marital affairs.
A pallid filming of a literary masterpiece; an uninspired presentation
of the events of the novel without the psychological dissection or
anything much to match the beauty of Flaubert's prose. The dramatic grip
of the source
material does, however, ensure the film never lapses into tedium.
dir: Claude Chabrol
cast: Isabelle Huppert, Jean-François Balmer, Christophe Malavoy,
Jean Yanne, Lucas Belvaux, Jean-Louis Maury
MEETING VENUS
**˝
UK/Japan/USA
The married conductor of a
hectic European opera production starts an affair with his diva.
A depiction of the artist's struggle from a high-mindedly unadventurous perspective.
It makes the familiar - and awkward and lifeless - attempts at broadly stereotypical show-biz
satire and wastes a fine cast.
dir: István Szabó
cast: Glenn Close, Niels Arestrup, Marian Labuda
THE MAN IN THE MOON
**˝
USA
A coming of age drama, notable mainly for featuring a young Reese Witherspoon.
dir: Robert Mulligan
cast: Reese Witherspoon, Sam Waterston, Tess Harper, Gail
Strickland, Jason London, Emily Warfield, Bentley Mitchum
MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO
***
USA
A narcoleptic male prostitute
befriends another hustler.
Occasionally engaging and convincing, but generally not.
dir: Gus Van Sant
cast: River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, James Russo, William Richert,
Udo Kier
NIGHT ON EARTH
***˝
USA
Five simultaneous taxi rides in
five cities: Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki.
A slight but entertaining collection of quirky shorts.
dir: Jim Jarmusch
cast: Winona Ryder, Gena Rowlands, Giancarlo Esposito, Armin-Mueller-Stahl,
Rosie Perez, Isaach de Bankolé, Béatrice Dalle, Roberto Benigni, Paolo
Bonacelli, Matti Pellonpää
ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA
***˝
USA
The silly plot pits Jet Li
against several bunches of evil Westerners and local traitors, and that's
nowhere near as memorable as the spectacular fight scenes, particularly a
climactic showdown involving ladders and defying gravity.
dir: Tsui Hark
ph: Chan Tung-Chuen, Wilson Chan, David Chung, Andy Lam, Arthur
Wong, Bill Wong
cast: Jet Li, Biao Yuen, Rosamund Kwan, Jacky Cheung, Steve
Tartalia
OPERATION SCORPIO
***
Hong Kong
The plot is nonsense about a martial arts student
avenging something or other, but it's the action scenes that matter here.
And they are spectacular.
dir: David Lai
ph: Che Chung Tsang, Bo Man Wong
cast: Kar Lok Chin, Chia-Liang Liu, Jung Yuen, May Lo Mei-Mei, Jean
Pol
POISON
****˝
USA
Three separate stories are
interwoven: in 'Hero', a seven-year-old boy has killed his father and
flown away; in 'Horror', a doctor is disfigured after accidentally
drinking a serum containing the sex drive; and in 'Homo' a gay thief
arrives in prison.
Controversial, disturbing and
often repellent but to the unprejudiced, a brilliant, deeply personal and highly cinematic
study of alienation and social transgression.
wr/dir: Todd Haynes
ph: Maryse Alberti, Barry Ellsworth
ed: Todd Haynes, James Lyons
m: James Bennett
cast: Edith Meeks, Larry Maxwell, Susan Norman, Scott Renderer,
James Lyons
RAISE THE RED LANTERN
****˝
China/Hong Kong/Taiwan
A young concubine is married
off against her wish in 20s China.
A gorgeous, evocative and heartbreaking melodrama, with fascinating
attitudes to women and sexual politics.
dir: Zhang Yimou
wr: Ni Zhen
ph: Zhao Fei, Lun Yang
m: Naoki Tachikawa, Jiping Zhao
cast: Gong Li, Ma Jingwu, He Caifei, Cao Cuifeng, Jin
Shunyan
THE RAPTURE
***˝
USA
A bitter phone operator becomes
a fanatic believer in Jesus Christ.
A paranoid satire or condemnation of cult and religion, played completely
deadpan. In its way it's brave and haunting, but it loses its way towards
the end.
dir: Michael Tolkin
cast: Mimi Rogers, David Duchovny, Patrick Bauchau, Kimberly
Cullum
THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
****˝
USA
An FBI trainee seeks help from
a psychotic criminal genius in tracking down a serial killer.
An intense, gripping thriller, with stunning performances.
dir: Jonathan Demme
cast: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted
Levine, Anthony Heald
THELMA & LOUISE
***˝
USA
Two women go on the run
together after one of them kills a man who tries to rape the other.
A notorious road movie with over-scrutinized notions of feminism. More
entertaining than most things deemed revolutionary, largely due
to the charismatic leads.
dir:
Ridley Scott
cast: Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, Harvey Keitel,
Michael Madsen, Christopher McDonald, Stephen Tobolowsky, Brad Pitt
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