Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 23, 1994 TAG: 9407290045
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Mike Mayo
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
``Wrestling Ernest Hemingway'' is a ``little'' movie that had a limited theatrical release last. On a big screen, this story has an overinflated quality, so it may play better on tape.
Essentially it's about a friendship between two retirees in Florida. Frank (Richard Harris) is a garrulous braggart who loves to spin wild stories about his past and himself. Walter (Robert Duvall) is a Cuban barber who's carrying a small torch for a friendly waitress (Sandra Bullock). These two old guys are opposites in almost every way, but they're both lonely. That's
more than enough to bring them together.
Director Randa Haines takes her time in telling their story. Unfortunately, she also ladles on a syrupy score. Almost all the big scenes are swamped by the music. The two stars are up to their usual standard, and they're given fine support by Shirley MacLaine and Piper Laurie. In the end, the good outweighs the bad in ``Wrestling Ernest Hemingway.'' Like so many serious, character-driven movies these days, it will find an appreciative
audience on home video. Recommended.
``The Great Bikini Off-Road Adventure'' makes a heartfelt plea for wilderness preservation and girls in tiny swimsuits. The off-the-shelf plot has to do with an evil developer trying to pry loose Duke Abbey's (Floyd Irons) Utah desert land. There's just not enough money in Jeep tours to pay the rent. So Duke asks his lawyer niece (Lauren Hays) and her pal (Avalon Anders) to help out. The rest is unequal parts cheesecake, comedy and more
references to the works of novelist and enironmentalist Edward Abbey.
The producers of this one also made ``The Bikini Carwash Co.'' Like it, this one is frivolous and curiously innocent with good scenery and production values.
``No More Dirty Deals'' is an interesting little crime movie set in Fort Lauderdale. It's about a speedboat jock (Von VonLindenberg) with more hair than brains who gets himself hooked up with Sean Halloway (Taimak), the leader of a coed gang of thieves. The story actually generates some complexity toward the end, but it's mostly about chases (on land and water), stick-ups and such.
The young cast is much more attractive than talented, but that's not really a problem with this kind of movie. Filmmaker Andy Sidaris perfected the formula in such memorable video originals as ``Hard Ticket to Hawaii'' and ``Picasso Trigger.'' Here, director David Jean Schweitzer puts his own spin on it.
``Drug Runners'' tries to mine a similar low-budget vein, but with less success. Actually, the inspiration for this one seems to have been the non-stop action films of John Woo, but director Alan Kukowski doesn't have Woo's touch, though he certainly does try. This energetic 1988 film about DEA agents and Mexican gangsters puts the ``shoot'' back in shoot-'em-up. The only familiar name in the cast is veteran Aldo Ray. With everyone else, it's hard to say how well they do because the dubbing is so wonderfully bad. Between gunshots, it sounds like an Italian gladiator flick.
``The Knack ... and How to Get It'' is a 1965 British film that looks a little dated now. Writer Charles Wood and director Richard Lester took the bare premise of Ann Jellicoe's play and turned it into a silly, fast-paced comedy filled with visual gags, many borrowed from silent films. Ray Brooks is the cooler-than-cool ladies' man who has the knack. Michael Crawford (Broadway's ``Phantom of the Opera'') lacks it. Rita Tushingham, a country girl newly arrived in London, becomes the object of their affections.
Some of the humor still has a lot of zip. Other bits have been recycled so often that they're not as fresh. Lester used many of the same techniques, more effectively to my taste, in ``A Hard Day's Night.'' Also, for all its Felliniesque surrealism, the film provides an accurate snapshot of the changing sexual mores and assumptions of the mid-1960s. Despite the fact that the film is satirizing those ideas, the patronizing attitudes of the male characters are enough to anger any independent woman today.In any case, it's well worth a look for its historical value if nothing else.
``Test Tube Teens From the Year 2000'' is something of a throwback to the mid-'60s. The opening titles, presented over the silhouette of a naked dancing woman, could have come straight from that era. The fast-forwardable plot concerns the title characters' (Ian Abercrombie and Brian Bremer) efforts to go back in time and stop Camella Swales (Morgan Fairchild) from banning conventional reproduction. The rest of the movie is set in a girls' boarding school.
Production designer Arlan Jay Vetter and art director Matthew Kern Atzenhoffer took their cue from the deliberately cheesy sets and props used on television's ``Mystery Science Theater 3000.'' Don't miss the apple corer that's glued to the front of the time machine and the white ``boots'' made of cardboard sleeves over tennis shoes.
This, folks, is what low-budget video is all about.
Next week: Live from Las Vegas ... it's the video convention!
New release this week:
Hans Christian Andersen's Thumbelina *** (for kids)
Written and directed by Don Bluth. Warner Home Video. 88 min. Rated G.
This is a fine animated fairy tale for pre-schoolers and other young videophiles. The story concerns a girl no bigger than a thumb and her romance with Cornelius, prince of the fairies. Don Bluth probably won't make anyone forget ``The Little Mermaid'' or ``Beauty and the Beast'' but he certainly knows how to entertain kids. Adults may not be as enthusiastic.
The essentials
Wrestling Ernest Hemingway ***
Warner Home Video. 123 min. Rated PG-13 for salty language and Richard Harris doing naked push-ups.
The Great Bikini Off-Road Adventure ** 1/2
Imperial. 90 min. Rated R for nudity, strong language, mild sexual content.
No More Dirty Deals ** 1/2
No-Bull Distribution. 91 min. Unrated, contains violence, strong language, brief nudity, sexual content.
Drug Runners **
Orphan, Inc. 86 min. Unrated, contains graphic gun violence, strong language, mild sexual content.
The Knack ... and How to Get It ***
MGM/UA 84 min. Unrated, contains no conventionally objectionable material.
Test Tube Teens From the Year 2000 **
Paramount/Torchlight. 74 min. Rated R for nudity, sexual content.
by CNB