Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 6, 1993 TAG: 9303060063
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
TAKE TIME OUT FOR A LITTLE BRAINLESS VIDEO
The recent Academy Award nominations show the most intelligent side of film industry. The moral questioning of Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven," the literary complexities of "Howards End" and the murky sexual politics of "The Crying Game" are popular entertainment at its best.I, for one, have had enough.
It's time to veg out in front of the tube with a big bowl of popcorn and a stack of cassettes and disks that require no thought whatever. Luckily, there are hundreds of them as close as your favorite video store.
\ "Hard to Die," arriving Wednesday is pure brainless video. It's your basic action/horror/slasher/parody, produced and directed by B-movie veteran Jim Wynorski. Since Meryl Streep, Sally Field, Joan Plowright, Vanessa Redgrave and Emma Thompson weren't available, he hired five unknowns to play the leads.
Robyn Harris, Melissa Moore, Lindsay Taylor, Debra Dare and Bridget Carney have to spend a Saturday doing inventory for the Acme Lingerie Co. They're working in an empty skyscraper with only the hulking Orville Ketchum and an evil spirit for company. (The evil spirit was supposed to be delivered to Forrest J. Ackerman, editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland, who shows up in a pleasant cameo.)
Of course, our heroines get dirty, so they have to take showers and put on fancy underwear before someone or something starts stalking them. If one frame of the film were halfway serious, it might be offensive, but "Hard to Die" is played strictly for laughs. This is the kind of comedy in which someone is shot a couple of hundred times with a machine gun, falls down, then pops up a few seconds later.
It has everything fans of bad movies love - atrocious acting, dumb jokes, lots of action, cheap sets and a complete lack of good taste and moral rectitude.
Since the rip-off title brings it to mind, the original "Die Hard" is also worth some quality sofa time. It really is the "Citizen Kane" of brainless, violent entertainment. Oddly, on paper, it's a movie that does everything wrong.
The story begins with long, slow exposition; setting up the location in the unfinished high-rise office building; explaining the troubled relationship between Bruce Willis and Bonnie Bedelia; introducing the pretty-boy bad guys and their complicated scheme. It shouldn't work, but it does. Once director John McTiernan has everyone in place, the audience is hooked. He lets the roller coaster loose, and the rest of the movie is a symphony of explosions and breaking glass.
"Death Magic," on the other hand, is an ultra-low-budget horror movie from Tucson, Ariz. Producer/writer/director Paul Clinco appears to have assembled a group of amateur and semi-pro actors and some Old West re-enactors, and filmed his vengeful-ghost story on whatever locations were available.
The sound and lighting are poor to marginal. At first the overwritten story is reminiscent of the original "Dark Shadows" soap opera. Before long, though, it devolves into mystical mumbo jumbo and gory special effects, some of which seem to have been achieved through fingerpaints. The guys keep their clothes on; the women mostly don't.
Still, it's an acceptable time-waster for fans of this limited genre. And there's one bright spot involving an older woman who has trouble remembering her lines. She plays a cop, and the movie gets better every time she shows up.
Fans who missed "Bruce Springsteen in Concert" on MTV last year can take a look at it now in two versions, both longer than the original telecast. The cassette edition contains two encores, "Living Proof" and "If I Should Fall Behind," and the laserdisk adds "Roll of the Dice" to those.
Springsteen has a fine group of musicians backing him up, with Roy Bittan and (on one number only) Patti Scialfa from the E Street Band. Of the new folk, Shane Fontayne and Crystal Taliefero are particularly good. The first number, the bawdy "Red Headed Woman," is acoustic, "unplugged." The rest of the songs are definitely plugged, but that's all right.
No, this concert won't make anyone forget the E Street Band, but the pared down, simpler version of the old songs are just as moving as the originals. The concert's worth watching and listening to more than once.
Those are my suggestions. I'm sure you can come up with some of your own. So, here's what you do: Pick up a double or triple feature at the local video store, come back home and put your brain in a warm, dark place. Then get a firm grip on the remote control, sit back and enjoy.
\ New releases:
The Last of the Mohicans: **1/2
Stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, Wes Studi. Directed by Michael Mann. Foxvideo. 110 min. Rated R for graphic violence.
Producer/co-writer/director Mann, best known for the TV series "Miami Vice," brings the same razzle-dazzle, style-over-substance approach to James Fenimore Cooper's story of the French-Indian War. Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe are excellent as the romantic leads, and their hair looks great. The action moves swiftly and the story makes as little sense as possible.
\ Wind:**
Stars Matthew Modine, Jennifer Grey, Cliff Robertson. Directed by Carroll Ballard. Rated PG:13. 129 minutes. (Columbia Tristar)
Some gorgeous nautical footage but a story that becomes progressively silly. Modine plays a sailor who loses his girl (Grey) and the America's Cup yacht race and sets out to regain both. When the movie is on the water, it's gorgeous and exciting to watch. When it's land-bound - and thus forced to pay attention to plot and dialogue - it verges on the ludicrous.
\ What the ratings mean:
****Memorable. One of the best of its kind; maybe worth owning.
***Outstanding. An excellent video, worth searching out.
**Average. You've seen better, you've seen worse, but if it sounds interesting . . .
*Poor. This is why your VCR has a fast-forward button.
A waste of time and an insult to your intelligence. More a warning than a rating.
Note: Star ratings are not available for reviews from wire services.