Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 29, 1994 TAG: 9401280116
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: C-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Mike Mayo
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
First up are a documentary and a travelogue, both out of the ordinary and thoroughly enjoyable.
"Ron Mann's Twist" takes an appropriately irreverent and loose-jointed look at the craze that swept over America in the early 1960s like no dance before or since. Producer-director Mann uses most of the familiar techniques of fact-based filmmaking. He combines archival film and TV footage with the testimony of key "witnesses" who were there when it happened.
Hank Ballard, who appears with his dog, wrote and recorded the original song "The Twist." Chubby Checker made a hit out of it a few months later. Joey Dee's "Peppermint Twist" brought the dance to the attention of New York society folk. And of course there were the "American Bandstand" dancers who took it to television. They're all older, and most of them are more comfortably padded now. They seem happy to recall those heady days.
Mann also provides some background on post-World-War-II dances, from the creation of the exuberant Lindy Hop in Harlem through Arthur Murray's more restrained teachings and the gyrations of Elvis, to the Twist and its many followers. It's impossible to say exactly why something like the Twist becomes\ so overwhelmingly popular. Chubby Checker credits his own unthreatening,\ friendly personality and the simplicity of the dance itself.
As he describes it, "You remove your hands from your partner, putting out a\ cigarette with both feet, wiping off your bottom with a towel to the beat of\ the music. People understood that."
Mann makes it clear that the dance's popularity began with young people.\ But many who willingly participated in this craze, including Marshall McLuhan,\ were old enough to know better. And that's what makes "Ron Mann's Twist" so\ much fun. For those who remember the times, the film is the best kind of\ nostalgia. For kids, it'll be one of the year's best comedies.
"The Inland Sea" is a meditative travelogue based on Donald Ritchie's 1962\ book. On one level, the subject is Seto Naikai, a body of water bordered by\ three of Japan's four large islands and containing hundreds of smaller islands.\ But it's also about travel and the nature of the expatriate. Ritchie, an\ American living in Japan, narrates the film that re-creates a journey he took\ 30 years before.
His humor is dry and sharp. So are his observations on Japanese culture\ past and present, his gloomy predictions for the future and his ideas on sex\ and religion.
Particular credit has to go to the other creative people responsible for\ the film - cinematographer Hiro Narita, composer Toru Takemitsu and director\ Lucille Carra. They seem to have been perfectly atuned to Ritchie's particular\ point of view. Their combination of word, image and sound sustains a mood of\ intelligent wonder, regret and speculation for almost an hour.
"The Inland Sea" is a superb film, strongly recommended even for those who\ don't normally watch nonfiction.
Turning from new releases to old favorites, we find two perfect masters of\ the American cinema: Bugs and Hitch.
"Bugs Bunny Superstar" is a 1975 film that played a large part in the\ revival of interest in animation that has come about since. It includes nine\ cartoons and interviews with animators Bob Clampett, Tex Avery and Friz\ Freleng. Orson Welles narrates. By today's standards, the pace is a little\ slow, but the footage from Termite Terrace - the buildings where the Warner\ Bros. animators worked in their Golden Age - makes up for it. For any cartoon\ fan who might have missed it, this one is required viewing.
By any standard you care to apply, the 1956 version of "The Man Who Knew\ Too Much" is not Alfred Hitchcock's best film. It's still a well-made and\ entertaining thriller. James Stewart, a solid Everyman hero, is at top\ midcareer form, and Doris Day isn't bad either. Though her singing style is out\ of fashion now, she's convincing in the dramatic scenes. In the end, the film\ stands up well enough to be worth another look.
The Essentials:
Ron Mann's Twist: +++ Voyager.
78 min. Unrated, contains a lot of "vulgar" dancing.
The Inland Sea: ***
Voyager. 56 min. Unrated, contains no objectionable material.
Bugs Bunny Superstar: ***
MGM/UA. 91 min. Unrated, contains no objectionable material.
The Man Who Knew Too Much: ***
MCA/Universal. 120 min. Unrated, contains no objectionable material.
\ New releases
Coneheads: ** 1\2
Starring Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, Michelle Burke. Directed by Steve Barron. Paramount. 85 min. Rated PG for a little strong language, subject matter. Another "Saturday Night Live" skit has been inflated to feature-length. This one can also boast the presence of dozens of "SNL" regulars on both sides of the camera, but it's still a one-joke movie with only a few funny moments and inventive special effects.
Poetic Justice: **
Starring Janet Jackson, Tupac Shakur. Directed by John Singleton. Columbia TriStar. 110 min. Rated R for extremely strong language and violence.
John Singleton's second film is a weak follow-up to "Boys 'N the Hood." It's a well-intentioned road romance with some effective moments that are undercut by a simplistic approach to the story and a lack of focus in the telling of it. Janet Jackson plays the title character, a hairdresser/poet. Tupac Shakur is the mailman who falls for her.
by CNB