Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 24, 1995 TAG: 9506260135
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"The Hottest Bid" is the movie that "Exit to Eden" tried to be - romantic, bawdy, sexy, comfortable with itself and "adult" in the real sense of the word. Featuring an unfamiliar cast of men and women who look like real people - not starved, sculpted and siliconed Hollywood fantasy bodies - it's about two romances that begin at a charity auction.
Though the story lacks the complexity of most studio releases, filmmaker Deborah Shames makes a virtue of simplicity, emphasizing familiar, realistic settings. She handles the material with confidence, and even tosses in a few experimental touches. But as has been the case with her previous work ("Cabin Fever," "The Voyeur"), she emphasizes character over technical slickness, and she got excellent performances from her two leads Gwen Somers and Dennis Matthews.
The feminine perspective that Shames brings to the overworked genre of erotic video is refreshing. By the way, the smoky vocals on the soundtrack are by that '70s pop icon, Maria Muldaur of "Midnight at the Oasis" fame.
"Teresa's Tattoo" is an uneven comedy notable for engaging performances from the stars and a carload of cameo appearances. It appears that writer Georgie Huntington and director Julie Cypher were aiming for a sort of "Desperately Seeking Susan" screwball farce here.
The titular Teresa (Adrienne Shelly) is a grad student who's a dead ringer for Gloria (ditto) who's being held hostage by three bumbling crooks (Matt Adler, Anthony Clark and C. Thomas Howell). It all has to do with Gloria's "holographic" earrings which have the key to the code for the secret formula, or something like that. Whatever ... Gloria, having suffered an unfortunate accident involving a trampoline and a swimming pool, is deceased.
Teresa's pal Sara (Nancy McKeon) drags her to a wild party thrown by the aforementioned bumbling trio and you can pretty much take it from there.
Lou Diamond Phillips and Casey Siemaszko show up as crooks who are even more bumbling than the other three. Tippi Hedren makes a lot of the next-to-nothing role of Teresa's recently re-married mom, but the real surprise is singer k.d. lang's understated turn as a born-again mother of two insufferable brats.
For my money, though, the best thing about the film is Adrienne Shelley. She's developed a following in such offbeat independent comedies as "The Unbelievable Truth" and "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me," and this may be her best role to date. She brings a real sense of energy and spontaneity to her work. It's a cliche but it's true: The camera loves her. And that "likeability," for want of a better word, is the difference between actors and stars.
Unfortunately, the rest of "Teresa's Tattoo" isn't as good as she is.
"Hologram Man" is a lively rip-off of "Demolition Man," the Sylvester Stallone-Wesley Snipes action flick. Though this one was clearly made for a fraction of the budget, it's almost as much fun.
In the desolate near-future, California is a war zone with some neighborhoods at the mercy of gangs, and most of the state under the rule of Cal Corp. Six of one; half-dozen of the other.
Detective Decoda (Joe Lara) doesn't care much for either, but he does manage to capture the vicious thug Slash (Evan Lurie, who also co-wrote and -produced). Cal Corp sentences Slash to "hologramatic reprogramming," i.e. they separate his personality from his physical body. But his henchman (William Sanderson, veteran s-f B-movie character actor who specializes in henchmen) hotwires the Cal Corp computer and Slash is reborn as an indestructible electronic "virtual" villain.
Actually, he looks like a grainy late-'50s color TV broadcast, but that's OK. Overall, the effects and pyrotechnics are acceptable. Director Richard Pepin is an old hand at action pictures and he keeps things moving right along. Fans have seen worse.
"Guns of Honor" is a Western that's no better than the senseless title. The setting is Mexico, 1866. As near as I could make out, there are four forces at work: ex-Confederate, French, Mexican and U.S. government. But I couldn't keep them straight or follow the plot. It was like coming in on the second part of a miniseries, and nothing about the film made me want to learn more. The writing and acting were pretty atrocious all around, and the action was needlessly violent and graphic. I hit the fast forward button about half way through and still felt that I'd wasted my time.
Next week: Ernest P. Worrell, Kareem Abdul Jabar and kid vid!
New release this week:
Eat Drink Man Woman
****
Starring Sihung Lung, Chien-Lien Wu, Yu-Wen Wang, Sylvia Chang, Ah-Leh Gua. Directed by Ang Lee. Hallmark. 124 min. Unrated, but would probably be PG-13 for some strong language, mild sexual material.
As the title suggests, this one is about food and love - all kinds of food and love. With its Taiwanese setting and subtitles, the film probably isn't for everyone, but its concerns are so universal that the cultural differences are insignificant. It's simply a fine movie that ought to appeal to a wide audience. Like director Ang Lee's most recent film, "The Wedding Banquet," it is primarily about parents and their adult children. It's also about the things and emotions that bring people together, and those seem to be about the same in Taiwan and Virginia. Highest recommendations.
The Hottest Bid HHH Deborah Films. 92 min. Unrated. Contains considerable nudity and sexual material.
Teresa's Tattoo ** Vidmark. 95 min. Rated R for strong language, comic violence.
Hologram Man ** 1/2 PM Entertainment. 96 min. Rated R for violence, strong language, brief nudity.
Guns of Honor (turkey) Vidmark. 95 min. Rated R for graphic violence, language, rape.
by CNB