Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 26, 1995 TAG: 9508280007
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"Digital Man" is the umpteenth post-apocalyptic s-f action movie. This one's about an army patrol composed of humans and cyborgs (who think they are human) on the trail of the titular Digital Man (Matthias Hues), a super-cyborg who totes a quintuple-barreled rocket gun. The main attractions are effective use of desert locations, fairly good effects and a little cornball humor. Director Phillip Roth (``A.P.E.X.") keeps things moving well enough, but as is so often the case in the genre, the action often degenerates into characters wearing silly shoulder pads and waving absurdly large weapons. For fans only.
"Vibrations" attempts a frankly dubious combination. Imagine a youth-oriented sitcom like ``Friends" grafted onto a disease-of-the-week, based-on-a-true-story movie of the week. It begins with teen musician TJ (stone-faced James Marshall) losing his hands in an indescribably screwy scene. He promptly bottoms out, becoming a squeegee-teen in the Big Apple. But he's pulled out of the gutter by Ananeeka (Christina Applegate), an entrepreneur who sells T-shirts at raves. The rest of the predictable plot comes to a bizarre and largely inexplicable ``happy" ending. Though the music is hypnotic, the whole rave phenomenon deserves better treatment, ideally in a good documentary.
"Boulevard" is a gritty little Canadian import that mixes elements of ``Ruby in Paradise" with the cult-hit theatrical release, ``Exotica." Jennifer (Kari Wuhrer) leaves her abusive husband and catches the first Trailways from her backwater burg to Toronto. He follows. Ola (Rae Dawn Chong), a kind-hearted but tough-minded hooker, takes Jennifer in off the streets.
Writer Andrea Wilde and director Penelope Buitenhuis take an objective view of prostitution, neither exploiting, glamorizing nor condemning it out of hand. (That's not to say their film doesn't have its racy moments.) The main flaw is Lou Diamond Phillips, who might have based his performance as a pimp on Gary Oldman in ``True Romance." Ethnic stereotypes are insulting enough on their own, but when actors of other races affect broad accents and mannerisms, the result is latter-day blackface. It's a relatively minor irritant, though. The female characters are much more fully developed, believable and engaging, and the focus stays mostly on them.
"Freddie the Frog" is a curious animated feature that will probably be too offbeat and, for want of a better term, too European for young American audiences. It boasts some high-powered voice talent - James Earl Jones, Nigel Hawthorne and Ben Kingsley in the lead - and a loosely wrapped excuse of a plot. The title amphibian is French (without a trace of irony). The story begins as a fairy tale, then turns into a James Bondish spy spoof (when our hero grows to human size and becomes Agent FRO7), and for those hearty few who make to the last reel, the film finally becomes a science-fiction musical. Throughout, the animation is no better than fair, and the film tells too much while showing too little.
"Out of Annie's Past" is a less- than-thrilling formula thriller that was probably made for television. A good cast led by Catherine Mary Stewart and Dennis Farina is wasted in a poorly written story of a young woman with a guilty secret and the corrupt blackmailer who's tormenting her. At first, the film has some spooky moments, but those end in an unintentionally funny hospital scene, and it never recovers.
"Playtime" should be leading the pack in the next round-up of guilty pleasures. It's the new "Emmanuelle" of softcore videos, a classy production with realistic characters, glitzy sets and a hot story of sexual experimentation between two married couples. Eroticism, like beauty, is in the mind of the beholder, but writer Mary Ellen Hanover and director Dale Trevillion push all the right buttons.
As supernatural thriller/comedies go, "Almost Dead" is thin formula stuff notable only for the presence of notorious bad girl Shannen Doherty. She plays a professor of abnormal psychology (yeah, right) who believes that her mother - dead these past four years after committing suicide by blowing up her motel room - has returned from the grave. Costas Mandylor is the cop who helps her sort it out. The silly story needs no comment, nor does the direction. As for the humor, this is one of those movies that you alternately laugh at and with.
Next week: More leftovers!
New Release
The Hunted ***
Starring John Lone, Christopher Lambert, Joan Chen, Yoshio Harada. Written and directed by J.F. Lawton. MCA/Universal. Rated R for violence, brief nudity, sexual content, strong language.
This big-budget martial arts movie is a genuine guilty pleasure, the sort of thing that's probably more enjoyable on video than it was in theaters. The story concerns a generations-old feud between a Ninja clan led by Lone and a Samurai clan led by Harada (a Japanese Charles Bronson), with Westerner Lambert caught in the middle. The inventive and graphic fight scenes are handled with a balletic choreography, and the whole film has an intriguing surrealistic edge. Great stuff for fans
The Essentials:
Digital Man **
Republic. 95 min. Rated R for violence, strong language, fleeting nudity.
Vibrations HH
Dimension Home Video. 114 min. Rated R for strong language, violence, mild sexual content.
Boulevard ***
LIVE Home Video. 96 min. Rated R for subject matter, strong language, nudity, violence, strong language.
Freddie the Frog *
MCA/Universal. 72 min. Rated G.
Out of Annie's Past *1/2
MCA/Universal. 91 min. Rated R for strong language, some violence.
Playtime ***
Triboro. 90 and 95 min. Rated R and unrated for subject matter, nudity, sexual material, language.
Almost Dead **
Monarch Home Video. 92 min. Unrated, contains some violence, icky effects.
by CNB