ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 2, 1996 TAG: 9603040075
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 10 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: It Came from the Video Store
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO
The basic love story is "boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl back" - but not on home video. These three new releases defy easy categorization, though each in its own way is a love story.
``1920 Central Europe. After the fall of great Empires, new governments appeared, taking themselves very seriously. Life became hard for revolutionaries.''
That's the premise for "A Night of Love," a comedy of politics and sex. That combination may be a little hard to handle. The film is too gleefully licentious for serious cineastes and too funny and smart for the pure exploitation crowd. But somewhere in the wide world of home video, it ought to find an appreciative audience.
The setting is the little mountain town of Waldheim where the King has scheduled a publicity visit. Avanti (Alfred Molina) is his front man. Svetlana (Camilla Soeberg), daughter of a prominent local family, is plotting an assassination. Both of them are more interested in pleasures of the flesh than affairs of state. The bawdy sexual scenes could have come from Chaucer or D.H. Lawrence, and, like the politics, they're treated with nose-thumbing irreverence. This movie is incorrect in just about every way imaginable. I was really ashamed of myself for not being more offended.
By the way, this 1988 U.S. and then-Yugoslavia production had a limited theatrical run under the title "Manifesto."
"Bad Love" earns more points as a character study than as a compelling drama. Viewers who understand that going in will enjoy this story of two losers searching for salvation in each other. Eloise (Pamela Gidley) is a secretary involved in a dead-end relationship with her married boss (Joe Dallesandro). Lenny (Tom Sizemore) is a borderline alcoholic and dreamer who can't hold a job. Even his Uncle Bud (Seymour Cassell), a pawn shop owner who likes him, says that Lenny is "a no-good small-time hustler."
Lenny and Eloise fall for each other immediately. Their rocky relationship is a search for love and employment.
Writer George Gary gets these two characters exactly right. They're deeply flawed, and though there's an inevitability to their self-created predicaments, there's also something fascinating about them. Director Jill Goldman makes their low-rent Southern California world an important part of the story. She's also careful with physical details. Note the way she subtly highlights small bruises on Eloise's ankle in a key scene.
Given the current fashion in Hollywood, it's tempting to say that "Bad Love" is Quentin Tarantino without the stylistic excesses, but that's not really true. Though the film is fiction, it's really closer in substance to "In Cold Blood" and "The Executioner's Song." It's certainly not for everyone, but those who appreciate gritty naturalistic romance, flawlessly acted, should make an extra effort to find a copy.
Judged against most video thrillers, "Number One Fan" is a solid cut above average, but it still wastes considerable potential.
Essentially, Anthony Laurence Greene's script is a reworking on "Play Misty for Me" (one of Hollywood's best thrillers), about Blair Madsen (Renee Ammann), a disturbed young woman who's obsessed with movie star Zane Barry (Chad McQueen). Even though he's about to marry Holly (Catherine Mary Stuart), it doesn't take much for Blair to turn his head.
When he tries to break it off, the film turns into a fairly standard stalker tale, with crazed villains, stalwart heroes and a couple of looming plot lapses. It comes close to being much more. For the first half of the film, the antagonists are evenly matched. Both are self-absorbed yet essentially sympathetic characters. But when the story slides into familiar cliches, Blair becomes one-dimensionally evil and Zane becomes one-dimensionally good.
She could have been a woman who's forced to face the conflicts between a glamorous facade and the reality behind it. He could have been a real actor, an individual who has adopted so many other identities that his own character has become shallow and selfish.
But that would have been another movie, and the first rule of reviewing is that you criticize what's on the screen, not what you want to see on the screen.
As it is, director Jane Simpson makes a credible transition from commercials and videos to feature films. I'll take a look at whatever she does next.
Next week: Love Stories, Part II!
Have a question about home video or film? Contact Mike Mayo at P.O. Box 2491; Roanoke, Va. 24010, or by email at 75331.2603compuserve.com.
New releases this week:
The Brothers McMullen ***
Starring Edward Burns, Jack Mulcahy, Connie Britton, Mike McGlone, Shari Albert, Jennifer Jostyn. Written and directed by Burns. FoxVideo. 97 min. Rated R for subject matter and some strong language.
This low-budget character-driven romantic comedy first attracted notice as a prize-winner at the Sundance Film Festival and then became a sleeper hit. It's a comedy/drama about three Catholic brothers in Long Island who are trying to solve various problems with women. A young ensemble cast does fine work. Writer-director-producer-star Edward Burns could have a bright future ahead of him.
Fair Game **
Starring Cindy Crawford, William Baldwin. Directed by Andrew Sipes. Warner Home Video. 85 min. Rated R for violence, strong languageand brief nudity.
Judged by almost any objective standard, this ridiculous action flick is a mess. It's filled with gratuitous gun violence and flagrantly bad acting. It's also the big-screen debut of model Cindy Crawford.
A Walk in the Clouds *
Starring Keanu Reaves, Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, Giancarlo Giannini, Anthony Quinn. Directed by Alfonzo Arau. FoxVideo. 103 min. Rated PG-13 for subject matter, strong language, mild violence.
This heavy-handed romance aims at the simplicity and charm of a fairy tale but winds up being nothing more than woozy romantic excess. Director Arau will do anything to tug at his audience's heartstrings, but the film lacks the toughness and passion that made his "Like Water for Chocolate," such a hit. Reeves is a World War II vet who impersonates a husband for the pregnant and abandoned daughter of a wine country family.
The Essentials
A Night of Love *** Orion. 97 min. Rated R for nudity, sexual content, violence, strong language, rough humor.
Bad Love *** A-Pix. 93 min. Rated R for subject matter, strong language, some violence, sexual content, incidental nudity.
Number One Fan *** 1/2 Orion. 92 min. Rated R for sexual content, nudity, violence, strong language.
LENGTH: Long : 125 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Aitana Sanchez-Gijon and Keanu Reeves star in "A Walkin the Clouds," released this week on FoxVideo and rated PG-13. 2.
Chad McQueen, Renee Ammann and Mark Dalton star in the stalker
thriller "Number One Fan."