ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, August 17, 1996 TAG: 9608190013
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 10 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: It came from the video store
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO
Video turns to romance this week with five new releases, each - for better and for worse - the kind of character-based "little" film you're not likely to find in theaters these days. Leading off is a solid sleeper.
The British have a talent for offbeat romantic comedy. From "Alfie" to "Four Weddings and a Funeral," they've paired up quirky characters with unusual complications. If "Solitaire For Two" isn't as ambitious as the best, it's still entertaining and intelligent.
Katie (Amanda Pays) is a psychic paleontologist who reads the minds of everyone around her. Ergo, she knows what innate pigs men are and usually smacks each one she meets before he can say a word. Daniel (Mark Frankel) is a charmer with a new line for every woman he meets. True to form, he has just broken up with his latest girlfriend (Liza Walker, from ``Four Weddings'').
Writer/director Gary Sinyon knows there's no real suspense in this opposites-attract formula, and his uneven script looks for humor in other areas. The key is in the casting and the two stars are fine. So are the London locations.
"When Night Is Falling," is an unapologetically erotic lesbian love story. Since two of the key figures are Protestant theologians, it's obvious that writer/director Patricia Rozema isn't trying to avoid controversy.
Camille (Pascale Bussieres) teaches mythology at a Canadian seminary. She and fellow professor Martin (Don McKellar) have been involved for several years, and their superiors think that if they married, they'd be an ideal choice for a dual promotion to campus chaplains. But when Camille meets Petra (Rachael Crawford), a "performance magician" who works in a circus, her calm academic world is turned upside down. Petra is attracted to Camille and pursues her vigorously.
Though the plot works through a fairly conventional (in one sense) love triangle, Patricia Rozema gives the film a strong, almost hypnotic lyricism. The neat and tidy ending is less successful. Viewers uncomfortable with female homosexuality will certainly have a hard time with this intense portrayal. For everyone else, it's recommended as a beautifully realized, if graphic, approach to sensational material.
On the other hand, "The Tollbooth" revels in its own ugliness. Writer/director Salome Breziner's shapeless script often stops cold to focus on road kill and dismembered body parts. What story there is there revolves around the rocky romance between dim-bulb tollbooth attendant Jack (Lenny Von Dohlen) and gas jockey Doris (Fairuza Balk), who's waiting for her long-gone daddy to return to their Florida Keys mobile home. Meanwhile, she's also carrying on with a bait shop owner (Will Patton).
The best moments look like ideas borrowed from writer Harry Crews' reject file. Still, despite the glaring flaws, the film has enough unpredictability to earn a qualified recommendation for fans of the offbeat.
"Fast Money" reworks a perennially popular Hollywood theme - the adventurous woman teamed up with the shy guy - and turns it into a fair romantic chase. Francesca (Yancy Butler) is a professional car thief; Jack (Matt McCoy) is a naive reporter. The two of them wind up in Reno with a suitcase full of cash and some other stuff that gangsters and corrupt cops want back. The chases are more inventive than clichd. The acting is better with the leads' good work upstaged by John Ashton and Trevor Goddard as the main bad guys. Goddard is a fine Australian actor who's due for stardom.
If you're looking for a story of quantum physics and lust among the dreaming spires of Oxford, "Wavelength" is your movie.
Jeremy Piven is an American physicist who's having an affair with a grad student (Liza Walker, again) while he claims to love his wife (Kelli Williams). Equally vexing to him is the nature of light as both wave and particle.
Writer/director Benjamin Fry resolves the issues in a denouement lifted from "The Graduate," followed by an impassioned, grammatically challenged, touchy-feely explanation of that wave-particle business. The personal side is much stronger than the scientific, though they don't fit together quite as well as they should. This isn't another "Frankie Starlight."
Next Week: Absolutely Unclassifiable!
Got a question about home video or film? Contact your favorite video columnist at P.O. Box 2491; Roanoke, Va. 24010-2491, or by e-mail at 75331.26032@compuserve.com.
New releases this week:
The Substitute * 1/2
Starring Tom Berenger, Ernie Hudson, Diane Venora, Rodney Grant, Cliff DeYoung and William Forsythe. Directed by Robert Mandel. LIVE. 114 min. Rated R for strong language, violence, brief nudity.
Straightforward contemporary shoot-'em-up is unusually well-acted and well-cast with a wry sense of humor. When one character describes the situation as "a joint CIA-PTA operation," he's on the mark. Berenger is a tough mercenary who takes over his girlfriend's history class and cleans up the high school.
- MIKE MAYO
Barb Wire **
Starring Pamela Anderson Lee. Directed by David Hogan. Polygram. R-rated and unrated for strong language, graphic violence, teasing nudity.
This bizarre little hybrid is a comic book action flick filled with pyrotechnic fight scenes, but the plot has been lifted from a more curious source: "Casablanca." Yes, in this variation - set in a fascist future America - Rick's Cafe is Hammerhead, a nightclub run by Barb Wire (Lee), a motorcycle-riding blond bombshell who helps resistance fighters escape from the evil Congressionals. The unrated version, unavailable for preview, presumably has more nudity.
- MM
The Essentials:
Solitaire For Two *** Paramount. 105 min. Rated R for subject matter, strong language, mild violence, brief nudity.
When Night Is Falling *** Evergreen. 94 min. Unrated and R-rated for subject matter, nudity, strong sexual content, language.
The Tollbooth ** New Line Home Video. 105 min. Rated R for overall tone, subject matter, strong language, fleeting nudity.
Fast Money ** 1/2 Orion. 93 min. Rated R for violence, language.
Wavelength ** 1/2 Paramount. 94 min. Rated R for language, subject matter, sexual content, brief nudity.
LENGTH: Long : 117 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Fairuza Balk and Lenny Von Dohlen star inby CNB``Tollbooth.''