AT CLOSE RANGE (outlying). This story of a murdering father and the revenge sought by his oldest son clearly wants to be an antiviolence, antihandgun picture. But the first half of ”At Close Range” comes across as an unintended advertisement for the violent life. Based on a true story of mass murder in Pennsylvania in 1978, ”At Close Range” stars Sean Penn as the son of a hoodlum father (Christopher Walken). When Penn eventually is invited into his father`s gang, we see no reason for him to go along. ”At Close Range” is impeccably photographed, and its other technical credits are fine, too. But this excellence serves a dubious, confused cause, and on that basis the film cannot be recommended. R. (STAR)(STAR) 1/2
BRAZIL (Fine Arts and outlying). Director Terry Gilliam`s darkly comic vision of a futuristic super state, though reminiscent of ”1984” and other predecessors, is pictorially vivid and inventive, a brilliant cartoon peopled with bold caricatures moving in vast, crumbling spaces. With Jonathan Pryce and Kim Greist as the lovers trapped in the sprawl of bureaucracy, and Ian Holm, Robert DeNiro and Michael Palin in supporting roles. R. (Reviewed by Richard Christiansen.) (STAR)(STAR)(STAR)
COBRA (Esquire, United Artists and outlying). Sylvester Stallone plays Lt. Marion ”Cobra” Cobretti, a one-man police force who shoots first, second and third and doesn`t bother to ask questions. ”Cobra” is a nonstop war between one grenade-and-gun-laden man and a not very well-defined paramilitary group led by a musclebound freak who talks about the strong inheriting the world. The more compelling moments in the film occur when Cobra simply squares off against a single person. But then screenwriter Stallone brings in this Nazi-like group of hatchet-wielders and the film loses its focus, turning into a series of dangerous stunts and car chases. The character of Cobra is a match-chewing stud in a leather jacket and dark sunglasses, but we spend very little time with him. So we delight in his all too few comic asides. R. (STAR) (STAR) 1/2
FERRIS BUELLER`S DAY OFF (outlying). A high school student (Matthew Broderick) decides one spring morning that the day could be spent much better away from school. So Ferris, his girlfriend (Mia Sara) and his best friend
(Alan Ruck) take off for a day of fun in Chicago. PG-13. To be reviewed.
GUNG HO (outlying). Hunt Stevenson (Michael Keaton) is sent by his home town of Hadleyville, Pa., to beg a Japanese car company into financing and managing the revitalization of Hadleyville`s now-shuttered auto plant. The rest of the film is the story of what happens to the plant as Hunt is caught in a squeeze between the super-efficient Japanese and his more laid-back American colleagues. What the film lacks in editorial clarity, it more than makes up for in the warm and funny relationship between Hunt and a gentle Japanese manager (Gedde Wantanabe). Their groping at understanding each other is the true heart of the film, and both actors are enormously appealing in their scenes together. PG-13. (STAR)(STAR)(STAR)
8 MILLION WAYS TO DIE (outlying). Matthew Scudder (Jeff Bridges) is a former drug investigator who searches for a murderer in the seedy world of narcotics and solicitation in Los Angeles. He believes this search will clear him of the guilt he bears for a previous killing. R. (To be reviewed.)
HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (McClurg and outlying). The film covers two contemporary years in the lives of a family of characters. The family includes a couple of combative parents (Lloyd Nolan and Maureen O`Sullivan) and their three daughters. Add to the mix a cheating husband (Michael Caine), who is married to Mia Farrow but lusts after her sister played by Barbara Hershey, and a neurotic former husband (Woody Allen), a hypochondriac TV producer who was married to Farrow and is now dating, with pitiful results, the sister played by Dianne Wiest. Ultimately, the marvel is just how many fully realized characters and relationships director Allen is able to weave into the fabric of this extraordinarily well-written film. PG-13. (STAR)(STAR) (STAR)(STAR)
INVADERS FROM MARS (Water Tower and outlying). PG. To be reviewed.
JAKE SPEED (Water Tower and outlying). Match ”Jake Speed” actor for actor against the cast of ”Romancing the Stone” and you`re talking amateur versus movie star. Wayne Crawford takes the Michael Douglas role as the rugged hero, Jake Speed, who takes an awkward city woman (Karen Kopins) on an exotic adventure. The gimmick is that Jake and his writer-assistant (Danny De Vito) create a convoluted storyline just for the sake of creating their novels. PG. (STAR)
JO JO DANCER YOUR LIFE IS CALLING (Dearborn, Chestnut Station and outlying). Pryor states in this film that it was no accident that he almost burned to death in 1980; on the contrary, it was a de facto suicide attempt. His alter ego takes Pryor, called Jo Jo Dancer in the film, back to his family and show-business roots in an effort to explain how he wound up on a hospital table with serious burns covering half of his body. Later, as his fame and crowd of hangers-on grow, Jo Jo is exposed to major dope parties. The rest of the film is unstinting in affixing blame for his drug addiction directly on Jo Jo himself. Richard Pryor stands before us and says with humor, pathos and probably painful embarrassment: Here is where I came from, here is what I went through, here is where I went wrong, and here is how I hope to go right. R.
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LEGEND (outlying). Didn`t you think we had seen the last of the sword-and-sorcery epics? One more has slipped through and it stinks from top to bottom. You can probably guess what ”Legend” is about and what kind of princely role Tom Cruise plays, how he must rescue a princess and slay a demon and save an empire. I could tell you more about ”Legend”–about how the princess turns into a Dark Ages disco queen and writhes in terror in front of a red devil. But I don`t want to remember any more about ”Legend” than to make sure I include it in my ”worst films of 1986” list. PG. 1/2 star
LIFEFORCE (United Artist and outlying). An American-British mission to Halley`s Comet stumbles upon an abandoned spaceship whose bat-like occupants eventually adopt human forms to suck the life out of Earthlings. A summmer of 1985 release. R. (STAR)(STAR)(STAR)
LUCAS (Water Tower and outlying). The Lucas we meet is a fascinating fellow, a 14-year-old boy of substance. Played engagingly by Corey Haim, Lucas is interested in symphonies and nature and is spending his summer in the solo investigation of both. But one afternoon he happens upon 16-year-old Maggie, the new girl in town, a vision of tennis-white loveliness thanks to Kerri Green. The friendship they form, through a series of quiet adventures, is not only believable, it`s interesting. But the film begins to unravel when school starts and Maggie becomes attracted to a pretty-boy football captain, played woodenly by Charlie Sheen. Once the action gets near the gridiron, cliches start piling on with unnecessary roughness. PG-13. (Reviewed by Rick Kogan.)
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MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE (Fine Arts). Omar (Gordon Warnecke) has an uncle
(Saeed Jaffrey) who is fast building a London Pakistani mafia. The uncle gives Omar a seedy laundry for the young man to try and turn into
profitability. For this, he enlists an old school chum, Johnny (Daniel Day Lewis). While walking home from a session with Omar`s uncle, they casually begin what they and the filmmakers regard as an inevitable love affair. Director Stephen Frears and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi are better at depicting a new milieu than in making an important or innovative statement. The style and acting of ”Laundrette” is triumphant, and its substance a true but altogether pedestrian cliche. R. (Reviewed by Sid Smith.) (STAR)(STAR)
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THE 19TH INTERNATIONAL TOURNEE OF ANIMATION (Fine Arts). Twenty animated shorts from 9 countries were selected from more than 750 shown at world-class festivals. Influences range from ”Fantasia” to a game favored by Surrealist artists in the 1920s, but there also is a technological breakthrough, the first film using a computer to bring to life a 3-dimensional human character. High-level visual and verbal wit makes for two hours of sophisticated entertainment. Not rated. (Reviewed by Alan G. Artner.) (STAR)(STAR)(STAR)
ON THE EDGE (Water Tower). An aging runner, Wes Holman (Bruce Dern), returns to his northern California hometown after a 20-year absence to compete in the Cielo-Sea, a grueling, mountainous course. Holman was barred from amateur competition for exposing payoffs to amateur athletes and he hopes that winning this race will renew his credibility and self-respect. While there is some drama in the race itself, and while the ending is not entirely predictable, Holman`s melodramatic causes often slow this film to a crawl. PG- 13. (Reviewed by Robert Blau.) (STAR)(STAR) 1/2
OUT OF AFRICA (outlying). The time of the film is 1915 and Robert Redford plays the elusive white hunter who catches the eye and the heart of Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep), a wealthy young woman who has come to Africa to free herself from her constraining family. She is so desperate to taste life to the fullest she even marries a cruel man (Klaus Maria Brandauer) who loves her money more than her. Standing on a railway car entering Africa, Karen Blixen spots Redford and it`s a thrill, if not love at first sight. Based on the acclaimed book by Isak Dinesen, the only problem with this otherwise beautiful picture is that Redford is not believable as his character. PG. (STAR)(STAR)
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POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE (Dearborn, Water Tower and outlying). In this film, strange spirits pay a return visit to the Freeling household. In the last movie, you may recall, their house and young daughter disappeared, with the daughter being pulled back from a stormy vortex by a female dwarf wizard with a Southern accent. Now the Freelings have moved to Mrs. Freeling`s mother`s house in Arizona. The spirits` return means more swirling clouds, even more ugly ”Alien”-style creatures with spiny backs and slithering bodies. Brian Gibson–an English filmmaker of no discernible pride–simply runs the family through a maze of Indian rituals, ghostly vapors and astral projections. To put it simply, there is nothing to like about ”Poltergeist II.” PG-13. (STAR)
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RAN (Lake Shore). Akira Kurosawa`s story alters the ”King Lear” story in terms of gender, with sons competing for their inheritance of their father`s empire. ”Ran” translates as ”chaos” or ”disorder,” and the words describe the life of the great Lord Hidetora. Kurosawa always has been able to knock us back with his battle scenes that have no contemporary equal. But what surprises in scene after scene in ”Ran” is that Kurosawa displays absolute command of a more quiet world, too. Great characters, like lords and kings, seem so foreign to us–the stuff of legend, not of reality. But at the end of Kurosawa`s` ”Ran,” we know Lord Hidetora as well as we might know a good, elderly friend. R. (STAR)(STAR)(STAR)(STAR)
A ROOM WITH A VIEW (Fine Arts). Charlotte Bartlett (Maggie Smith) takes young, virginal Lucy Honeychurch on a vacation to Florence. Lucy`s eye is drawn to an animated young man, George Emerson, who is vacationing with his feisty father. Mr. Emerson offers Lucy and Mrs. Bartlett his room with a view of the river Arno, pleading with them to take it and not stand on ceremony. The direction in which the love story will turn is far less important than the behavior the film argues for: Have the courage to reach for what you want and to reject that which you don`t. It`s both a lighthearted and deeply impassioned inspirational lesson about life. Not rated. (STAR)(STAR)(STAR)
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SHORT CIRCUIT (Chestnut Station and outlying). One of military scientist Steve Guttenberg`s robots becomes ”alive” after it is hit by a bolt of lightning, an event which apparently rewires its circuits. But the robot, Number Five, after being jolted, turns predictably into a peace-loving hunk of metal with a soul. It soon is adopted by Ally Sheedy, who conveniently runs a shelter for stray and disabled pets. The film has nowhere to go except to give us a predictable initial confrontation between Guttenberg and Sheedy over military weapons. Then Sheedy and Guttenberg join forces to save Number Five, which the army now wants to destroy because it has broken ranks. The way in which ”Short Circuit” gives us an army that is so ignorant it would want to destroy a robot that can think for itself is absurd. PG. (STAR)
SMOOTH TALK (Biograph). Connie (Laura Dern) is a high school freshman on summer vacation who is just beginning to connect herself with her developing body. She begins hanging out at the local drive-in, a move toward independence and danger that angers her parents. Now enters the smooth and seedy character of Arnold Friend (Treat Williams), a 30-year-old town lout who spots Connie as ripe for adventure in his convertible or any place she wants. Suffice it to say, ”Smooth Talk` provides an intellectual wallop that more star-studded youth films don`t even bother to contemplate. There is a vaporous, unaware quality to Dern`s work here that rings true. PG-13. (STAR)(STAR)(STAR) 1/2
SWEET LIBERTY (Water Tower and outlying). Alan Alda plays a college professor who is absolutely startled when one of his books about the Revolutionary War is adapted for a movie and turned into an 18th-Century soap opera. Alda is too smart for the role he`s cast himself in, and he never gets into character. The way Alda plays his role, and the way he occupies almost every scene, makes his character as big of a star as the star (Michael Caine) of the movie being made. An even bigger problem with ”Sweet Liberty” is that it is about nothing, unless it means to tell us that movie companies run roughshod over small towns. As for Alda the director, he has managed to get from himself the worst performance he has ever given on film. ”Sweet Liberty” is Alda`s ego trip. PG-13. (STAR)(STAR) 1/2
3 MEN AND A CRADLE (Biograph). This film is exactly what you`d expect it to be. Three swinging bachelors find a baby girl in their apartment and try to cope with her. Dirty diapers and a soiled couch are two of the big jokes. And, yes, the men are tenderized by their experience. So it`s just what you`d expect–no surprises. The three lugs who inherit her in a coincidence involving a drug deal are generic mopes, distinguishable only by the size of their libidos, which come in three sizes: big, bigger and biggest. At first, the baby is a thorn in the side of their lovemaking. Eventually, of course, the baby becomes the queen of the household, especially when . . . that`s right, she might be taken away. PG-13. (STAR)(STAR)
TOP GUN (Carnegie and outlying). The aerial sequences in ”Top Gun” are as thrilling–while remaining coherent–as any ever put on film. ”Top Gun”
makes us idolize jet pilots, and surely that`s one of its goals. Where ”Top Gun” falls apart to the point of being offensive is in its pedestrian, silly, sexist love story in which a Navy cadet pilot (Tom Cruise) seduces his senior female flight instructor (Kelly McGillis). But the plot of ”Top Gun”
literally flies out the window when the daring young men get inside their $36- million F-14 Tomcat flying machines and zoom off into the sky and, later, onto aircraft carriers. PG. (STAR)(STAR)(STAR)
THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL (outlying). Geraldine Page is Mrs. Watts, the harried mother-in-law of a young quarreling couple. Mrs. Watts takes off from the embattled homestead, riding a bus to a town, called Bountiful, from her past. Along the way she meets a sweet character named Thelma, played by Rebecca De Mornay. What happens on the bus and afterward is played out in such a special, gentle way that you will want to anticipate and savor it for yourself. PG. (STAR)(STAR)(STAR) 1/2
TROUBLE IN MIND (Biograph). The setting for the unpredictable ”Trouble in Mind” is, appropriately, a cafe full of drifters, thieves, artists and lost souls. The proprietor of Wanda`s Cafe is played by Genevieve Bujold, who has assembled a most impressive middle career. Kris Kristofferson in his most enthusiastic performance in quite a while plays Hawk, an ex-cop just out of jail where he served time for killing a mobster out of frustration. Other interesting characters include a couple from the country (Keith Carradine) and Georgia (Lori Singer) and a fey character played by Divine. Crime runs throughout ”Trouble in Mind,” with Wanda`s cafe turning out to be a hangout. The cast of characters is vintage; most everyone has a price, but a few souls stand up for what`s right when the crunch comes. The film is sexy and violent and funny and great to look at. If your taste runs slightly to the dark side, you`ll have a very good time with ”Trouble in Mind.” Not rated. (STAR)(STAR) (STAR) 1/2
WISE GUYS (Water Tower and outlying). ”Wise Guys” is one of the funniest times you will have at the movies this year. Harry Valentini (Danny DeVito) is treated like a stooge by the don of the local Mafia chapter, while Moe Dickstein (Joe Piscopo) is sort of a junior, gentle thug in training. Harry, always scheming for a big score, and Moe bet $10,000 of the don`s money on the wrong horse and cost the boss a quarter-million-dollar profit. The don gives the contract to kill each friend to the other as the only way to stay alive. Moe and Harry flee to a casino in Atlantic City. But hot on their tails is the don`s chief enforcer, a hulk named Frank ”The Fixer” Acavano. R.
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