R.S. Murthi Reviews His Favorite Video Releases

July/August, 1998

BEFORE SUNRISE
(US, 1995)
Directed by Richard Linklater
Starring Ethan Hawke, Julie Delphy
Running time: 101 minutes

This account of an evolving 24-hour romantic encounter between a young American and a pretty French student who meet by chance on a train to Venice is so low-key, naturalistic and occasionally offtrack that you might think it's a work in progress. But Richard Linklater (Slacker, Dazed And Confused) is no ordinary director, so what you get is really a refreshingly realistic, often charmingly intelligent and unusual love story. Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delphy) share a lot of silly beliefs and lofty ideals like a lot of reflective young people. And sometimes they tend to bore you with their personal experiences and trendy philosophies. But there's something about watching two young people slowly falling in love, especially with the magnificent city of Vienna as a backdrop. Jesse is set to fly home the next day so he persuades Celine, who's on her way back to Paris, to spend a day with him in Vienna. They walk, talk and muse together and amuse each other, revealing more of themselves as they explore the city's wonderful sights. By sunrise, they're in love but go their separate ways after vowing to meet again at the same place... Doesn't sound like there's much substance, huh? Well, love will only seem substantial to those who're enslaved by it. Still, Linkwater has done a fine job of making you relate to the story even as an outsider. Much of the credit must go to Delphy who brilliantly captures the inner nuances of her character. Having bummed around on European trains (and having spent a whole day wandering in Vienna), I must admit encountering many Celine-type lone travellers - young, pretty, shy and eager to share their experiences with amiable strangers in English. And Hawke's Jesse is also a familar presence - the young and somewhat innocent American travelling abroad with a mind full of romantic notions. If you're looking for a classic Hollywood-style romance with bells and whistles, you'll be disappointed with Beyond Sunrise. But if you want a straight and simple slice of romantic life, it will be delicious meal.

UFORIA
(US, 1981)
Directed by John Binder
Starring Cindy Williams, Fred Ward, Harry Dean Stanton
Running time: 100 minutes

A subtle comedy about a smalltown supermarket checkout counter clerk whose obsession with UFOs is used a focus to highlight human gullibility and the need for firm fantasies to escape the harshness and humdrum nature of reality. Believing that a UFO is going to land in the desert soon, Arlene (Cincy Williams) manages to convince her live-in drifter boyfriend Sheldon (Fred Ward) to help her organize a rally. But Sheldon, a sort of Waylon Jennings wanna-be, is not exactly all that straight a character, even though his affection for Arlene seems sincere. Arlene soon wins over an audience of believers but when Sheldon brings in Arlene's crooked brother Bud (Harry Dean Stanton) into the venture, the whole thing becomes a circus of fools exploited by conmen. But the experience brings potential losers like Arlene and Sheldon closer, underscoring the power of human affection in overcoming the burden and boredom of everyday existence. It's an engagingly funny and quietly moving film that has little in the way of flash to entice undiscerning viewers. And Cindy Williams and Fred Ward are a riot in their roles.

BULL DURHAM
(US, 1988)
Directed by Ron Shelton
Starring Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins
Running time: 107 minutes

It may not be the most incisive of films to deal with the subject of minor-league baseball but Bull Durham has enough raw-edged humour and believable insight into the struggles of the sport's smaller teams to keep you interested. At any rate, the story of embittered former big-league catcher Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) who's brought in to mould talented but inconsistent young Durham Bulls pitcher Nuke LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) into shape is well-plotted, especially with seductive and sophisticated Southern belle and team mascot Annie (Susan Sarandon) as a spur for turning up the tension between the two. Annie is an English teacher who delights in latching onto the young lion of the season for lessons in literature, life and love, and this time it happens to be Nuke. But Crash is also attracted to her. Things don't go too well for the team on its playing tour until Crash convinces Nuke to lay off Annie for a better focus on his game. He soon performs well enough to be signed up for the major league. In the end, Crash and Annie realise that life has more to offer than a roll in the sack... or something like that, depending on how you read the film. Costner and Robbins play off each other perfectly but Sarandon doesn't quite ring true in her role.

ENGLISH AUGUST
(India, 1994)
Directed by Dev Benegal, Sopan Maler
Starring Rahul Bose, Tanvi Azmi
Running time: 126 minutes

A somewhat bleak look at life in rural India, as seen through the eyes of a young and stoic British-educated civil service official, English August is nevertheless leavened with a black humour that makes the film at once funny and sad. The budgetary constraints are obvious from the compromised production values, but despite its incohesive and often strident tone, you get a fairly representative idea of how dull and dreary life can be for an intelligent Western-educated Indian assigned to an administrative job in the boondocks. Agastya Sen (Rahul Bose), a Bengali, returns to India and joins the public service. Sent to a small village where living conditions are primitive at best, Agastya soon learns how mired in bureaucracy the system is, working as an assistant to the collector (Tanvi Azmi). And to make matters worse, he doesn't know the local dialect, He lives in a dump of a room and listens to tapes of Pink Floyd, Miles Davis and Queen to take his mind off the harsh realities. Still, he refuses to let his disillusionment get in the way of his duties. So in his own small way, he tries to make life better for the dirt-poor locals... Rahul Bose does a nice job, making you believe in his character's depressed situation. The film scores some interesting points about the silliness of the Indian civil service and reveals, without being too judgmental, how dreadful life can be in remote parts of India.

COPYCAT
(US, 1995)
Directed by Jon Amiel
Starring Sigourney Weaver, Holly Hunter, Dermot Mulroney, Harry Connick Jr.
Running time: 123 minutes

Yet another movie about a serial killer that will inevitably evoke comparions with such deftly-made chillers as Silence of the Lambs and Seven. You'll probably find the plotting a bit too clever and the pacing somewhat contrived, but it still works a treat, keeping you on the edge of your seat right to the end. Set in San Francisco, the story centers on a killer who is out to recreate the work of some of the world's most notorious murderers, including The Boston Strangler, Son Of Sam and Ted Bundy. Police detectives Mary Jane Monahan (Holly Hunter) and Reuben Goetz (Dermot Mulroney), who're assigned to track him down, are stumped by his ever-changing killing pattern. They turn to acclaimed criminal psychologist Helen Hudson (Sigourney Weaver) for help. Only problem is, Hudson is a nervous wreck who has been hiding out in her apartment and communicating with the outside world only via the Internet for over a year after a close call with a vicious killer (Harry Connick. Jr.). She's unwilling to help at first, but the chance of studying yet another warped mind proves too good to pass up, so she agrees to work on the investigation. But though Hudson manages to crack his pattern, the killer always seems one step ahead... Giving away too much of the plot will only spoil your enjoyment of the film, and despite its weaknesses and borrowed shadings, there's plenty going for Copycat in terms of tension and suspense. Weaver offers a superb rendition of her character and the supporting cast, including Hunter, and especially Connick, deliver perfectly-pitched performances.

CARRINGTON
(France/UK, 1995)
Directed by Christopher Hampton
Starring Emma Thompson, Jonathan Pryce
Running time: 120 minutes

This film biography of English painter Dora Carrington (Emma Thompson) is the kind of meticulously-crafted period drama that the team of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory seems to excel in. It's a somewhat talky (action fans should look elsewhere), occasionally dark and broody, but often bright and witty study of a strong-minded woman's unusual love for a homosexual writer. The writer in this case is Lytton Strachey (Jonathan Pryce), doyen of the gay literary set known as the Bloomsbuty Group. Though both she and Strachey take many different lovers, they somehow never seem to be able to live apart. And the artisic nourishment they derive from each other makes their relationship symbiotic, especially on a spiritual level. The film is broken up into various segments covering the period 1915-1932, with each touching on a certain aspect of Carrington's life. It's a compelling portrait of romantic bohemianism that features brilliant performances by both Thompson and Pryce. The production may ignore Carrington's lebianism and give short shrift to her artistic endeavours (the artist's superb impressionistic paintings, which were kept privately until her death, are featured during the closing credits). But it's rivetingly focused on Carrington's relationship with Strachey. Anyone who's fascinated by the colourful English literary culture of the early of part of this century shouldn't miss this gem of a movie.

A TIME TO KILL
(US, 1996)
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Samuel L. Jackson, Sandra Bullock, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland, Ashley Judd

The themes explored in this gripping yet flawed racist drama set in the American South will remind you a bit too much of Mississippi Burning. But despite being somewhat glib and unoriginal, the screen interpretation of John Grisham's book has enough going for it to keep you watching till the end. Maybe it has to do with director Joel Schumacher's flair for visual pacing, but whatever it is, it certainly helps to make an otherwise ordinary movie more interesting than it really should be. A black teenage girl is brutally raped by two white men. Distrusting the justice system, her enraged father Carl Lee Hailey (Samuel L. Jackson) guns them down and is charged with murder. Carl chooses the relatively inexperienced Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) to defend him in court. The trial inflames racial passions, and the local Ku Klux Klan soon starts attacking those helping to free Carl, including Jake and his family. In the midst of all this trouble, the self-righteous Jack struggles to put up a strong defence with help from his old law-school professor (Donald Sutherland) and an assertive lawyer (Sandra Bullock). So does justice eventually prevail in a seemingly white-controlled courtroom? The latter part of the film is devoted to resolving that and it's probably the most compelling segment of the movie. The other events, like the KKK attacks, seem like they're there more to boost the action than to intensify the drama. The cast does a fairly good job, especially McConaughey and Jackson. But the film is not so convincing in its sense of time and place.

TEX
(US, 1982)
Directed by Tim Hunter
Cast: Matt Dillon, jim Metzler, Meg Tilly, Bill McKinney, Ben Johnson, Emilio Estevez
Running time: 103 minutes

Before this teen angst vehicle, Disney wouldn't associate itself with any production that hinted at young rebellion, so Tex is worth watching, even if it's only for that reason. But of course, being a screen adaptation of the novel by S.E. Hinton, it has more to offer, especially in Matt Dillon's persuasive characterization of a curious and confused 15-year-old Oklahoma farm boy discovering the real meaning of life. Tex McCormick does not have the ideal home. His mom his dead and his dad is a rodeo drifter. He has only his older brother Mason (Jim Metzler) taking care of him. Like all searching and troubled teenage boys, Tex goes through the rituals of rebellious behavior but soon learns how harsh the real world can be. It's an intriguing coming-of-age tale that, despite trying to cram in too many themes - crime, love, sex, death... - works rather well. It may have a dated feel to it but the film's almost cinema verite-style approach makes for some absorbing moments.

( These reviews were first published in the New Straits Times )

* Real Swell

BACK TO PAGE ONE

You are visitor number since July 23, 1998.

© 1998 stratslinger@yahoo.com

Connection to Rated RS - My Music Home Page

Connection to Khabar Bike - Mountainbiking in Malaysia - My MTB Webzine