Movie Madness!

OCTOBER 1996

The word is that distributors plan to release over 60 feature films by the end of the year. That means you could see a different movie every day during November and December. Although it's likely some of the weaker material will be shuffled back into 1997, that still leaves a lot of competition for those holiday tickets.

THE ASSOCIATE

The Whoopi Goldberg movie of the month - why doesn't she just move to TV? This time: the boys on Wall Street won't let Whoopi play with them, so she makes up a pretend partner that they'll do business with. While prejudice is certainly a Wrong Thing, beyond that this film puts the mess into message. Is Whoopi a success because her fictitious partner is a white man, or because investors are intrigued by the mystique she builds around him? Do the big money boys really just want to have fun, or do they just want to make more money? If Whoopi's being discriminated against because she's female, why is her character so completely sexless (or is that the point)? Anyway, this is a step above Goldberg's usual dreck, but Diane Wiest, as a charming office assistant, easily steals the picture from her.

BAD MOON

A werewolf movie starring Michael Pare and Mariel Hemingway - is it another direct-to-vid Howling sequel? No! This one actually proved to be solid enough for a theatrical release, due in no small part to the contributions of writer/director Eric Red, who wrote The Hitcher and Near Dark. Based on Wayne Smith's novel Thor, it neatly mixes a straightforward horror yarn with a Rin Tin Tin adventure. Can the love of his family cure Pare's curse (don't bet on it)? Can one brave dog (well played by Primo) save his family (even Dennis the Menace Mason Gamble) from the savage monster? Tune in to this sleeper and find out. Much better than the slightly similar Silver Bullet, but why did they decide to release it the day after Halloween?

BOUND

An old fashioned noir crime thriller. The twist is that Gina Gershon (Showgirls) plays the Robert Mitchum role. She's an ex-con who falls for the gangster moll next door (Jennifer Tilly - whatever hap-pened to her sister, Meg? She hasn't been seen since Bodysnatchers). Together they plot to heist $2 million from the Chicago mob. Pretty tense once it gets going, but the direction by the Wachowski brothers (who wrote last year's underrated Assassins) is a bit too self-consciously arty for its own good.

THE CHAMBER

Sort of like Dead Man Walking meets Mississippi Burning. Well maybe. Tired of movies about death row inmates? How about movies about civil rights in the cracker belt? Or courageous lawyers? Then this boring John Grisham's adaptation, in which Chris O'Donnell fights in court for the life of his killer grandpa Gene Hackman, will make you feel like you're on a trip to the gas chamber yourself. There's not much that director James Foley (After Dark, My Sweet) can do with a script this dull (despite the usually expert doctoring of William Goldman). Foley's been busy lately - his Two Bits and Fear also came out this year.

DEAR GOD

Gary Marshall throws a bunch of holiday movie clichés into a mixmaster in this attempt at a heartwarming family classic. Greg Kinnear plays a con man who reforms after he has to take a job in the postal dead letter office and starts answering letters addressed to God. A host of good character actors try to help Kinnear out, and there are a few strangely surreal moments, but this picture has a hollow, artificial feel to it much like an Xmas episode of Marshall's Laverne and Shirley.

EXTREME MEASURES

Gene Hackman plays the kind of role that once might have gone to Bela Lugosi, as a brilliant doctor who carries out illegal experiments on unwilling subjects in a secret lab. Hugh Grant is the ER MD who runs afoul of Hackman's scheme. Succeeds pretty well, mainly due to Michael Apted's sober handling of the subject - we're not asked to believe that Grant can perform any marvels of derring-do, and everybody has a believable motive for their actions. Watch for David Cronenberg's cameo.

THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS

Last spring, Paramount issued a hokey trailer for this one consisting of little more than test footage of Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer stalking around a dark studio with rifles, which lowered my expectations significantly. What a pleasant surprise it was to find a picture rich with gorgeous location footage, fine performances, taut direction by Stephen Hopkins (Predator 2,Blown Away), and some very subtle f/x work. Though basically structured like Jaws-on-the-veldt, ace scribe William Goldman wisely concentrates on the human drama in this true story of a construction crew under siege by a pair of mad lions in 1898 Africa. [What's left of the beasts has been on display in the Field Museum for the last 80 years.]

HIGH SCHOOL HIGH

Jon Lovitz in a send-up of every teacher movie from Goodbye Mister Chips to Blackboard Jungle to Dangerous Minds. A good time for students of comedy in the remedial class. Would've liked to see a To Sir, with Love-style music video sequence. The post-credits gag is not worth staying for.

LARGER THAN LIFE

Bill Murray inherits an elephant from a father he never knew, then has to get it across the country somehow to sell it. Will he sell her to showbiz trainer Linda Fiorentino and save his bank account, or to zoologist Janeane Garofalo and save his soul? Some may joke that the elephant's career must be in a slump to have signed on to this project, but Murray is an underused national treasure, and it's refreshing to see him carry this simple but charming family comedy. It's cute, but avoids being precious.

L5: FIRST CITY IN SPACE

The biggest science fiction film ever made - literally! The second feature film produced for Imax 3-D tells the story of a permanent orbiting satellite community a hundred years in the future. When the city runs low on water, scientists send a rocket to fetch a hunk of ice from a comet. The highlight comes when one of them lands a spacecraft on the comet to fix the malfunctioning rocket - a really dazzling sequence. Imax 3-D has yet to produce a feature that outshines the process itself, but these features are well ahead of mere rollercoaster footage.

THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT

Gina Davis is a schoolteacher with amnesia who, with the help of private dick Samuel L. Jackson, eventually remembers that she used to be a top CIA assassin. While she finds herself, her old bosses try to lose her again, at the same time plotting to blow up a lot of people so the needy agency will get a budget hike to fight terrorism(!). This completely ridiculous plot, as we've come to expect from scripts by Shane Black, rolls along a thin line between sanity and absurdity. At times it blends perfectly, but just as often falls flat. Renny Harlin is still one of the best action directors around, and Geena's not bad as a superhero, but they need a vehicle with a more consistent tone. Oh, and after extensive research (asked my dad), I've discovered that most guns will fire after being soaked in water - but cell phones probably won't work.

LOOKING FOR RICHARD

Al Pacino turns director this production of one of Shakespeare's most confusing plays, Richard III. Like Stanley Kwan's Actress (aka: Center Stage), it mixes in documentary footage about the play, as well as behind the scenes stuff showing the making of the movie. This works wonderfully well for the first half, but then Pacino runs out of time and has to concentrate on finishing the play. He does a fine job, but the documentary material is so engaging that it's a shame he couldn't find a way to spread it out more evenly.

THINNER

When fat lawyer Robert John Burke receives a curse from gypsy Michael Constantine, he keeps losing weight until he looks just like Jack Palance! An interesting premise, and cheap thrills for those who like to see lawyers suffer, but this latest Stephen King adaptation fails to deliver the slightest chill. I think King can be a terrific writer, but every other story he puts out is full of lame old EC Comics plot twists, and this is one of them. Another lackluster effort from once-interesting hack director Tom Holland (Fright Night). Joe Montegna plays (guess what?) a gangster. Too bad this was the only horror film released for Halloween.

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