Democrat and Chronicle from Rochester, New York • Page 30

IV hotel DANCING TO Tom Monte Trio 4C DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE. ROCHESTER, N.Y., FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1993 Cross-dressing cowhand sends a big message in 'Little Joy 1372 FDGEMERE DRIVE -3E- TOO MANY CREDIT CARDS? i .71 lA 'J3 id tive on the male-dominated movie history of the Old West. Though the deck here seems unduly stacked against the men one way or the other, nearly all are portrayed as slime The Ballad of Little Jo does spur a rethinking of the limiting Western myths of pioneer wives and whores with hearts of gold. It's also an important reminder of a time when just wearing a pair of pants made a woman an outlaw. Good income, but Over Your head in debt? CONSUMER CREDIT COUNSELING SERVICE, INC.

A NON-PROFIT AGENCY BUDGET ADVICE DEBT LIQUIDATION in iioci it) Badger (Bo Hopkins). Both men help the "young boy" establish himself, though she never trusts either enough to tell him the true story. In fact, the only man she ever confides in is a fellow second-class citizen, a Chinese immigrant named Tinman Wong, who becomes her cook after fleeing the whippings of railroad bosses. The two obviously share a bond, and establish a relationship that defies the oppressive world in which they find themselves. SUZY AMIS is thoroughly believable, both as the hoop-skirted young woman and the gun-tooting sheep rancher.

The frustrations, anger, ambition, inherent goodness and painful loneliness of her character come through vividly. Greenwald based the story of Little Jo on various historic accounts of Western women who could achieve independence only through sexual masquerading. Though little else is known of the real Jo Monaghan, Greenwald creates a story of what might have been. The result gives film-goers a unique feminist perspec- "OH TOY! WHAT LUCK! r-i-i i i 1HI5 rlLM. AN EXTRAORDINARY FILM IN EVERY WAYT -OiL SllOtl GOOD MORNING AMERICA "TWO THUMBS UP, WAY UP! A FILM FILLED WITH ONE GREAT SCENE AND ONE FINE PERFORMANCE ALTER ANOTHER." -GENI SbkU.

KMR 'THE JOY CRESCENT BEACH IS OPEN 7 DAYS Serving Lunch Monday thru Fnday 1 1 30-3 00 Dinners Monday thru Sunday -v 227-3600 ERRT. EKERT LUCK CLUB' WANG Miirttii miLitr IS 501 WtLTINO AND IN I IMAI h. THESE ARE GRIPPING STORIES, ELOQUENTLY TOLD." -ANET MASLIN. THE NEW YORK TIMES 'A FOURFOLD 'TERMS OF THE TYPHOON OF EMOTIONS MAKES THIS AN EIGHT-HANDKERCHIEF MOVIE." RICHARD CORLISS. TIME MAGAZINE AN Ol IVERSTONE PRODUCTION THE JOY LUCK CLUB BASED UPON THE NOVEL BY AMY TAN HOLLYWOOD PICTURES.

OLIVER rWAYNE WANG "THE )OY LUCK CLUB" OLIVER STONE JANET YANG AMY TAN TAN RONALD BASS WAYN WANG AMY TAN RONALD BASS PATRICK MARKEY By JACK GARNER STAFF FILM CRITIC The wave of cinematic gender-benders continues with The Ballad of Little Jo, a revisionist western if ever there was one. With The Cry ing Game and Orlando behind us, and M. Butterfly and Farewell My Concubine arriving, films of sexual masquerade seem to be everywhere. The Ballad of Little Jo applies the concept with historic justification to the Old West. Written and directed by Maggie Greenwald, The Ballad of Little Jo tells the story of frontier sheep rancher Little Jo Monaghan, a boyish loner who relishes the isolated life on the frontier, and who is viewed by the neighbors as a slightly built but hard-working eccentric.

Little do they realize that Little Jo is the former Josephine Monaghan, an Eastern socialite who was thrown out by her family after giving birth to an illegitimate son. THOUGH JOSEPHINE begins her adventures in the West 'Bronx' from page 1C charismatic Sonny. After Calogero witnesses the hoodlum shooting another man, but refuses to point him out to police, the grateful Sonny takes the boy under his wing. Calogero's father forbids him to hang out at the corner saloon, however, because he knows Sonny is a bad influence. Eight years later, Calogero is a teen-ager, and Lorenzo has less control over his son.

If the kid wants to hang out with Sonny and his gang, the father can only fearfully look on, hoping his son will have the good sense to recognize the place of values, hard work and an honest life. A Bronx Tale revels in a world that will be familiar to the fans of earlier De Niro films directed by the masterful Martin Scorsese, such as Raging Bull and GoodFel-las. Thus you might expect to find Scorsese's influence in every frame. Yet it's not to be found, at least not in any overt wav. AS A DIRECTOR, De Niro reveals his own warm and surprisingly humorous voice, from the energetic opening, as stickball bats are swung to the rhythms of Dion and the Belmonts, to a conclusion so deeply felt that De Niro was inspired to dedicate the film to his own father.

De Niro from page 1C sedately tailored wool sport coat, khaki slacks and a blue dress shirt buttoned at the neck. His face shows the lines and character of a man who just turned 50 in August. I express admiration for the way he was able to find his own cinematic voice in A Bronx Tale. How did he avoid mimicking the style of his frequent director-collaborator, Martin Scorsese? "Chazz Palminteri's script was very specific," De Niro says. "That's why I liked it, because he was writing from a real place and he knew that world.

I knew I could do something with it. I always had my own very clear feelings about how to do the movie." Still, A Bronx Tale is set in a world that's been explored by Scorsese and De Niro in Mean Streets, Raging Bull and GoodFel-las. Similarities in style would be understandable. "Yes, but when I work with Marty or anybody else and I work a lot with Marty I don't focus so much on how he 6hoots this or that. As an actor working for him, I'm not concerned.

He does a movie for his reasons and I do it for mine. "When I became a director, I decided I wanted to make my own movie and make my own mistakes and make it the way I want to do it. Actually, I wasn't focused on style. I was more concerned with casting, because I'm an actor." As promised, De Niro gave screenwriter Palminteri the plum role of Sonny, the charismatic neighborhood gangster. De Niro took the quietly heroic role of the bus-driving father.

The film focuses on a young boy who must decide which of the two men should be his role model. "This is not an Italian-American experience," De Niro says. "We Italian-Americans are very emotional, which makes us ripe for good drama, but the problems we encounter are universal." ONE OF HIS touches was to use several non-professionals as characters in his film. Some of the neighborhood wise guys are genuine Bronx wise guys, the Hell's Angels bikers are real Angels, and the two youngsters cast to play his son at different ages are both newcomers. The woman who plays De Niro's wife was actually a mother REVIEW of 1866 as a woman, she soon discovers prejudice and injustice.

An unscrupulous old man befriends her only to "sell" her to two soldiers returning home from the Civil War. While escaping, Josephine realizes her best hope is to cut her hair and put on the pants, shirt and hat of a young cowhand, even though such a disguise is illegal. As a final act of masquerade, as well as a statement against the feminine appearance that limits her, Jo Monaghan scars her own face with a straight razor. Jo settles in a rough, muddy mining camp, euphemistically called Ruby City. She works her way up from stable boy to sheep-herder, eventually earning enough money to buy her own isolated ranch.

Along the way, she establishes cautious friendships with a mining assayer named Percy (Ian McKellen) and another sheep rancher named Frank SAVOY PICTURES Chazz Palminteri, who wrote the screenplay, plays the hot-shot gangster Sonny. Certainly there are dark moments in A Bronx Tale, from Sonny's violent beating of a gang of disrespectful Hell's Angels, to a racial subplot that explores the roots of the hatred between Italians and blacks that permeates the Bronx to this day. As you might expect, De Niro's approach to the film's rougher aspects is intense; we witness explosive confrontations between white and black teens, between competing gangsters and between parent and child. Still, the film is domi-'nated by the love and respect that survives between Calogero and his conscientious father. De Niro also employs a fabu who brought her child to an audition.

Instead, she got a job. "I was concerned that people have seen this type of movie before," De Niro says. "I felt I could make it unique by filling it with real people whose very awkwardness would work for them, and for the film." As for his own role as the father, De Niro wasn't anxious to play a big role in his directorial debut, but "knew it would help us get the financing in place quicker if I was in the film." How was it to act and direct at the same time? "I found it OK. I wasn't in the film, time-wise, that much. The presence was there, but I wasn't in it that much.

That enabled me to concentrate on the directing. It was just enough for me. I didn't want to carry a movie, plus direct it. "It's a little bit of a strain. You're not having as much fun as when you're just acting without directing," De Niro says.

"At one point I was driving a bus with a camera rig on it, and it took forever, going back and forth, back and forth. I had a video monitor above in the bus, and I was watching the shot, and it was of me, while I was driving the bus with a crew and camera. It was a complicated situation, because I was acting, driving and looking at the shot at the same time." THOUGH HE'S TALKED about directing for nearly a decade, De Niro didn't get around to it until he'd had 38 films under his belt as an actor. Now that he's done it, he's anxious to give it another shot. Up next, though, is a straight acting job for British actor-director Kenneth Branagh.

De Niro will play the monster in a prestigious new version of Frankenstein that starts filming this winter. "And then there's something with Scorsese again, and Palminteri's writing something else for us." "Us" is Tribeca, De Niro's production company, headquartered in a refurbished brick factory building in the Tribeca neighborhood on the lower west side of New York City. De Niro's ongoing dream is to generate films, TV and music projects, all centered in Manhattan. His commitment to his native New York has been a thread through his career, going back to The Wedding Party and Greetings, the fledgling independent films he made with Brian DePalma in the fair lit gf KiruP hf If' Jt UJ The Ballad of Little Jo Starring: Suzy Amis, Bo Hopkins Directed by: Maggie Greenwald Opens today at: The Little Rated: with violence and brief nudity Jack's rating: With 1 0 as a must-see, this film rates INTO THE WEST 7:00 RISING SUN 8:35 Closed Tups ft Vvw evening For AAA -t tt SNOW WHITE fTTtimiiiniiiini FRIDAY FISH FRY I BEER BATTERED HADDOCK EARLY BIRD S595 1 2 FREE JUMBO UTTERLY SHRIMP WITH I HIS tUUrUN UlNt-IN UNLY tK luYlftU AFTER ONLY $6 95 SATURDAY NIGHT SPECIAL l67T FREE LOBSTER TAIL SQ95 I WSAT NITE PRIME RIB SPECIAL ALL LEATHER 50 Off sofas chairs sectionals recliners loveseats 50 oft retail. Charge tor freight and delivery.

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WBAI KAIHO If You Like A Good Sore, M'U Love 'The Good Son? Barbara SUKay, WWVTV LawCULENlS chillingly good at Being Bad In This Haunting Thriller." Jvannc Wolf. JhANNK WOI.K'S HOLLYWOOD nnimiDiiH 33 3 WAYNE Starts Tomorrow GENERAL CINEMA PITTSFORD PIAZA 6 MONIOIAVf otflfNCHiD. 383-8855 1:40 4:20 7:10 9:50 1:45 4:30 7:20 10:10 TODAY TIKES ONLY CALL THEATRE FOR FURTHER INFORMATION i lous collection of period rock and jazz tunes to underscore the film's emotions and personalities. Music is an important character in A Bronx Tale, and the Rascals, the Flamingos, Tony Bennett, the Beatles, John Coltrane, Jimi Hen-drix, the Four Tops and Miles Davis deliver memorable performances. This may be the most effective pop-music movie soundtrack since the trend was established 20 years ago by American Graffiti.

DE NDIO IS especially impressive in guiding his largely inexperienced cast. Francis Capra and Lillo Brancato, the boys who play Calogero at different ages, are natural and unaffected in their debuts. They also successfully convey the connecting thread that allows viewers to see them as the same boy at different ages. Though he's had some experience with small parts in films, Chazz Palminteri wrote A Bronx Tale to give himself a showcase role. He plays Sonny with style and verve and manages to convey much with a steely look or a slight gesture.

It's a career-making turn. And De Niro himself is notable, directing himself in an atypical role. Though he's offscreen much of the time freeing up De Niro the director the father is the heart of the film. It makes De Niro's dedication to his own father a lovingly appropriate gesture. '60s.

De Niro was an only child, born to highly regarded abstract expressionist painter Robert De Niro Sr. and Virginia Admiral, a former painter who once sold a work to the Museum of Modern Art. The couple divorced when Bobby was two, and he spent his childhood living with his mother on West 14th Street. De Niro first realized he wanted to be an actor when he was 10, about the time he played the cowardly lion in a production of The Wizard ofOz at P.S. 41.

He studied art and music in high school, but was more influenced by his membership in a rough street gang. He quit school at 16 to become a professional actor. Soon he was gaining recognition in off-Broadway shows and studying with legendary "method" teachers Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler. After struggling in a series of small films, De Niro hit a trifecta of acclaim with his performances in three successive films in 1973 and 74: Bang the Drum Slowly, Mean Streets and The Godfather, Part II. With his Oscar-winning performance in 1980's Raging Bull, he became the most respected film actor of his generation.

In the decade since, he's balanced major roles in movies like Awaken ings, GoodFellas and Cape Fear with memorable cameos in The Untouchables, Backdraft and others. ASKED WHETHER he feels any of his films didn't get the attention they deserved, he says, "I liked We're No Angels, but some people thought I was overacting, which I was. It was a choice I made, to go in that direction. "But I loved the story and I'm sorry that if it didn't work, it didn't work. It had a certain charm or magic to it." De Niro also regrets that more people didn't see his even more recent film, A Boy's Life.

"Yeah, ev- eryone thought it would do well, so it was disappointing when it didn't." Still, it's clear that none of these films the great, the good and the not-so-good mean quite as much to him as A Bronx Tale, which bears an onscreen dedication to his father. "My father had just passed away, so I wanted to dedicate it to him," he explains. "It was my first movie, and I wished he'd been alive to see it, so In typical offscreen style, the actor's voice trails off. toews WEBSTER iim impiii touiivue 131-8851 llAC PLAYS THE Rad Seed To PERFECTION WITH A EDGE-OF- YOUR-SEAT ClJMAX. ELIJAH WOOD IS MIL0US." Hilt Oii-lil.

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