The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • Page 40

THE GAZETTE, MONTREAL, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1993 7 addawis some might be upset Film skewers louo, EjaEiios, summer camp by kids plot to kill baby brother Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd), then bump him off for the money. She's done it before. They don't call her the Black Widow and put her in serial-killer trading cards for nothing. "Addams men," she vamps in Morticia's direction. "Where do you find them?" "It has to be damp," Morticia replies.

You get the idea. By the time the cast, crew and creators of this film have had their way, there are few icons left un-smashed. To subvert another American verite theirs is a job well done. Addams Family Values is playing at the Astre, Cote des Neiges, Dor-mi, du Pare, Famous, Greenfield, Laval, Loews and Versailles cinemas. Parents' guide: possibly suspect role models, -kick "One house.

Three children. So many windows," sighs Morticia (Angelica Huston) affectionately. Would that all parents were so understanding. Other sacred cows roasted in this compact, cheerfully dark and cleverly designed piece revolve around those twin institutions: dating and shipping the brats off to someone else for the summer. Both are the doing of the Addams' new nanny Debby, played with pathologically adenoidal flair by the great Joan Cusack.

Debby comes on like the girl next door, if the girl next door had burned down her parents' home and everyone inside it after getting the wrong Barbie for her birthday. Her mission now is to marry JOHN GRIFFIN GAZETTE MOVIE CRITIC The new Addams Family movie is all about babies, love, marriage and summer camp. No wonder it's considered controversial. Addams Family Values picks up where the 1991 original left off. It's an offbeat, macabre, occasionally savage but always salient attack on the values suburban America holds near and dear to its cosmetically enhanced breast.

It tweaks child-rearing, courtship and cheerleading in all their evil manifestations. If there's anything insidious about this Addams family, it's that unlike most contemporary nuclear units these people truly love each other. In their own way. The first wrinkle in the sequel is the bouncing addition to the family of baby Pubert, a sallow-faced infant with a rat-tail moustache and a talent for breathing fire. It's a boy.

It's a son. "It's an Addams," observes Raul Julia's Gomez. Pubert will need all his innate Addams-ian skills as siblings Pugs-ley (Jimmy Workman) and Wednesday (Christina Ricci) try to shorten his stay on this Earth. There are tricks with knives, great heights and little guillotines. Pubert survives them all, and so will those who worry about the possible impact of the film on child abuse.

This is strictly cartoon fare. STREET PEOPLE THEATRE Presents (Ill AIDAN DEVINETHE KIT KAT GIRLS STEEF A STEEFAIBERT NERENBERG TYRONE BENSKIN, JAMS KRSHNER 1 1 Celebration 93 presented by fe QSPELL Him MDepertrmrt of tte Socntofy t9ttCnh LAURA MITCHELL'S FEMALE BONDAGE, THE SPOT, NAOMI EMERSON, LE TANGO VAMPIRES, COREY CASTLE, SOPHIE 74DURAND, DAVID FRANCIS, 40V 19, 20, 27 Studio 1604c St. Laurent Pay What You Can 844-1993 ''C'jy COHSEIl KSnmw 1 II 1 I 1 ME NIGHT OqiarlifMnlGfMeSKMNfy BILLY RAY CYRUS ItWont'tBeTheLast ST1 rrr? fET THE POLICE Message In A Box ICelebration'93 presented by ii Cvt' -'-''-'I I HOSTS: UURING: A River So V-J Mayi fivi nns i ULI liJ hv rdS iv''" A EV IE I 'Vw99l 59 991 I -991 jA 1658 as I 'i15ct9cas1 1 4581 14cd9cw CONTINUED FROM PAGE D1 screenwriter of Addams Family Values, puts it: "They're the Brady Bunch gone wrong." In helping concoct 1993's blackest black comedy, Rudnick is happy to expand on this thesis. "America loves the Addams Family because we're all told we should be like the Bradys and the Cleavers and the Nelsons and all those wholesome TV families. But all of us are secretly far more like the Addamses.

"What we have here is a real elegance, a real kind of glee in life. They're a very happy family." Rudnick pauses. Then adds: "They have a kind of feel for murder and cannibalism and necrophilia." Rudnick makes comments like this in the most cheery of tones -the message being that audiences will inevitably enjoy the dark humor of Addams Family Values when it opens today but won't take it too seriously. But one also senses a bit of advance damage control at work here, in anticipation of those critics who might find some of the situations in this sequel to 1991's phenomenally successful The Addams Family just a little too near the bone. Original cast returns Most of the original cast members are back for this one Angelica Huston and Raul Julia as Morticia and Gomez Addams, as passionate and intense as ever, Christina Ricci as sombre pigtailed Wednesday and Jimmy Workman as her naive brother, Pugsley; Christopher Lloyd, pasty-faced and corpse-like as Uncle Fester, Carel Struycken as Lurch, the 7-foot-tall butler, Christopher Hart whose exposure is once again limited to scuttling crab-like around the Addams creepy house in the role of Thing, the disembodied hand, and John Franklin as hairy Cousin Itt.

Carol Kane, unrecognizable tinder four hours of makeup, takes over the role of Granny from Judith Malina. And Joan Cusack is on hand as the nanny who seduces Fes-tet into marriage. She turns out to serial killer who plots to eliminate her doting spouse and gain control of his fortune. The potential for controversy exists in the presence of baby Pubert, who pops into the world in the early moments of the film after a svelte Morticia announces that she's pregnant and about to deliver. Pubert is born with a mustache and slicked-down black hair in other words, he looks like daddy Gomez.

Sibling rivalry heats up Wednesday and Pugsley are ferociously jealous of their baby brother and repeatedly attempt to dispose of him (their methods in clude throwing him over the balcony and setting up a miniature guillotine) until they're packed off to summer camp, where they move Qn to further mayhem. But hew will such scenes play at a time of mounting controversy over TV and cinema violence? More specifically, what separates The Addams Family from, say MTV's Beavis and Butt-Head, currently under attack for inspiring a kill his 2-year-old brother by setting fire to him? This is sibling rivalry Addams style," comments producer Scott Rudin. "But nobody gets hurt." "These are so clearly fantasy figures that I can't imagine they would inspire a lot of imitation," Rudnick says. "Anyone who has had a little brother or sister will identify totally with what Wednesday and Pugsley try to do to Pubert." Age gap Rudnick is joking but Sonnen-feld, also at the helm of the first Addams family film, admits that preview screenings have yielded some thought-provoking reactions. "At previews, people over 25 were uncomfortable with the children trying to kill the baby.

But kids of the ages 10 to 22 loved it." But, Sonnenfeld adds emphatically: "I don't think anybody who's seen this movie thinks that they're enfno tn rpflllv kill Pubert." Angelica Huston warns against trying to draw conclusions from "one isolated incident involving Beavis and Butt-Head." "If we take this seriously, it means we can only do movies that are'saccharine-sweet and in which nothing happens," Huston says. She stresses that the movie tries to honor the sensibility of the classic Addams family cartoons drawn by the late Charles Addams for The New Yorker magazine. The most scornful response comes from Christina Ricci, 13, who plays murderous Wednesday: i 1 1 TOM PETTY RICHARD DESJARDINS PHIL COLLINS Greatest Hits Au Club Soda Both Sides BILLY JOEL Of Dreams PIGEONS INTERNATIONAL cH! yy uu uvwr NOV 24-27 8:30 PM NOV 28 2:00 PM Theatre La Chapelle 3700 rue Saint-Dominique $18 $20 844-1993 be $MMt cs BOOTSAUCE Sleeping Bootie The Bodyguard VS. 15co9cAS VARIOUS Grands ClassiauesU Christmas Time Music BT LAURENT Onlmlnn Lnurent Place Vertu aho mvallahto at- Cleealcua CarrelcHir I aval i n.j I illrdiJ VT99 Q99 I4cdOcas cas 1 4 co Ocas TON Christina Ricca (as Wednesday): children won't copy film characters "I think it's retarded for adults to think children are so stupid as to imitate what they see on the screen," she says angrily. "It's just idiotic.

And if we laugh at Beavis and Butt-Head, it's because they're so stupid." In fact, Ricci considers the Addams family to be better role models than most TV families. "They're crazy and fun. But the underlying moral is that they love each other." And what are the "family values" of the title? Rudin cites the relationship between Morticia and Gomez as an example. "They're a middle-aged couple who are still swooning over each other. When they go to bed together, it's still sexy." RUSH Counterparts BLUE RODEO 5 Days In July PEARL JAM Pearl Jam JOHANNE BLOUII4 Souviens-Moi BONEYM GoW VARIOUS Hommage A Jacques Brel ANJOU Qalnrlns rl Anlou BELOEIL Montnnnch Mnll BHOS8AHD Chnmplnln Mnll CCTE Cavsndlsh Mall tl CASS: 199 CZaCD Ark XM.V U-1 115co9cAS fW' "-r-1 VARIOUS Dance Mix '93 BRYAN ADAMS Far So Good FRANK SINATRA Duets I 14cc8cAS nib 15co7oa i I4ct)0 CRASH TEST DUMMIES WHITNEY HOUS NIRVANA Inlltero MEATLOAF Bat Out Of Hell MARTINE St-CLAIR Un Souffle De Tendresse God Shuffled His Feet mm V4' '7 jF' I each" i ifr i BEATLES VARIOUS Love Collection y'-.

km ItCDOCA 11 VARIOUS Prelude A Amour 1962 13cd7cabE nMit.il I MOZART Essential Mozart 13371 '-flissiiai 66 or 1966-70 I I Oco CAS CHRISTMAS" WFW VOYAOE VARIOUS Christmas Voyage VARIOUS VARIOUS Beautiful Christmas Carols New Age Qtristmas rr Jjr1T, qi6S9 VARIOUS Ultimate Christmas U. 18c1 VARIOUS ChriMmas Classics flirfr Tl 1 lOCOCASj VARIOUS 50 All-Time Christmas Favorites ANDRE Noel C99 Tco Ocas OUELLET en Symphonic VARIOUS Quality's Treasury Of Christmas (Simple) DOLLAHD DES ORMEAUX aalenen da Sources DORVAL Oorvnl Gnrrtwna DOWNTOWN Alexis Nlhon Plaza Ploce Bonaventurs Place Montreal Trust MONTREAL Plnn cote rtr Nwlciea POINTS CLAIMS Falrvlnw Bhoppinct Contra REPENTIONV Lea Unlnrinn Mlve-Nord 8T-BHUNO Promenade Ht-llnirto 8MU8IACHE Place hi I tinlticha 8T-JIAN Corrntotir Richelieu 8T-JEROME CnrmU-tt ir rli I Nord SHEHUROOKE Cnrmlimr do I I utrln JOLIETTE Lea Onlnrins kllotta LA8ALLE Correfour Artarlgnon LAVAL Cntm I nvnl LONQUEUIL Place LoruiiMHill tmi i Hal 539 St CithmW 10.