The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 204

GO ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE FOR THE WEEK OF OCTOBER 21 TO 27, 1984 THE ADVENTURE OF IUCKAROO IANZAI r- THE RAZOR'S EDGE (At the Northpoint) woman who holds everything together, but Sam Shepard is remarkable again as the husband who disintegrates at the prospect of a bleak future. J. Stone. CRIMES OF PASSION (At the Alhambra, (At the Alexandria) A strange, confusing and only slightly entertaining science fiction tale about a guy who is a rock star and noted brain surgeon, at odds with some aliens who are threatening Earth. Many subtleties do not a great movie make, but for some reason this one has been a hit with a handful of moviegoers.

Peter Weller stars as Buckaroo. John Lithgow is the villain, P. Suck, AU OF ME (At the Regency II) A low point in the careers of Steve Martin, Lily Tomkin and director Carl Reiner a remake of the dismal "The Man witn Two Brains," just as dismal the second time around. It's an unfunny comedy about a woman who dies and is reborn in a man's body, a patently hopeless concept awash with bathroom gags but bankrupt of humor. Tomlm has little to do and Martin seems to be flailing away for laughs, as if frantically trying to wriggle his way out of the movie.

Nachman. AMAMUS (At the Coronet) An inflated, yet flattened-out screen version Of Peter Shaffer's inspired Broadway play about the professional and spiritual rivalry between Mozart and the mediocre court composer. Salieri, who claims to have murdered Mozart, whose perverse personality offended him and seemed an affront to God. Milos Forman's oddly old-fashioned direction overwhelms the grandiose theme with marzipan Hollywood grandeur. Tom Hulce seems but a wild and crazy kid as the shrill, foul-mouthed Mozart and F.

Murray Abraham as the sullen Salieri is only half as menacing as the character who brooded so eerily on stage. G. Nachman. LUC PLANET (At the Lumiere) Franco fS', Piavoti's lyrical panorama of na-vYfi ture has neither narrative nor I Kp7 dialogue, but suggests a quiet. I itiA poetic vision of lite during a time span of a day and a halt, a cycle that also miraculously includes aft the seasons of the year.

The films weaves a hypnotic spell, culminating in the kind of -scene that must have inspired the writers of great Haiku poetry. Stone. THE I0STONIANS (At the Clay) In James Heat and Dust Ivory vivid Udyiiimi wi nemy 4mv3 fiuvci, Vanessa Redgrave is brilliant as the wealthy, possessive Bosto-nian suffragette who despises men. Her infatuation with a charming coquette who is also a dazzling speaker for women's rights is challenged by a courtly Southerner (Christopher Reeve) with an old-fashioned notion of a woman's place. Their three-cornered struggle for supremacy is sustained by tension, humor and a faithful portrait of that early battle for women's rights.

J. Stone. THt ItOTHEt FROM A NO THt I FLA NIT (At the Bridge) Joe Morton makes an auspicious screen debut as an innocent black fellow from outer space who winds up like a bewildered Harpo Marx in Harlem. His ESP is hot enough to wire him into everyone mind and repair all sorts of broken down electronic gizmos. It's got some very funny moments as the Brother eludes a pair of stiff-necked extraterrestrial bounty hunters, falls in love with a jazz singer and takes a hand with drug pushers.

However, writer director John Sayies' usually witty invention bogs down in some reoetitive shticks that are saved only by Morton's unusually sweet and comic screen presence. J. Stone. CAl (At the Lumiere) The impossibility of love in a country riven with hate is rG the haunting theme in the best ,0 0al9 on fe hopeless I y.ttY despair of Northern Ireland. John Ja, Lynch is very moving as the brooding, fearful young Catholic who has been drawn into terrorist IRA activities against his will.

Cat's anguish about -his participation in the murder of a Protestant policeman increases when he falls in love with the officer's Catholic widow (Helen Mirren), who lives on ner mothertn-Uw's farm. All the characters are trapped in roles labeled "Catholic" and "Protestant." The film makes no attempt to apportion guilt. It's a heartbreaking look at the tragedy of this hopeless land. J. Stone.

CAREFUL HE MIGHT HEAR YOU (At the Balboa) A sensitive Australian drama about a young boy caught in a bitter custody battle between two aunts. Wendy Hughes is superb as Vanessa, the coldhearted snob who takes the boy from his comfortable home and tries 'o make him a proper British gentleman. It's an affecting and highly perceptive reminder of the vulnerability of childhood. J. Stone.

COUNTRY (At the Regency I) Jessica Lange produced this of ten-corn-fi sory about a midwestern Yf farm family shattered by pres-sures of an imminent government 4 foreclosure of her family farm. She's a touch too heroic as tne Somerset Maugham movel about a World War I veteran Larry who prefers a search for enlightenment in Pans and Tibet to work in a stockbrokerage firm is choppily and simplistically ren dered by director John Byrum, who co-wrote the script with Bill Murray. As Larry, Murray turns in a mixed pretormance. He's fine when he relaxes and shows his appreciation for tne humorous side of life, but he lust looks shell-shocked when he is supposedly having a mystical experience. Nothing seems real either in tne lite of his bitchy and social fiancee (Catherine Hicks) or the path to degradation taken by Sophie (Theresa Rus-sel) when fate fouls up her life.

J. Stone. RED DAWN (At the Seavue) A ridiculously implausible adventure about eignt high school students and what happens to their lives when America is suddenly invaded by a -Communist force. Except for the unintentional humor of an incredi bly dumb script, it's a bomb. P.

Stack EPO MAN (At the Four Star) A surreal comedy set in tne seedy unaer-world of automobile repossession, starring Harry Dean Stanton in pursuit of a 'M Chevy Malibu driven by a lobomotized nuclear scientist. P. Stack. A SOLDIER'S STORY (At the Regency III) Charles Fuller's Pulitzer winning play, a murder mystery IVliiNr set an all-Negro regiment dur-I mg World War II, is brought to tne Ljfi screen with all its urgency, ten-sion and brilliant insights. Under Norman Jewison's direction, it is opened up to provide more of a feeling about the South in wartime, but Fuller's script retains his complex explorations of the men and their motivations.

It is superbly acted by the entire cast, including Howard E. Rollins, as the black officer sent in to solve the murder, Adolph Caesar as the disliked black sergeant who is the victim, and Larry Riley as tne simple country recruit, with his winning songs and good humor. Stone. TEACHERS (At the Galaxy) Nick Nolte stars as a high school teacher in this inept comedy-drama about the woes of lower education. A young woman lawyer (JoBeth Williams) is representing a former student who graduated, but is illiterate.

The comedy doesn't pay off in this story that has pretensions to deal with serious issues. Still, the thing may be worth seeing, if only because it's the only movie that attempts to look behind the scenes of an urban high scnool. Definitely a worthy subject for tne screen. With Judd Hirsch. P.

Stack. THIEF Of HEARTS (At the Royal) This suspense thriller deals with a FJJfP couple's seemingly perfect mar-f? riage. Fantastic forces put tne AIf UW unon t0 the test of survival. It EyninT S(even Bauer and Barbara Williams. TIGHTROPE (At the Seavue 2 and the Electric) Squinty Clint Eastwood stars as a homicide inspector with a taste for hookers, on the trail of a kinky sex-murderer in New an overlong pursuit that's a notch above average for this sort of thing but takes forever to get told.

On the way. Clint meets a rape prevention teacher (Genevieve Buiold) who makes a dent hi the big guy's thick macho hide. He doesn't cry but he reveals about half a feeling. fi. Nachman WTU (At the Ghirardelli) A Europeamzed Maori, Te wneke, a scout for tne Colonial forces in the late 19th-century New Zealand, turns savage in revenge for the senseless slayings of his tribe which had been friendly with the whites.

Determined to exact "utu," he goes on a rampage of killing, leading other Maoris in a return to their warrior heritage. The dialogue is often incomprehensible and the narration, eccentric, but it is powerful material, it would have been stronger with more information about tne Maori culture and less about its bloody manifestations. stone CRIMES Of PASSION Friday at the Alhambra, Empire and Serramonte. LE DERNIER COMIAT Friday at the Lumiere. THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL Friday at the Galaxy.

THE RAZOR'S EDGE Friday at the point. UTU Friday at the Ghirardelli. THE TERMINATOR Friday at the St. Francis, Alexandria, Galaxy and Serra. AMERICAN DREAMER Friday at the Stones- town and Coliseunn JoBefh Williams and Tom Conti portray visitors to Paris who become innocently involved in international intrigue in 'American Dreamers open-ing Friday at the Stonestown and Coliseum Theaters Empire, and the Serramonte) A disturbing, harshly erotic, yet strangely poignant work by Ken Russell, up to many of his usual vivid, mawkish tricks.

Kathleen Turner plays China Blue, a sleazy street hooker avoiding life through fantasy sex. Anthony Perkins is a demented skid-row preacher who is both reviled and obsessed by her kinky ways. John Laughlm. former football hero trapped in a lifeless marriage, loses himself to lowlife passions and finds the awkward beginnings of love. Well acted, a little ingenume.

but dramatically effective. Not for kids. P. Stick. CRUEL STORY Of YOUTH (At the York) The doomed affair of two nihilistic young lovers is coolly presented in this I960 film by Nagisa Osnima, the controversial Japanese director of "In the Realm of the Senses" and "Merry Christmas, Mr.

Lawrence." Mako is a girl who tempts fate by hitching rides with older men. When she is saved from a beating by Kiyoshi, cynical contemporary, she becomes a reluctant pawn in his shakedown schemes. Their lack of values is contrasted to that of the immediate post-World War generation. This is a sharp, detached look at some of the human waste of society whose family traditions were overturned in the aftermath of wartime defeat. J.Stone.

DERNIER COMIAT (At the Lumiere) It's set in a post-apocalyptic, black-and-white, soundless future, although the source of tne vast devastation is never stated. The world seems reduced to an unending Sahara Desert. The only "oasis" is the rubble of a skyscraper in wrwcn a lone man (Pierre Jotivet) builds an airplane: at a distance, a tew men labor in a car graveyard. When Jolivet escapes to Paris, he lives on fish that ram from the sky but eventually is injured by a brute who keeps trying to get into a hospital clinic Jolivet is cared for by the lone doctor-turned-artist. Tne unclear moral of Luc Besson's fantasy seems to be that not even a holocaust can curb tne aggressive nature of man.

Stone TtatVmMIMM (At the Serramonte) A sizzling Charles Bronson movie: low budget, grainy photography, blood, guts, a little kinky sex. Plot is unfatnomabie, but no matter. Bronson as a professional hero assassin goes out after an evil doctor in Guatemala and what you get is what all Bronson people want P. Stick. EXTERMINATOR 3 (At the Saint Frances) Further adventures of Jonnny Long, self-appointed vigilante of New York's mean streets, armed with a flame thrower and a garbage truck.

Robert Ginty stars. Convoluted plot, bad acting, dumb dialogue a macho potboiler that fails to bod. PuH chain to flush, p. Stack. FULL MOON PARIS (At the Gateway) Isv Pascale Oglier's plaintive, Piaf-like beauty sustains this pre-j dictabie Eric Rohmer tale of a WuS woman involved with three men: Remi, her lover in the suburbs, the possessive, married Octave who would like to change their Platonic relationship, and a young musician.

She Is headstrong and independent, but she needs excitement and company on her terms. It's another slight variation on Rohmer's abiding theme of pain, abandonment and manipulation modern romance. stone. GHOSTIUSTERS (At the Plaza and Spruce Drive-fn) A sublimely dopey and ft2 verY funny spook spoof, starring lVp-fiY Bill Murray, Oan Aykroyd and I Vviy Harold Ramis as a manic team of ghost exterminators whose task is to rid New York of every last demon, poltergeist, ghoul and gremlin. They come to the rescue of Sigourney Weaver and, her haunted fridge with the same demented aplomb they use to exorcise an elegant Park Avenue hotel.

Even the special effects are funny in themselves. G. Nachman THE GODS MUST IE CRAZY (At the Vogue) A wonderfully funny and wistful -i adventure begins when a Coke 1 bottle falls among an idyllic tribe I T-EJ ot Bushmen and causes strife. When Xi, their gentle chief, decides to take the evil obiect to the end of the earth and throw it off. he runs headlong into a herd of "civilized" people, including a bumbling microbiologist, an idealistic blonde and a band of card-playing Communist revolutionaries.

It's a glorious blend of slapstick humor, romance, sly political commentary and astute anthropology. P. Stack.t ISM, LOVE STREAMS (At the Surf) John Cassav etes most engaging movie has a warm, wry sensibility about how people in families can love and fail each other. Gena Rowlands is full of unexpected turns as the kooky divorcee trying to figure Out how to return to her harassed husband and daughter. Cassavetes has a sweet, sardonic quality as her brother, who resists love and involvement with a motley collection of females.

Their attempts to save each other are unexpectedly funny and poignant. J. Stone. OLD ENOUGH (At the Cannery) This warm r-v and humorous treatment of the vyi) friendship between two New York I yZfP girls of different backgrounds I concerns Lonme (Sarah Boyd), LLS shy. protected daughter of upper w- middle-class parents, and Karerr' (Rainbow Harvest), wnosef ather is a super in a working-class apartment building.

Writerdirector Mansa Silver snows real talent in her first feature, eschewing the usual Hollywood hype. J. Stone. PLACES IN THE HEART (At the Metro) A loving but unsentimental drama -f about the struggles of a young 1 sCVi widow (Sally Field) to survive on a I r-rcj Depression-era Texas cotton-LlsL farm. Director Robert Benton weaves the strands of his characters' lives in a memorable and moving fashion.

It's extraordinary in its grace, beauty and suggestion of reconciliation and forgiveness. J. Stone. PURPLE RAIN (At the Galaxy) Rock star Prince makes his film debut and comes through with one of the most electrifying screen debuts I fty any rock musician ever made 1L nis gut-ioltmg funk-rock score to the sultry, baleful stares that fill the screen in lingering, smoldering close-ups. The film hangs on the flimsiest of plots, but tne movie is really about Prince delivering the message in his music.

And it is above ail a frankly sentimental film about love not sex, fired by tne spectacular music J. Seinn GREMLINS (At the Empire and the Saint Frances) This is a cute, cuddly kid movie before it gets cutthroat and wants to scare the wits out of the young children it's designed to enthrall. A furry, doe-eyed little creature is turned loose an idyllic small American town at Christmas time, but somebody ignores the prohibitions to keep the creature away from protect it from bright light and never feed it after midnight. The result is black comedy, engaging for adults but possibly nightmarish for small kids. P.

Stack INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (At the Alhambra, the Empire, xfA and the Serramonte) The prequel W-Y of the Lost Ark" is a I rV' fabulous formula film, full of spar-LJjL "I'" thrills, cockeyed chins and brilliant gags. Harrison Ford returns as Indiana Jones, tne intrepid adventurerarchaeologist, mi a tale that begins in 1935 Shanghai and soon moves all over the globe. Directed by Steven Spielberg and written by George Lucas, who have pulled out all the stops. P. Stack A JOKE Of DESTINY (At the Mercury) Irrepressible writerdirector Lma fW Wertmuller gives tne raspoerry to I hCf the mircles of Modern technology, rich revolutionaries, sycophantic LJtaf Christian Democrats and dopey terrorists.

When the Italian Minister of the Interior gets locked his computerized, bullet-proof limo, the result is hilarious confusion. Very funny performances, especially by Ugo Tognazzi as an obsequious member of parliament. J. Stone. THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL (At the Galaxy) The plot is preposterous: Israeli agents recruit dim-witted, bleeding-heart actress "Charlie" (Diane Keaton) to lead them to the mastermind of Arab terrorists.

As "Charlie," Keaton gives an hysterical edge to some pretty ridiculous lines. At least John LeCarre's massive novel snowed an understanding of the social and political forces at work in the Middle East: something totally lacking in the movie, directed with a certain degree of suspense and style without substance by George RoyHrtl..