The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 51

Friday, December 14, 1990 C-3 I' id: ermaias A tale without a leg to standi on SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER 1 t. fimi i ''Pi 1 I) tW-J Good intentions can't give sea legs to disjointed craft for Cher, Ryder By Barbara Shulgasser EXAMNER STAFF CRITIC rr lr 1 are the parents of Julie and Mikey in babies get old fast it first. Charlotte would like to live like other kids, sit down to dinner at which all family members are present, including a father. She'd like to eat a meal that isn't hors d'oeuvres (Mom's specialties include sandwiches shaped like stars, anything Btabbed with a toothpick and marshmallow kabobs). And so the film bops along on the energy of its characters' rather forced idiosyncrasies.

Mom is on the move. Charlotte is a Jewish girl hoping to become a nun. The younger daughter, Kate (Christina Ric-ci), is a 9-year-old butterfly-stroke champ who favors for indoor headgear a rubber swimming cap. The only trouble is that despite a few funny lines and a touching and lovable performance by Bob Hoskins as Lou Landsky, the local shoe store owner and Mom's newest conquest, nothing makes any particular sense here. Granted this is not the 'sort of thing that worries a lot of film viewers, or directors, evidently.

For example, there is no evidence here of Mom's easy virtue, except what we're tediously told about her many lovers: She didn't catch the name of the young Olympic swimmer who fathered Kate. And when she asks Charlotte if she wants to major in being the town tramp, Charlotte counters, "They already have one." All that we see of Mom is a woman who is having a perfectly nice relationship with a generous and good-hearted shoe store owner. The film also suffers under the dictatorship of an unfortunate device, narration by Charlotte, who is constantly wrestling with her desire to "do disgusting things" with Joe and to devote herself to a celibate union with God. This brings us to the Jewish problem. That this family is Jewish is something we know only because we're told.

When Charlotte prays before her shrine to the Virgin Mary, wears a cross around her neck or reads from the New Testament, Mom walks by and blithely says, "Charlotte, we're Jewish." How can she tell? Worse yet, the questions the plot anemically poses do not leave us breathless for answers: Will Charlotte and mother reconcile their differences? Will Lou con-' vince Mom that commitment can Cher is Mrs. Flax, once a woman of "easy virtue." be fun? Will Charlotte become a nun or a devotee of the Director Richard Benjamin Favorite Year," "The Money Pit," "Racing with the Moon," "My Stepmother is an has a nice comic touch and often handles what would otherwise necessarily turn mawkish with ironic sensitivity. But he and writer June Roberts commit a terrible miscalculation when they intercut between Charlotte's passionate loss of virginity and the film's most jarring and misguided sequence, an out-of-synch lapse from the film's otherwise comic gestalt to a decidedly tragic one. Cher, who was perfect in "Moonstruck" (for which she deservedly won the best actress Oscar), is walking through this one, letting her eerie cheekbones and wasp waist act for her. Bemuse-ment is her main pose.

Occasionally she turns her lips downward, raises her voice and walks more quickly to denote anger. The way this film turned out, her anger is justified. MOVIE REVIEW 'Mermaids' Cast: Cher, Bob Hoskins, Winona Ryder Director: Richard Benjamin Writer: June Roberts, based on novel by Patty Dann Rated: PG-13 Theaters: Galaxy, Alexandria, UA the Movies (Colma) Evalutlion: V2 and petty: They're like the easily manipulated peasants in "Frankenstein" or "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." And Edward is a pure-hearted pubescent with a punk surface, alone and afraid in a world he never made and one that didn't make him. He learns that there's no place for him outside his studio. Burton presents an inadvertent self-portrait of the artist as a solipsist.

But the movie gives the lie to its own ethos: It's lively only when Edward and his cartoon community click. At the end, the hero becomes Fran-kenChrist: You can almost hear church bells tolling as Edward slices away at his ice and gives everyone a White Christmas. I like the movie better when the Avon Lady is calling. Mi ERMAIDS" is all good intentions. It features a mother who is less than perfect But as embodied by Cher, her imperfections (a reluctance to make commitments, a penchant for leaving town every time a romance doesn't work out which is often and a reputation for what used to be called "easy are.

minimized Mom is, after all, fun, full of life, understanding and ready to admit she hasn't got all the answers. We love her. In fact, the only person who isn't crazy about this woman is her 15-year-old daughter, Charlotte (Winona Ryder). This, too, is understandable. Charlotte would like to finish high school without moving again.

Charlotte would like to seduce Joe, the 26-year-old caretaker of the convent down the road (Michael Schoeffling) but fears Mom will do Winona Ryder is Charlotte, who is not terribly fond of mom. and hand gestures for each Avon line: When she's touting her "tried and true" products, she makes a vertical move with her fist for a 1 sturdy, treelike emphasis. Wiest invests Peg with a twinkling, rarely-say-die optimism: Within the stylized context, she makes us believe that once Peg finds Edward alone in his castle, she has to take him home with her. Alan Arkin partners her capably. As Peg's husband, Bill, he gives one of his trademark good performances quirky and solid.

He turns Bill into an old-fashioned, moralistic sitcom family man who can't help calling Burton's hero "Ed." (The movie has one more entertaining actor the delicious-ly over-ripe Price but his role is no more than a curlicue.) Peg's prospective customers promise to be as enjoyable as she is. Led by Kathy Baker as the randy Joyce, they're a bevy of suburban bawds and gossips. They immediately glom onto Edward they see him as a sexual mystery man. (Their husbands use him as the butt of good-natured jokes; one guy invites him to a poker game as long as he doesnt cut the cards.) Joyce has an orgasm when Edward styles her hair. At moments like that, Burton seems to be affectionately satirizing American faddism and fetishism.

But the comedy turns sour midway through, when Joyce tries to seduce Edward and her failure is played more for humiliation than for laughs. Edward only has eyes for Kim, Peg's nubile daughter (played by the misused Winona Ryder). Of course, she already has a boyfriend, Jim (Anthony Michael Hall); true to formula, he's the ultimate bad guy, a brutal, feckless jock. He lands Edward in jail (and ruins his reputation) by finagling "Look Who's Talking Too. rangement: You don't have to see, but only hear, Barr.

And because she's reciting the words of others, she doesn't always, like, you know, sound like she really talks. Still not interesting enough? You can always listen to the movie in the multiplex auditorium next door without leaving your seat There are two pretty good scenes. In one, Travolta, peeved 'because Alley keeps pulling the sheet over to her side of the bed, takes a pair of scissors and cuts the sheet in half. In the other, Travolta does a rock-the-house, Elvis-style dance and looks good. Another fun fact' Large parts of "Look Who's Talking Too," supposedly set in New York, were actually filmed in Vancouver.

Amazing, huh? MOVIE REVIEW 'Look Who's Talking Too' Cask Kirstie Alley, John Travolta Director Amy Heckering Writers: Heckering and Neal Israel Rated: PG-13 Theaters: Alexandria, UA Colma Evaluation: IliftfcilMiSi Winona Ryder is busy these days, here in "Edward Scissorhands. Big Adventure" were suddenly elevated to sainthood. THE MOVIE IS framed by an old woman telling a young girl a bedtime story about snow; (The snow, it turns out, falls whenever Edward makes his ice sculptures.) The opening minutes have a heraldic ring to them: Burton succeeds in creating a netherworld where a Gothic castle rests on an imposing hilltop at the end of a cul-de-sac. As soon as Peg Boggs appears in her lavender Avon Lady's uniform, Wiest puts the comedy on a high plateau. She's hilarious when she rolls out her saleswoman shticks.

Playing a limited, good-hearted woman, Wiest takes the extra time to humanize her caricature. Peg has rehearsed different intonations 1 A I HHP iiSSivpiSEiSSSs iiiJIlli John Travolta, left, and Kirstie Alley Talking Loquacious infants confront a script with nothing to say By David Armstrong EXAMINER STAFF CRITIC THIS IS apparently the season for tyke flicks. "Home Alone" is a chartbusting hit and even big Arnold is frolicking with little kids as what else? an undercover cop. Now, the sequel to a movie that helped jump-start this trend and grossed $300 million is out. We're talking about "Look Who's Talking Too," a comedy in which John Travolta and Kirstie Alley portray bickering young parents, and the voices of Bruce Willis and Roseanne Barr are heard articulating the thoughts of their preschool youngsters.

Usually, movies based on a gimmick, as this one is, go on too long. Director Amy Heckering, who co-authored the script for "Talking Too" with her husband Neal Israel, is apparently aware of the problem, for the running time is listed at SCISSORHANDS from C-l Can't cut the mustard fixated on their own idiosyncrasy. Burton, however, has been phenomenally successful from the start of his feature film career. That's why, paradoxically, for "Edward Scissorhands," he's been able to render an oversize portrait of an out-of-it teen as a sacrificial artist. To be fair, the movie is sometimes wildly humorous and bizarrely beautiful.

And Dianne Wiest gives a delightfully loopy performance as the Avon Lady who finds the title character in a dilapidated castle and adopts him. But by the end, it drowns in its own pathos. That's mostly because Burton gives in to temptation he creates a hero who plays like a parody of a misunderstood young filmmaker. Edward Scissorhands (Johnny Depp) is a benign Frankenstein monster whose inventor (Vincent Price) dies before fitting him with hands. Edward must go through his murky version of life it's unclear exactly how human he is with a variety of knives and shears where his wrists, palms and fingers should be.

He creates marvelous topiary gardens, sculptural haircuts for canines and human females alike, and elaborate ice statues. But despite his artistic dexterity, he's unable to perform the simplest mundane tasks, such as managing a fork. He can't carve out a place for himself in suburbia. And he can't touch anyone he loves. Edward is even sickly.

With a face that's a lighter shade of pale and a leather-and-chain body covering, he's a kinky, glorified ho-munculus. It's a bit of a cheat that, nwst of his art worj occurs out of only 81 minutes, at least 15 minutes shorter than most Hollywood features. Even so, the film seems padded. It is utterly undistinguished product witless, vulgar, filled with potty jokes and gags about genitalia, stuffed with can't-miss-'em-product plugs, weighted down with a gratuitous chase-and-fight scene, loaded with old pop songs to underscore what the characters and thus the audience are supposed to be feeling. We need the reminders, actual-' ly, because Travolta, as the ne'er-do-well cabbie James, and Alley, as Mollie, his wife, an uptight accountant, are effectless.

Since both have been good elsewhere, the blame for their lousy acting has to be as- signed to Heckering's direction. Even Olympia Dukakis, who can act, is wasted in a small part as Mollie's mom. The kids, Mikey, a 3-year-old, and Julie, the new baby sister who tries his patience, are cute, of course, as they pretend to mouth the very grown-up words you hear Willis and Barr reading on the sound track. One good thing about this ar shot: All we see is his face in the midst of flying hair, fur, ice shavings and shrubbery. He speaks in a frightened little-boy voice when he speaks at all.

He's been compared with E.T., but he doesn't have as much personality as that wise, curious alien, and he doesn't interact as vitally with the other characters. (Even his relationship with Price is perfunctory.) Commercially, though, this might work in his favor Those who are susceptible to masochistic fantasy can project anything they want onto him. In "E.T. the creature isnt really the central character. You can see him as an externalization of Elliott, the lonely boy who (unlike Edward) has no special talents aside from his empathy with the alien.

"E.T." is about a protagonist who learns to mesh with his whole wonderfully characterized family, his peers and older kids. That movie both celebrates the openness of suburbia and criticizes its claustrophobia. By contrast, "Edward Scissorhands" takes place in a striking, pastel-colored purlieu that has all of the artificiality and some of the kick of a live-action cartoon. Although Burton is a Burbank native, his ticky-tacky development might as well be something he got out of a book (and according to Premiere magazine, he did a volume called It's an amusing stunt to collect, in a single setting, 40 years of American kitsch, including a Slip 'n' Slide. And there are some ticklish visual jokes: a bank labeled "Bank" is a full-scale Monopoly piece.

But Burton pushes the plot into the maudlin, and nothing except his own artist fantasy supports the shove into melodrama. It's as if the jokester in "Pee-wee's him into a robbery attempt, and develops a homicidal jealousy of the misfit. Burton sets up the audience for a revenge of the nerd. The bittersweetness makes it no more palatable. THE CENTRAL heartbreaking image duplicates Harold Russell's most poignant scene as the handless World War II veteran in "The Best Years of Our Russell's fellow veterans rooting for him to take his girl in his arms.

Throughout that film, Russell suffers from a surfeit of clumsy community goodwill. Edward never figures out how to hold Kim without nicking her the big difference is that none of the neighbors wants him. to. The 'townspeople, led by that rapacious female, Joyce, turn out to be venge- Costner's 'Dances With Wolves' is named best movie of 1990 Other awards named were: Second best picture "Hamlet," starring Mel Gibson and Glenn Close. Third "GoodFellas," starring Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci.

Best supporting actor Joe Pesci in "GoodFellas." Best supporting actress Winona Ryder in "Mermaids." Best foreign language film "Cyrano de Bergerac," from France, starring Gerard Depardieu. Best made-for-TV film "Andre's Mother," PBS. Best TV miniseries "The Civil War," PBS. The board voted lifetime achievement awards to Gene Autry and Roy Rogers "for giving great pleasure to America's youh." 4 i UNITED PRESS WTERNATONAl NEW YORK "Dances With Wolves," directed by and starring Kevin Costner, was named best movie of 1990 by the National Board of Review, the world's oldest award-giving film group. The National Board also named Costner best director, but its best-actor award was shared by Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro for the upcoming "Awakenings." Best actress award went to Mia Farrow for "Alice," also upcoming.

The awards, considered accurate predictors of the Oscars, are voted by the board's membership, including educators, film critics and film historians..