The Ottawa Citizen from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 43

The Ottawa Citizen, Friday, September 16, 1994 E3 MOVIE REVIEWS etfooi filhriBleir TDmecep mnis aon Patnm best yet Timecop Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Ron Silver, Mia Sara Directed by: Peter Hyams Written by: Mark Verheiden Rating: Playing at: St. Laurent, Kanata, Westgate, Somerset, Orleans, Promenades 5 tech cameras and nifty editing. But it is certainly better than any of his previous movies. It even has a story. The media flacks at- the movie studio are pushing this as Van Damme's breakthrough movie the one that makes him a respectable actor and puts him in the same league as Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Seagal.

This is not high theatrical ambition, of course, but if Jean-Claude wants to be in that league, then fine. We all have our aims in life. Unlike other Van Dammes, Timecop cost more than a few hundred dollars to make $27 million according to the producers. That's why it's being advertised and promoted with such expensive enthusiasm by the studio. They want their money back and, of course, a handsome profit.

Vancouver, where most of the movie was made, is transformed into New York, Washington and several other U.S. locales. The year is 2004 and time travel has been perfected. Naturally enough, meddlers have gone back in time and tried to change what will be the future. Max Walker (Van Damme) is part of a police force to prevent people doing that.

Central to the story is a corrupt and terribly nasty presidential candidate, played brilliantly by Ron Silver, a real actor who gives this movie most of the class it can claim. McComb (Silver) drifts back in time to correct both his political and financial fortunes. He murders without flinching and is pathologically ruthless. An ideal villain for our hero to tackle. Walker is as nice as McComb is nasty.

Walker lives in 2004, lamenting the murder of his wife 10 years before. Needless to say, he uses his position to do a little future-fiddling himself. Van Damme's new command of the English language is helpful in giving his character an unprecedented amount of depth. The basic premise is OK, but 2004 does seem a little close to our own reality, lime travel might take just a little longer. However, there's no point in getting too wound up about the plot.

The story is basic hero vs. villain with a few frills, lots of blood and much bone crunching. Nobody is going to be driving home discussing its deeper meaning. So let's not get too carried away. This is an entertaining, nicely put together action movie and, yes, it is Van Damme's best yet.

But it does help if you're expecting the usual junk By Chris Cobb Citizen staff writer "t's all to do with expectation. Jean-Claude Van Damme, who's made millions playing a monosyllabic, karate-kicking grunt-er in low-budget movies, has a new one out It's called Timecop. So what should anybody expect with such credentials? An Academy Award winner? Oscar material it isn't, but Timecop is more than most Van Damme fans will expect, and a remarkable leap for those who long ago decided that the self-appointed "Muscles from Brussels" had the acting talent of a sprout. Timecop is a surprise, though not an altogether pleasant one. There is plenty of brutality and the usual amount of impressive-looking Van Damme martial arts stuff that he achieves only with the aid of high- Eat Drink 1.

HERO VS. VILLAIN: Jean-Claude Van Damme as Max, Ron Silver as the corrupt candidate rr-r-i amusing and mouth Soviet rock easy to knock in laughable Red Hot Red Hot Starring: Balthazar Getty, Donald Sutherland Directed by: Paul Haggis Written by: Paul Haggis and Michael Maurer Rating: PG Playing at: Capitol Square By Jay Stone Citizen movies writer roll invades the old Soviet Union in Red Hot, a Judicrous movie that tries to show the revolutionary power of popular music sort of Lenin meets Lennon behind the Iron Curtain. But with a cast of decidedly un-Soviet actors and a script filled with lines and attitudes copped from yesterday's TV schedule, Red Hot plays more like Melmse Place than any of the long-live-rock-'n'-roll predecessors on which it is based. It's "Gorky Park 90210." The film shot on location in Riga, Latvia is set in 1959. It tells the story of Alexi, (Balthazar Getty of Lard of live Flies and Young Guns 2), a classical music student with a secret cache of illegal American rock records.

Rian WHAT'S Sihung something she doesn't have, and the frustration is effecting their relationships at home. Jia-Jen (Kuei-Mei Yang), the eldest daughter, teaches bored students at a boys' school and has never gotten over a failed love affair at university. Ixtnely, afraid of being alone forever, she starts noticing the school's new gym teacher just as she starts receiving mysterious love letters on her desk Jia-Chien (Chien-Lien Wu) is a successful executive with an airline company, who works long hours and is offered a posting in Europe just as she falls for a handsome, married co-worker (Winston Chao, star of The Wedding Banquet). Jia-Chien, we learn, loves cooking and would rather be a chef, but her father wanted something better for her and has always kept her out of his kitchen. Jia-Ning (Yu-Wen Wang), the youngest daughter, works at a fast-food joint, flirts with the boyfriend of her best friend, and dreams of romance.

Like his daughters, Chu isn't particularly happy. Though by force of habit he still spends hours cooking, he has lost his taste buds and much of his enthusiasm for life. He can no longer taste his own food, and he has to get others to sample it for him while he cooks. There's a hint that he may find new love in the form of a chainsmoking widow (the amusing Ah-Leh Guah), a long-time family school students. As the movie progresses, Troche presents us with incidents from the lives of all of the characters, but concentrates on the budding relationship between Max and Ely.

They go on a date, start to feel an attraction for each other, and then aren't sure if they want to see each other again. They keep bumping into each other and we're meant to wonder, will they or won't they? The movie's best moments come in the early scenes of the women together, which nicely capture the awkwardness of first dates. Brodie, the most appealing member of the cast, manages to give her character an endearing nervousness and insecurity. The movie might have been better Lf it had spent more time with. her.

The film' slowly, unexcitingly works its way to unsurprising ending. We know from the beginning where things are headed and, in Go Fish, waiting for the predictable isn't much fun. wfc 3 Ennmr Mlinrir Iriiill watering Jit Lung and Ah-Leh Gua friend just returned to Taipei. Lee lets the stories of the chef and his daughters unfold slowly, taking his time as he follows the sometimes surprising turns in their lives. Sihung Lung (the father in The Wedding Banquet) gives a lovely, nu-anced performance, capturing Chu's assuredness in the kitchen and his sadness as he sees that his daughters are slipping away.

The actors who play the daughters are all good, but Chien-Lien Wu (the middle daughter), stands out. In one of the film's best scenes, she manages exactly the right wistful longing as she talks about her happiest childhood memories, of sitting in wonder at the sights and sounds and smells of her father's kitchen. Fans of The Wedding Banquet, with its zippy comic pacing, should expect slower rhythms and fewer laughs in Eat Drink Man Wonum, but this more ambitious film offers just as much pleasure, and an appealing, warm tone of tenderness and understanding. Disappointingly, the movie works toward a pat, happy ending that feels cloying and contrived. Lee, who co-wrote the script, isn't yet as good a writer as he is a director.

But the flaws are more than compensated for by the strong cast and the delightful small touches that are offered along the way. ELY AND MAX: V.S. Brodie, Guinevere Turner jp- to- 'j I ai Eat Drink Man Woman Starring: Sihung Lung, Chien-Lien Wu, Ah-Leh Gua Directed by: Ang Lee English subtitles Rating: PG Playing at: World Exchange By Steven Mazey Citizen entertainment writer Ang Lee has a way with a wok. The Taiwanese director, who made last year's airy comedy The Wedding Banquet, focuses on food in Eat Drink Man Woman, and the result is an aro- matic pleasure. As the credits roll in the opening scenes, the cameras introduce us to Mr.

Chu, a top Taipei chef and widower who's preparing the weekly Sunday family meal for his three daughters. Lee obviously loves food, and he films the chef (Sihung Lung) with attention to detail that's both amusing and mouth-watering, helped by a fluid camera, extreme close-ups, musically rhythmic editing, and amplified sound effects worthy of a Steven Spielberg action adventure. You watch the chef methodically cleaning fish, killing chickens, dicing, chopping, stir-frying, poaching, steaming and garnishing, creating dishes that have the painstaking beauty of an Ikebana arrangement. The way that Lee films a kitchen, you almost smell the ginger, and you feel the devotion the chef pours into his work for the pleasure of others. The food scenes aren't merely meant to whet appetites.

They also emphasize the traditions and way of life represented by Chu and his generation. Lee uses food to define the generational differences and conflicts that are at the heart of his film. He contrasts scenes of Chu calmly at work with scenes of his daughters' busy lives and of modern Taipei, with its congested traf-. fic, fast-food outlets, and neighbors who spend endless hours with their karaoke machines. The chefs three daughters still live at home, but have careers and lives of their own.

Though they know they have a responsibility to their father, they dread the forced ritual of the Sunday dinner, where family tensions come to the surface. Each daughter is yearning for when Ely is pointed out to her in a restaurant by their mutual friend Kia (T. Wendy McMillan). Kia is a college professor who feels the need to lecture her younger lesbian friends about every aspect of their lives, and McMillan plays her with an appealing warmth and affection. Other women in the film include Evy, Kia's new lover, who is still hiding her sexual preference from her mother, and the noisy, outspoken Daria, who has sex with a man on a whim one night.

Her female friends find out about it and, in one of the film's best scenes, they gang-lecture her about the evil of what she has done. For a few minutes, the movie has some bite, as Troche examines strident self-righteousness. But too many scenes feel clunky, and they're not given any help by the film's amateur actors, most of whom sound like amateur actors. Stilted and stiff in their delivery, they come across like actors in an instructional film for junior-high I Sept.Vll Total Tota7 box office earnings weeks 1. iFoixest Gump Paramount $6.8 million $247 million 10 2.

Natural Born Killers Warner Bro. $5 million $34.5 million 3 4 tClear And Present 'Danger Paramount $4.3 million $104 million 6 Trial By Jury Warner Bro. $2.9 million $2.9 million 1 3. The Mask New Line $2.8 million $103 million 7 Milk Money Paramount $2.7 million $10.5 million 2 7. The Next Karate Kid Columbia $2.6 million $3.1 million 1' True Lies 20th Century $2.2 million $135 million 9 9l The Client Warner Bro.

$1.83 million $84.7 million 8 lb. Cprinna, Corinna New Line $1.82 million $12.1 million 5 ALEXI: Balthazar Getty plays a captivated by American rock Alexi and his buddies make black-market copies of the discs, and put together a rock band that practises in secret. They have to stay one step ahead of the KGB, which regards rock as anti-Soviet propaganda. At the same time, Alexi is courting Valentina (Carla Gugino of This Boy's Life), a fellow conservatory student and, unluckily, daughter of the local KGB bigwig, Donald Sutherland. Red Hot has a soundtrack of great old rock classics, from All Shook Up by Elvis Presley through Long Tally Sally by Little Richard, Exhibitor Relations.

Estimated North she never convinces us why we should care if Max and Ely stay together or never see each other again. But whatever its flaws, the movie will probably hold some appeal for lesbians, who, like gay men, dont get enough chances to see themselves on screen as anything except stereotypes. As well, Unlike some films about lesbians (John Sayles' Uanna and Donna Deitch's Desert Hearts come to mind) Go Fish isn't about a woman who nervously and tentatively comes to terms with her sexuality after discovering that she is attracted to another woman. Go Fish gives us women who already know who they are, who are confident and comfortable in their own identities, who have become members of a community that supports them. But this frankness in itself doesn't necessarily result in interesting characters or an interesting film.

As written by Troche and young Soviet student roll Whole Lotto, Shakin' Goin' On by Jerry Lee Lewis, and many others. This ground-breaking music sounds strangely innocent today, and the reaction of Soviet authorities to its messages of chaos and youth give Red Hot its rare plaintive notes. The rest is a laughable pastiche of old rock films the kind where Alan Freed helps the kids put on their show even though the grownups think rock 'n' roll is the devil's music and a teenage soap opera as someone imagines it would be under Communism. Near the end, when the kids plan their illegal rock show, Alexi is stopped in the halls of the conservatory by another student: "I hear you're gonna play," he says. "Yes," replies Alexi, annoyed by the breach of security.

"We've taken an ad out in Pruvda." Getty is a Soviet youth right out of Degrassi High and Gugino runs the gamut from pouty bitchiness to warm-eyed teen love. You don't believe for one minute that this is Soviet youth circa 1959: Their problems with authority seem no more serious than what Gidget had to go through when her dad set an unreasonable curfew. Sutherland does what he always does when he lands in an inferior film: He tries to maintain his dignity with a herky-jerky coldness, his head tipped to the side like a classical marionette that has been dropped into an episode of The Young and the Restless. If rock 'n' roll can survive this treatment, maybe it will never die. Guinevere Turner, too many of the characters in Go Fish are nice and caring and supportive and nurturing, and the result is blandness and nothing but single dimensions, with only occasional flashes of wit to relieve the tedium.

Shot in black and white in a selfconsciously arty style, the film opens in a big city and introduces us to its group of 20-something women characters. Max (Guinevere Turner) is a budding writer who's attractive and style-conscious and wears leather jackets, heavy boots and backward baseball caps. Single, and longing for a relationship, she spends her days writing long entries in her diary about her imagined meeting with her fantasy woman. Ely (V.S. Brodie) is a shy, awkward neo-hippie with Margaret Hamilton features.

She collects herbal teas and has fooled herself into thinking she is still in a relationship with a woman who has moved across the country. "U-G-L-Y," pronounces Max, ast weekend's top 10 films, according to American ticket sales are gathered from Friday through Sunday. Figures are based on actual receipts, and projections where actual figures were not available. Unexciting film about lesbians moves slowly toward unsurprising ending Go Fish Starring! Guinevere Turner, V.S. I Brodie and T.

Wendy McMillan Directed and written by Rose Troche Rating: AA Playing at: ByTowne Cinema, through Sept. 22 By Steven Mazey Citizen entertainment writer In Go Fish two seemingly mismatched lesbians are set up on a first date by their friends. The date does not go well, and for the next 90 minutes, we're supposed to be engrossed by the question of whether the two women will end up together. It 's not much of a premise and, though the film has occasional gtnxi moments, writer-director Rose Troche hasn't added enough style or verve to make it work Her writing and her central characters are dull and flat, and.