LA Weekly from Los Angeles, California • 61

achia ras helmed tor crew arc o'gan zed ner no ngs to a a err tomato eye Pctoto Louhe toe American Sov eo og wpc accompa" es Myavycva es raro ccr ute sctoe sense to sror ca atohor fy tl pro ceec ngs oto ad rabysprtos pcretoto dc ea as ever anvPud se a mmp-S to P'U feet an v'a Cr 5' 1FXF1 CLIFFHANGER C1 rs Tr pe vears exc ve a pa1' ow "cva torgc 't" a a re 000 uer a ca.r-"' to per satob cad stoc toe are ato a 'esce es ra -c sve pe-A to' -to' pea" S'CPC rg -s sea au -c ruraoie 'errr ato 'to to ot's rv a nerOAp "PG'enCe Ttoto a'6 Ptoy toto to' as' toton 6t ngspjrrgPe Hdr reA tool er ch jrp pg ece uf gam sm ap to toe Rockv Mcutoa peaxs a crror zed a mas'er cr rp pa ayed by Jto" togcw ivtoc become -to a pam pe se cyedi ar saved py Sta cre amototapc "'cer search 'eaemp cp ee pg re pr scp pcse Pocky ac Pamho S'a toe spert yea pg to prcve "'es a ccrp accr tptoaeprrto augnngstock to Cl ffrarge qau doing what ne can oc ex pg wcrk ng r-cse do etol eyes occas ona be to ng oto a ew words And he just ne ThCugh maoe -to eng for toe rich and ntonced cto'actor za' ops rebel" Roy is more Beavis than James Dean In fact ail the characters in Calendar Girl are lacking sympathetic qualities To make up for this, screenwriter Paul Shapiro has given most of them either a physical infirmity or a dead parent Scott (Jerry O'Connell), the third in the trio, has a wooden leg, in a short-lived subplot, a deaf mobster chases the boys to L.A Roy's Uncle Harvey has his nose bandaged in almost every scene Rapid montages of the actual Monroe and her films stand out as the only substance Calendar Girl has, but unfortunately serve to make its Marilyn look-alike look even less like Isn't it awful what dead legends, to say nothing of audiences, get subjected to (CitywideH Paul Malcolm) CURE SHOW Not since Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense has a concert film so adeptly showcased a band's onstage persona. Director Aubrey Powell's sweeping camera movements make up for any lack of onstage antics (the wildest thing lipstick-smeared singer Robert Smith does is stick out his tongue) and allow for lingering looks at individual band members (Smith may still be head gloomster, but the band feels more like an actual group than ever The film opens with a montage of fans milling about the venue, the Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan, June 1992, looking alternately joyful and lost a bit like Smith himself, whom theyre no doubt doing their best ries and toe flashbacks between them Whatever tender wisdom emerges from daughters who struggle with bad marriages, June's sweet interaction with her father, and mothers who fled egregious misogyny China for the fresher troubles of another country. The Joy Luck Club never establishes any emotional momentum Just as you start to care about one pair, one time period or one set of conflicts, Wang cuts to the next tAMC Century 74) (Judith Lews) THE LAST PARTY Do playing a mall rat in Weird Science and a drug addicted ch kid in Less Than Zero. along with a dubious season on Saturday Night Live, qualify Robert Downey Jr as the voice of a generation7 Not hardly, although filmmakers Mark Benjamin and Marc Levin seem to think so Having emerged horn the '80s in a state of political infancy, Downey is sent out to "cover" last year's elections, Benjamin and Levin record his development into an aware twentysomething citizen to the Beastie Boys' "Check Your Head" blaong in the background, he wanders down sidewalks and through demonstrations, praising AIDS activists in New York, giving I hear ya, toother" lip service to people of color, arguing with conservative youth, asking politicians tough questions about the youth Also interviewed are pundits ranging from Patti Davis to Spike Lee to Al Sharpton to most intense filmed performance yet. (Nuart.

Thurs -Tues Sept 9-14) (Derek Thomas) FORTRESS Set in a future America where women are denied abortion and farced to hana their children over to the government. Jack Brenmck (Christopher Lambert) and his blond-with-brains wife erp convicted of fertility and taken to a maximum-security prison in the desert Here the pnsoners are fit with behavior-control devices that inflict pain when they have "incorrect" thought processes (i dream about sex) Jack slowly wins the admiration of his cellmates (who are as ethnically diverse as the cast of Sesame Streefj thanks to his general defiance of authority and his damn good whoopin' of the prison bully When the time comes to escape, his mates selflessly rally around their leader in an attempt to boost his morale "Are you afraid you'll lose us like you lost your platoon?" (the cross he bears from his Army days). Fortress is so busy handing out history and attributes (too bad good acting isnt one of them) to Lambert, all it has left over for the character actors are a few pesky character flaws. He's even blessed bnefly with compassion when the last of his bud dies, a young Latino who drives him and his pregnant wife to the safety of Mexico, gets run over by a truck on arrival No time for tears, though When the dust has settled and the new baby arrives, we get to find out that the problems of three small people really do amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world as long as they're white (Citywide) (Linda Thomas) THE JOY LUCK CLUB Amy Tan's 1 KS9 chronicle of four Chmese-Amencan women and their mothers soared to toe top of toe best-seller lists on the power of its everywoman appeal and, on those grounds, Wayne Wang's film version of The Joy Luck Club isnt disappointing As June (Mmg-Na Wen) comes to terms with her Chi-nese-born mother's death and their strained lives together, she not only invokes her mother's friends and their daughters, or even all women and their mothers, but everyone who's ever had to reconcile their present with toe generat'on that came before Wang respects the simplicity of Tan's tale and the lightness of her telling, not until the end does he soup things up with sentimental devices, and for tnat he's to be forgiven his devices work But he hasn't solved the major problem Tan's book posed for a filmmaker how to mend the seams between four separate sto- HmmjauaarMi TRUE THE BALLAD OF UTTU JO In this gimmick movie with a heart of gold, a woman disguises herself as a man in order to make her way a Western frontier settlement circa I860 Having been offered for sale by a road companion, then harassed and chased by Civil War veterans, Jo's exchange of dress for trousers seems a sensible choice Most of the movie takes place around the tiny town of Ruby City, where the cross dressing Jo settles Here, director Maggie Greenwald has a chance to turn a few Western conventions around the crusty locals judge a newcomer by the quality of his socks, the rowdy saloon becomes ominous and predatory when visited by an otherworldy deaf dumb prostitute, the murderous cattle boss shows up with a withenngly convention-conscious wife Seen through Jos eyes, the moral presuppositions of this world are as far from those of the John Ford Western as were Clint Eastwood's in Unforgiven But The Ballad of Little Jo is much less about genre than gender, and in this respect it may best be compared to Orlando lx's just as episodic, nearly as beautiful to look at, only slightly less polemical, and Suzy Amis gives a much more interesting performance than Tilda Swinton's Unfortunately, Greenwald finds it necessary to litter the film with subtextual pointers on sexual politics Jo has the last laugh on the citizens of Ruby City, but that's just a punch line. What she needs is a story (Sunset 5.

Monica 4-Plex Rachel Cline) CALENDAR GIRL Three best friends go from loving Howdy Doody to lusting after Marilyn Monroe It's 1352, theyre 18. and this is the last summer they have together before heading off to college or a job At the insistence of Roy (Beverly Hills 90210s Jason Priestly), they head to California for one last fling and to ask Monroe for a date Tedious and annoying almost be fore the opening credits have finished rolling, the story is told in flashback, with the nostal-gC slobberings of Ned (Gabriel Olds) telling us exactly whats going on at every moment Its hard to understand why Priestly would have chosen this as his big-screen debut the CURRENT RELEASES Reviewed by Mon Berger, Steve rickson, F.X. Feeney, Paul Malcolm, John Powers and Elk i Taylor. ANOTHER STAKEOUT Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez smirk and wink so often in this film, you'd think they were rehearsing a Saturday Night Live skit Prancing around like a couple of kids gun-toting kids at that they shoot and duck and shoot and make wacky comments and shoot some more They want the audience to know they dont take them selves too seriously, but apparently director John Badham does take the movie seriously the action sequences are intense, alternating so incongru ously with lighter scenes that the humor, forced to begin with, becomes downright gruesome By the time the blood-soaked finale rolls around, it isn't clear whether its supposed to be shocking when all the cops get blown away or whether it's just another bit of slapstick While there are funny moments, and while exploding houses always provide a rush, beyond these surfaces the film lacks the emotional pull to make you care about whether Dreyfuss gets his girl back or not (Estevezs character is so underdeveloped that his entire personal life is detailed in one throwaway line It's as if some high concept had gone terribly awry say, Steven Seagal as Inspector Clouseau Where Lethal Weapon derived humor from its characters' flaws, Another Stakeout puts See Film feature. We also recommend.

And Life Goes On, Cure Show, Dave, Especially on Sunday, Fires of Kuwait, Fora Lost Soldier, Free Willy, The Fugitive, Hocus Pocus, In the Une of Fire, Like Water for Chocolate, King of the Hill, The Meteor Man, Orlando, Poetic Justice, The Quarrel, Reservoir Dogs, Road Scholar, Searching for Bobby Fischer, The Secret Garden, Sllverlake Ufa: The View From Here, Son-In-Law. The Story of Qiu Ju, Strictly Ballroom, Tropical Rainforest, Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography, The Wedding Banquet, What's Love Got To Do With H. ROMANCE in Top Gun Haton movie won sappomt any one who adores act cp pics anp will thr Stallones fans assuming cfccu'se that such creatures still exist jknehJPl ESPECIALLY ON SUNDAY A tno of love stor es vv tep Pv Tomnc Gerra Amamord The Nght of me Scooting Stars Blow Up as rected bv to'ee cf Ita new sh nirg lights toeppe Tcrtotore Cinema Pa rad so) The Gue Cog sto's Ph ippp No re a toarm ng ta cf man totes dog man cses dog map gefs Cog Pack iGtoou'se1) A $crtc Homeward Bound ia ap expert- spare re ec: cn on ope mess ana se ae cp has the untossy ones a Havdn str ng ts supreme'y predictac form allowing a nu ance that resonates and ooesn sappoint useppe Bertoucci Especialh on Sundax stars Omel'a Mat as a detacned d'Jter whose attr3Ct to mp urbane omwess toe oider Brupo Ga' con us to tor npea to nutome nprpnto'Cto tojtoec ftoog toena icver (Anarea Procan a ns stem pest who becks Gapz rw kpv apc pea nora 1WM FITMIH'R lb. 1W, LA WEEKLY 61 Fortress to emulate Songs from the Cure's latest album, Wish (numbering eight of the film's 17), are performed with such vitality that theyre palatable probably even to longtime fans who've long since handed the Cure over to the teenyboppers who now count Smith among tendols The scuttling cameraman effect employed by director Tim Pope in 1 987s The Cure in Orange is again used here, but only briefly, and not to such nauseating effect Ultimately, Cure Show is a pleasure to be enjoyed again and again, it's the band's blase characters in dangerous situations and hopes for the best Maybe on video they'll add a laugh track (Peppertree, Academy, Eagle) Derek Thomas) BETTY Claude Chabrol's character study Betty seems re luctant to resolve any of the questions it raises We are introduced to Betty (Marie Trintignant) as she walks drunkenly out of one bar into the Hole, another bar, where she is rescued from her drug-addicted pickup by Laure (Stephane Audran) Laure cares for Betty in a most maternal manner, and as the two women bond, Betty's past unfolds in a series of flashbacks that tend to be more intriguing, and far more comical, than the rest of the film Through Betty's recollections, we learn that her husband has paid a large sum of money for her to walk out of his life and away from their two children The cause of her expulsion is ultimately revealed through more flashbacks her history of psychologically rooted self-destructive behavior, her passive role in her children's upbringing, her apathetic handling of anyone close to her, her numerous extramarital affairs all of it leading up to getting caught at home with a saxophone player Yet the information provided about Betty doesn't draw us in, worse, it doesn't even make us wish we knew more about her (She doesn't seem to care anout her own existence, so why should we7) After Betty deserts Laure, effectively unraveling Laure 's web in order to weave one of her own, we watch Laure suddenly take command of her existence even if she just gves up Which leaves us wishing we knew more about her, and not so much about Betty (Sunset 5)(Catherine Kelly) BOXING HELENA I guess Madonna and Kim Basinger were only enthralled by the "dark sexuality" of the piece until they found out their character gets dismembered Writer-director Jennifer Chambers Lynch's Boxing Helena is a triumph of marketing as reality the content is secondary to what the film signifies The real product here is the marketing this is a controversial film that says disturbing things The actual movie seems like a random collection of images, not assembled according to the dictates of an interior vision but juxtaposed blindly in desper ate attempts at generating emotion Julian Sands, whose performance is torqued up to Looney Tune levels, sweats and gasps frantically at the sight of Heltod, g'ayed by Sherilyn Fenn, who occasion ally undresses, has sex and gets run over by a truck Characters make no sense, either as "real people" or as symbols of psychological or spiritual processes They're abstracted halves of an ideo logical argument, and it typical of the film's blud geomng gracelessness that we know from toe be ginning which side we're supposed to be on This is millennial filmmaking at its worst dispassion ate and dishonest, presenting only the illusion of catharsis, unable to find either a guiding logic or groove on liberating chaos Plus he never actually puts her in a box1 False advertising1 1 feel so used1 (Citywide) (Hugh Bonar) BREAD AND SALT i Irma Muravyova who escaped to the from the Soviet Union in 1985 (just before Goroachev came into power), decides in the spring of 1991, to risk a pilgrimage home and to bring along a documentary film crew Her timing could not have been more fortuitous She doesn't know it, and neither do the crew but the "Soviet Union" is about to end Suspense is generated in retrospect How much of the coup are we going to see7 What unfolds resolves this anticipation in the act of thwartmg it Wto cares about toe coup7 We see the coming re birth of Russia in our encounters with nd vidua human beings The pleasure of th transcends politics the same toeath that it ves the word politics a fresh definition Tnat seems to be the true agenda Russia these davs they've forsaken communism not to become "Western," but to become more Russian me and again Muravyova leads us to encountpr in a multitude of unique manifestations a people who are by turns ironic, long suftor ng puotam cal dismissive full of hean oarky funny Whv is Lenin picture still hang ng on toat wa '7 she asKS one man He smiles We ethmhang them as long as he doesn ta rector Cc M-ITCMBKR.