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LA Weekly from Los Angeles, California • 28

Publication:
LA Weeklyi
Location:
Los Angeles, California
Issue Date:
Page:
28
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

work his character ultimately scorns But scorns is the wrong word Lewis likes his audience and sympathizes with the fact that they're the ones who get the dirty end of the stick, his rebellions are their rebellions It's no great service to anyone's adventure-starved'soul, but Hardly Working only wants to provide relief rather than refreshment And that it does From beginning to end, it's a chuckle, which may not be art but it's certainly entertainment And if you don't believe me, just ask the guy who goes to the movies on bargain mte at the shopping mall (GV) THE HOWLING A TV reporter tries to warn the world that werewolves are alive and well in Southern California That's the plot, but that's not the point The point is that The Howling is for the "hipoisie" failure that came before (GV) GOING APE I've learned to stop dropping blanket statements like worst-movie-ever-made, but it's as handy a phrase as any to use on this The last time I can recall being this stunned by an inept comedy goes all the way back to Herbie Goes Bananas, with which this would make a particularly grotesque double bill (MD) HARDLY WORKING Jerry Lewis doing what he always did misbehaving He's not so insane nor so energetic as he was back when we were all a lot younger and liked him a lot more, but his appeal is basically the same Here, he's the guy. who can't keep a boring job and gets away with it anyway Obviously his audience isn't hip, or they wouldn't be slaving away at the very ing along its tracks, producerdirector Murray Lerner has a badly bumpy time trying to tie his sprawling subject together. But finally, that hardly matters, sipce Stern himself is often paste enough to prevent the picture from pulling apart. When he's working with conservatory students in a concert hall where hundreds of happy faces beam their pleasure with the man and his music, the movie is exactly the document it needs to be. And when the Chinese conservatory director quietly remembers how he resisted suicide and madness under unspeakable provocation dunng the Cultural Revolution, From Mao to Mozart shines For this gentle, cultured man refused to recant his love of the Western music that was his life out of no mere sentimental posturing He was an artist who would not betray hts art, and these few moments with him redeem any fault and every An action streaked thriller that builds to a shattering and startling climax.

Gene Shalit, NBC-TV Today Show Taut, a winning movie. Rona Barrett, NBC-TV Tomorrow Stallones best role to date, Rocky included. Mm Brown, KNBC-TV what Maniac or Eyes of a Stranger is for regular people You can't identify with the victims -they're too stupid, and you can't identify with the monsters they're too artificial So you sit back, serene in your superiority, and get a charge out of everybody being chopped up, chewed up, or gutted They're so dumb they deserve it And the great thing is, there's no guilt involved because The Howling is a spoof, the sort of picture that practically apologizes for its existence even while it sucks up to an audience with savvy humor and, in this case, snappy special effects Nor for a minute is it necessary to take the werewolves and their est-ian shenanigans seriously or even sarcastically. It's only necessary to know that John Sayles Retum of the Secaucus Seven) and Joe Dante Piranha know you know what they're up to And what they're up to is making a buck and a bid for the big time by making a movie they feel superior to, too (GV) KNIGHTRIDERS See Pick of the Week THE LAST METRO From Francois Truffaut, the sort of movie he once said he never would make Basically, it's a costume drama There's the beautiful, brave heroine (Catherine Deneuve), the potentially tragic love triangle (Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu, Heinz Bennett), the diligently-researched historical backdrop (Occupied Paris in the '40s), the wholly honorable hero (a Jewish theatre director) and the completely vile villain (a Nazi sympathizing theatre reviewer) What's missing is any insight or electricity, that last being an especially odd omission considering the theatrical context The problem is Truffaut, a director who serves his style rather than his subject It was a nasty time for the French when they were occupied, but Truffaut is too nice to force an audience to feel any of it The Last Metro is so resolutely non-nasty that you begin to suspect the real ugliness lies buried in the mind of a man who only wants audiences to like him The occasion called for a movie that meant something, and Truffaut made a pretty toy instead (GV) LION OF THE DESERT The term "concentration camp" was coined by Mussolini's General Graziam in his campaign against the Bedouin Arabs of Libya in 1929 -he would "concentrate" all the women, children and old men in huge camps, so that the Bedouin guerrilas, led by Omar Mukhtar among others, would lose their support groups It was the first time a 20th-century army had campaigned against civilians Pursuing the out numbered, out gunned Bedouins, Graziam did one of the "great" creative acts of 20th century warfare by employing tanks in the desert No one had thought of it before As we all know now, it works The fate of Omar Mukhtar and his people is the story of bon of the Desert, directed with the scope and passion it deserves by Moustapha Akkad Although the history is simplified (Mukhtar's movement must have been as rife with factions as any, and far more gritty than this film can show), the movie cap tures not only the scale of these events but their emotional weight Americans usually sit around confused about why Arabs hate Euro peans Lion of the Desert is a primer on why Anthony Quinn as Mukhtar, Oliver Reed as Gra ziam and Rod Steiger as Mussolini haven't got ten together for just another star shish kebab This is a serious movie, done not greatly but seriously and well It helps you read between the headlines (MV) MAN OF MARBLE Man of Marble is a beautiful film, but a broken one Its title refers to Mateusz Birkut, a bricklayer honored by the Polish government as a hero for his revolutionary work methods, who fell into disfavor and all but disappeared before de-Stahnization It's the end of Birkut's story that a student filmmaker searches for 30 years later in Andrzej Wadja's movie. But it's an end that has neither clarity nor impact for an American audience The Polish censors saw to it that any footage linking Birkut's fate with that country's present political problems was deleted Of course, no censor can dilute the command Wadja has over filmmaking technique and how he uses that command to inform his disgust with the laziness most people like to call freedom But the sad fact is that mutilation makes Man of Marble only a gifted, spotty sprawl instead of the powerful, personal state ment it was intended to be (GV) MODERN ROMANCE Albert Brooks is clearly trying to move in on a territory staked out by Woody Allen in Annie Hall, and for a good half of this film he's very successful Brooks himself plays the lead, a filn A MARTIN POLlPRODUCTION COMPANY Production NIGHTHAWKS Starring BILLY DEE WILLIAMS LINDSAY WAGNER PERSIS KHAT.BATTA NIGEL DAVENPORT and RUTGER HAUER as Wulfgar Screenplay by DAVID SHABER Story by DAVID SHABERand PAUL SYLBERT Executive Producers MIKE WISE and FRANKLIN LEVY Produced by MARTIN POLL Directed by BRUCE MALMUTH Music by KEITH EMERSON Onpil Soundtrack on Backstreet Records md Tapes A UNIVERSAL PICTURE imumm cm s'uow NOW SHOWING COVINA Fox Covina 332-0050 LA HABRA Fashion Square 691-0633 ARCADIA COSTA MESA LONG BEACH MARINA Santa Anita Cinema South Coast UA Movies 445-6200 714549-3352 594-6525 PUENTE HILLS Puente East 912-8566 REDONDO BEACH South Bay Cinemo 542-4361 SHERMAN OAKS Sherman Oaks Cinemo 986-9660 THOUSAND OAKS Conejo Twin 805495-6760 WESTMINSTER MALL UA Twin 714893-1305 WOODLAND HILLS Woodland Hills Cinema 703-7571 ORANGE Cmedome 20 714634 2553 CARSON EAGLE ROCK PLAZA South Bay Drtve-ln Eogle Rock Cinema 532-8811 254-9101.

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About LA Weekly Archive

Pages Available:
162,014
Years Available:
1978-1999