The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 163

WEEKEND Masala: Romance in an ethnic broth Film makes complex observations on the nature of racial conflict 3 C2 MOVIE REVIEW iijj SsiMmHS'IV toss?" SfjWf BjM HBfc fm Wf rffB vKS93SXBl By BILLCOSFORD Herald Movie Critic Mississippi Masala is full of good will but it's not preachy and its story of romance in an ethnic broth is fascinating when it's working right Even the title Hindu for a compound of spices suggests the bubbling and popping that is to come The lovers are Demetrius (Denzel Washington) a small-town Mississippi striver who runs a carpet-cleaning service out of his van and Mina (Sarita Choudhury) the daughter of a family of Indian expatriates who have never seen their homeland Mina and her parents were part of the large and prosperous Asian community in Uganda at least until Idi Amin threw all the Asians out in a spasm of racism posing as nationalism Mina's family wound up fleeing for their lives harassed by Ugandan troops and after a period of exile life in England found themselves in Greenwood Miss living in the rundown motel where the mother runs a liquor store As for father he spends much of his time drafting long handwritten pleas to the Ugandan government petitioning for the return of his possessions and more important his citizenship A real setting This offbeat Diaspora is real there's a whole subculture of Indian expatriates running motels some of them the hot-pillow joints of rural lore along MISSISSIPPI MASALA (R) Cast: Denzel Washington Sarita Choudhury Roshan Seth Sharmila Tagore Charles Dutton Joe Seneca Director: Mira Nair Producers: Michael Nozik Mira Nair Screenwriter: Sooni Taraporevala Cinematographer: Ed Lachman Music: Subramaniam A Samuel Goldwyn release Running time: 1 18 minutes Vulgar language violence adult themes secondary highways in the deep South And so the story of a romance between a young Indian woman and a young black man every bit as much "displaced" insofar as he defines himself as an African American has a genuine resonance The film has a daffy quality too the father's crusade is as nutty as it is poignant and the bumping of the care-fullv circumscribed Indian culture with the more comfortable determinedly American black culture produces some hilarious frictions Some predictably tragic ones too Mina and Demetrius do not have an easy time of it and by the end the film has made some fairly complex observations on the nature of racial conflict Holding her own It's a well-acted film though most of LOVE STORY: Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury are lovers in Mississippi Masala Mira Nair whose Salaam Bombay! about homeless children in Bombay was an Oscar nominee in 1988 The same sensitivity and the same feel for color and cultural vitality in the most unlikely places informs this film though it is quieter more intimate and frankly less ambitious It's affecting nonetheless the players are unknowns here What's interesting is how Choudhury holds her own in scenes with Washington who is a high-wattage Hollywood star and seems quite out of place in most of the film Choudhury is just beautiful enough and just composed enough to bring it off Mississippi Masala was directed by 'HEAR MY SONG' Get this Ned Beatty as a celebrated Irish tenor in a casting coup for this small film Now get this He'll make you want to sing too 'THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE' Disney is on an animation roll these days what with Beauty and the Beast and now this What next? Sherlock Wayne's World (far out!) is funny in places MOVIE REVIEW Holmes the who has until now been Wayne's sidekick rather than a fully realized character Carvey lets you know what Garth is thinking through a shift of his eyes a repressed smile a subtle double-take Carvey gets laughs but he seems to know Myers is the star (it is after all WAYNE'S World) and doesn't try to upstage him Wayne's World is at its funniest when it steers away from the plot and into sheer irreverence A Laverne Shirley spoof a jab at the increasing i practice of product placement in movies and a cruise around town with the boys and their friends as they lip-sync Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody are laugh-out-loud funny Girlfriend plays it straight But to see these bits you must also watch Rob Lowe painfully unfunny as the slimy producer and Tia Carrere who plays Wayne's latest amorous target and plays it straight Big mistake here Director Penelope Spheeris (The Decline of Western Civilization documentaries The Boys Next Door) shoots everything in a flat TV-like style It would have been interesting to see what a more creative director (like Tim Burton) would have done with the material Will you like Wayne's World If you liked the SNL skits you'll like the movie If you hated them you should steer clear If you've never visited Wayne's World before check your serious side at the door and approach with caution SNL stars do best work when they escape plot By RENE RODRIGUEZ Herald Staff Writer Saturday Night Live may no longer be the barometer of cultural hipness it was in the 70s but that hasn't stopped longtime producer Lome Michaels from bringing two of the show's most popular characters to the big screen In Wayne's World the movie Wayne (Mike Mvers) and Garth (Dana Carvey) get to mingle with the real world The result is reminiscent of Bill Ted's Excellent Adventure but with a difference: Where Bill and Ted were thrust into outlandish situations (time travel or going to hell) Wayne and Garth create their own bizarre atmosphere For the uninitiated Wayne and Garth are two heavv-metal fanatics from Aurora 111 who have their own public-access cable TV show Broadcasting from Wayne's basement the pair discuss girls music and more girls trading lines like "She's magically babe-licious" "Exqueeze me?" and "If she was a president she'd be Babe-raham Lincoln" You get the idea Hanging out When an opportunistic television executive (Rob Lowe) catches a few minutes of the duo's program WAYNE'S WORLD (PG-13) Cast: Mike Myers Dana Carvey Rob Lowe Tia Carrere Brian Doyle-Murray Lara Flynn Boyle Donna Dixon Colleen Camp Alice Cooper Meat Loaf Ed O'Neill Robert Patrick Director Penelope Spheeris Producer Lorne Michaels Screenwriters: Mike Myers Bonnie Turner Terry Turner Cinematographer: Theo Van de Sande Music: Peter Robinson A Paramount release Running time: 95 minutes Vulgar language sexual situations he decides it's time for Wayne's World to become a real show The rest of the movie charts the progress ot the show's big-time debut and follows Wayne and Garth as they hang out at Stan Mikita's Donut Shop score backstage passes to an Alice Cooper concert and talk to the audience a la Ferris Bueller Myers (who co-wrote the script) and Carvey have been playing these characters for a while now and they've got their routines down pat Myers one of the most uninhibited comedians around is usually good for a laugh whether he's talking about his succession of "no-jobs" or acting goofily romantic Carvey gets laughs Carvey has the tougher role of developing Garth I.