Birmingham Evening Mail from Birmingham, West Midlands, England • 27

JULY 10 1986 27 FILMS by TERRY GRIMLEY EVENING MAIL THURSDAY End the Spielberg purple patch Whoopi Goldberg: enormous character and appeal Steven Spielberg king of popcorn movies apparently made a dramatic change of direction with his latest film The Color Purple (PG Futurist John Bright Street) On the face of it Alice novel looks sombre down-beat material It is the story of an uneducated black woman in rural Georgia who over 40 years suffers rape separation from her two illegitimate children and her adoring sister brutal treatment from an unfaithful husband and still manages to emerge not only unbowed but triumphant It is one of those American sagas so Golden boy shows his serious side characterisation becomes conspicuously thin It is not long before the film deteriorates to contrived miniseries standards As a kind of one-episode soap opera the film is certainly sumptuously mounted and beautifully photographed by Allen Daviau Some of the early scenes reminded me of Days of Heaven and for sheer visual beauty you cannot get much better than that Whoopi big-eyed largely silent performance lingers in the memory but it is difficult to understand where her character finds the confidence for the final confrontation with her husband or to become an instantly worldwise and successful woman once she has raised the courage to leave him Perhaps these questions are answered in the novel In the film it seems that Spielberg had by this point abandoned plausibility in a final melodramatic push for the Oscar which never came weighed down with worthiness and good intent that you feel that if Spielberg could not win an Oscar with this he probably never will Generally the film is a big disappointment although it is true that it has a central performance of enormous character and appeal by Whoopi Goldberg as the victim-heroine Celie The problem is inability to maintain any degree of restraint Patronising After a promising start this becomes more obvious as the film goes on culminating in the ludicrous scene where the revellers at a shanty juke-joint are moved by the Gospel singing from a nearby church to lay down their jive music and march in singing procession to join the congregation It is a scene which reveals a sentimental and somewhat patronising attitude to black people and this is a pity because the sheer novelty of a film in which virtually all the characters are black makes the earlier stages of the film so interesting Yet with the arrival of subsidiary figures like Shug Avery the bluessinging daughter with whom husband is straying the The Rich delight for jazz fans Buddy Rich Odeon Theatre Birmingham Buddy Rich is older and much greyer but no less astonishing Back in Britain to headline Jazz Festival the King of Rhythm last night showed that the years have made no difference to his amazing talents Now in his late 60s he is definitely the centrepiece of the orchestra his drums pitched centre-stage and every number driven on by his unerring drumbeat every accent sharpened to an exciting edge Rich has probably done as much as anyone to further the cause of young jazz musicians His latest band fresh faces in Britain looks like the pick of college graduates but they perform for their master like old hands moving easily from standards to new swing numbers As much as making music Buddy Rich proves that music can be fun and he had the Odeon audience rolling in the aisles with wisecracks If the organisers wanted a fitting climax for their jazz festival they could have picked no one better Buddy Rich is as much a star as a musician KEVIN EASON Guests are right on song CBSO Proms Iona Brown Felix Kok Birmingham Town Hall The final week of the CBSO Proms opened last night with a pleasant and popular programme directed from the violin by guest director Iona Brown It included another exquisite performance of the Vaughan Williams masterpiece The Lark Ascending This romance for violin and orchestra captures the true spirit of that small bird pouring its heart out above the open countryside Iona Brown made her violin sing! Equally memorable was the Bach Concerto in Minor for two violins in which the director was joined as soloist by Felix Kok the CBSO leader They formed a splendid partnership in this interesting work The concert sponsored by TI began with Symphony No 29 in A which I felt lacked something of its usual sparkle The main work Serenade for Strings was played with much more zest and completed a triumphant evening for the director and orchestra NORAH LEWIS Portrait of a great artist The Art of Success The Other Place Stratford-upon-Avon Nick passionate and most heartfelt play charts progress through what was conveniently called The Age of Enlightenment But there is precious little of that in Mr spectrum and less charity We see Hogarth obsessed with his creative demon It puts his morality on the blink which provides amusement for the mixed society of his time Hogarth comes across as a wheedling little pervert anxiously begging a whore to invent new tricks for him The creative juices are rooted in sexual deviation As the play closes plays are banned by the new censorship laws brought in by a jocular Robert Walpole Finally Hogarth joins the Establishment We suspect he surrendered his wife to lust but at least he is the first to benefit from the new copyright act thus becoming respectable and rich A splendid company played the piece to the hilt It is gutsy (no details of sexual preferences are omitted) and often roar-ingly funny RICHARD EDMONDS Curtis plays a woman who discovers letters revealing her mother's long-standing affair with a married man and becomes drawn into a similar relationship Jamie Lee Curtis and James Keach in Love Letters (18 Triangle) a film directed by Amy Jones which has been described as "a romance for the post-feminist 1980s" 6 Pn' STM to It takes two to tango Paul! Paul Cole in his open letter to Mick Jagger (Mail July 2) accuses him of arrogance in asking the BBC not to show his Dancing in the Streets duet with David Bowie It takes two to tango Having seen the video of the same duet which made No 1 in the pop charts I can only think that the move to ask for withdrawal came from Bowie His performance was to put it bluntly contrived and to any male over 30 embarrassing Mick Jagger is the senior partner but his performance was natural as was his duet with Tina Turner at the American Live Aid show Mick Jagger stole that show If Paul Cole believe that tell him to ask Tina Turner herself or Bob Dylan Jim Rogers St Hcliers Road Northfield Hottest property in Tinsel Town the hottest pop act in Hollywood? Well not Prince and not Madonna David Bowie and Mick Jagger even come close The name on tinsel-town lips is Wang Chung the Brit band who have yet to savour the sweet taste of success here in their own homeland In the States the biggest thing since Babe Ruth after working on a string of major movies To Live And Die In LA The Breakfast Club and Fire In The Twilight Wang Chung music has also been used in five other movies and been featured in top TV show Miami Vice They play to crowds of 20000 or more get invited to all the top showbiz parties and enjoy a jet-set lifestyle Nick Feldman co-leader of the group rang from Vienna to tell me all about the band that has broken box office records quite hard to he said Holly- ers By wood known England done LA Friedkin off our he includes French The major new agent Wang Chung: a huge hit in the States but so far unsuccessful back home in Britain ETC ETC or to PAUL COLE a very good film with a lot of said Nick are no good guys and bad guys just a man with an obsession who breaks the law in a bid to catch a Wang Chung are now turning their sights back toward Britain The title track of To Live And Die In LA is out as a single and an album to come this summer would be fair to say that our stature in Britain rates from poor to miserable" said Nick the time to change all that like a movie with a happy ending" very well but back home in people think we're one-hit wonders latest film is To Live And Die In with director William He heard a track album and decided liked our Friedkin whose pedigree The Exorcist The Connection and Sorcerer is scoring success with the movie about a federal chasing counterfeit- PORCUPINE FURNITURE UNITS SMALL HEATH TRADING EST ARMOURY ROAD BIRMINGHAM 021 772 2265 tr rs mne vHl rfk.