oscar@utcsrgv.UUCP (Oscar M. Nierstrasz) (09/23/83)
More capsule reviews...
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Peeping Tom (Powell, Michael; GB; 1959; 109m) **
Unimportant but enjoyable old thriller about a reclusive young
man with a camera and a penchant for gore.
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Mad Love (Freund, Karl; USA; 1935; 83m) **
Peter Lorre in this remake of "The Hands of Orlac". Nifty old
horror flic about a pianist whose hands are crushed in a train
acccident. Lorre transplants the hands of a knife-throwng parri-
cide onto the pianist's wrists with unusual side-effects. The
twist is that Lorre is in love with the pianist's wife ....
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Ghost, The (Achtenbusch, Herbert; Germany; 1982; 88m) *
I walked out of this one. This is an odyssey about a Christ in a
convent who comes to life and joins the Mother Superior in open-
ing a bar. Bad (German) puns and childish scatalogical "humour"
pass for satire and religious commentary. Those who are not of-
fended will merely be bored. No fear of this one getting picked
up for distribution.
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Vertigo (Hitchcock, Alfred; USA; 1958; 128m) *** 1/2
No one ever explained why, but "Vertigo" and several other
Hitchcock films have not been sccreen in North America for years.
(Copyright disputes, or some such problems, I suppose.) This is a
great old movie starring James Stewart as a retired police detec-
tive with a fear of heights and a devious plot that takes advan-
tage of this fear. Kim Novak is the wife of a millionaire who is
possessed by the spirit of her great grandmother and is on the
brink of suicide. Some of the dialogue is badly dated, and the
film's ending is a bit of a letdown, but the film as a whole is
enormously entertaining. I believe a major re-release is
scheduled for "Vertigo". It is well worth seeing in a big thea-
tre instead over the little glass tube (the Technicolor is beau-
tiful -- it's a shame the process is no longer used).
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Actress, The (Cukor, George; USA; 1953; 90m) ** 1/2
Vastly entertaining film about Ruth Gordon's experiences as an
aspiring actress. Spencer Tracy is great as the old sea-dog who
is Gordon's father and wants her to get a good education.
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On the Razzle (Donovan, Terence; GB; 1982; 90m) **
British video of a Tom Stoppard play. This is an interminable
series of bad puns and up-hamming. If it appears on Public
Television, avoid it unless you really have nothing better to do.
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Seventeen (DeMott, Joel & Kreines, Jeff; USA; 1982; 120m) ***
A documentary about teenagers in the American South. The spon-
sors thought they were getting an update of "Room 222". After
one viewing they banned the film and the insurance company pulled
out an escape clause and cancelled the policy. The film can't be
seen in the States right now (the filmmakers don't want to get
their pants sued off them), but I expect it may show up on telev-
ision one day. This is a fascinating and brutally honest film
that covers such topics as race relations, unwanted pregnancy and
sudden, unexpected death. See it if you possibly can.
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Wanderer, The (Albicocco, Jean-Gabriel; France; 1971; 103m) **
1/2
Very strange, mystical film about a magnificent, mysterious party
in the middle of a forest, and the subsequent search for a woman
was there at the time. Beautiful to watch, but probably makes
more sense if you're on drugs at the time. I wasn't.
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Three (Salter, James; GB; 1969; 105m) *** 1/2
Great film about two American college students on vacation in Eu-
rope who meet an young woman and continue on route together. Any
plot summary would make this film sound dull or childish -- I
nearly didn't go to see it. Instead I was treated to a fascinat-
ing, low-key film about moods and unspoken feelings (there was
very little dialogue). (Gee, it's hard to make this film sound
good ...)
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Insiang (Brocka, Lino; Phillipines; 1978; 95m) ***
"Insiang" is a story of revenge about a young woman who is raped
by her mother's lover. Brocka picked this film to be screened at
the festival because, in his own words, he hadn't done anything
worthwhile in the last three years or so. Brocka makes melodra-
mas for the Phillipino market because of the rigid censoring in
that country. If he wants to survive, he cannot make political
films. He is too popular a director, though, to be "crushed" by
the Marcos regime. He has managed to get away with making films
like "Jaguar" and "Insiang" which are, on the surface, melodra-
mas, but also reveal much that is uncomplimentary to the Philli-
pino government and the social structure. All of "Insiang" takes
place in the slums of Manila, for example. For this reason, Mrs
Marcos will not allow Brocka's films to be screened outside of
the Phillipines except for the occasional film festival.
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David Roche Talks to You About Love (P., Jeremy; Canada; 1983;
20m) ** 1/2
This short film is based on a play (?) by David Roche. The film
is fresh out of film school, but the monologue by David Roche is
not. It is exactly what the title claims it is and more. Very
witty film about, in David Roche's case, homosexual love, but can
be extrapolated almost effortlessly to the heterosexual case.
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King Blank (Oblowitz, Michael; USA; 1983; 80m) BOMB
Few films are this bad and pointless. I should have known. Kay
Armatage (a UofT professor who selects films for the festival) is
known for picking "experimental" films of questionable worth. A
man and a woman indulge in pervisity and exchange abuses. Bor-
ing.
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War and Peace (Boll, Heinrich; Kluge, Alexander; Schlondorff,
Volker; Aust, Stefan and Engstfeld, Axel; Germany; 1983; 120m) **
Not Tolstoy's. This is all about Pershing missiles in Germany
and stuff like that. We saw the (unsubtitled) German version
which is 40 minutes longer than the version that will be released
in North America. The 40 minutes that they took out would prob-
ably make the best version to see. This film had its moments but
it had more long minutes. (Sort of the feel that "Our Hitler"
had.) Nevertheless worth seeing on TV (PBS, probably) to get an
impression how Germans feel about all those American nuclear war-
heads in their country.
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Danton (Wajda, Andrzej; France/Poland; 983; 136m) *** 1/2
Great film by Wajda ("Man of Iron", "Man of Marble") about Danton
and Robespierre. Gerard Depardieu is superb as Danton/Lech Wale-
sa (the parallels are too obvious too miss). This film will un-
doubtedly get released. Go see it.speaker@umcp-cs.UUCP (09/26/83)
Was "Peeping Tom" the film about the guy who likes to film women as he stabbed them to death with the knife in his tripod? Supposedly he had a mirror rigged up on the tripod so that the women could SEE herself murdered. This heightened the expression on her face and thus made for a more exciting piece of film. Sick. -- - Speaker speaker@umcp-cs speaker.umcp-cs@UDel-Relay