infilm
on screen this month
Robin Williams revives the year of the woman, playing a nanny in Mrs. Doubtfire.
This month's star vehicles are crashing into theaters with everyone from Eastwood to Pacino to Huston on board. Look for grand-scale, pretentious vanity projects, scenery-chewing performances, a couple o' sequels and a few gems here and there.
Mrs. Doubtfire (Fox)
Over the years, Robin Williams has played everything from a Russian circus performer to a singing genie. Now, tired of stifling his feminine side, he disguises himself as a British nanny in Mrs. Doubtfire, the latest from Home Alone director Chris Columbus. Caught on the heels of a nasty divorce from his wife Miranda (Sally Field), Daniel (Williams) will go to any extreme to take care of his children. Why aren't there any good female roles in movies today? They're all being taken by men.
A Perfect World (Warner Bros.)
Actor-director Clint Eastwood follows up his epic anti-Western Unforgiven with A Perfect World, directing
develops a friendship with his 8-year-old hostage. Eastwood plays the Texas lawman on his trail who must reconcile his sympathy for him and his responsibilities as an officer. Is there a screen big enough to hold the egos of these two cultural icons?
The Piano (Miramax)
and starring in this affecting drama about an escaped convict (Kevin Costner) who
In the Cannes Film Festival, this Victorian-era romance from New Zealand director Jane Campion won the coveted Palme d'Or for best picture. Holly Hunter (who also won best actress at Cannes) stars as Ada, a mute whose only means of self-expression is her piano. She travels with it into the New Zealand bush for an arranged marriage with the distant Stewart (Sam Neill), but finds herself falling for his neighbor (Harvey Keitel) instead.
Flesh and Bone (Paramount)
Proving there's life after D.O.A., real-life couple Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan
Carlito's Way (Universal)
Technical wizard Brian De Palma, director of deliciously trashy thrillers like Carrie and Dressed To Kill, teams up with Al Pacino in this tale of the New York underworld. Pacino stars as Carlito Brigante, a mobster trying to go clean after serving time. Even with the help of a streetwise attorney (Sean Penn) and a young dancer (Penelope Ann Miller), Brigante finds reforming difficult. Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the barrios.
are together again in this drama from Steve Kloves, director of the acclaimed Fabulous Baker Boys. The past is catching up with Arlis Sweeney (Quaid), a vending machine repairman who falls for the lovely and talented Kay Davies (Ryan). But their romance is threatened by Sweeney's sinister father (James Caan).
The Three Musketeers (Disney)
Alexandre Dumas' classic story meets the MTV generation in this dubiously conceived adaptation from the director of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Young Guns Charlie Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland team up with Oliver Platt (Indecent Proposal) as the Musketeers who are trying to stop the king's adviser, Cardinal Richelieu (Tim Curry, Loaded Weapon I), from pulling a coup d'état. Promises to be the best Disney live-action film since Gus, the Field-Goal Kicking Mule.
Robocop III (Orion)
Robocop, the metallic product of a bleak futuristic world, is back, hoping to milk
a few more dollars from bloodthirsty American audiences. Oh yeah, and he fights crime too. Newcomer Robert Burke squeezes into the title role of the slain-officer-turned-cyborg who, in this sequel, must track down vicious youth gangs called Splatterpunks and armed commandos from the Amazon War. Remember: "Stay out of trouble."
The Saint of Fort Washington (Warner Bros.)
Matt Dillon and Danny Glover star in what should be a moving drama from River's Edge director Tim Hunter. In the Fort Washington Armory, a homeless shelter, two men develop an unlikely friendship. Jerry (Glover) is a Vietnam veteran cast out of the comforts of middle-class life. Matthew (Dillon) is a schizophrenic who takes pictures of the city with a camera that has no film in it. Director Hunter should give a potentially sappy story a much-needed edge.
No, they're not out to launch a political platform just to cash their hefty
paychecks. Anjelica Huston and Raul Julia reprise their roles as Morticia and Gomez Addams, the masochistic heads of this post-nuclear clan. But this time, they've spawned an addition to the family, a grisly child named Pubert. Expect heartwarming moments mixed with torture. Scott Tobias, The Red and Black, U. of Georgia
Addams Family Values (Paramount)
on the set
You're nearing college graduation without a job or love and you feel doomed to obscurity. But you have company, at least on the screen, in Universal Pictures' upcoming comedy/drama Reality Bites.
Written by 23-year-old Helen Childress, Reality Bites stars Winona Ryder (Age of Innocence), Ethan Hawke (Alive!) and comedian Ben Stiller (The Ben Stiller Show). Slated for release in February, Reality Bites is the story of three college seniors caught in a love triangle.
Stiller pulls double duty in front of and behind the camera in his directorial debut. "In a lot of ways, it's like surfing — you just ride the wave and hope you don't wipe out," Stiller says. "You keep control where you can, but when you have such talented people to work with, you ride it as far as you can."
Big Kuhuna Bon Stiller
Ryder, who also starred in Dracula, gives her reasons for choosing the movie: "I wanted to do a film that reflected people my age and the problems they go through," she says. "Plus in this film I wasn't being chained down and tortured -- at least in the conventional sense." Frank San Miguel, The Daily Cougar, U. of Houston
The Muppet Christmas Carol (Buena Vista) 11/2; Detonator (New Line) 11/3;
Silver (Paramount) 11/10; Bluo Ice (HBO) 11/10; Cliffhanger (Columbia) 11/17;
Free Willy (Warner Bros.) 11/17; Lost in Yonkers (Columbia) 11/17; The Last Days of Chez Nous (New Line) 11/17; American Heart (LIVE) 11/17; The Plague (LIVE) 11/17; Elvis in Hollywood (BMG) 11/23; Made in America (Warner Bros.)
11/24; Splitting Heirs (MCA) 11/24; Adventures of Huck Finn (Disney) 11/24; Life With Mikey (Touchstone) 11/24; Return of the Musketeers (MCA) 11/24; Rising Sun (Fox) 12/1
"I keep remembering I was a busboy in Belmont, Calif. I was mostly stoned, and mostly playing Risk."
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—Dana Carvey, star of Wayne's World II, on his roots
- U. Magazine
NOVEMBER 1803