infilm
on screen this month
Dazed and Confused: It's like groovier than The Brady Bunch and Saturday Night Fever.
This month we really want you to peruse our previews. So, we've decided to sell each of them to you à la the Hollywood "pitch." These previews are over the top. They're top notch. They're Die Hard meets Driving Miss Daisy. They're a 12-picture deal with points. Read on. Later, we'll do cappucino. Have your people call my people.
Dazed and Confused (Gramercy)
The pitch: Rock (and Rock) and Roll
High School meets Fast Times at
Ridgemont High
How long has it been since you saw zipper-head hair parts, armpit-high tube socks and denim bib-overalls worn without shame? The '70s nightmare is relived in Dazed and Confused, the story of high school upperclassmen and incoming freshmen on the last day of classes before summer vacation in 1976. Best of all is the soundtrack, which includes such Me Decade unforgettables as: "Rock & Roll Hoochie Koo," "Rock & Roll All Nite" and, of course, "Rock and Roll."
Demolition Man (Warner Bros.)
Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer meets Terminator II Demolition Man pits Sylvester Stallone against Wesley Snipes (who, by the way, looks remarkably like Annie Lennox with his new 'do) as, respectively, a cop and a crook cryogenically frozen. When the thawed Snipes starts killing people, Stallone is defrosted to deal out justice. Look for flyin' sweat.
The Beverly Hillbillies (Fox)
The Beverly Hillbillies meets... The
Beverly Hillbillies. (It's just that simple!)
In Hollywood they say you can't go wrong with a sequel. More recently, it seems you can't go wrong with remaking a modestly successful '60s TV show. The hicks are back with Jim Varney (Ernest of "Hey Vern" fame) as Jed, and Lily Tomlin as Miss Hathaway. Rob
Schneider and Lea Thompson play a pair of nefarious ne'er-do-wells out to get the
Clampett fortune, and Dabney Coleman revisits his familiar bumbling bad-guy role. Might be worth it just to hear that old theme song again.
Mr. Wonderful (Warner Bros.)
Singles meets So I Married a Botanist
Matt Dillon plays a recent divorce trying to find a stud (the unfrozen Wesley Snipes... just kidding) for his ex-wife so he can skip out on alimony payments. Annabella Sciorra (The Hand that Rocks the Cradle) plays the dissatisfied wife who dumps Dillon to pursue her botany degree. Mary-Louise Parker is Dillon's latest love interest.
Fearless (Warner Bros.)
Airport '77 meets The Bob Newbart Show
An impressive cast and
director meet a not-so-impressive plot. Jeff Bridges and Rosie Perez star as two plane crash survivors who become close friends and learn to deal with their respective traumas after being introduced by their therapist (John Turturro of Barton Fink). Isabella Rossellini (Cousins) plays Bridges' comely wife, and Tom Halce (Amadeus) is the survivors greedy lawyer. Look for flyin' limbs.
Cool Runnings (Disney)
Bob Marley does Chariots of Fire on Ice
Bob Martinez goes Charlots of Fire on Ice Hey mon! The sort-of-true story of the four wacky members of the Jamaican Bobsled Team at their debut in the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. Remember these guys? They had never seen snow
before, but they qualified for the big games... and did pretty well. Oh, and John
Candy (Uncle Buck) plays their tough, but lovable, loser of a coach trying to make a comeback.
Rudy (TriStar)
Hoosiers meets The Movie Where Ronald Reagan played the Gipper
Sean Astin (Encino Man) stars in the true story of an unremarkable young man determined to play football for the U. of Notre Dame. Ned Beatty (Deliverance), Jason Miller (The Exorcist) and Lili Taylor (Mystic Pizza) flesh out this ensemble cast. The scenic university, which normally doesn't allow itself to be exploited for celluoid, gave in for this one. Look for flyin' unremarkable young men.
Short Cuts (Fine Line)
L. A. Story meets Gbandi
Short Cuts is yet another promising project from Robert Altman, who never seems to do things on a small scale. The film is based on a collection of nine short stories by Raymond Carver which focus on life in contemporary Los Angeles. What remains to be seen is whether this will be an inspired project like Altman's The Player or a frightening project like his Popeye. Three hours about contemporary L.A.? Scary. Look for flyin' double decaf caps with a twist. Tasha Robinson, The Daily Iowan, U.of Iowa
on the set
Tim Burton, the man who brought you Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and the Batman movies, has teamed with Walt Disney for The Nightmare Before Christmas, a "claymation" film to be released this month about two holiday worlds on a collision course.
Nightmare tells the story of Jack Skellington, a ghoul from "Halloweentown" who stumbles upon "Christmastown" with disastrous results.
Burton's partner, first-time director Henry Selick, says
Trick or Treat?
Nightmare presents "a slightly more twisted side of the Disney world that hasn't been seen too often." Burton's stylized characters bring a touch of the surreal to Disney's cartoon world, which the unusual director considers a triumph. Four years ago he left Disney, frustrated by a too-normal atmosphere where people were afraid to take risks. "It was a very odd time in the company's history," he says. "They'd [pretend to] take risks, but they didn't really."
Times have changed, and Burton and Disney are together again, wishing you a freaked-out Christmas indeed. =Amy McConnell, The Stanford Daily, Stanford U.
video calendar October releases
The Pickle, Columbia/TriStar, 10/6; Fade to Black, Paramount, 10/6; Sweet Killing, Paramount, 10/6; Jack the Bear, Fox Video, 10/6; Dead Alive, Vid Mark, 10/13; Excessive Forces, New Line Video, 10/13; Johnny Stecchino, New Line Video, 10/13; One Crazy Night, Vid Mark, 10/13; Doll Man vs. Demonic Toys, Paramount/Full Moon, 10/13; Indecent Proposal, Paramount, 10/13; Three of Hearts, New Line Video, 10/20; The Sandlot, Fox Video, 10/20; A Far Off Place, Buena Vista, 10/20; Born Yesterday, Buena Vista, 10/27; Extreme Justice, Vid Mark, 10/27; The Dark Half, Orion, 10/27; An American Story, Republic, 10/27
"Because I'm a black man, because of my birthright, I'm a black actor. The key should not be that I'm black, but that I'm an actor."
—Guba Gooding Jr., star of this month's Judgment Night
20 • U.Magazine
OCTOBER 1993