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movie reviews

March 9, 1990

Love at Large

Tom Berenger, Elizabeth Perkins, Anne Archer

Directed by: Alan Rudolph

The impossibly glamorous Miss Dolan, played with slinky panache by Anne Archer, is enjoying a tête-à-tête with private detective Harry Dobbs (an unusually lively Tom Berenger) at a nightclub where people customarily do impossibly glamorous things. Miss Dolan, for example, has just ordered a Manhattan served in a champagne glass. She has also hired Dobbs to trail her roving lover boy Rick. "As long as I know what Rick is doing," she says, holding back her tears, "I have a li... | More »

Joe Versus the Volcano

Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Lloyd Bridges

Directed by: John Patrick Shanley

Nothing too weird here. Tom Hanks is just a working stiff named Joe whose doctor (Robert Stack) tells him he has a short time to live. Hearing the news, Joe accepts an offer from a businessman (Lloyd Bridges). In exchange for a few days of fun on Bridges's credit cards, Joe will go to a South Seas island – the source of a mineral Bridges needs for his business – and jump in a volcano. The natives require a human sacrifice; their chief (Abe Vigoda) can't find any voluntee... | More »

Bad Influence

Rob Lowe, James Spader, Lisa Zane

Directed by: Curtis Hanson

Alex (Rob Lowe) is urging his new pal Michael (James Spader) to vitalize a boring yuppie life. At the office, Michael is stepped on by an ambitious colleague. At home, he's dominated by a rich fiancée. Alex introduces him to a hot number (Lisa Zane), then videotapes their sex play. "You make funny faces when you come," Alex tells Michael after reviewing the tape. In light of the controversy surrounding the infamous home video that Lowe shot with two young women at a Georgia hotel... | More »

Coupe de Ville

Patrick Dempsey, Arye Gross, Daniel Stern

Directed by: Joe Roth

It's 1963 -- a film Cliché for a more innocent time -- and the three Libner brothers are at one another's throats. Yes, it's a comedy. Air-force bully Marvin (Daniel Stern), college man Buddy (Arye Gross) and rebel Bobby (Patrick Dempsey) are driving a Cadillac Coupe de Ville from Michigan to Florida. Yes, it's a road picture. The Caddy is a surprise birthday gift from the boys' father (Alan Arkin) to the boys' mother (Rita Taggart), and Dad wants the car ... | More »

The Handmaid's Tale

Natasha Richardson, Faye Dunaway, Aidan Quinn

Directed by: Volker Schlöndorff

Picture two beautiful women in bed with one man. The first woman -- fully clothed -- moves her legs apart. The second woman -- red gown hitched up -- lies between the other's thighs. The man -- trousers down but white shirt buttoned and necktie knotted -- looms above, penetrating the second woman with a militaristic two-four stroke. Kinky? Maybe in a David Lynch movie. But in this futuristic look at sexual politics, the three-way is about as erotic as a gynecological exam. In adapting T... | More »

House Party

Christopher Reid, Robin Harris, Christopher Martin

Directed by: Reginald Hudlin

Young, unheralded film talents were as plentiful as snow boots in Park City, Utah, during the ten-day Sundance United States Film Festival, which ended on January 28th. Still, the Hudlin brothers, from East St. Louis, Illinois (they call it "the blackest city in America"), made notably deep imprints. Writer-director Reginald and producer Warrington seemed to be everywhere. At screenings, Q&A sessions and receptions, the Hudlins held forth on their debut feature, House Party. The film, abo... | More »

March 2, 1990

The Hunt for Red October

Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn

Directed by: John McTiernan

This just in: some audience members at the film version of Tom Clancy's best-selling submarine saga The Hunt for Red October have been spotted listing in their seats, their eyes dull and glazed. The experts are confounded. The movie boasts a major star (Sean Connery), a stalwart young contender (Alec Baldwin) and the best production $50 million can buy. And John McTiernan, the anything-for-a-jolt director of Die Hard, is at the helm. So how does a book that has readers checking their pul... | More »

Too Beautiful for You

Gérard Depardieu, Josiane Balasko, Carole Bouquet

Directed by: Bertrand Blier

This cheerfully perverse french film -- a bonbon spiked with wit and malice -- starts by asking us to accept a preposterous notion: that businessman Bernard, played by the great Gerard Depardieu, would leave his gorgeous, leggy wife, Florence (Carole Bouquet), for short, dumpy Colette (Josiane Balasko), his office temp. It's a tribute to the wicked craft of writer-director Bertrand Blier (Get Out Your Handkerchiefs) that the situation soon seems, well, not inevitable but tantalizing. Be... | More »

February 23, 1990

Cinema Paradiso

Philippe Noiret, Enzo Cannavale, Antonella Attili

Directed by: Giuseppe Tornatore

There's magic, romance and fun in Italy's entry for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, which has already received the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. This is only the second feature for writer-director Giuseppe Tornatore, known for documentaries and TV films, but he has plugged into something vital about the hold movies have on us. Set in a small village in postwar Sicily – before TVs and VCRs – the film re-creates a time when people gathered in shoe-box theaters, like this villag... | More »

Mountains of the Moon

Patrick Bergin, Iain Glen, Richard E. Grant

Directed by: Bob Rafelson

Bob Rafelson's new movie has no stars, and its subject is British colonialism. Does this maverick director harbor a box-office death wish? Since the Sixties, Rafelson has dreamed of making a film about Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke, the English explorers who set out for Africa in 1854 (the first of two journeys) to discover the "mountains of the moon," the fabled source of the Nile. Now he's done it. The result is an occasion, and not one for napping. Rafelson's reflec... | More »

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