Reviews

"Star Wars - The Phantom Menace" is placed within the deep lore of the jedi myth, the force that guides everything in the galaxy. People who are interested in the deep fabric of the story will like this movie best. The rest of the movie is forced, uninvolving, and kind of desperate especially when it comes to trying to create the new Han Solo, the new Darth Vader. Jar Jar Binks? Darth Moll? No, it just didn't happen.

This is a movie that has to establish everything so why does the movie contain so many scenes similar to the original trilogy? The celebration, the light sabre duel in the corridor(and death), the imperial "stompers". None of this sticks. The film is a triumph of visual effects(although I found the federation robot army a bit glassy) but in the service of what, really? Kids are not compelled by this kind of stuff, not the politicking or the King Arthur elements.

What I liked about the film, aside from the technical elements, were some of the actors strangely enough? Jake Lloyd was very engaging as Anakin and Liam Neeson found the right tone of reverence and age for the role of the Jedi Master, although I'm not sure why his body didn't vanish at the end......but never mind. Ewan McGregor looks lost in his role but I guess staring at a blue screen will do that to you. Natalie Portman was quite fetching as the Queen.

I liked the deep respect and awe shown for the jedi myths and procedures and Darth Moll was a suitably fearful and challenging villain and his dual light sabre was splendid to watch.

I am looking forward to the next two installments which will no doubt be more meaty and aggressive, but Lucas really has to be more sharp and less naive and generic with the screenplay. The Queen says, "they've won this round". A boxing analogy? And on.

The identity of Anakin's father is a deep mystery, although how Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia came to be most certainly is not. I recommend the film, in spite of itself, even though it pales in comparison to any of the previous three films, even though it lacks heart and magic. It is an important movie, undeniably. It's just a shame that with all of the resources that it wasn't a whole lot better and smarter.

To anyone who says that they'd had enough of the original Star Wars characters, I say that I couldn't disagree with you more.

**1/2 (out of four)

'Manhunter' is about real fear, real terror, something that thrillers rarely are able to convince us of. Anyone who thinks 'Silence of the Lambs' is a better film then 'Manhunter' knows nothing about movies - period.

HARD CHOICES begins with a young boy in a small town who dreams about flying planes. One day his brother and another guy take him on a joyride, which culminates in the murder of a store clerk in a botched robbery. That's the end of the kid. The kid is a victim of circumstance but not to the law who put him in a cell with the hard criminals.

HARD CHOICES begins in almost documentary fashion. We observe the Tennessee backwoods where Bobby lives. Up until the crime the movie seems painfully routine - I guess that's the idea - and then the murder. The middle text of the movie is with Bobby in prison, and he's a hearbreaker. A female social worker(Margaret Klennck) comes to visit him. Bobby's attracted to her and she to him and then the unpredictable happens.

HARD CHOICES, gritty and rough, contains moments of pure revelation. The sad course of Bobby's life and the shocking but touching affair with the woman whch is both senstive as it is hot and forbidden.. That's unpredictable enough but things escalate, the movie becomes a sombre thriller and anything's possible.

I didn't recognize any of the actors in this movie, although John Sayles plays a kind hearted drug dealer with a crush on the woman. This movie come to think of it is full of hard choices and Rick King the director never makes the material predictable or soapy. In the end, all we can hope is for Bobby to have some kind of life., maybe flying a plane. This is a great film, the kind of film that cries out to be discovered on video and cable.

DG

STAR STAR STAR STAR (out of four)

In PURPLE RAIN, the movie's star appears in front of the screen in a cloud of mystery. His character, called simply The Kid has kind of a svengali effect on everybody he meets. The club he plays in is the First Avenue which we learn has been the starting point for many up and coming superstars. The movie's set in Minnesota, Prince's hometown and it doesn't seem like the kind of place people want to end up in.

There's other characters in this semi-biographical , semi performance movie. The rival act in the club(led by Morris Day of the time), and a young girl, straight out of a cab who wants to make it big and steal the Kid's heart. This isn't easy, because just when it seems like Prince is putting himself above the material(his own band walk egg shells around him) we go home and meet his parents. In the movie's powerful dramatic scenes we see the father(Clarence Williams III) beating up his wife. This happens a lot, and since The Kid gets beat up by his father everytime he tries to intercede, he stays down in the basement and turns up the volume sky high.

PURPLE RAIN is a towering achievement, one of the best musicals I've seen. The music is fantastic. At the end of the movie on stage, Prince sings "I will die 4 U" and it's intercut with his father laying in a hospital bed with the mother beside him. It's electric. The whole movie is like that. This is a movie that not only has great music but the performances are good and dramatically compelling. You see, the father was a musician himself, and very bitter that he didn't make it out of Minneapolis. In a harrowing scene, after The Kid's mother has shot the father, he discovers a chest full of his father's music. The movie wisely never tells us whether any of the songs at the end were the old man's songs.

I mentioned how Prince is like a svengali figure. You see that in the forced scenes with his band mates, The Revolution. Everyone seems scared of this guy, like he'll fire them or something. In the end credits, all of the songs except one are credited to Prince. There's a subplot involving two female band members who urge him to perfom their song, "Purple Rain." He does and it's the crescendo of the movie, but that's a Prince song. PURPLE RAIN is a wonderful movie and Prince is electric, but he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'll take orders.

DG

STAR STAR STAR STAR (out of four)

THE MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN begins with a sculptor roaming around LA trying to find out what makes women tick. The sculptor is played by Burt Reynolds, one of the biggest movie stars in the world, so I guess the women will pay attention. Actually, the movie begins with his funeral and we see woman after woman in all shapes and sizes, roaming up the cemetery grass to pay tribute to this guy.

Now any movie with an opening like this had better feature one helluva guy so we immediately cut to the scenes of Burt seducing woman after woman, while providing some tender advice on life to keep them warm when he's gone in the morning. I really liked Burt Reynolds performance in this movie. He shows in this movie that when he wants to he can be a fine actor. We know Burt Reynolds has an amazing screen presence but it's nice to see him in a movie where he doesn't wink at the camera to show us how much fun he's having. His scenes with the feminist shrink(Julie Andrews) are funny as Reynolds exhibits every male symptom in the book. The women are Cynthia Sikes, Marila Henner and Kim Basinger to name a few, and rest assured that they're all(especially Basinger)very beautiful.

If the movie had stayed true to this idea it might've been special.but it degenerates into a series of three's company set ups and grows tired. After Basinger stirs Reynolds interest they have a romp in her husband's condo. The husband arrives and Reynolds must lurch around. I couldn't count how many scenes there were like that. It's at this point we realize the movie isn't going to be as incisive as it promised. It's silly how Reynolds keeps getting into the same situation with the jealous husband and not very funny either, not even when he say, glues his hands to the steering wheel.

Another major problem is the chemistry between Reynolds and Andrews. There's no heat between them and I suspect that maybe they didn't get along with each other on the set. This isn't the type of a man she'd go out with, canon of ethics aside. It's awkward at the end when Andrews drops everything to join Reynolds on vacation when we don't even believe he's gotten to first base. I can't quite recommend THE MAN WHO LOVED WOMEN, it's just not true to itself. The movie introduces us to an interesting man looking to make real discoveries and ends up with a bunch of people who aren't right for each other.

DG

STAR STAR (out of four)

TRAIL OF A SERIAL KILLER is an aggressively bad entry into the serial killer genre, or in this case made for video which means I won't bother comparing the good movies in the genre(Seven, Kiss the Girls) or the bad(Copycat, Switchback) This movie which lurches across the screen before dying of its own nauses would deserve a mantle all its own.

The movie opens with a young girl who leaves a movie theatre(the Paradise none other) and is murdered on the walk home. But wait there's more. The killer takes the girl's picture, tapes her hands and then puts one of those movie notes in her mouth for Detectives Michael Madsen and Chris Penn to find, complete with magazine clipped lettering. It's hilarious, this killer with his sense of all purpose. And of course Penn has a psychological battle with the killer who "he knows" is responsible for this one too. The killer calls him and his family so you see it really is important that he finds this guy fast.

Did I mention the intercut between the shrink (Jennifer Dale) who only sees her crazy patients at night? One of her patients tells her she gets excited by committing violent acts. Is she the killer? Dale holds a meeting at a dark church for her most dangerous patients where we hear dialogue about sex and violence that's so corny you wonder how the actors could even respect the material enough to speak it. The whole movie's at such a garbage level what with the hollow plot and abandoned settings which smacks of four in the morning filming locations shot in warehouses and crackshops. The identikit, do everything killer is so bad it really is funny and Madsen and Penn spend the whole movie being over the top and macho when they should be taking fingerprints and watching smarter, techically competent movies of the genre.

A few weeks ago I was watching a show about killers where the host suggested that murderers like Ted Bundy should kill themselves instead of wasting society's time. You got a murder suicide plot, kill yourself is the point I think. TRAIL OF A SERIAL KILLER wants us to accept a serial killer, a cop, who we're supposed to suspect is crazy himself, wrapped up in a silly, low-rent world to find out who the killer is. Who knows? Who cares?

DG

NO STARS(out of four)