FILM

Rip It Up, Issue 56, 1 March 1982, Page 18

FILM

Smash^Pal^P^Pß Director: Roger Donaldson Was I alone in thinking Donaldson's previous film, Sleeping Dogs, to be one of the great disasters of. New Zealand Cinema? Smash ■ Palace, whilst mercifullydevoid . of the . : silly 'Future Shock' trimmings of Dogs, is only marginally better. Technically the film] is j fine, a smooth product with images falling easily on the eye, and even at times doing . a little more than that. Donaldson is served well by Bruno Lawrence, who gives . a moving performance . as the alienated hero, and the supporting cast is adequate. Occasionally, the odd scene comes off beautifully, such as the birthday party between father and daughter on the run; although for most of the film the pacing is deadly. With all.its faults, Skin Deep had far more 'heart' than this inflated 'road picture' piece, and Geoff Murphy's Goodbye Pork Pie seems a minor masterpiece alongside it. Apart from other fringe benefits such as Sharon O'Neill's songs, Smash Palace is a mediocre and cynical attempt to beat the Americans at what they can do so much better, with a hamburger in each hand. Shock Treatment . Director: Jim Sharman Perhaps this sequel to the übiquitous Rocky Horror Picture ■ Show looked good . on paper, or perhaps it suffered from being shot in British studios instead of the originally-planned smalltown locations over the Atlantic. Whatever the reason, this is a sad

effort - flabby, tired and straining after effects like a toddler trying to get up to a high shelf. One felt quite exhausted after its mere 90 minutes. : \ ' Alee, one would never in a month of Mother's Days ever suspect that Barry Humphries, even out - of his ■ Edna ’ Everidge drag, could be boring, but he does go on a little overmuch. But with a script like Shock Treatment has, what else is there to do? Go and catch Rocky Horror Picture Show' instead;.- , Three Immoral Women Director: Walerian Borowczyk Once upon a time, this director's bizarre and idiosyncratic cinematic fables only saw the light of day in the more rarified atmosphere of the mid-year film festival. But the commercial success of The Streetwalker a few years back must have given the distributors the idea of bringing out this 1979 Borow'czyk film. ”MBB| Like the earlier Immoral Tales, this is a portmanteau film with three stories, each dealing with a loose but glamorous lady perpetrating her wickedness on the fringes of the art world (the first, for example, concerns Raphael's murder by a delinquent mistress). The middle sequence concerns a young nymphet's affair with a rabbit called Pinky, and the last shows just how close a lady can be to her dog. l'^Miyßi Most of. the humour is saved for these last two, the middle story being delightfully handled by Borowczyk, although ’ the elephantine dubbing detracts badly from the,' elegance of the treatment. Insofar as the film's sexual content, which was certainly the slant that most of the advertising stressed, Borowczyk's characteristic obsession with objects and various . fetishes no doubt , would have made this a mystifying . experience to ' a Sunday night audience intent on cheap titillatioh?^BHH(^iH William 1 Dart ' *. - • .. - ' Contenders for. Academy Awards for Best Film Of The Year are Reds, On Golden Pond, Chariots Of Fire, Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Atlantic City. The five directors of these movies,

Warren Beatty, Mark Rydell, Hugh Hudson, Steven Spielberg and Louis Malle, have all been nominated in the Best Director category ... interestingly, Henry Fonda, who is nominated for Best Actor award, has never won an Oscar ... in the nominations, not even the box-office disasters are ignored. - Michael Ciminos Heaven's Gate receives one nomination, Best Art Director.-... appearing in Mel Brooks' soon-to-be-released History Of The

World Part I . are one. diverse bunch of actors. As well as Brooks' regulars, Dom DeLuise, Harvey Korman, Madeleine Kahn and Cloris Leachman; Spike Milligan, Paul Mazursky, •Huge f Hefner and John Hurt all put in appearances ... upcoming thriller Eye Of The Needle, with Donald Sutherland and Kate Nelligan, is directed by Richard Marquard, who will also direct Star Wars Part. . 111 The Revenge Of The Hedi ... , -