FILM

Rip It Up, Issue 60, 1 July 1982, Page 26

FILM

Wellington film festival starts July 9. Includes Debbie Harry in Union City and Mangere Bridge movie Men In Dispute. Auckland festival starts July 16. Features Atlantic City and My Dinner with Andre directed by Louis Malle, Health by Robert Altman, Radio On (with music from Bowie, Fripp etc.) and Everyman for Himself by Jean Luc Godard.

NZ movies in the making: Strata (Phase Three films) directed by Geoff Steven (Skin Deep), Utu by Geoff Murphy (Pork Pie) and Wild Horses by Derek Morton (Endeavour) ... Scarecrow has been sold for release in the USA, Canada, Britain and Australia ...German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Lola, Maria Braun, Fear Eats the Soul) has died, aged 36 ... Variety says of Gillian Armstrong movie Starstruck: "First Australian stab at a musical ... doesn't have a soundtrack with commercial beat to penetrate beyond its shores". (Starstruck features songs by Swingers, Phil Judd and Tim Finn). Victor/Victoria Director: Blake Edwards What do 10, 5.0.8. and Victor/Victoria all have in common? They are all comedies? Right. They all star Julie Andrews? Right again, but the

most important feature is that they are progressive stages in the latterday renaissance of Blake Edwards. And V/V is a sparkling gender comedy from a director whose, talents seemed to be almost buried in an endless succession of Pink Panther films. This film, with Julie playing a man playing a woman (think about that one!) is set in Paris in the 30s. The perfect setting too for a piece with extraordinary wit and charm. Robert Preston, who has been giving some marvellously bizarre performances of late (Semi Tough, 5.0.8.) is outrageously funny as a gay cabaret performer who realizes Julie's hitherto untapped talents. It is pleasing to have a comedy on this aspect of life which does not end up being a sexist put-down (as was La Cage aux Folles) Body Heat Director: Lawrence Kasdan A stunning directorial debut from Kasdan, who has already provided Hollywood with some of its neatest scripts such as that for Polanski's Chinatown. Kasdan scripted Body Heat himself and

gives us a classic "film noir" for the eighties as the sultry Kathleen Turner leads William Hurt's smalltown Lothario into a web of murder and intrigue. Echoes of Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity abound, a forties film where Fred McMurray got himself into much the same mess for a few on-screen clinches from Barbara Stanwyck. Turner is a little more liberal with her favours, but the heat of the title is much more than just steamy sex. It is an image that pervades the entire film from the sweating bodies of the actors to the nightmare intensity of the final denoument. The director mounts the most exquisite images like a cinematic jeweller, holding them together with one of the most bristling and pertinent scripts for some years. Missing Director: Costa-Cavras Costa-Gavras offers,a trite and unsatisfying expose of the American involvement in the 1973 Chilean military coup, with Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek as the unfortunate pawns in the larger political game.

As a thriller, it holds together. But the anti-American propaganda is naive and not helped by the crudely caricatured portraits of almost all but three or four of the American characters. The mixture of documentary and art-film is an uneasy one. The film is much too tricky for its own good from upward shots of bodies spreadeagled on a glass roof, to the obvious irony of Brenda Lee singing "My whole ’ world is falling down" at an American party. And as for the Vangelis score ... where is Mikis Theodorakis these days now that we need him. Blow Out Director: Brian De Palma Sitting through this latest De Palma effort, I began to realise just how superb Coppola's Conversation was some years back. This film managed. to examine with eloquence and style all the “serious" issues which are struggling to get out of Blow Out without any of the tawdry nastiness that clouds De Palma's film. The man is technically astute, although this can't really compensate for the lacklustre personalities of Nancy Allen and John Travolta. Blow Out just seems another trudge through the sex-and-violence cocktail of Dressed to Kill. Atlantic City Director: Louis Malle One of the current Festival Fare, and far too long in coming to this country, Atlantic City paradoxically manages to combine the disparate qualities of charm and toughness as did the director's earlier Pretty Baby. Bellini enthusiasts will appreciate . the clever irony of one of the most striking opening scenes for some time. Fine performances too from Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon and Kate Reid. William Dart FORTHCOMING FILMS Cat People ... horror starring Nastassia Kinski and Malcolm McDowell, directed by Paul Schrader (Hardcore, American Gigolo). Nastassia and Malcolm are part of an ancient tribe which turns into black leopards when they-love anybody but blood relatives. Music by Giorgio Moroder (Donna and Midnight Express), the song 'Cat People' has Bowie lyrics and is sung by David Bowie. Starts July 30. Puberty Blues ... directed by Bruce Beresford (Breaker Morant), Story about two girls growing up on Sydney's southside beaches. Theme song by Tim Finn. Split Enz' 'Nobody Takes Me Seriously' and 'I Hope 1 Never' are sung by Sharon O'Neill. Starts August* Happy Birthday To Me ... directed by J. Lee .Thompson (Guns of Navarone). . A psychomystery set in school with lead Melissa Sue Anderson, of Little House on the Prairie fame. Will there be anybody left to celebrate her birthday? Starts July 9. Mad Max 2 ... the next best thing to Mad Max which was banned here. It's set three years after Max loses. his family. NME says: "It's the sort of film which gives violence a good name." July 30.

Dance Craze ... British Ska movie out in June. Includes the Specials, Madness, the Beat (filmed in action on US tour), Selector, Bad Manners, and the Bodysnatchers. Follows the release of the Dance Craze album a year ago. Britannia Hospital ... stars Malcolm McDowell, directed by Lindsay Anderson (O Lucky Man). Comic satire based on a hospital strike and a mad doctor. Late luly.