Film
DEATH WARMED UP Director: David Blyth The opening ten minutes of David Blyth’s new film have all the virtues one associates with the director's Circadian Rhythms the early scenes of rushing along Auckland’s motorways and ominous ‘fencers' have been replaced by Michael Hurst’s spring through Auckland Domain and the acts of violence which follow. Michael dock’s brilliantly high tech sets and Mark Nicholas’s score make their effect felt and the first exchange
between Gary Day and David Weatherly suggest that Michael Heath’s script is going to deal us a nice line in tongue-in-cheek high dramatics.
As the film progresses, alas, this sense of cohesion dissipates. Too many questions remain unanswered about this latter-day Kiwi Dr Moreau. Bruno Lawrence slobbers with the best of ’em as chief mutant and David Letch is the ultimate in tight-lipped villainy, but their energy alone cannot carry the film. Death Warmed Up tries for a black humour that doesn’t always come off. Droll touches such as a nurse being splattered with gore during an operation are infinitely less amusing on repetition, and Jonathan Hardy’s cameo as an Indian dairy-owner comes across as an unfunny and irrelevant piece
of racism. Most of the flaws in Death Warmed Up were also present in Blyth’s first feature, Angel Mine. Hopefully, the director will eventually find a more worthy vehicle for his evident cinematic flair.
BLAME IT ON RIO Director: Stanley Donen The promotional slogans for Michael Caine’s new film would suggest that it is very much in the vein of his 1983 hit, Educating Rita— "From Rita to Rio Caine is having girl trouble again’’. To cheer up, or perhaps warn the armchair set, it also promises that "you’re never too old to be crazy”. Although it all sounds rather silly, Blame it on Rio has a certain gangling charm and the presence of Stanley Donen, whose previous
work includes films like Charade, Lucky Lady and the brilliant Two for the Road, ensures that it has an agreeable sophistication and sureness of style. It doesn’t achieve the heights of Two for the Road as Larry Gelbart’s Rio script, itself a few notches below his previous writing for Tootsie, lacks the superb literateness of Frederick Raphael’s script ‘for the earlier film. Perhaps Rio is a little too cynical for its own good. Michael Caine’s problems as a middle-aged husband seduced by his friend’s young daughter might seem a classic case of male wishfulfilment, but Michelle Johnson’s buxom lass certainly goes into it all with her eyes wide open. It’s very much the playing of Caine and Johnson that gives the film its class, Donen borrowing a device
from Caine's debut Alfie as both characters comment on the action and their attitudes directly to the camera. One final word. Donen started his career in the palmy days of the MGM musical Nancy Goes to Rio and all that. Looking around the opulently lush Brazilian settings of Blame it on Rio with nearly every scene dominated by exotic tropical birds, one can detect the same spirit.
GREYSTOKE Director: Hugh Hudson Hudson’s first film since the phenomenally popular Chariots of Fire takes Edgar Rice Burrough’s classic tale as yet another opportunity of examining the difficulties of becoming British. Greystoke offers two alternative visions of life: the first, set in
the jungles of . Cameroon, has a lithe Christopher Lambert amongst his Primate family, everything caught in a series of elaborate tableaux, stunningly conveyed by John Alcott’s camerawork. The other part of the film concerns Lambert’s confrontations with. Edwardian British society; - This is an elaborately conceived film of cultural parallels that do not always succeed. Too much (the brief. scene at the West African mission, Lambert’s relationship with the marvellous Andie MacDowell) remains tantalisingly sketchy. Ralph Richardson as the old Earl, in a performance that manages to be both noble and feisty, seems to attain the precision that the film itself doesn’t quite achieve. William Dart
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/RIU19840901.2.45
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Rip It Up, Issue 86, 1 September 1984, Page 27
Word count
Tapeke kupu
653Film Rip It Up, Issue 86, 1 September 1984, Page 27
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Propeller Lamont Ltd is the copyright owner for Rip It Up. The masthead, text, artworks, layout and typographical arrangements of Rip It Up are licenced for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 3.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence. Rip it Up is not available for commercial use without the consent of Propeller Lamont Ltd.
Other material (such as photographs) published in Rip It Up are all rights reserved. For any reuse please contact the original supplier.
The Library has made best efforts to contact all third-party copyright holders. If you are the rights holder of any material published in Rip It Up and would like to contact us about this, please email us at paperspast@natlib.govt.nz