HAIRSPRAY, THE LAST EMPEROR, THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING
[Spoilers]
Three Quickie Reviews by Jeff Meyer
Copyright 1988 Jeff Meyer
Quick three film reviews, so I can start up on the Seattle Film Festival (yes, here we go again -- a pre-festival report will be out before the Thursday night starting gun).
HAIRSPRAY:
Not much to say other than very entertaining film and a few comments:
Never thought I'd see the day when I'd take my parents to see a John
Waters film. And they'd enjoy it as much as I did, if not more...
Noticed the poster as I went out -- this film is the first film in years that had everyone who had the entire solarsphere of critics behind it. Siskel & Ebert, Reed, NEW YORK TIMES, the L.A. paper, TIME, NEWSWEEK, VILLAGE VOICE, and (I believe) a favorable quote from Kael. When did this last happen? GONE WITH THE WIND? (Waters would love that on his ad -- "The first film to gather universal praise since GONE WITH THE WIND!"). And David O. Selznick never had to overcome having shot someone eating dog doo...
Basically, this is the same as one of those Kurt Russell Disney films where the school outcasts have good things happen to them with a minimum of struggle in a Happy Environment. Except that these people are outcast which ol' Walt would never have approved of (let's face it -- Kurt Russell an outcast? ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, maybe, but he had Adrienne Barbeau...). And, more importantly, Water's never loses his spoofing, satirical bite -- in fact, it runs concurrently with the starry-eyed plot, neither stealing cycles from the other.
A solid $4.50 film. Take the kids, they'll love it (the 10-year-olds in the audience were really enjoying it, and I'd deem everything in this film wholesome for 10-year-olds, or even 6-year-olds).
THE LAST EMPEROR:
So this is what all the hoopla is about. Well, it's a good film; my main observation would be that the best part of the thing was John Lone's performance as the Emperor, and that's the one thing the film didn't get nominated for (which keeps my opinion of the awards at it's previously low level). Nice ending, but rather bloodless for an epic. You can either do an epic without involving interesting characters intelligently or ridiculously, but it needs to be pervaded with an overpowering sense of the Larger-than-Life. A little schmaltz doesn't hurt, either -- yeah, I liked DR. ZHIVAGO.
Again, a nice ending. $2.50 film, see it on Economy Hour.
THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING:
This is one of those films that becomes manically annoying during its length, but leaves you with a favorable impression because the ending is good enough to wipe out what came before. It's one of those love stories which follows the lives of several characters over a period of years. It works, but it has drawbacks. Daniel Day Lewis (what *has* this man played in before? His face looks very familiar -- oh, wait, I know, MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE) and the actress who plays his lover tend to be rather hollow through much of the film. The actress who plays his wife, though, comes off very well, and damn near saves the film during the last half-hour. Good parts: their early encounters, the invasion of Czechoslovakia, their return, the move to the farm (I have great affection for merry older rural people. And pigs.) Bad points: Day and his character's lover's affairs, the photo-session scene.
Two Points: Why is this film considered more "sexually honest" than others? I keep hearing that from all sorts of newspaper reviews. What, every guy is out boinking a lover while his wife sits home and suffers? They squeal more realistically during intercourse in this film? I guess film journalists live fairly Bohemian lives...
Second one has a spoiler at end...
And... do you think that the Czech couple really die in the end? Or is it that Day's character, in his typically egocentric manner, is day-dreaming about his lover's reaction to news of their death? I go for the former, but either way, it's a damn inventive way to end the film, and very satisfying.
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
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