LOVE AND DEATH ON LONG ISLAND
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1998 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
"It is difficult to know where to begin since, unlike you, I already know the ending," John Hurt intones with his rich and melodious voice in the opening narration to LOVE AND DEATH ON LONG ISLAND.
Filmed by Oliver Curtis with a warm autumnal palate in color shades reminiscent of an old home movie, the film feels as old as its protagonist while the sets remind us that the picture is set in the present.
John Hurt plays a British writer and widower whose name is the easy to mispronounce Giles De'Ath. Giles hasn't "been to the pictures in quite some time." Actually the entire Twentieth Century, especially the technological revolution, seems to have skipped his house. He mistakes microwaves for VCRs and doesn't understand that you need a television as well as a VCR to be able to play a video tape.
One day he ventures into the cinema, and his life is forever changed by a inane teen flick about "buck-naked babes" that is named HOTPANTS COLLEGE II and is as stupid as it sounds. The local newspaper calls it a "puerile romp without a single redeeming feature." (I'm sorry to report that I've seen a lot of those lately.)
Giles obsession with the picture has nothing to do with its asinine plot and everything to do with one its stars, a teen idol named Ronnie Bostock, played with bright-eyed naivete by Jason Priestley from the television series "Beverly Hills 90210." Giles takes one look at him and is smitten by cupid's arrow for this "mega-dream boat," as the teen fan magazines have labeled him.
Soon Giles becomes obsessed with renting every one of Ronnie's mediocre movies. The awful dialog from these videos will elicit many a chuckle from the audience even if no big laughs. ("You're nothing but a skin mark on the underpants of life." "Hey man, don't grief out on me.")
The story's second act occurs on Long Island where Ronnie lives with his girlfriend, a model played by Fiona Loewi. Giles manages to "accidentally" bump his way into their lives so that he can be near the object of his affection.
A romance with a comic veneer, the touching film meanders along like a slow running brook with small delights, albeit no big ones, all along the way.
Typical of the movie's dry humor is the message that Giles puts on his first-ever answering machine. The caller is instructed to leave a brief message, but only if it is extremely urgent. The unstated implication being that, otherwise, as Giles would say, the caller should just "bugger off."
LOVE AND DEATH ON LONG ISLAND runs 1:33. It is rated PG-13 for brief strong language, thematic elements and some sexual references and would be fine for kids around 12 and up.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews