RADIOLAND MURDERS and LOVE AFFAIR
A film review by Jeff Pidgeon
Copyright 1994 Jeff Pidgeon
RADIOLAND MURDERS is the only film I've ever walked out of and asked for my money back. I only paid four bucks to begin with, so this strikes me as a serious failure. The high concept review would be, "1941 meets RADIO DAYS". The twenty minutes that I saw proceeded to dump a truckload of characters on me, none of whom I cared about. They all began running around in circles as fast as possible, usually hitting each other in the face as they went through doors again and again. It seems that this is the opening night of a fledgling radio station that's going national, and surprisingly nothing's going right on the night of the big debut. I only made it to one of the murders before I left, and the killer broke into the broadcast twice, presumably to let the live audience(?) know that he/she was going to kill someone else soon. I couldn't understand what the voice said in any event. There's some stars here, but what this really needed was first rate stand-up comedians to deliver this shit and give it some timing and the illusion of wit. The only ones to be seen were Harvey Korman and fat-to-the-point-of-unrecognizable Bobcat G. Why go on--this is a mess of the first order, the worst I've seen this year.
LOVE AFFAIR is an outsized disappointment, an inflated remake of AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER the weepie all-but-advertised in SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE. Beatty seems uninterested in playing anybody but himself these days (or at least a media-hounded celeb), which automatically puts the film out of the range of experience of most people. Annette Bening fares better, but she also suffers from the Michelle-Feiffer-as-waitress-believability-syndrome. The verbal swordplay setup is sprinkled with romantic jazz standards, and you wind up feeling a little like you're in a Woody Allen film. There aren't many sparks flying (much less heat) until they visit Beatty's aunt (a decent cameo by Katherine Hepburn), and the combination of the gorgeous island scenery and Kate's salty charm start winning Annette over (Beatty seems to have little to do with it). They're on an island in the first place because their plane had to make an emergency landing, so the two of them transferred to a beautiful ocean liner (man, the hassles that rich people have to put up with), and they boated to the island from the liner to see how Kate was doing. Everything in the film is like this ... it's as if love is impossible if it isn't in the most stunning backdrop imaginable. When Beatty loses Annette and goes to a charity show with his ex-lover, Ray Charles is playing. There are sweet moments, but most of them are throttled by this incessant upscaling. About the time of the island visit, the pop ballads shut off (like someone turning a tap), and Morricone's score takes over. What limited emotional effect the film had, I credit the instrumental score for at least half, if not more. Morricone's score is sweet and sad, and does more for the film than a score should have to. A leftover from the original plot--Annette's unwilling ness to reveal her injury--seems odd and unmotivated. It does make for some nice say-the-opposite-of-what-you-mean dialogue from Robert Towne, though. Garry Shandling gets all the laughs, and the photography/art direction are fine, but overall it's pretty forgettable. Still, more than one member of the crowd I was with broke down and wept, so what do I know? Not Recommended.
-- - Jeff Pidgeon
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