SPITFIRE GRILL
A film review by Michael John Legeros
Copyright 1996 Michael John Legeros
(Columbia)
Directed by Lee David Zlotoff
Written by Lee David Zlotoff
Cast Ellen Burstyn, Alison Elliott, Marcia Gay Harden, Will
Patton, Kieran Mulroney
MPAA Rating "PG-13"
Running Time 111 minutes
Reviewed at General Cinema at Pleasant Valley, Raleigh, NC (7AUG96)
==
When faced with watching a movie that is so utterly uninteresting and entirely uninvolving, what is the sane person to do? Well, you can yawn and stretch and scratch your parts and read your watch and, if you're lucky enough to be armed with a notepad, translate your miseries into hand-written musings. The torture doesn't end, though, until you leave the theater, which is exactly what I wish I'd done during THE SPITFIRE GRILL. This butt-numbing tear-jerker stars newcomer Alison Elliott (THE UNDERNEATH) as a stranger in a small Maine town, recently released from prison and now working at a local diner. Her alien presence-- or is it her seeming aversion to shampoo?-- sets the entire town on its ear, which then gives the Crusty Diner Owner Widow Mother with the Bad Back (Ellen Burstyn) a chance to start sticking up for her. Yawn. This one won an award at the Sundance Film Festival and, frankly, I'd like to know what they were smoking. The hazy lighting, suffocating score, dueling accents, eye-rolling monologues, and story surprises that you can see coming from a mile off were all too much for me. But what do I know? The audience that I saw this with cried, clapped, and, in later scenes, cheerfully talked back to the screen. You go girls.
Grade: C
--
Mike Legeros - Raleigh, NC
legeros@nando.net (h) - legeros@unx.sas.com (w)
Visit me in MOVIE HELL
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