The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 70, No. 16, Ed. 1 Friday, January 14, 1983 Page: 9 of 16
sixteen pages : ill. ; page 20 x 14 in.View a full description of this newspaper.
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VIES
IOME ABOUT....
could have added had he been able to be
there.
What posessed Edwards to attempt
this stupid venture was obviously
money. Trail's low budget means that it
has already made money, from the
disappointed Pink Panther fans that
expected more. Indeed, the biggest
losers in the fiasco are decency, dignity,
and comedy.
—SB
rating: ®
Sophie's Choice
Directed by Alan F. Pakula
In which Camille becomes a Polish
Catholic Holocaust survivor, sleeps
with a Jewish Jekyll-and-Hyde, and
takes refuge with John-Boy Walton.
William Styron's novel is 625 tedious
pages; Alan J. Pakula's film is 140
somber minutes. As Stingo, Peter
MacNicol is no Richard Thomas. As
Nathan, Kevin Kline dashes like a new
Frederic March. As Sophie, Meryl
Streep finally reaches the Garbo
plateau, making her choice much more
powerful than it was in the book. In the
end, it's a great performance trapped in
a simply good movie.
rating:
BW
Six Weeks
Directed by Carol Sobieski
It may be impossible to describe an
entire movie with one word, but for Six
Weeks, "schmaltz" pretty well does it.
The movie was doomed from the
beginning by the screenplay. The plot
begins when Dudley Moore (a candidate
for the U.S. Congress with an English
accent and a gift for wit) meets a 14-year
old girl-wonder whose mother (Mary
Tyler Moore) is one of the richest and
most powerful cosmetic moguls in New
York. Barely twenty minutes into this
minute tear-jerker Mr. Moore learns
from Ms. Moore that the girl has
terminal leukemia, and the rest of the
plot is remarkably predictable. Indeed,
the mainstay of the movie's
entertainment value is that the
audience-member can play script-
writer with uncanny accuracy.
The script and the movie are "saved"
by superb acting by all three major
performers, and creditable perfor-
mances by the supporting cast.
o° ~5b
rating:
i
A
Tootsie
Directed by Sydney Pollack
What! You haven't seen this one yet?
Whatthebloodyhell do you think yer
doing sitting in your room like a nit
reading this overtly ridiculous excuse
for a movie review? Go! Go now! Shell
out your $4.50 (ack!) and enter the
spacious cavern of art deco blecch that is
the Alabama (or wherever you choose to
see the flick, o filmic experience
glorious.) O unenlightened gekko that
you are, realize you that Tootsie is in this
unblanchingly arrogant opinion, most
likely the best movie of the year.
Tootsie is perhaps not the most
"meaningful" film, though it does say a
bit about the roles of women, men, and
various creatures lodged midway in
between; perhaps not the most gripping
of dramas; perhaps not much of a
political statement. But best.
You simply fall in love with the
characters. A framework of excellence
contributes to this reaction:
1. The script is excellent, witty, subtle
at times, blunt as a brick at others, and
puts in words some very real inanities
that fall together to form modern life.
2. The acting. It's amazing. Every
actor in this movie is perfect for his or
her role. Dustin Hoffman (Michael
Dorsey) made a brilliant move by
cajoling director Pollack into the role of
agent; their scenes together strike me as
perhaps the funniest of the entire
movie.
Jessica Lange (Julie) is almost (not
quite) as good as Hoffman, and Bill
Murray, as Hoffman's playwright
roommate, is funnier than he as been in
any other movie I've seen. He
even ad-libbed all his lines.
The story in brief: Michael Dorsey,
starving actor, needs work. After
buildup, he tries out for a role in a major
network soap. As a woman.
Complications ensue; in fact, a good part
of the enjoyment of this movie comes
from the unfolding, consuming
entanglements.
If this review's initial manic
exhortations did not fling you from
your seat obsessed with the desire to see
Tootsie, hopefully the more standard
critique has subtly inflamed you with
the same desire. Now go!
o • • ~wri
rating: o #
48 Hours
Directed by Walter Hill
Yeah, I saw that movie with that
black convict and that white cop. They
had forty-eight hours to blow the
baddies off the face of the earth to make
sure they wouldn't kill any good
citizens. Pretty tough, huh. Eddie
Murphy's almost as funny as Richard
Pryor. Yeah, I'm thinkin' bout joinin' the
Houston Police Academy now. Cops can
get away with a lot 'cause they're cops.
Like Nick Nolte, yeah, he was such a good
cop he could doanything he wanted, like
drink all the time, beat up on all the
people he's helpin' and carrva really big
gun. Yeah, then I'd get the chance to
shoot up bad people and see all the blood
spurtin' all over the place. What a life,
yeah.
# —RH
rating:
Best Friends
Directed by Norman Jewison
Best Friends is about the problems that
the Ideal Modern Young Couple must
go through. The couple, played by
Goldie Hawn and Burt Reynolds, are
living happily together, co-writing
screenplays, when he decides that they
should get married. She doesn't want to
make that commitment, but realizes she
is being childish, and agrees to go
through with it. For their honeymoon,
they go back East to meet her parents,
then on to meet his parents. From then
on the plot is fairly predictable.
Everyone is uncomfortable about their
marriage — it is impossible to blend the
freedom necessary for the creativity in
their careers with a traditional
marriage.
It's a worthy message for a movie to
have, and certainly one of the great
modern problems, but unfortunately it
isn't a very good movie. Both Hawn and
Reynolds put in better than Average
performances, and the minor characters
are also well acted, but the movie is a bit
too cute to make us care enough. The
plot hinges too much on the cliche of the
gla morous-people-from- Holly wood-
meeting-the-real-world instead of on
the personal conflicts of the conple.
There are some very good scenes in
the movie: one where Goldie Hawn
between life and art blur dissettlingiy.
Jewison's film falls short because it
tries to mix two major themes — art
versus life (i.e. Hollywood versus the
suburbs) and marriage versus career —
together. However, the generally high
quality of the acting makes the film
enjoyable. Not the best holiday film, but
certainly not the worst
CuO- -OK
rating: w
The Toy
Directed by Richard Dormer
It seems to me that a movie with
Richard Pryor and (ackie Gleason
(especially Pryor) in it should turn out to
be pretty funny. So what happened? The
Toy, although it has it moments that
make you laugh, is astonishingly flat.
her best friend are drinking Manhattans
while sitting in a crib and talking about
what it means to be mature. Another is
the quickie marriage, performed half in
Spanish. The las't scene in the movie also
works very well. As Hawn and Reynolds
leave the building where they have
resolved their emotional differences and
finished writing their screenplay, they
walk onto the soundstage where their
film is being shot, and the distinctions
Pryor is the toy, a job for which he
prostitutes himself so that a poor little
rich boy can enjoy his week-long
vacation from a strict military school.
The father, U.S. Bates (Gleason), hasn't
got time for his son, but he has plenty of
money with which to buy anything that
his son might fancy. And speaking of
Fancy, Bates' heavily accented wife —
more phony than Southern — is
unimaginatively and simplistic ally
portrayed.
The performances are regrettably
poor; I went to the movie expecting
something more than lackluster acting
and banal humor. I do believe that this
film had potential, but 1 suppose that
potential unrealized is the same as no
potential at all....
Also disappointing is the manner in
which the film deals with serious social
problems such as corruption in
government and racial discrimination.
Now I am not one who thinks it the roie
of the film industry to solve problems
such as these in two hours on the screen,
but the reduction of these problems and
possible solutions to the level of
sophomoric humor which is attained in
the film is quite inappropriate and
painfully inadequate. NOT a movie to
phone home about.
rating: a —GER
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Cooper, Jeanne. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 70, No. 16, Ed. 1 Friday, January 14, 1983, newspaper, January 14, 1983; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245518/m1/9/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.