Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 2, 1990 TAG: 9005020055
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Mike Mayo
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
This one is abominable. Supposedly a realistic look at the world of rock music, the film is filled with lame humor, atrocious acting, insipid music and unsympathetic characters.
Bob Dylan plays an aging rock legend named Benny Parker who has turned his back on stardom. His spirit is renewed in a small Pennsylvania town when he hears Molly McGuire (Fiona), turnpike tollbooth girl by day, rock singer by night.
He takes her with him to England where they meet Colt (Rupert Everett), who embodies all of the cliches about the music business; rich, spoiled, arrogant, jaded, handsome, etc.
Individually and collectively, the characters are foul-mouthed and not very bright, which may or may not be an accurate depiction of rock musicians, but it certainly makes for an unpleasant movie.
Dylan looks like a haggard Harpo Marx and even though he's playing a character based on himself, he's not convincing. Our heroine is supposed to be effervescent and irrepressible, but she comes across as immature and irritating.
The action is slowly paced in the script by Scott Richardson and Joe Eszterhas. Director Richard Marquand gives the production a handsome look, but it's still hollow. In the end, "Hearts of Fire" has nothing to say about popular music or the people who make it. Note this perceptive exchange between a reporter and Parker:
"Why did you quit recording?"
"I just gave it up, you know."
Similar material was handled more realistically in Paul Schrader's "Light of Day," and much more successfully all around in the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night."
\ "Warm Summer Rain" is another attempt to do something serious that misfires. This is, without question, one of the screwiest movies ever made. It reminds you of an avant-garde one-act play that somehow escaped from a theater and hijacked a film company.
In the opening scene, Kate (Kelly Lynch) tries to commit suicide by slashing her wrists. She doesn't succeed, but later she manages to get out of the hospital (still in her bandages and backless hospital nightgown) and catch a bus, which takes her into the middle of the desert.
That's where she meets Guy (Barry Tubb, a Dennis Quaid lookalike), a college kid with a convertible and a tuxedo. They get drunk in a bar and wake up in a little shack, one of those tastefully squalid places you see only in movies.
What happens after that is so ridiculous I won't even try to describe it. It boils down to endless talk about the meaning of life and sanity and such, with a lot of nudity tossed in to keep the audience from falling asleep.
The main problem here is that writer/director Joe Gayton either doesn't understand how films work, or couldn't afford to do what he wanted to do. Several key incidents are described in long tedious soliloquies, rather than shown.
Whatever guilty-pleasure value the film might have had is undercut by Lynch's all too convincing portrayal of her character's severe emotional problems. But Lynch proved that she could act in "Drug Store Cowboy" and so her career will survive this embarrassment.
Far and away the best movie in this bunch is\ "I Love N.Y." This little romance is a genuine sleeper. It's about the rocky relationship between Mario (Scott Baio), a photographer from Little Italy, and Nicole Yeats (Kelley Van Der Velden), the daughter of an egotistical actor (Christopher Plummer).
The film makes good use of New York locations. Overall, the young leads do first-rate work playing likable characters that have remarkable depth. (Many big-budget Hollywood movies don't understand their main characters nearly as well as this film does.) The story resorts to a few cliches, which are particularly noticeable toward the end, but it's not a major flaw.
Perhaps the best thing about "I Love N.Y." is the supporting cast. Jerry Orbach, Virna Lisi and Jennifer O'Neill are excellent, and Christopher Plummer, one of the most reliable character actors in the business, is at his best. If the movie had received wide theatrical distribution, he might well have gotten a supporting actor Oscar nomination.
According to the credits, this one was written and directed by the ubiquitous "Alan Smithee." That's the standard pseudonym that directors use when they're dissatisfied with the finished work. In this case, the credit should go to co-producer Gianni Bozzacchi, who needn't have been ashamed.
So, even if you're tempted by the star power behind "Hearts of Fire" and "Warm Summer Rain," try to find "I Love N.Y." instead. It's worth the effort.>
New release this week
In Country:
Starring Bruce Willis and Emily Lloyd. Directed by Norman Jewison. 120 min. Warner. Rated R for language, violence and sexual content.
For the most part, a gentle and heartfelt movie about two generations trying to come to terms with Vietnam. But Jewison's less-than-subtle treatment of the material detracts from solid perfomances by Willis and Lloyd.
Willis' intriguing and appealing as Emmett Smith, an unemployed veteran who finds that coping in his hometown after Vietnam takes all of his emotional strength. However, he's not bitter. He's ironic, gentle and even witty.
Lloyd plays Samantha Hughes, his curious and spunky niece whose father was killed in Vietnam before she was born.
The screenplay by Frank Pierson and Cynthia Cidre provides a lot of base-touching with the other people in Sam's life, but they either emerge as stereotypes, such as Sam's feckless boyfriend and countrified grandparents, or as interesting but sketchy characters such as Sam's mother (Joan Allen) and the Vietnam vet Sam pursues (John Terry).
Still, the solid core of Willis and Lloyd infuse the film with conviction and personality. - Chris Gladden
by CNB