Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 25, 1995 TAG: 9511270096
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"Nina Takes a Lover" is a neat little sleeper that's perfect for home video.
Essentially, it's a San Francisco love story with a twist. Nina (Laura San Giacomo) tells it to a newspaper reporter (Michael O'Keefe) who's working on a feature about extramarital affairs. She had one, she claims, with a nameless photographer (Paul Rhys) while her husband was out of town for three weeks. Using that interview structure and title cards between scenes, writer/director Alan Jacobs lets the details of the relationship unfold at an odd, uneven pace. Though the action is talky, it's never dull. About midway through, the film takes a turn that's inexplicable at first - and not completely fair - but it pulls through.
A lot of the credit looks to be due to casting. It's a mystery to me why Demi Moore, to pick only one example, can knock down big bucks for turkeys like "The Scarlet Letter" while Laura San Giacomo who's more interesting and sexier and a better actress gets comparatively little attention for work this good. That's just the way the business has always been. "Nina Takes a Lover" is well worth seeking out.
"A Lady Takes a Chance" is a rarely seen and unusual John Wayne film. It's a 1943 romantic comedy costarring Jean Arthur, who actually gets top billing. He's a rodeo cowboy; she's an Eastern girl on her first bus tour out West. You can fill in the rest of the important details. The treatment is light, silly and a little racy in an "It Happened One Night" vein.
This one's a perfect example of the high-quality formula entertainment that the studios cranked out at a remarkable pace in their heyday. Both of the stars were at their youthful best, and the film is still a treat for Wayne's fans.
"No Highway in the Sky," a 1951 film making a belated debut on tape, is a delightfully dated look at airline travel. Loosely based on real events, it's about an engineer (James Stewart) who thinks he's figured out why the tails are falling off of new airliners. Marlene Dietrich is an international star who finds herself on one of the suspect planes. Glynnis Johns is a stewardess. The plot isn't as strong as "The High and the Mighty" (another airline drama still unavailable on home video), but the two films are similar in many ways. Today, despite stars at the top of their form, this one is enjoyable mostly as a period piece. The airplane interiors, for example, are less than realistic. Notice the cockpit that's as big as a living room with a full-sized picture window, and the racks of glassware in the plane's galley.
"Mirage" is a so-so variation on Hitchcock's masterpiece, "Vertigo," with a Southern California setting. As it begins, police detective Randazzo (James Andronica, who also wrote the script) scrapes his old pal Matty Juarez (Edward James Olmos) up from the bottom of a tequila bottle. Even though Matty has a terrible failure in his past that explains his drunkenness, Randazzo wants him to follow a wealthy woman (Sean Young) who's suffering from severe multiple-personality disorder. Seems that prim and respectable Jennifer wigs out from time to time and becomes Shannon, who dances topless in biker bars.
Andronica's dialogue is often cliched, and director Paul Williams brings no real style to the action. In the leads, Olmos and Young look a little worse for the wear. He's beefy; she really cuts loose in the nutcase scenes, and gets to do lots of other actressy stuff, though to say anything about that would give the game away.
The ending is appropriately wacky and tongue-in-cheek.
Next week: Good guys and bad guys!
New release this week:
Forget Paris **
Starring Debra Winger, Billy Crystal (who wrote and directed). Columbia TriStar. Rated PG-13. 105 mins.
This is the story of an NBA ref named Mickey who meets and falls in love with an airline ombudsman named Ellen and how happy they are until they get married and become miserable - as told by their friends Andy (Joe Mantegna), Craig (Richard Masur), Jack (John Spencer) and Lois (Cathy Moriarty). Some of it's funny, but it's hard to overcome the fact that Crystal and Winger are icky and whiney. Their friends hardly deserve them.
- Katherine Reed
Re-release this week:
Jaws: Special Collector's Edition *** 1/2
Starring Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw. Directed by Stephen Spielberg. 125 min. MCA/Universal. Rated PG for violence, strong language.
This letterboxed edition of Stephen Spielberg's first hit is worth another look. He uses all of the wide screen, so the conventional pan-and-scan transfer from film to video loses a lot. A few short interviews are included, too, and the laserdisk version (not available for preview) contains outtakes. But, first and last, "Jaws" is simply a terrific monster movie, one that hasn't lost its power to frighten. Take another look.
- Mike Mayo
The Essentials:
Nina Takes a Lover *** Columbia TriStar. 100 min. Rated R for subject matter, sexual content, strong language.
A Lady Takes a Chance ** 1/2 Republic. 86 min. Unrated, contains no objectionable material.
No Highway in the Sky ** 1/2 FoxVideo. 98 min. Unrated, contains no objectionable material.
Mirage ** MCA/Universal. 92 min. Rated R for strong language, some violence, brief nudity, sexual content.
by CNB