Video

Rip It Up, Issue 88, 1 November 1984, Page 42

Video

The Ruties (Roadshow). It's good to see stuff on video that was made for TV. It works right out to the edges I mean you know that if someone disappears off screen that it's not because she’s strayed into the Cinemascope-only area but she’s supposed to not be visible. Good innit? Yeah. And Idle, Eric Idle, I mean, he used to be one of them Pythons then didnt he? Course he did. And this is sorta like the Beatles story but it’s all a leg-pull with all the wrong names and stuff, but like George’s in it but he’s playing an interviewer. Other famous odds and sods like Paul Simon and Mick Jagger get to do their own lines so it's no expense spared and they got that geezer Innes from the Bonzos to do the songs and he doesnt half take the piss with a fair amount of accuracy. All in all, a couple of bloody good laughs and I’d go so far as to say that here lies a labour of love. And love is all you need, am I right? I am! CK Rude Boy (Video Classics) Ray Gange directs and stars (as himself), while the Clash (as themselves) play the bit parts. Gange is a disillusioned London youth who hangs around the. Clash and manages to get a job lugging on a tour. The frantic live excerpts stand out markedly against the rather laboured dialogues the opportunity to see the Clash playmiaterial from their first three albums is the film’s chief value. But Gange’s ambitious attemot to contrast what he perceives as true (nihilistic) punk politics against the more traditional. radical stance of the Clash isn’t a total failure and the mixture of scripted and real events (as when Ray comes on stage at the Hyde Park RAR gig) is fascinating. A better director might have been able to tighten this into a very good film. RB Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (Palace) A gem. When Robert Altman's good he’s unbeatable and this is great. It started life as a stage play (produced, I think, by Altman), an origin which is apparent throughout the movie in its one set splendour. Don't be put off theatricality in a film can, be a. good thing and in this case it works to create a feature-length world that glows and shimmers with a gloriously intangible incandescence. Phew. Cher, Sandy Dennis and Karen Black head an: almost exclusively female ensemble that doesn’t put a foot wrong. Altman seems to work most comfortably with women (A Wedding, Nashville, Images and, most notably. Three Women, all feature female roles immaculately played). And the performances in CBTTFADJDJD are as good as any he has extracted in the past. Altman takes huge risks, which is how it should be, but there is no risk involved in shelling out a few bucks for this unique item. CK