VIDEO

Rip It Up, Issue 126, 1 January 1988, Page 23

VIDEO

New York, New York (Warners Video) De Niro is my favourite actor, so it’s interesting watching him play a complete arsehole in Scorsese’s 40s musical for the 70s.

As Jimmy Doyle, De Niro plays a schmuck with no redeeming features. Then again, if you had to play next to Liza Minnelli, batting her eyelashes and pretending to be her mother, you’d turn into a jerk as well. Set against the declining years of the big bands and the rise of be bop, Scorsese attempts a new look at the musical genre, with a pastiche from that 40s form. Like Stanley Donen’s On the Town (1949), with a sailor dancing in time to the passing traffic a la Gene Kelly. And a quarter-of-an-hour tribute to Busby Berkeley in ‘Happy Endings,’ re-instated on the video but cut on original theatrical release. Worth seeing for De Niro’s out-of-sync performance and Scorsese’s sharp cinematic technique. But stamina is required whenever Ms Minnelli begins to emote.

Kerry Buchanan

’Round Midnight (Warners) A story about bebop loosely based on Lester Young, starring Dexter Gordon. Sounds good, looks bad. The French have a way about making movies, a sort of realism that can translate into utter boredom. Listen to Parker or Young, you don’tfeel bored, but this movie’s so slow it makes Warhol’s Sleep look like an Arnold Schwarzenegger flick. Maybe it needs a car chase (I mean, Diva had a scooter chase) instead of these endless existential scenes of people in rooms and on beaches. Maybe Dexter could have jumped in a cab and said “Follow that saxophone” or something. Worst thing about it is this white boy pandering to the great black god called “the jazz musician.” I mean, even Kerouac in his idolatry of Parker has his limits. This goes too far, over the top in sentiment. But the French like that sort of thing.

Imagine if they asked Miles Davis to play Gordon’s role —I wonder what he would have said. Kerry Buchanan