VIDEO

Rip It Up, Issue 184, 1 November 1992, Page 39

VIDEO

THE LAST BOY SCOUT Bruce Willis got dicked by the critics on this one, more for who he is rather than the film.' Somehow they failed to understand that this is an over the top action adventure and that by its very excessiveness it turns the genre on its head. Willis doesn't just have to leap from the car before it blows — he has to leap from the car and run like hell as the rolling inferno follows him down the hill! Damon Wayans (Mo' Money) is great as Willis's unlikely buddy. JUNGLE FEVER With Malcolm X about to be released, now's the time to get Spike Lee's penultimate film. It's an intriguing look at at the issue of inter-racial relationships. Like White Supremicists, some minority groups consider it a dilution of race, that black men only want white women because they've bought into the idea that black people (therefore black women) are inferior. Lee raises many issues with Wesley Snipes brilliant as the black architect lusting for his white secretary. DELIRIOUS In this delightfully implausible comedy we are invited to suspend belief and accept that John Candy has been transported into the soap opera world of his own making. Candy is a soap writer who wakes up in smalltown Ashford Falls, and finds he can't get back to reality. Making the best of it he writes himself a steamy affair with Emma Samms, all the while not realising Mariel Hemmingway is the woman for him. For all the good fun he writes himself, there's bad luck from another soap writer “out in the real world" rewriting the story and trying to kill him off.

DELIRIOUS This movie came out years ago. It's Eddie Murphy doing a live stand up comedy concert and you'll wet yourself laughing. Hysterically funny all the way through. FINAL ANALYSIS Critics have derided this as a hotch-potch of Hitchcock ripoffs. That's exactly why I liked it. Richard Gere is the psychiartrist who breaches professsional ethics by romancing Kim Bassinger, the sister of one of his disturbed patients (Uma Thurman). He ends up involved in a double cross which becomes a triple cross when mean old Eric Roberts gets killed. Hitchcock fans will know what's going on but it's a competent thriller none-the-less. JFK • Not happy to sit through 2.5 hours of this at the movies I awaited the video. It was worth it. Director Oliver Stone came in for a lot of criticism for his mish mash of film styles (and preaching), but it's obvious he has a passion. To hook in the young people the first 30 min-

utes are almost MTV with its juxtaposition of colour and grainy Black & White film, with wild crosscuts and camera angles. The film finishes with a 10 minute monologue from District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) in case we missed the Real Issue. A wide array of famous faces feature as Stone lays out the version of events as he sees them. He may not be right (who really does know?) but there's enough here to be sure that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone when he shot President Kennedy (if he did at all). Maybe Clinton will now open up the CIA/FBI files! CAREER OPPORTUNITIES Director John Huges has a basic formula he follows with every film: take two or more mismatched people, throw them together and see what develops. Usually someone falls in love, and they all understand themselves a little better by the end of the film. This film follows the formula. Frank Whaley is the young man Still Living With His Parents and still unable to hold down a steady job, Jenifer Connelly is the daugh-

ter of The Town's Richest Man who just wants a little attention instead of money. The two end up locked in a supermarket together and discover the foibles of life. And eachother. I actually enjoyed this, but my flatmates were less kind. Probably beacause we had different perspectives on Ms Connelly's shameless skate through the aisles, bending over all the way in her low-cut tanktop. SIMON LAAN BATTLE OF THE BOMBS A grab bag of excerpts from 60s TV pilots that never got made and movies that did and shouldn't have been. This is the kind of thing you put on at three in the morning after you've been to a party and don't want to go to bed. Whether you'd watch it more than once is debatable, but first time round it's very entertaining. Black and white titles like Teenage Killers and Thrill Girls of the Highway flash up on screen advertising programmes you don't get to see here. You do get to see a tragic (in everyway) full-length featurette on the perils of starlets in Hollywood called "Hell Is A Place Called Hollywood"

along with damsel-in-distress segments from other ludicrous shows. The funniest piece is the instructional 1950 s dating film. BAMBI MEETS GODZILLA And Other Weird Cartoons This Weird Cartoons compilation is only thirty minutes long, so volumes one or two of the series represent much better value at 60 minutes each. Bambi

doesn't meet Godzilla for very long here and the Betty Boop cartoon is hom-hum but the vintage intermission cartoon is cute. Best thing is an animated cartoon that looks 3-D called Frogland. Also, Max Fleischer's "Small Fry". All in all, nothing that much more startling than the stuff you can tape off Bugs Bunny.

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