Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Sept. 15, 1988, edition 1 / Page 15
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8OmnibusThursday, September 15, 1988 What ' s on track for you weekly at WXYC WXYCs Top 20 Albums in the playbox this weefc Artlstts) ...... Album 1. Jane's Addiction Nothing Shocking 2. Michelle Shocked .... Short, Sharp, Shocked 3. Colorblind James Expe rience .Colorblind James Experience 4. Lets Active Every Dog Has Its Day Good acting, sharp cameos fail to save 'Parador' Dy RICHARD S7..ITH Staff writer "Moon Over Parador" is a silly film that nkes to think of itself as something approaching satire. Paul Mazursky, the director who remade the French comedy tDAIPUlL IK3D0JL STUDENTS FACULTY . STAFF Identification MICROWAVE AND OVENS Compact Dorm Size Refriglrator $77.95 $149.94 Value (appearance sligrtly impaired) Only With OVENS Now you HURRY! $5900 and lower. 1 mmymmi FIVE MOOMMt COOK MO OMKS (OMl mt Ovmrr(,H1 f iOmi ram vou M f mow wf MOWAf COO 4 mnmm COMt MO rot rovMt' 489-2384 VISA-CHOICE MASTERCARO DISCOVER PARKWAY PLAZA CENTER fl.PlWi.jf.lyIJ 5. Fishbone . . . Truth and Soul ' 6. Big Audio Dynamite Tighten up VoL 88 7. My Dad is Dead Lets Skip the Details a John Hiatt ... Slow Turning 9. various Artists Folkways: A Tribute to woody Guthrie and Leadbelly 10. Joy Division . . . Substance 1 1 . Dwight Yoakum . . . Buenos "Boudu Saved From Drowning" in 1986 as the successful "Down And Out In Beverly Hills" would like to think that "Parador" has the parabolic qualities of the earlier film it doesnt, and consequently the film runs like a car on the Required! J ACCESSORIES University Identification SAVE TIME!! COMPLETE MEALS! COMPACT SIZE! DISCOUNT PRICES! can have your own microwave oven SAVE MONEY AND TIME! OFFER ENDS SOON!! UMVCMSI1V TO SOUTH SOUAn mai L I I7 Noches from a lonely room 12. James . . ..... Stripmining 13. Rose of Avalanche in Rock 14. . Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry ........ Nothing Wrong 15. A.R.Kane ..69 16. Jad Fair and Kramer Roll Out the Barrel 1 7. Hunters and collectors Fate 18. The Feelies .. . .... Only life 19. The Primitives ..... Lovely wrong sort of gas. Parador is a fictitious Caribbean island where Jack Noah (Richard Dreyfuss), a well-known N.Y. actor, is making a movie when the dictator of the island, a certain Alphonse Simms, dies. He has drunk one too many poonas (the national drink) and so Noah, a look alike with a gift for impersonation, is brought in to replace him. Mazursky obviously thinks this is hysterical, and up to a point he is right Playing a real-life dictator could be the greatest role of Noah's life, and it could be a really funny joke were it not quite so overdone. Noah goes on and on about "Bobby" De Niro and Hoff man, and it jars a little. The audience becomes very aware of Dreyfuss the actor playing Noah the actor playing Simms the dictator. Noah alternately warms to the role, hates it, gets scared of it, uses it to create an absurd political change and eventually gets bored By jAr.zs r.'.iLLS Staff Writer "Stealing Home" "is a movie with many strikes against it. Despite its title, this is not another "Bull Durham." in fact, "Stealing Home" is not a movie about baseball at all So, a mislead ing title Is one strike against the flick. Jody Foster and Mark Harmon are billed as the stars of "Stealing Home." From the advertising a viewer might think the two have scenes together, but think again. The two stars never even appear in a scene together. Foster appears in flashbacks with a teenage version of Harmon's character, but in the present, when Harmon appears, her character Is dead. So, with its misleading advertising, the film gets another strike against it The plot is rather Incidental to the film as well. Flashback scenes compose more, than half the screen time, yet there is no order or logic to the flashbacks as they relate to events in the present. Thus the viewer is left rather confused, and the-film scores-a 'Stealing Home' 20. Siouxsie and the Ban shees. .. ....... .PeepShow Top Three Local Demos 1. Dillon Fence - "Something For YOU" 2. Mary on the Dash - "Screw it Tight" 3. The PORes - "Marilyn" Special Shows: The Friday Feature 11 pm of it He gets our sympathy for the latter. Dreyfuss' Is an annoy ingly inconsistent part and conse quently comes across as shallow and uninteresting. It is to his credit then that Dreyfuss' integrity survives the film intact Mazursky, ("Moscow On the Hudson," "The Tempest") has built a reputation for being an actors director. This shows in Dreyfuss' performance, but the room that Mazursky has given him to breathe in is ulti mately empty and lifeless. Raul Julia as Roberta, the power behind the throne, is electrifying in his limited role. He comes on like a psychotic Bill Cosby at times and is something of a highlight Sonia Braga as Madonna Is Noah's love interest (She was the real dicta tort lover, now she loves Noah and together they will save the coun try - 1 ask you). Braga, stunning though she is, has a raw deal. Anything for a PC-1 3. That aside, there is the odd shimmer of sharpness. Dreyfuss third strike against it When the film opens, Billy Wyatt (Harmon) learns that Katie Chan deler (Foster) has just committed suicide and has placed him in charge of disposing of her ashes. The two were childhood friends . and Billy is the only one who knows how to dispose of her remains property. So Billy takes the bus back to his NJ. home to dispose of her ashes. Problem is, he cant figure out what to do with them. This leads to memories of the past where Katie taught Billy (played as a child by Thacher Goodwin and as a teen by William McNamara) how to smoke, how to be attrac tive to girls and how to have a good time. " Billy doesnt get a clue from all these flashbacks what to do with the ashes. So he begins to think of events with Katie again and remembers an obscure event at a pier on the NJ. shore. Suddenly, he realizes what the audience figured out long before. He should throw the ashes Into the sea! Harmon plays Billy with an emotional , range that runs the gamut from A to B. He just sits. to 2 a.nl Saturday morning. 3030 5 pm to 6 pm Sun days. This week's guest on the live, call-in sports talk show is UNC baseball coach Mike Roberts and his 1 2-year-old son. northern Hemisphere Uve Sundays 6 pm to 7 pm A talk show with various guests. This week's guest fe Wynonia Bre wington Burke, the independent vice-presidential candidate. the dictator walks toward a heli copter pretending he can't hear what the press is asking (a clear spoof on the old Reagan favorite); Dick Cavett, Ed Asner and, most notably, Sammy Davis Jr. all give: great cameos that almost make the mess worth seeing. But it is too little, too late Most of the humor is cheap: Dreyfuss salutes with the wrong hand; his voice gets too high; his false moustache slips; that kind of thing. - A script in which Noah the actor suddenly sees the light about the real situation in Parador (where the poor get poorer and the rich get richer), and decides, succeeds even, to do something about it (in 10 minutes of screen time), is obvious and condescending. To give it a sentimental ending of the "hasnt-it-all-been-such-fun" var iety is just patronizing. At the dose of the film, a fellow actor to whom Noah has told the story says, "l don't buy it" He's absolutely right out around with sad puppy dog eyes and shows his grief by forgetting to shave and smoking cigarettes, which doesnt exactly provide the audience much insight into his character That's yet another strike Foster plays Katie with a bit more finesse. Katie tries to come across as a worldly, sophisticated young woman when just beneath the surface is an insecure girt. Foster captures this well with what she is given in the script, but never provides any dues as to why she would kill herself. Add another strike against the film. The other actors do a good job with the material, especially Wil liam McNamara and Jonathan Silverman (teenage Billy and Alan, respectively). But the material they are given is pretty shallow, thanks to Steven Kampmann and Will Aldis. That pair served as screenwriters and as directors of this muddled mess. "Stealing Home" has too many strikes against it to bother seeing it Perhaps it would have been better if it had the more appro priate title, "Striking Out" strikes
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Sept. 15, 1988, edition 1
15
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