Scanlines

CD-ROM for MS DOS
Origin Systems

In recent years, Hollywood has crept silently, deliberately into the interactive gaming business, spreading its influence like an undetectable computer virus. Without so much as a warning cough, it slipped through Dr. Norton's defense grid with a contagious handshake and a lucrative word. "You don't need a story line," Hollywood crooned. "Just give 'em lots of special effects and distract them with B-list actors" (enter Mark Hamill, et al.). "Engaging dialogue?" Hollywood sang on. "Just blow lots of stuff up; that's what we do in the movies." And after a quick glance through the box office receipts of summer blockbusters past, the once cutting edge, independently spirited universe of game designers folded its high-minded tents and mutated into something entirely different, something we might call Cyberwood. Which brings us hesitantly to Privateer 2: The Darkening, the most recent addition to the give-'em-explosions-instead-of-a-story canon of multimedia game titles. Its premise hails from the oldest Hollywood cliché vault: A man loses his memory and must search for his heavily guarded past. Was he a Samaritan? Was he a murderer? Who cares? No one who watches the clumsily produced intro sequence. And yet compared to its predecessor, Privateer, this updated title does have its triumphs. Privateer 2's improved battle engine makes for lyrical, operatic fighting sequences, and its beautifully rendered star ships and planetary way stations are drawn with the taut, creative flourish of a conductor's baton. Truly, if space combat and interplanetary looting is all you're after, then Privateer 2 will dutifully fill your sails.

-- Marcel Meyer

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Vertigo

D: Alfred Hitchcock (1958)
with James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes.

Widely regarded as Alfred Hitchcock's masterwork, Vertigo is one of the great pieces of cinema that will be treasured forever. That's largely due to the astounding restoration efforts on the film over the last few years, a process which culminated in the film's theatrical reissue in 1996 and its release on letterboxed home video in April. Hitchcock's tale, a haunting story of one man's obsession and the destructive toll it takes as it consumes his life, retains every bit of its power on the small screen. In fact, the video restoration might even have improved on the theatrical reissue -- as Hitch's highly thematic lighting beams out in even more brilliant Technicolor. Vertigo is and will always be an important film, and this videotape is one of the rare collector's items for cinema buffs (the original trailer, a short documentary, and a production information booklet are also included). A true must-have for Hitchcock fans as well as casual film viewers.

-- Christopher Null

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The Browning Version

D: Mike Figgis (1994)
with Albert Finney, Greta Scacchi, Matthew Modine.

For some strange reason, I always bypassed this video despite phenomenal testimonials from trusted friends. Mike Figgis' film (based on the Terence Rattigan play) about an aging boarding-school teacher (Finney) who realizes that his career has been something of a failure truly is a treat -- one of those "small" films that doesn't last long in theaters but not for lack of quality. Greta Scacchi plays Finney's unfaithful younger wife Laura with just the right amount of crippling detachment. By the time Laura sees her husband for the unpolished gem that he really is, he has come to his own realizations about life, love, and marriage. Finney's understated performance is inspiring. He captures well the mix of pride, pathos, and dogged honesty that makes this character a true hero. First filmed in 1951 by British director Anthony Asquith, The Browning Version tells a timeless story about the seemingly insurmountable walls that can arise between those subjects we love and the students to whom we must teach them. -- Alison Macor

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Better Off Dead

D: Savage Steve Holland (1985)
with John Cusack, Diane Franklin, Curtis Armstrong, and Daniel Schneider

Better Off Dead

Lane is having a really bad week. His girlfriend dumped him for a snobby skier, the basketball team beat him up, and two strange Asians keep challenging him to a drag race. Lane might as well just kill himself, whether through more conventional means or by skiing the K12, an enormous mountain for which his tiny town is famous. A very young John Cusack embues Lane with a good-natured pathos that is hysterical and this movie simply reeks of the mid-Eighties, complete with Van Halen power chords, a Pia Zadora look-alike, and polo shirts with the collars up. Writer-director Savage Steve Holland captures Lane's quirky universe with memorable cartoon interludes and simplistically clever dialogue, originating the oft-quoted "Go that way really fast. If something gets in your way, turn" line that has long been a source of inspiration for many children of the Reagan years. Holland also noticed the multi-talented Cusack long before his Grifters days and this movie is a hoot for folks who just can't get enough Cusack after experiencing Grosse Pointe Blank.

-- Adrienne Martini

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"Scanlines" would like to acknowledge the assistance of Encore Movies & More and Vulcan Video for providing video selections for our staff reviewers. We always suggest you call for title availability.