D: Ernst Lubitsch; with Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Bela Lugosi, Ina
Claire.
VHS Home Video
During its original release, the greatest attraction of this 1939 comedy
written by Billy Wilder et al., was the fact that Garbo actually laughed
in the film, and today that attraction is just as magnetic. Nineties viewers,
however, will also find it a fascinating document of international politesse
that, though pointedly humorous, is pointed nonetheless. Garbo plays a
Soviet commissar come to Paris to monitor the activities of three bumbling
underlings, and accidentally falls in love with a Parisian playboy.
Ninotchka is the amusing and touching epitome of what people are talking
about when they say they just don’t make ’em like they used to. — Clay Smith
27 Pieces of Me
D: Gerald Donahoe; with Tina M. Denning, Angelique Von Halle, JonathanHarris, Rebecca M. Davis, Scott Ramirez.
VHS Home Video
I Luv Video, 4631 Airport Blvd.
From the first-ever annual Rainy States Film Festival of 1995, an event
orchestrated to showcase independent filmmakers of the Pacific Northwest, comes
the feature-length 27 Pieces of Me. Tanya’s sister Ramona (Von Halle)
leaves her husband in hometown Bartley, Nebraska to surprise her self-exiled
sister Tanya (Denning), who lives as an artist in Seattle. A tense reunion
causes Tanya’s friend and studio-mate Bold (Harris) to impose his friendly
amateur therapy on the sisters in attempt to heal their wounds. “Award
winning,” they say. I hate to rain on their parade, but all the lattes in
Seattle couldn’t invigorate the one-dimensional story line stocked with
clich� scenarios and overtly deliberate acting style. What could have
been an exploration of the plight of misunderstood artists, homosexuals, and
siblings, results in three adult characters acting like a trio of pouty “inner
children” flipping lines back and forth. However, Gina Hicks’ interesting
cinematography, the original score by Matt Nimms of the Tiny Hat Orchestra, and
music by Seattle’s local bands Ganja Farmers, Stinkhorn, and Lisa Koch enhance
the enjoyment factor.
— Stephany Baskin
Quake
id SoftwarePC CD-ROM
Quake has hit like the entrails of a butchered and gutted steer hitting
the floor of an abattoir. Hellish brutes ceaselessly heave forth as spew from
the gaping maw of some crippled demon rejected by Lucifer. There is a
story behind this haunting game, but who really cares? It’s the action and
atmosphere that matter, and there’s more than enough of both. The levels are
beautifully elaborate; the soundtrack by Trent Reznor hauntingly ominous. Once
you tire of playing alone you must find a way to check out the
multi-player game. If you’ve got access to a LAN, play it there, but with a
modem you can play over the Internet as well. This game has to be lived, not
read about. — Kurt Dillard
Shadow of Angels
D: Daniel Schmid; with Ingrid Caven, Klaus Loewitsch, Adrian Hoven, AnneMarie Duringer, Jean Claude-Dreyfus.
VHS Home Video
Waterloo Video, 1016 W. Sixth
Marketed as a Fassbinder film, this one was actually co-scripted by the
prolific German filmmaker from a stage play he wrote and directed. The film
version is directed by Daniel Schmid (in steady camera Fassbinder style, I
might add). Still a typical example of the themes explored throughout his
works, the story manages a glimpse of something higher in the lowest depths of
the world. If some of Fassbinder’s scenarios weren’t so desperate, the
stylized, lofty language abounding from the characters who inhabit them could
appear almost funny — a sign of the director’s many successes in the genre of
absurd comedy as well. Shadow of Angels (1976), however, is a sparse,
hopeless story of an unwanted, consumptive prostitute (Caven) who eventually
meets a repugnant, yet wealthy john who pays her to listen to him rant.
Fassbinder himself stars as the homosexual pimp to whom this woman is devoted;
their dysfunctional relationship is all the more chilling in light of the fact
that he was for a time married to the actress in real life. — Jen
Scoville
Jupiter’s Wife
D: Michel Negroponte.VHS Home Video
Vulcan Video, 609 W. 29th
Maggie Cogan claims to be many things: the wife of Zeus, the daughter of film
star Robert Ryan, and the mother of quintuplets. She is a schizophrenic who
lives with her backpack and dog pack in Central Park. Negroponte documents two
years in the marginal but strangely happy life that Maggie leads, but also
probes deeper into the truth behind her cryptic fantasy life. As the mystery of
her past unfolds, the depth of Maggie’s loss emerges. What he finds is a woman
of strength and courage who was left behind by the world when the winds of her
mental illness really took hold. — Kayte VanScoy
This article appears in October 11 • 1996 and October 11 • 1996 (Cover).