Chopsuey Video
Chopsuey Video
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco [Video Troll]
Published in: Sunday Globe Magazine, March 13, 1988
VARIETY, they say, is the spice of life. These days, too many crime films can make you paranoid. And far too many action movies can have you snarling around the house like Johnny Rambo. You are what you eat, swear dieticians, and that’s certainly food for thought. Here’s an interesting mix that came highly recommended to us over the weekend:
SPACEBALLS. Mel Brooks gives me gas. Either I laugh too loud for too long, or I fall asleep without my sando and wake up flatulent. Spaceballs is no different. Those who have learned to appreciate the humor in bad taste will find more than enough to like here. Spoofing the great Lucas trilogy Star Wars—with puffy touchpoints in every modern-day sci-fi classic from Planet of the Apes to Ridley Scott’s Alien—this recent hit has its high points and its corresponding descents into Mordor. Rick Moranis as Lord Dark Helmet and John Candy as the androgenous Mog are outstanding. The rest of the cast (including a sadly displaced Dick Van Patten and Mel Brooks himself) is both regrettable and forgettable. Says Dark Helmet to a Skywalker-look-alike as they prepare to do battle with sordid light-swords: “I am your father’s best friend’s cousin’s former roommate.” The rest, as they say, is history.
WILD THING. Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Phantom of the Opera should sue! This young lord of the concrete jungle is raised like a hunted animal by a hobo-lady whose brains have been scrambled by electro-shock therapy, a peculiar fate that befalls him when his own card-toting hippie parents are gunned down in cold blood by a ruthless drug overlord. While it looks as though it could shape up into an interesting enough plot, the movie never quite gets off the ground. We wait and we wait and we wait. The film goes on and on and on. In the end, our hero is probably better off hiding away in the sewers. And we’re all better off letting him. Stars Kathleen Quinlan and what’s-his-face.
A ROOM WITH A VIEW. Adjudged Best Picture of 1986 by the National Board of Review, this cinematic adaptation of E.M. Forster’s Victorian drama of the heart has the welcome quality of English soap without the suds. An aristocratic debutante on vacation in Florence crosses swords with a brooding young Englishman who repels and then ultimately intrigues her. Nipped in the bud at the holiday’s end, the flirtation eventually comes full-circle with fate’s intervention at every turn, surviving an ill-starred engagement, family squabbles, neighborhood kibitzers, and our heroine’s own determination to keep her persistent suitor at arm’s length. Anyone who has lived through a cat-and-mouse courtship should have a lot of fun writhing through this classic tale of love among the gentry. Stars Helena Bonham-Carter and Julian Sands.
WISDOM. Some people are just plain talented, I guess. Emilio Estevez writes, directs and stars in this contemporary Bonnie & Clyde fantasy that also features Demi Moore, Tom Skerritt and William Allen Young. To be sure, few films with so little to offer by way of an imaginative storyline are this enjoyable. Stigmatized by a minor felony committed while still a teenager, Estevez is unable to land a decent job and decides instead to become a crusading criminal in the Robin Hood mold. Travelling cross-country for a series of daring bank robberies, he rides high in public-opinion polls and revels in the adulation even as he makes a wild dash for the Canadian border. Luscious Moore and Estevez’s Uzi provide exciting sidelines.
MY DEMON LOVER. This multifaceted situational comedy of recent produce is largely over-rated and tends to disappoint precisely because of this. Featuring a huggable pair of star-crossed lovers named Kaz and Denny (Scott Valentine and Michelle Little, respectively), the finely-tuned exchanges make for deliciously-barbed dialogue, only to falter at the homestretch and fizzle out into a sort of slapstick steeplechase with Hammer Film overtones and a Big Apple twang. Kaz transforms into Linda Blair whenever his borderline libido is aroused, which is more than enough for a fulllength creature-feature considering Denny’s peaches-and-cream pucker. Visual yum-yums and a lot of running about.
RUMBLEFISH. Starring big-time hearththrob Matt Dillon and ace character actor Mickey Rourke, this picture-perfect cinematic landmark by Francis Ford Coppola was a box-office flop for all its artistic fluency. Rourke is a little old as the legendary “Motorcycle Boy,” a gangland superhero who returns to the ghetto of his youth after years of aimless wandering. Dillon, exuding massive doses of sexuality and post-adolescent hypertension, is Rourke’s kid brother, an overgrown groupie committed to the perpetuation of a myth already destined for a violent death. Poetry is said to be the least appreciated of the arts, and Coppola shoots this film in brooding verse. On the other hand, our cultural riffraff should love this wonderfully crafted flick precisely because it took a beating at the tills. Ah, life!
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Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “Chopsuey Video” (page 1 of 1), Sunday Globe Magazine, March 13, 1988
