Surviving The Video Shortage
Surviving The Video Shortage
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco [Video Troll]
Published in: Sunday Globe Magazine, April 03, 1988
THE Holy Week ushers in an annual video shortage. Unable to get satisfaction from the local teevee networks, viewers turn to the VCR for their holiday jollies. The shelves are empty in Betamax outlets throughout the country, and if you haven't done your video shopping yet, it might be a good idea to wait a few days until the loans have been recalled. Otherwise, here are some titles that might have escaped the holocaust:
I Would Be Called John. A one-man-show by Hollywood veteran Charles Durning brings to life in stirring soliloquy the tumultuous five-year reign of Pope John XXIII, with predictable emphasis on his quantum leap into church formation and his patented folksy ways. Durning shines in places as the well-loved pontiff whose ascension to the throne of St. Peter at an already advanced age was further abbreviated by abdominal cancer. Both aspiring thespians and religious watchers should enjoy this one immesely. For the rest of us, it's probably best to dig elsewhere for our Easter Weekend fare. Written for television by Eugene Kennedy and directed by Charles Jarrett, with no less than David Suskind as executive producer. Inspiring but slow.
Lena: My 100 Children. Testimonials to human endurance and fortitude are fast becoming a favorite television genre, with true grit underscored by drama based on fact. This one is a bit lacklustre but for the touching insight it gives into the postwar plight of displaced Jewish children. Orphaned by the death camps and left to fend for themselves in a Poland already rid of German troops but no less antisemitic, a hundred of these indigent young survivors are taken under the wing of an iron-willed woman compelled by her own guilt at having escaped the furnaces by pretending to be Catholic. Housed in a run-down countryside resort to undergo the long and painful process of healing, they are driven out by irate townsfolk who leave them only one alternative: mass-migration to the Promised Land. Based on the best-selling personal account of Lena Kuchler-Silberman, this full-length teevee drama stars Torquil Campbell, Lenore Harris and Cynthia Wilde.
Bang the Drum Slowly. Robert de Niro and Michael Moriarty star in tandem as a pair of big-league baseball jocks bound by a friendship that doesn't grow on trees. When alternate-catcher DeNiro is stricken with a debilitating terminal illness, prize-pitcher Moriarty has his friend's playing contract annexed to his own, virtually assuring the dying athlete a last season at bat. Inspiring storyline and competent characterization combine with an intelligently laidback screenplay for a memorable and unpretentious little film. De Niro's backwoods pinch-hitter must be seen to be believed!
Saving Grace. A fictitious Pope Leo is emotionally distraught. The affairs of state at the Vatican keep him away from his flock and much like an over-dressed turkey partitioned in advance. He seriously considers resigning but finds no historical precedent to fall back on. When a deaf-mute girl wanders through his security cordon with an urgent plea for a parish priest to be sent to her remote Italian village, Leo decides to go himself, albeit disguised by a beard and shabby clothes. Although generally classified as a comedy, this is undoubtedly among the best light-hearted situational dramas in recent memory, and makes for outstanding family entertainment. Tom Conti stars as Pope Leo.
Waiting for the Moon. Made for U.S. public television, this somewhat text-heavy video details a dramatic "fictionalized" episode in the lives of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, leading lights of the Parisian art world at the early part of this century. Stein, the gifted American author, is a brilliant neurotic, given to spells of depressive morbidity and deadpan tongue-lashings. Toklas is Miss Supportive personified, unflustered, amiable, forgiving, and solid as granite. With all the makings of an ideal (if stormy) relationship, it's little wonder that theirs was an immortal liaison that endures elegantly in myth. Stars Linda Hunt and Linda Bassett.
The Boy Who Could Fly. Everyone at school thinks Eric is a fruitcake, and who can blame them? Struck dumb at an early age by the sudden death of his parents in an airline mishap, he now spends his time simulating flight patterns while perched on a rooftop with his outstretched arms for wings. But pretty Milly thinks there's more to Eric than meets the eye, and the exhilarating climax to this 1986 contemporary fantasy by Nick Castle eventually proves her right. Stars Lucy Deakins, Jay Underwood, Bonnie Bedelia and Colleen Dewhurst. A family must-see!
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Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “Surviving The Video Shortage” (page 1 of 1), Sunday Globe Magazine, April 03, 1988
