Lights Out Movie Reviews
Copyright (c) 1994, Bruce Diamond
All rights reserved

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RATING SYSTEM:

$$$$ - worth full price, take a date
 $$$ - worth full price
  $$ - matinee material
   $ - wait for dollar cinema
   0 - wait for cable

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THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT:  Written & directed
by Stephan Elliott.  Starring Terence Stamp, Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce,
and Bill Hunter.  Gramercy.  Rated R.

What movie season is complete without the tale of three outrageous drag
queens traveling across the Australian outback in a screaming purple bus?
Mitzi, Felicia and Bernadette (actually, a transexual and not a drag
queen), three lip-synching disco dance divas, make friends and enemies on
their way to a gig in the middle of the desert.  The costumes are a riot,
topped only by the musical sequences that pop up in the most unlikely
places (for example, singing and dancing to "I Love The Nightlife" with a
band of traveling natives).  Terence Stamp (yes, the same Terence Stamp
that played the bloodthirsty General Zod in SUPERMAN and SUPERMAN II) is a
sensitive, quiet pillar of strength as Bernadette, the only centered,
non-flamboyant member of the trio.

RATING:  $$$


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FRESH:  Written & directed by Boaz Yakin.  Starring Sean Nelson,
Giancarlo Esposito, Samuel L. Jackson, N'bushe Wright, Ron Brice, Jean
LeMarre, and Luis Lantigua.  Miramax.  Rated R.

A street kid cleans the drug lords out of his neighborhood through an
elaborate, chesslike strategy.  Young Sean Nelson plays Fresh with an
appealing mix of vitality and cunning, already a Grand Master of acting at
age 12.  Boaz Yakin's smart script and insightful direction prove, along
with Alison Anders' MI VIDA LOCA from this summer, that you don't have to
be a person of color to understand the street.  Samuel L. Jackson stands
out as Fresh's father, a burned out wreck of man who hustles chess games to
make a living, such as it is.

RATING:  $$$


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NATURAL BORN KILLERS:  Oliver Stone, director.  David Veloz, Richard
Rutowski and Oliver Stone, screenplay.  Quentin Tarantino, story.
Starring Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones, Tom
Sizemore, Rodney Dangerfield, Russell Means, Pruitt Taylor Vance,
James Gammon, and Edie McClurg.  Warner Bros.  Rated R.

A kaleidoscopic journey into America's fascination with mass murderers
and tabloid television.  Stone blows open the mixed media techniques
that opened JFK, tracking the exploits of Mickey and Mallory (Woody
Harrelson, Juliette Lewis), young serial killers in love, and Wayne
Gale (Robert Downey, Jr.), the trash TV reporter who makes them
famous.  More concerned with image and aftermath than motive or cause,
Stone litters the plot with corpses and paints the screen with blood,
mostly without portraying every victim's death in excruciating detail.
NBK is a brutal headrush of a movie told in brutally experimental
terms.

RATING:  $$$$


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TIMECOP:  Peter Hyams, director.  Mark Verheiden, screenplay.  Mike
Richardson and Verheiden, story.  Based on the Dark Horse comic by
Richardson and Verheiden.  Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Ron Silver,
Mia Sara, Gloria Reuben, Bruce McGill, and Scott Lawrence.  Universal.
Rated R.

Van Damme spin-kicks his way through history in a film that's more
chop-sockey than science fiction.  Timecop Max Walker patrols the
timestream, repairing changes in history made by renegade time
travelers.  Ron Silver obviously relishes his role as the film's
heavy, a U.S. Senator who's manipulating events to make himself rich
. . . and President.  The BACK TO THE FUTURE films handled the time
travel double-talk much better than this script by comic-book writers
Verheiden and Richardson, and director Peter Hyams (OUTLAND, 2010)
does little to turn the loose connection of boot fu scenes into a
convincing narrative.  Even Walker's attempt to save his wife's life
(Mia Sara) ten years in the past seems empty and meaningless.

RATING:  $


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WAGONS EAST:  Peter Markle, director.  Matthew Carlson, screenplay.
Starring John Candy, Richard Lewis, John C. McGinley, Ellen Greene,
Robert Picardo, Ed Lauter, William Sanderson, Rodney A. Grant, Melinda
Culea, Gaillard Sartain, and Charles Martin Smith.  TriStar.  Rated
PG.

WAGONS EAST has the dubious honor of featuring John Candy's last
performance on film before his untimely death.  Unfortunately, the
movie doesn't present the full measure of the man.  It's a singular
unfunny Western spoof, chronicling a bunch of whiny Old West pioneers
who decide, en masse, to head back east.  Richard Lewis is the
funniest of the lot, outshining a tired-looking Candy, but his best
material is in the first five minutes.  As though a pratfall-filled
script weren't bad enough, supporting actor John C. McGinley plays the
most offensively-stereotyped gay character seen on film in years.

RATING:  0

