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REVIEWS<br />
DESTINY TURNS ON THE RADIO •<br />
Stalling Dylan McDcnnott, Nancy<br />
Travis, James LeGros, Qiientin Tarantino<br />
and James Beliishi.<br />
Directed by Jack Baran. Written by<br />
Robert Ramsey and Matthew<br />
Stone. Produced by Gloria<br />
Zimmennan.<br />
A Savoy release. Romance/<br />
Fantasy. Rated R for language.<br />
Running time: 101 min.<br />
One protagonist's<br />
name is<br />
Thoreau. A fringe character is<br />
called Vinnie Vidivici. This in<br />
itself is a good gauge of the level<br />
of fresh-out-of-film-school pretentiousness<br />
permeating Robert<br />
Ramsey and Matthew<br />
Stone's script. Intended to be<br />
clever and hip, this thin and<br />
inane tale tracks the intertwined<br />
lives of two goodhearted<br />
bank robbers (Dylan<br />
McDermott as the cool one, and<br />
James LeGros as the eccentric<br />
one), a Las Vegas lounge singer<br />
(Nancy Travis), her goonish boyfriend<br />
(James Belushi) and a mystical entity<br />
called Johnny Destiny (Quentin Tarantino),<br />
who is mythologized as a sort of<br />
god embodying the luck of Sin City.<br />
Though Tarantino's acting isn't bad<br />
(his turn in "Pulp Fiction" was perhaps<br />
overmaligned), this film simply W association<br />
will further poison his attempts to<br />
build a thespian career. Performances all<br />
around are adequate but can't overcome<br />
the writing. The parts of the plot that are<br />
supposed to be whimsically magical are<br />
lumpen and underdeveloped, and the<br />
part that's based in reality has holes big<br />
enough for Siegfried and Roy's tigers to<br />
j ump th ro u gh —<br />
. Ch listine James<br />
A PYROMANIAC'S<br />
LOVE STORY ••<br />
Stalling William Baldwin, John<br />
Legitizmno, Sadie Fivst and Eiika Eleniak.<br />
Db-ected by Joshua Brand. Writtai by<br />
Moigmi Wm-d. Pivduccd by Mark Gordon.<br />
A Buena Vista release. Comedy.<br />
Rated PG for mild language. Running<br />
time: 93 min.<br />
Its fairj'-tale underpinning revealed<br />
with the opening epigraph, "Once upon<br />
a time in a city not that far away lived a<br />
poor pastry boy named Sergio," this Hollywood<br />
Pictures production only fitfully<br />
ambles toward a fairy-tale ending. The<br />
story of one fire, two competing males,<br />
three confessors to the blaze, and four<br />
pining hearts, "A Pyromaniac's Love<br />
Story" ventures more determinedly— and<br />
thus less realistically— into the quirky terrain<br />
mined by director Joshua Brand in his<br />
TV series "Nortliem Exposure."<br />
Although virtually the movie's sole<br />
focus, the two love affairs— between<br />
Sergio (John Leguizamo of TV's "House<br />
of Buggin'") and a cafe waitress (Sadie<br />
Frost from "Bram Stoker's Dracula"), and<br />
between a pyromaniac (William Baldwin)<br />
and a rich girl (Erika Eleniak of TV's<br />
FLASHBACK: NOVEMBER 20, 1967<br />
What BOXOFFICE said about...<br />
CAMELOT<br />
[On July 7, Columbia releases "First Knight," another silver-screen take<br />
on the myth of Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot. In 1967, HoUjTtood did<br />
the legend according to Lemer and Loewe in "Camelot."]<br />
While King Arthur's love affair, his courdy<br />
^vars and eventual woes are familiar to all,<br />
new life was brought to the old tale when Alan<br />
Jay Lemer and Frederick Loewe turned T.W.<br />
WTiite's "The Once and Future King" into the<br />
stunning Broadway musical "Camelot" wth<br />
Richard Burton and Julie Andrews. Producer<br />
Jack L. Warner and director Joshua Logan<br />
have converted the play into film, leaving in<br />
much of the theatricality and using some<br />
good, but less than inspired, performers in<br />
place of the unmatchable originals. Richard<br />
Harris is the King and Franco Nero is Lancelot,<br />
but Vanessa Redgrave steals the show from<br />
everyone and everything, except Loewe's glorious<br />
music. She is ravishingly beautiful and<br />
acts, sings and moves with grace— a vision to<br />
be ever remembered. Less successful is<br />
Logan's affected direction and Harris' mannered<br />
acting. John Truscott's costumes and<br />
production design make this a lavish movie helped by the photography<br />
and music. In this harsh, cruel world of the mid-1960s, it's refreshing to<br />
be set-ved such glowing entertainment, reservations aside, and "Camelot"<br />
naturally becomes the successor to Jack Warner's "My Fair Lady."<br />
EXPLOITIPS:<br />
SELLING ANGLES: This roadshow attraction should be promoted via<br />
the famous title and the music with record store tie-ins. WB-7 Arts has<br />
an extensive traveling display of costumes.<br />
CATCHLINES: The Love Story of the Ages.. .The Most Beautiful Musical<br />
in Years. .."As Long As You Live, You Will Remember 'Camelot.'"<br />
"Baywatch")— never gains real depth. Instead,<br />
the film settles on the offbeat but<br />
creates no "beat" to be "off from; with<br />
another of her signature kooky scores<br />
that have made her the Johnny Depp of<br />
composers, Rachel Portman gives the<br />
proceedings its most even keel. In supporting<br />
roles as an older German couple<br />
who run the pastry shop, Armin Mueller-<br />
Stahl and Joan Plowright are splendid,<br />
investing their characters with more<br />
than caprice.— Kwi Williamson<br />
VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED •^^<br />
Stalling Chiistophcr Reeve, Kirstie<br />
Alley and Linda Kozlowski.<br />
Directed by John Cai-pcnter. Written<br />
by David Himmclstein. Produced by<br />
Michael Piegcr and Sandy King.<br />
A Universal release. HoiTor. Rated R<br />
for some sci-fi tenor and for violence.<br />
Running time: 95 min.<br />
John Wyndham's book "The Midwich<br />
Cuckoos," upon which the 1960 version<br />
of this remake was based, was born from<br />
the SF author's interest in the way the<br />
cuckoo propagates: It lays its eggs in the<br />
nests of another species, which then<br />
raise its young. In this interplanetary<br />
variant, aliens undetectably implant fetuses<br />
in 10 women in the small town of<br />
Midwich (though they would have been<br />
instantly detectable had any of the protagonists<br />
been horror movie fans, in<br />
which case they would have known that<br />
Eerie Omnipresent Whispering = Aliens<br />
or Ghosts). Individual joy at motherhood<br />
turns to fear when tlie town doctor<br />
(Christopher Reevej uncovers the truth.<br />
The film acknowledges the possibility<br />
of abortion (an alternative that couldn't<br />
be considered in the 1 960 adaptation) but<br />
doesn't clearly explain why all the<br />
women decide to carry to term. Nine of<br />
the 10 offspring survive; a federal program<br />
to monitor them is headed by a<br />
dispassionate scientist (Kirstie Alley,<br />
conveying a convincing blend of authority<br />
and apprehension). As the children<br />
grow older, their differences from humanity<br />
in look, mind and emotion become<br />
far more obvious than for their<br />
1960 predecessors. Their growing control<br />
of mind over matter lead to several<br />
fatal "accidents" for those who cross their<br />
paths, but "glowing eye" special effects<br />
that accompany their evildoing are unimpressive<br />
to today's audiences, jaded<br />
even to morphing and sophisticated animatronics.<br />
And the action is repetitious;<br />
whenever the aliens feel threatened,<br />
they simply mete out far greater punishment<br />
(which is increasingly macabre).<br />
The alien race's plans to take over the<br />
planet remain too ainbiguous to incur<br />
July, 1995 R-63
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