This Week August 29, 1990. Page M11

~ AT THE MOVIES

Steve Martin entertaining in silly Blue Heaven

MY BLUE HEAVEN (Capitol
6/Caprice) Lightweight, ami-
able comedy starring Steve
Martin as Vinnie Antonelli, a

@lick, fast talking N.Y.C.
gangster who enters the
_ government's Witness Reloca-
tion Program while waiting for
a courtroom engagement where
| he will testify against a well-
known mobster. Transplanted
to the picture-perfect suburban
town of Fryburg, California,
Vinnie must cope with his neb-
bish FBI protector (Rick
Moranis), a zealous assistant
DA Goan Cusack) who wants
_ him behind bars, and the prob-
lem of how to keep his dubious
business skills sharp amid his
new dull-as-dishwater environ-

| apent.

SiIVer Screen

By DAVID RYLAND

_ Director Herbert Ross
@yho also directed Martin
in the little-seen Pennies
From Heaven) does his best
with this basic fish-out-of-
@.water story, but working
from Nora Ephron’s only

sporadically funny script
(she shows little of the
cBver insights which
flavored her When Harry
Mei Sally . . . screenplay),
Ross has his hands full
trying not to let the whole
thing slip into cliches and
stereotypes. Fortunately

the appeal of the three stars
takes much of the strain of
the story.

Martin’s Vinnie, complete
with accent, new hair, and
dozens of sharkskin suits is
nothing like anything he has
tried before, and his loose, ges-
ticulating performance is most
entertaining. Moranis adds a
nice edge of competence to his
usual nerd role, and Cusack has
fun with her most substantial
part yet, giving her uptight
character and a likable touch of
vulnerability.

My Blue Heaven will please
those who are looking for. a well-
played bit of breezy silliness but
anyone demanding more might
find themselves praying they
had bought tickets elsewhere.
**1/2 (Mature) Language.

EXORCIST If (Towne) Cer-
tainly writer/director William
Peter Blatty cannot be accused
of trying to grab a piece of this
summer’s sequel pie by simply
rehashing his script to the 1973
horror classic The Exorcist and
feeding off the lingering effect
that film still has on its viewers.
While not the masterpiece that
shocked and chilled audiences
16years ago, Exorcist IT is quite
effective in its own right,
presenting an uneven but fas-
cinating continuation of his
devilish story.

George C. Scott stars as Bill
Kinderman (Lee J. Cobb played
this part in the original), the
police Lt. who investigated the
strange happenings in The Ex-
orcist. Kinderman is now in-
volved in a series of brutal,
disturbing murders that bear a
striking resemblance to the
work of The Gemini Killer, a
serial murderer who was ex-

_-ecuted 15 years before. In the

course of his investigation he
also comes in contact with a
mysterious mental patient who
appears to be the late Father
Damien, last victim of the first

Exorcist outing. Needless to say
both of these occurrences ul-
timately lead Kinderman to
deduce that only one personality
can be behind all these events.

Blattys new script (adapted
from his novel Legion), although
vastly different from his
original, is just as irreverent in
its Own way, especially in its use
of humor to both build and
loosen tension. Blatty’s direction
forgoes graphic violence, offer-
ing scares derived from
suspense rather than special ef-
fects. Only an overdone finale
and some thinly drawn support-
ing characters hurt the overall
effect of this flawed but unique
thriller.

Also starring Jason Miller
(reprising his Father Damien
role), Ed Flanders, Nicol Wil-
liamson, Scott Wilson and Brad
Dourif. *** (R) Languas
gory scenes.

TAKING CARE OF BUSL-
NESS (Capitol 6) Taking Care
Of Business is neither a sequel
nor aremake, but this well-worn
story ofa rich guy and a poor guy
switching places will seem very
familiar to arryone who hasn't
been trapped in a cave since the
dawn of Hollywood.

This time the scenario is
played out by Charles Grodin as
a workaholic businessman who
loses his precious Filofax (it’s
sort of a mini briefcase or over-
sized wallet for executives), and

Jim Belushi as an escaped con-
vict who finds the tempting item
on his way to the World Series.
Grodin ends up penniless and
lost, while Belushi takes full ad-
vantage of house keys, credit
cards, and even attends a few
business meetings. -

Any enjoyment derived from
this effort must be credited to its
stars who try hard to pump
some life into Jill Mazursky and
Jeffery Abram’s clunking script.
But with scenes nor more inven-
tive than Grodin being tossed

- Barbecuing is primeval urge

ave you ever
asked yourself
why you bar-
becue? Does it
seem a sensible thing to do
on a murderously hot,
— humid day?

Go to the store. Buy meat.
Return to the store. Buy bri-
quets. Burn your finger. Burn
the meat. Eat. That is a lot of
5; ., trouble to go to when there are
{fast food takeouts in town.
= We have a primeval urge
= to char meat outdoors. In
our brain stem there is a
racial memory of hairy an-
m™ cestors eating beside the
= fire. During the winter we
keep it in check, but in sum-
mer, everyone wants to be a
Neanderthal.

I’s understandable we would
want to relive simpler days.
Cavewoman didn’t dither in
=| front of six sorts of meat at the
i supermarket. She cooked what
the caveman brought home.
There was no cause to worry
pthat the beast might be full of
antibiotics. Mastodons never
heard of penicillin.

Til bet none of her offspring
declared themselves
vegetarians when faced with
Polynesian pork chop. Her kids
couldn’t make themselves a
peanut butter sandwich in-
stead, because peanut butter,

2
@]
d

By JOAN MYLES

white bread andjam hadn’tbeen
invented yet. There weren’t any
magazines warning that
smoked meat causes cancer.

It sounds restful, but don’t be
fooled by the nostalgia. Like
Uncle Joe’s memory of the
depression, it looks better from
a distance.

Cave people didn’t know any

better. They thought it was nor-
mal to sit on rocks outdoors. To
them, ants and mosquitoes were
part of the decor. They keep
cockroaches as pets.

No wonder they were fitter
than we are. Chasing and being
chased by animals is great
aerobic exercise. In spite of their
muscles, their life expectancy
was short. Survival isn’t for the
fittest. It’s for the smartest.

Anyone who can master fire
and invent the wheel has to be a
clever chap. Eventually, they
would go on to figure out how to
put the caramel in the Caramilk

_ bar.

Do you think anyone with such
intelligence would have bar-
becued when there was a deli
within driving distance? Would
she have stoked the coals ifthere
had been a chance that the
drive-through window was
open? It would not have taken
her long to figure out that a
microwave defrosts and cooks
without heating up the kitchen.

So when you feel the need to
take the whole kitchen outside
to the patio, stifle it. Every time
you barbecue you set evolution
back 100,000 years.

is

STEVE MARTIN is Vinnie Antonelli, a mafia informant, in My

Blue Heaven. He becomes pals with the FBI agent (Rick
Moranis) assigned to protect him.

into a dumpster by thugs while
Belushi ogles his posh new sur-
roundings, even their talents
can’t make this pay off in any-
thing more than mild amuse-
ment. If you really feel you need
to see this plot worked over
again, go rent the Eddie Mur-
phy/Dan Aykroyd film Trading
Places. At least it augmented the
old tale with new jokes. ** (Ma-
ture) Language.

FLATLINERS
(Haida/Caprice) Kiefer Suther-
land, Julia Roberts and Kevin
Bacon star in this overbaked,
underwrought thriller about a

small group of irresponsible.

med students who get their jol-
lies by performing life-after-
death experiments on
themselves only to find that the
experience leads to the par-
ticipants being hounded by the
sins of their past.

SOLID HIDE WOOD STAIN
LIC LATEX

- Mon. to Fri. 7:30 - 5:30
Saturday 8:30 - 5:30
Sunday 10:00 - 5:00

3172 Douglas St.
(across from Mayfair)

385-8794

OPEN SUNDAYS
FOR YOUR SHOPPING CONVENIENCE

Director Joel Schumacher
(Lost Boys) seems far more con-
cerned with garish effect light-
ing and overstylized set design
than character motive, plausible
story structure, or any kind of
emotion that these events might
precipitate. What small amount
of moral or message that does
dribble through the excess
doesn’t amount to much more
than feeble platitudes about not
messing with The Big Guy
upstairs and being nice to
people.

Flatliners takes a story with
real possibilities and turns it
into an object lesson in cheap
thrills and visual histrionics
that may look lively but ul-
timately proves to be brain-
dead. *1/2 (R) Language,
suggestive scenes, scenes of
autopsy.

= =
ESE

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