Here is the ideal movie for those who found Terminator 2 insufficiently violent or too intellectually challenging. Crass, imbecilic, confused and easily predictable from start to finish, this film even shamefully lifts the main plot premise of the Terminator series: A robotic good guy and a befuddled young woman are stalked by a relentless, superhuman villain.
In this case the robotic types are Vietnam War fatalities who have been resurrected and turned into super soldiers, bionic man—style. (The closest the film comes to an explanation for the science behind this transformation is that they have been "hyperaccelerated," whatever that means. But then this movie devotes far more lime to cramming in multiple close-ups of people being shot in the head than in coherent storytelling.)
Lundgren (The Punisher) and Van Damme (Death Warrant) are perfectly cast as automatonlike ciphers who have only a passing acquaintance with English pronunciation. The whole cast, in fact—with hulking Tiny (Beverly Hills Cop II) Lister Jr. and Ralph (Best of the Best II) Moeller also among the soldieroids—is about as emotionally expressive as a fleet of Dumpsters. Even Ally (TV's True Blue) Walker, as the newswoman who helps the rebellious and wounded Van Damme flee from Lundgren, acts with a klutzy, off-putting artificiality.
Director Roland (Moon 44) Emmerich doesn't help himself by unimaginatively casting the subsidiary roles—there isn't one amusing secondary performance. Meanwhile, writers Richard Rothstein, Christopher Leitch and Dean Devlin, television veterans collaborating on their first feature, show a dismal lack of wit.
The action sequences are routine shoot-outs and punch-outs, even the inevitable confrontation between Lundgren and Van Damme. (Next to Lundgren, Van Damme seems ludicrously puny and outclassed, for one thing.)
Romantics may lake solace in the relationship that develops between Walker and Van Damme, even though it seems wildly unlikely—and their scenes together never suggest sex so much as they do appliance repair. (R)
Sophie Marceau, Richard Berry
Marceau, a glowing beauty who can also act, is the main reason to see this talky drama set in Israel during the 1967 war. With fervid grace, she plays a 19-year-old violinist at the center of a ménage à cinq. Her appeal aside, Sasha sinks under the weight of too much plot and too little character development.
At the movie's start, Marceau moves from Paris with her middle-aged lover and former teacher Sasha—played by Berry (Shadows of the Past)—to an Israeli kibbutz. Although fully able to commit himself to his new country, Sasha is unable to commit himself to his young mistress, never telling her-that he loves her. and rolling in the hay—well, actually, in a truckload of newly picked cotton—with another sweet young thing.
Enter three postadolescent swains (Fabien Orcier, Niels Dubost, Frederic Quiring), all in love with Marceau and all former students of Sasha's. They have come to visit, each hoping to convince Marceau that he is her true Prince Charming. No sooner do they arrive than war breaks out, which serves primarily as a backdrop for all five to confront their collective past (and a humdinger of a dark secret) and make peace with their present.
As directed and cowritten by Alexandre Arcady, For Sasha has its moments, especially in its scenes of kibbutz life and a meal shared between an Arab worker and Marceau, but not enough of them. (In French, with subtitles; not rated)
Documentary
Far more entertaining than it is enlightening, this documentary is a study of women stand-up comedians by Canadian director Gail (Loved, Honoured and Bruised) Singer. She, like many of the women she is interested in, takes the whole business too seriously, at limes oppressively so.
There is also a fair amount of man bashing, and not a little straw-man bashing, especially by Kim Wayans and Sandra Shamas, who both imply that male comedians have an easy job because audiences are often sexist. "Men have to prove they're not funny" to attract disapproval, Wayans says. Emily Levine describes her fantasies this way: "After sex, the man dies."
The excerpts Singer uses include Paula Poundstone, who has as big a chin as Jay Leno's and a bigger sense of humor, noting that she picked out boots made from both lizard and calfskin—'so I could destroy as many animals as possible. Then I asked them, 'Do you have anything in kitten?' " Ellen DeGeneres recalls that her parents ran a petting zoo "and a heavy-petting zoo for the people who really like animals."
Geri Jewell, who has cerebral palsy jokes easily about her affliction and tells a funny story about attending the TV show of her idol. Carol Burnett. After getting a front-row seat by pretending she was deaf, Jewell raised her hand to ask a question during Burnett's Q&A session with her audience.
Comic and talk show host Jenny Jones does a witty, if predictable, bit about thrift-oriented dating: "I went out to dinner with this man.... At least he was a gentleman: He carried my tray."
Interspersed with the performance snippets are generally dreary offstage interviews, in which Poundstone, Whoopi Goldberg and Phyllis Differ are noteworthy for not lapsing into gripe sessions about how hard women comedians have it. (A series of old movie clips shortchanges the work of pioneer Fanny Brice; Singer doesn't even identify her when she appears onscreen, and Brice is hardly a familiar face these days.)
Notably overlooked are successful, reliably funny Rita Rudner. Judy Tenuta and Lily Tomlin. Singer also doesn't deign-or maybe it's dare—to interview any men. However politically incorrect it might have been, talking to, say, Robin Williams, Steve Martin, Johnny Carson and Bob Hope would probably have provided some perspective, as well as a few more laughs.
As it is, this is like a cable TV women's comedy anthology. It will give you a good time, but it won't teach you much. (Not rated)
- Contributors:
- Ralph Novak,
- Leah Rozen.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
