Direct To Video"Mother" (12)
In her first substantial role for 25 years, Debbie Reynolds lights up the screen with a delightfully deadpan performance in Mother - the latest exercise in middle-age angst from writer-director Albert Brooks, who co-stars as a recently divorced science-fiction author having various problems with different women.
His relationship with another woman, his mother (Reynolds), has never been happy, and in an experiment to come to terms with her and with his past, he decides to move back in with her, despite her discouragement. His attempts at recreating his childhood extend to re-decorating his old bedroom with all the old 1960s paraphernalia which used to adorn those walls in his teens.
The repartee between Brooks and the perfectly deadpan Reynolds is sparkling in this very funny yarn which turns serious and sentimental in its later stages when the screenplay bows to Hollywood compromise. Rob Morrow also features as Reynolds's younger son, whom she much prefers, and it's he who gives her a video phone which sparks a witty running gag. And there is some amusing play on Simon and Garfunkel songs along the way.
Cinema To Video
"Big Night" (15)
Actors Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott co-directed this tender and touching movie set in 1950s New Jersey. The bittersweet scenario involves immigrant Bolognese brothers (Tucci and Tony Shalhoub) daring to serve authentic, regional Italian food in their struggling restaurant, while rival establishments serving conventional Italian fare draw full houses. The fine cast also features Isabella Rossellini, Ian Holm and Minnie Driver, and the climatic dinner makes for mouth-watering viewing.
"Absolute Power" (15)
Clint Eastwood directs and stars in this taut, polished and deeply intriguing conspiracy thriller which stumbles over some implausibilities in the second half. Heading a strong cast, Eastwood plays a veteran cat burglar who accidentally witnesses a murder in which the US President (Gene Hackman) is implicated. With Judy Davis, Ed Harris, Laura Linney and Scott Glenn.
"Marvin's Room" (12)
Heading an exceptional cast, Meryl Streep and Diane Keaton play estranged sisters who are drawn together when one of them becomes seriously ill in this touching film of the play by Scott McPherson. With Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Hume Cronyn and Gwen Verdon. Directed by Jerry Zaks.
"Con Air" (18)
The latest action blockbuster from Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of Top Gun and The Rock, is as loud as it is formulaic but played with gusto by its stars. Directed by Simon West, it deals with a hijacking plotted by criminals en route by special plane to a maximum security prison. On board for the roller-coaster ride are Nicolas Cage, John Malkovich and Steve Buscemi, with John Cusack and Colm Meaney dealing with the crisis on the ground. What you see is what you get here and it all goes in one eye as quickly as it goes out the other.
"Fierce Creatures" (12)
The Fish Called Wanda quartet of John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michael Palin reassembles for another comic outing in this production-plagued yarn set in a London zoo where the new director (Cleese in Basil Fawlty mode) tries to boost earnings. The comedy is closer to the cruder Carry On movies than to Wanda, and the relentless slapstick and jaded innuendo of the slender, padded screenplay do a disservice to all concerned.
"Dante's Peak" (12)
Expert special effects cannot compensate for the cardboard characters and tiresomely formulaic plotting in Roger Donaldson's disaster movie starring Pierce Brosnan as a volcanologist who travels to the eponymous small town in the Pacific Northwest to investigate recent seismic activity. Linda Hamilton co-stars.
"Mon Homme" (18)
This resolutely offensive film from Bertrand Blier, the misogynist's misogynist, features Anouk Grinberg as a Paris prostitute and Gerard Lanvin as the homeless man she befriends and invites to become her lover and her pimp.
