Made by one of the participants in the union-organizing drive by strippers
at the Lusty Lady peep-
show arcade in North Beach, this is an insider’s look at the nitty-gritty of
the workplace behind the sex show. It makes up in the spiritedness of the
participants anything it might lack in filmmaking polish.
Stand-up comic Julia Query not only moonlighted as a stripper, she kept
the knowledge from her mother, Dr. Joyce Wallace, one of the country’s
leading advocates of AIDS education for prostitutes. Their relationship
gives the organizing effort at the Lusty Lady a personal dimension, but it
is the union-label strippers who are the real stars of this film.
They are smart, serious and witty. “Two-four-six-eight, don’t go in to
masturbate,” they chanted on the picket line outside the arcade. They
flashed messages written on their palms asking peep-show customers to
boycott when management stalled negotiations.
“Live Nude Girls Unite!” is advocacy journalism and makes no bones
about it, which in this particular case is a plus. Query’s on-camera
disclosure of her secret life to her mother has an element of “60
Minutes”-style ambush journalism, but Wallace’s reaction has both the self-
possession of a professional and the emotions of a mother.
If the documentary fails to build momentum to a completely satisfying
conclusion, that is probably an accurate representation of the nature of
union organizing.
– Advisory: This film contains nudity.
– Bob Graham
—————————————————–
`SMILING FISH AND GOAT ON FIRE’
Comedy/drama. Starring Derick Martini and Steven Martini. Directed by Kevin
Jordan. (R. 90 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
“Smiling Fish and Goat on Fire,” an appealing film with a hideous title,
is almost a good movie. As it stands, it’s a likable effort by people who
will go on to make good movies. Catch them here in their creative crib.
The film marks the feature debut of director Kevin Jordan, who co-
wrote this low-budget entry with two brothers, Steven and Derick Martini,
who also star in the picture. Derick plays older brother Chris, a
responsible accountant nicknamed “Goat on Fire.” Steven plays younger
brother Tony, a happy-go-lucky musician nicknamed “Smiling Fish.”
One problem with the nicknames, aside from the fact that no one in
the picture uses them, is that they have nothing to do with any
thing. Though a voice-over at the start presents Chris and Steven as
opposites in temperament, both come across as pleasant, low-key fellows.
The picture essentially follows two burgeoning romances in the
lives of these young men. Chris meets an animal trainer from Sicily, and
Tony meets a mail carrier from Wyoming. This might not sound
earth-shattering, but the movie makes us care, thanks to the
moment-to-moment honesty of the dialogue and the emotional investment of the
actors. Director Jordan can also be credited with some tasteful camera
flourishes, going from a blackout in one scene to the back of
a black T-shirt in another. As it moves away from the camera, a new scene is
established.
The movie’s real weakness is in conception. We’re left, in the end,
without much sense of arrival. There is also a subplot, involving a
loquacious old man, that doesn’t work. He is the typical old person who
turns up in stories by young people, one whose entire purpose is to die and,
in so doing, invoke a blessing on all things young and beautiful.
– This film contains sexual situations and strong language.
– Mick LaSalle
—————————————————–
`BOOTMEN’
Drama. Starring Adam Garcia, Sam Worthington. Directed by Dein Perry. (R. 93
minutes. At the Kabuki.)
With its shades of “Flashdance” and “The Full Monty,” “Bootmen”
could have been just a derivative, innocuous dance movie. But the film’s
overburdened, silly plot renders it a disaster.
Australian director Dein Perry has transferred the industrial-dance
spirit of his stage show “Tap Dogs”
to film. The movie’s hero, Sean (Adam Garcia), has everything a dancing
movie rebel requires: a motorcycle, a dead-end job (steelworker, a la
Jennifer Beals) and ingenuity — he attaches metal plates to heavy boots for
a more satisfying clackety-clack sound.
Sean lives in the depressed Aussie steel town of Newcastle (“Full Monty”
territory), which has an inordinate number of talented dancers, thanks to a
crotchety but lovable tap teacher — one of many cliched characters. Sean
assembles a scraggly group of men for a show but meets resistance from his
beer-guzzling steelworker dad. For reasons we never glean, Dad wants Sean to
park it in front of the TV and forget his dancing dreams.
There are lots of other stories in “Bootmen,” all of them hackneyed.
Sean and his brother Mitchell (Sam Worthington) fight over the same woman.
Mitchell is a car thief being pursued by a group of thugs. The steelworks is
about to shut down. It goes on . . .
The dialogue is as clunky as the boots. Sean tells his girlfriend, in all
seriousness, that he’s a steelworker because there aren’t any tap jobs in
Newcastle. As if other towns are bursting with opportunities for tappers.
Garcia (“Coyote Ugly”) really can dance, and his generic good looks
will appeal to teenage girls. If he were a Backstreet Boy, he would
be the cutest one. But his range is limited — it’s probably for the best
that in the film’s most dramatic scene, we see only the back of his head.
Worthington has a lot more scruffy Aussie charm and sex appeal.
“Bootmen” blows any shot at credibility by taking a violent and tragic
turn. And the dance scenes are only mildly entertaining before the finale,
when things really get clanking. But by then, it’s too late.
– This film contains raw language, violence, sexual situations.
– Carla Meyer
—————————————————–
`MADADAYO’
Drama. Starring Tatsuo Matsumura. Written and directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(Not rated. In Japanese with English subtitles. At the 4 Star. 134 minutes.)
Akira Kurosawa’s 30th and last film is about a grand old man who keeps
postponing his exit from this world. It is called “Madadayo” — “not
yet.”
Any resemblance to the director himself (“Ran”) is clearly intentional.
“Madadayo” follows a quirky, beloved professor from the day of his
retirement in the wartime Japan of 1943, when he is “a genuine old
man” of 60, through 17 more anniversaries. This warm, celebratory and very
public film is punctuated by sudden and luminous private visualizations.
The professor (Tatsuo Matsumura) has decided to quit teaching and devote
the rest of his days to writing. His students, who regard him as “solid
gold,” honor him at a banquet and continue to do so annually. Almost all
the dialogue consists of speeches at these banquets — where the professor
must down an oversize glass of beer in one breath — or remarks to smaller
groups.
These public occasions are set off by startling flashes of private
imagination — images of a freaked-out horse, for instance, or the
materialization of Kyoto’s Golden Pavilion or the return of a childhood
memory.
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The demanding professor is not immediately lovable. He is odd to the
point of eccentricity, and when the household cat wanders off, he is
inconsolable. Other situations are telling. When his house burns down in an
air raid, the professor salvages one book only, and he and his wife live in
a shack through the passing of the seasons. Follow your bliss. Even a long
life is short.
At more than two hours, the film may be long but never seems so. Kurosawa
doesn’t want to let go, not yet.
– Bob Graham
—————————————————–
`CYBERWORLD 3-D’
Animation in IMAX 3-D. Voiced by Jenna Elfman, Matt Frewer, Robert Smith,
Dave Foley. Various directors. (Not rated. 48 minutes. At Sony Metreon IMAX
theater.)
“CyberWorld 3-D,” the first 3-D animation film in the large-screen IMAX
format, is a remarkable piece of eye candy in some of its segments. But it
has so little nutritional value in terms of story or even purpose that
it leaves a hunger, even as throwaway entertainment.
This novelty film is little more than a strung-together product
reel of animation pieces put to the 3-D and IMAX test.
But some of it is visually stunning, showing the possibilities
of the future of animation feature films and
video game graphics — the latter is implicit in the pumped-up tone of much
of this film. If the ultimate goal of filmmakers is to envelope viewers in a
loud, sensory experience, IMAX 3-D does that trick. “CyberWorld 3-D” is
also occasionally just beautiful.
Eight animated film segments are presented as if pieces in a
museum. A tough female character named Phig (voice of Jenna Elfman) plays
hostess, flitting from one to the next. Among the pieces are the bar scene
from “Antz” from Palo Alto-
based PDI/DreamWorks, and “The Simpsons, Homer 3,” originally aired as
part of a television Halloween special in 1995.
Standouts in “CyberWorld 3-D,” however, are “KraKKen: Adventure
of Future Ocean,” a hypnotic visual conjecture showing sea creatures of the
future by the Exmachina animation studio of Paris, and “Flipbook/
Waterfall City,” a gorgeous computer-graphics creation by Satoshi Kita
hara and his noted Inertia Pictures of Japan.
The Pet Shop Boys’ “Liberation,” an elaborate, fanciful music
video from 1994, is a breakthrough in its 3-D form, played back through the
IMAX system’s monster sound setup.
– Peter Stack
—————————————————–
`DIGIMON: THE MOVIE’
Animation. Directed by Takaaki Yamashita, Hisashi Nakayama, Masahiro Aizawa.
(G. 90 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
Forget trying to make sense out of “Digimon: the Movie,” the new
animated feature based on “Digimon: Digital Monsters,” the children’s show
on FoxKids.
This dense but playful anime puts forth the odd proposition that
certain predestined kids are befriended by digital creatures known as
Digimon, which hatch from “Digi-
eggs.” The critters become companions with special powers in the cyber
world. Don’t call them pets.
The kids in the story are the action-oriented teenager Tai; a teen
girl, Sora; a rebellious buddy, Matt; Matt’s kid brother, T.K.; the egghead
Izzy; and a bratty girl named Mimi. Each has a personal Digimon, since each
was “DigiDestined.” Things could be worse — they could have been
predestined to have acne.
Digimon have transformational powers. For example, a cute one that
resembles a long-eared, disembodied rabbit head might turn out to be an
evil, monstrous, snorting thing with fangs.
“Digimon: the Movie” is frenetic. Driven by anime-style quick
cuts, elaborate montages, sight gags, the appearance of growling monsters
and chatty interplay between the kid characters (and a clueless mom trying
to bake a cake without flour), the film has an unrelenting staccato quality.
Some would say a jackhammer quality.
In the nearly incoherent plot, an evil Digimon “digivolves” to a
mega form. The maniacal Diabormon induces a virus that eats the Internet.
Bill Gates is nowhere to be found. The cyber chaos affects the kids’ ability
to e-mail and telephone one another and also causes American nuclear
missiles to misfire at what appears to be Tokyo. Action is set in Japan, New
York City and Colorado (don’t ask), as well as inside digital cables and the
kitchen where the mom is trying to bake.
Parents might want to catch this film, if only to discover how
vast the gap is between what they and their offspring consider compelling
entertainment.
– Peter Stack
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