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Movies are pop dreams, and summer is the dream season. There's something uniquely soothing about taking in a movie after a hypnotic day of sun, surf, and thrillingly unhealthy hot dogs. Emerging into the warm night air, one feels not simply refreshed but centered, as if the joys of art and life had been magically aligned. Here, Owen Gleiberman looks at the best current bets for summer-movie dreaming.
CITY SLICKERS
There's a world of difference between a movie that evokes laughs and one that evokes laughter. City Slickers is nothing more than a good-natured Western comedy about a trio of urban dweebs who go on a
cattle drive. Yet it's no fluke that the film is shaping up as a
major hit: The jokes, even at their wildest, are rooted in reality — in
the embarrassingly sincere desire of three aging yuppies (Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, and Bruno Kirby) to live out their youthful
fantasies. After almost 15 years in Hollywood, Crystal has found the
right vehicle for his gentle-smartass persona. The movie has its
scrappy sections, but it's the one comedy this year with real joy in
it, and real humanity, too.
TRUTH OR DARE
Judging from the critical reaction to Madonna's riveting backstage documentary, you'd think the Blond One was the
first pop star in history to keep a subliminal, media-age distance from the camera (does anyone remember Bob Dylan?) or to turn celebrity into an art form (I recall a certain elfin one-gloved superstar of the early '80s having some luck with this approach). More than that, you have to wonder whether all the pundits who've
proclaimed Madonna a ''postmodern'' artist really appreciate what's so terrific about her: her impish celebration of sin, the way she's turned her natural exhibitionism into a metaphor for healthy — that is,
unrepressed — living, and, most of all, the exhilarating pop thrust of
her music. Truth or Dare captures it all — the spontaneity beneath the
calculation, the warmth beneath the sex- goddess cool.
BACKDRAFT
A quintessential popcorn movie, Ron Howard's spectacular epic is about two fire-fighting brothers (Kurt Russell and William
Baldwin) struggling to live up to their father's heroic legacy. The
story is lightweight but engrossing, and there's always plenty to
munch on. The fire-fighting scenes have a Spielbergian grandeur, and
since the actors did much of their own stunt work, dancing through
flames that are searingly — unfakably — real, the movie, while
dramatically hokey, produces a giddy suspension of disbelief.
WHAT ABOUT BOB?
This middling but amiable Bill Murray comedy has a terrific first 45 minutes. Murray's performance as Bob Wiley, a pathologically phobic Manhattan nerd, begins as a delightful piece of comic masochism. We can easily understand how a clinging geek like
Bob would drive his psychiatrist (Richard Dreyfuss) crazy. What's more, Murray is sly enough to show you that ruining the shrink's life is Bob's secret agenda, his way of getting even with a world that's
happier than he is. The movie ends up pulling its punches, but for a
while, at least, Murray gets a chance to cut loose.
JUNGLE FEVER
One can have mixed feelings about a movie and still think it's eminently worth seeing. So it is with Spike Lee's latest, a tale of interracial romance that's laced with powerful moments — even though they never add up to a sustained vision. The
affair between Flipper (Wesley Snipes), a successful black architect, and Angie (Annabella Sciorra), his Italian-American temp secretary, becomes the occasion for another of Lee's ripe urban collages. The
characters are all vibrant and funny, but the central romance remains
the least-developed element in the film. By the end, one gets the distinct — and disturbing — feeling that Lee doesn't want it to develop.
CITIZEN KANE
Fifty years ago, Orson Welles staged the greatest one-man show in movie history, reinventing the cinema as a
pyrotechnical funhouse for adults. The story of newspaper magnate
Charles Foster Kane seems every bit as audacious now as it did the
day it opened. That's because what's special about Kane — the sheer
transformative thrill of invention — is there in every shot, every
performance, every narrative surge. If you've never seen Welles'
masterpiece, make it tops on your list: It's as spellbinding a
cinematic fairy tale as anything in the post-Star Wars era.
HANGIN' WITH THE HOMEBOYS
An inner-city cross between Diner and American Graffiti, Joseph B. Vasquez's funny, heartfelt story of four
guys from the South Bronx has what so many low-budget movies lack: a canny and convincing sense of film rhythm. The "homeboys" — two black and two Puerto Rican — are uneasy friends who spend a long night cruising their neighborhood and then venturing into the forbidden paradise of Manhattan. The movie taps into modern urban dreams without romanticizing them.
THELMA & LOUISE
If this gun-totin' feminist extravaganza hasn't been the smash hit many insiders expected, that may be because its
first half is so deadly earnest: You never caught Butch and
Sundance — or, for that matter, the screwball lovers of Something
Wild — treating their flight from civilization with this much soulful
seriousness. The movie is most fun when its good ol' girl heroines
(Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis) put their man troubles on hold and
burn rubber down the most spectacularly visualized two-lane blacktop
in years.
You Might Also Like
- Movie Review City Slickers (1991) | Owen Gleiberman
- Movie Review City Slickers (1991) | Owen Gleiberman
- Movie Review CITY SLICKERS II: THE LEGEND OF CURLY"S GOLD;CITY SLICKERS (1991) | Ty Burr
- Movie News Props that made the movie (1991)
- DVD News The reissue of ''City Slickers'' | Jeff Labrecque
- Video Commentary ''City Slickers'' and ''Soapdish'' on home video | Ty Burr
