Newsgroups: bit.listserv.cinema-l
Date:         Tue, 18 Aug 1992 09:18:37 EDT
From:         Anjani Chandra <QAI@NIHCU.BITNET>
Subject:      Grifters, Lost in America, Sheltering Sky

This past weekend we borrowed 3 movies (from the public library ...
yes, I'm still on my public library PSA kick), and I wanted to
get some opinions from you folks.

The Grifters:  I quite enjoyed this, even though it wasn't
exactly an upper.  I have a question about a scene with Bening
and Cusack.  Remember right after Bening figures out what
Cusack does for a living, and they're in a restaurant.  She's
telling him about the cushy arrangement she had with a "long
con"--she tells Cusack (I'm terrible remembering characters' names)
that the amount he pulls in a week is the amount she & this
"long con" guy used to use just for tips.  Then there's this
dumb expression on Cusack's face and he says "Oh...wow."  Is this
amazement for real, or is he just being sarcastic?  Nothing that
happens afterward supports the sarcasm theory, so I'm forced to
conclude it was just bad acting because it was just too funny.

Lost in America:  I had heard that this was a really funny satire.
Pray tell, how??  Maybe if it hadn't put me to sleep, I would have
seen the humor, but I doubt it.  I hope I don't offend anyone, but
Albert Brooks brand of acting & humor is too 70s and/or Woody
Allen for me.  I basically wanted to slap him (and his wife) and say
"shut up already."
I was expected a real cross-country adventure for him and his
ditsoid (BORING) wife, but all they did was go to Vegas to gamble
away their nest egg, then go to ONE stereotypic "po-dunk town" to
experience life as a school crossing guard, then retreat to their
Yuppie roots.

The Sheltering Sky:  This one was the worst!  I recently read an
interview with Debra Winger where she expounded on her artistic
calling ... away from commercial tripe, towards true art such as
this here dud.  Between this flick and the true commercial pulp
film _Officer and a Gentleman_, I'll take the latter.  She took
her clothes off about the same amount, but at least the latter
had a plot and some characters you could give a hoot about.  Don't
even get me started on her atrocious French ... oh, heck, I've
started ... my favorite guffaw came when she was hollering for
help " NOW.  A car.  A truck.  A bus" and she says something like
(pardon my attempt at phonetic spelling) "Metinow. Un voture.
Un camon.  El otto-bus."  My husband tells me that I just don't
understand "fine cinema" (yes, he's being sarcastic); why, this
film follows in the fine tradition of _Wild Orchid_ and _A Passage
to India_, where you take variable numbers of repressed or
otherwise frustrated Westerners, plop them in the midst of
exotic locales with gorgeous and earthy natives, and the
inhibitions just fly away.  If anyone can give me something that
might redeem or explain this movie, my ears are open (sort of).
(In all fairness to _A Passage to India_, I've been told that
the movie version did the book NO justice, and some of the
malaise I felt watching the movie would have been alleviated if
they'd been truer to the novel's characterizations.)

So what did y'all think of these 3 movies?

--Anjani
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