Movie Review: One From The Heart (1982)

Genre: Romance  

Director: Francis Ford Coppola  

Starring: Frederic Forrest, Teri Garr, Nastassja Kinski, Raul Julia, Harry Dean Stanton  

Running Time: 107 minutes  

Synopsis: In Las Vegas, mechanic Hank and travel agent Frannie (Frederic Forrest and Teri Garr) are a bickering couple in a stagnant relationship. After one argument too many, they go their separate ways for one night, seeking romantic flings. Accompanied by his friend Moe (Harry Dean Stanton), Hank is infatuated by alluring circus acrobat Leila (Nastassja Kinski), while Frannie is pursued by performing pianist and waiter Ray (Raul Julia). The couple's promising affairs may have unexpected consequences.

What Works Well: Director Francis Ford Coppola's passion project reimagines Las Vegas on a studio lot as a pristine, vividly dreamy, and neon-drenched test ground for romantic commitments. Hank and Frannie's adventures over one night are narrated by the music of Tom Waites and Crystal Gale, with an emphasis on surrealistic visuals often superimposing the couple's emotionally attached but physically separated movements. Thematically, the narrative contrasts the thrill of novelty with the unheralded joys of a long-term commitment.

What Does Not Work As Well: The triumphant and audacious style is undermined by minimal content, flat characterizations, and flimsy emotions. The over-reliance on music to tell the story relegates the script to bullet points, exposing Hank and Frannie as uninteresting characters floundering in misguided expectations of change to salvage the relationship. Nastassja Kinski and Raul Julia fare worse as empty impressions of fantasy lovers. 

Key Quote:

Leila (to Hank): If you wanna get rid of a circus girl, all you've gotta do is close your eyes.

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Movie Review: To The Devil A Daughter (1976)

Genre: Occult Horror  

Director: Peter Sykes  

Starring: Richard Widmark, Christopher Lee, Denholm Elliott, Nastassja Kinski, Honor Blackman  

Running Time: 92 minutes  

Synopsis: In London, occult author John Verney (Richard Widmark) accepts a request from Henry Beddows (Denholm Elliott) to hide Henry's daughter Catherine (Nastassja Kinski). She was raised as a nun in seclusion by excommunicated priest Father Rayner (Christopher Lee), who has plans to unleash a version of Satan with a ceremonial baptism on Catherine's 18th birthday. John has to protect Catherine and find a way to stop Rayner's plot.

What Works Well: This low-budget Anglo-German Hammer adaptation of Dennis Wheatley's book benefits from a high caliber cast. A beady-eyed Christopher Lee revels as a dark side priest, Denholm Elliott is sweaty and flustered as a father trapped in a Faustian pact, Richard Widmark is serviceable, and Nastassja Kinski suitably mysterious. Director Peter Sykes conjures up some effective moments of sexualized suspenseful disgust. 

What Does Not Work As Well: Some plot details appear to be either incoherent or made up on the fly, the sinister conspiracy is barely explained, and after 20 years of plotting and with apparent supernatural powers at their disposal, the evil doers are all too easily stumped by a stuffy author. The budget limitations are exposed by choppy or inconsistent audio, editing, and cinematography.

Key Quote:

Verney: 98 percent of so-called Satanists are nothing but pathetic freaks who get their kicks by dancing naked in freezing church yards. They use the Devil as an excuse for getting some sex. But then there's that other two percent. I'm not so sure about them.

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Movie Review: Paris, Texas (1984)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Wim Wenders  

Starring: Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski, Dean Stockwell  
Running Time: 147 minutes  

Synopsis: Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) walks out of the West Texas desert four years after abandoning his family. His brother Walt (Dean Stockwell) is summoned to fetch him, and the two men drive back to Los Angeles where Walt and his wife Anne (Aurore Clément) have been caring for Travis' son Hunter. After Travis tentatively re-establishes a bond with his child, he sets out to search for his wife Jane (Nastassja Kinski), who also disappeared four years prior. 

What Works Well: Director Wim Wenders and writer Sam Shepard take a long, and hard, look at the state of masculinity in the west. In the shape of Travis, they define a mostly silent crisis built on an inability to communicate and cohabitate, but also a deep conviction that a form of imperfect redemption is possible. Augmented by stellar Robby Müller cinematography and a comfortably nervous Ry Cooder music score, the desert terrain that forged a mythically heroic western persona now spits out a broken man who has lost everything but is still determined to make amends. In a career filled with character roles, Harry Dean Stanton achieves a captivating highlight as an emotionally battered average man, as does Nastassja Kinski as a young wife and mother doing what she must to survive.

What Does Not Work As Well: The final act is a compelling tour-de-force of vulnerability shared in separation, but also defaults to describing rather than showing the demons at the heart of Travis' crisis. 

Key Quote:

Jane (to Travis): I hear your voice all the time. Every man has your voice.

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Movie Review: The Hotel New Hampshire (1984)

Genre: Dramedy  

Director: Tony Richardson  

Starring: Jodie Foster, Rob Lowe, Beau Bridges, Nastassja Kinski, Wilford Brimley, Matthew Modine, Amanda Plummer, Wallace Shawn  

Running Time: 110 minutes  

Synopsis: It's the 1950s, and dreamer Win Berry (Beau Bridges) converts an abandoned school into a hotel. His teenaged children John (Rob Lowe) and Franny (Jodie Foster) are incestuously attracted to each other, while their brother Frank (Paul McCrane) comes out as gay. Bad-boy high school footballer Chip (Matthew Modine) inflicts a life-long trauma on Franny, and over the years the family endures many adventures, including a relocation to Vienna, and encounters with Win's friend Freud (Wallace Shawn), and a girl in a bear costume (Nastassja Kinski).

What Works Well: The adaptation of John Irving's novel is committed to an original assortment of unconventional characters, unexpected incidents, and challenging themes, riding on a foundation of tragedy as a foundation for life's journey. Death is the Berry family's constant, and often unexpected, companion, but this does not prevent the pursuit of dreams, pleasure, and sometimes miraculous achievements despite shocking setbacks. 

What Does Not Work As Well: In a case of stuffing too much of the book onto the screen, the outcome is too quirky for its own good, with serious incidents of rape, incest, terrorism, and suicide almost dismissively caught up in merriment. Director Tony Richardson rarely pauses long enough to allow true emotions to surface, and further degrades his work with some ill-considered and unworthy Benny Hill-like fast-motion sequences. 

Key Quote:

Multiple characters: Keep passing the open windows.

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Movie Review: Cat People (1982)

Genre: Fantasy Erotic Horror  

Director: Paul Schrader  
Starring: Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, John Heard, Annette O'Toole, Ruby Dee, Ed Begley Jr.  

Running Time: 118 minutes  

Synopsis: In a prologue set in ancient times, tribals make human offerings to large black panthers. In the present, Irena Gallier (Nastassja Kinski) arrives in New Orleans to rejoin her brother Paul (Malcolm McDowell), many years after the siblings were separated upon their parents' death. When Paul mysteriously goes absent, Irena is attracted to the big cats at the zoo, where she meets curator Oliver (John Heard). Mauling deaths start to occur, and gradually Irena's worst fears are realized: she and Paul are descendants of people who turn to large cats and have to kill when sexually aroused.

What Works Well: A remake of Jacques Tourneur's 1942 low-budget original, the 1982 version enjoys glossy production values, a devotion to stylish visuals, and layers of mythology. Director Paul Schrader creates stunning dreamscape vistas in the prologue, and adds gore, nudity, and themes of incest and impossible love to the subsequent suspense underpinnings. An alluring Nastassja Kinski and a barely-contained Malcolm McDowell represent the two ends of innocence and decadence, and they are surrounded by a strong supporting cast and plenty of prowling cats. The New Orleans setting adds gothic aesthetics, and the brooding music score by Giorgio Moroder and David Bowie supplements the mood.

What Does Not Work As Well: The rules governing the lives of Irena and Paul are elusive enough to allow plenty of variations-on-a-theme, while some of the acidic transformations within the fantasy context are unexplained. A crime investigation sub-plot threatens to intrude on the narrative, but ultimately just gets in the way.

Key Quote:

Irena: I'm not like you.

Paul: Well, that's the lie that will kill your lover.

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Movie Review: Unfaithfully Yours (1984)

A revenge comedy, Unfaithfully Yours reaches for sophisticated laughs in high society, but rarely hits the right notes.

In New York City, celebrated orchestra conductor Claude Eastman (Dudley Moore) returns from a successful trip to London, and prepares for a performance featuring star violinist and ladies magnet Max Stein (Armand Assante). Claude is married to the much younger Italian actress Daniella (Nastassja Kinski), and his entourage includes manager Norman (Albert Brooks) and butler Giuseppe (Richard Libertini). 

Thanks to bumbling private detective Keller (Richard B. Shull), Claude stumbles upon evidence Daniella may be having an affair with Max. Enraged by jealousy, he plots an elaborate revenge for the night of the big concert. But while he imagines the perfect plan, reality will turn out to be much different.

A remake of the 1948 Preston Sturges comedy, Unfaithfully Yours has only a slight story to tell despite the involvement of three writers (including Barry Levinson). Director Howard Zieff delivers one good scene featuring duelling violins at a nightclub, then aims for the centrepiece sequence of Claude imagining his perfect murder while energetically conducting the orchestra, quickly followed by the reality of his best laid plans going quite wrong. It's a good final act aided by silly Halloween masks, but getting there gets a bit drudgerous.

At the appropriate comedic scale, Claude and Daniella do convey a sense of underlying love as two artists giving romance a whirl if for no other reason than joint inspiration and shared glamour. But then the film leans too heavily on the painfully slow process of Claude's jealousy building, followed by identifying Max as the alleged Lothario, then a series of more-irritating-than-funny communications breakdowns to stoke the flames of rage. 

The script lacks a cutting edge, and so Dudley Moore sputters and strides this way and that, caught somewhere between aspirations of worldliness and juvenile physical comedy. The surrounding cast is rich with talent, but every character is strictly confined to a single definition.

With enjoyable classical music and glitzy cinematography, Unfaithfully Yours exists in a classy milieu. Too bad the humour arrives poorly dressed for the occasion.

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