PAGE 10 THE OTHER PRESS NOVEMBER 2ND 1983 OT HE REN TE RT A ITN M E NT Brainsto rm Only Light Drizzle | The opening shot of this movie is so good it defies belief. A rotating travelling shot creates the same effect by Dave Watson that those ‘sense-surround’ films at the PNE do. Regret- ably the movie goes steadily downhill from there. The director, Douglas Trumbull, is the special effects genius behind 2001: A Space Odyssey and Silent Run- ning.Perhaps this is why the only plausible scenes are the ones involving monumental special effects. The story involves a device which can sgore and repro- duce an entire experience through all five senses. The process is intense enough to kill a young man who re-experiences a heart attack that has been record- ed. This es on ape era techniques. portray the soul of the dead person rising off to believe it or not, heaven complete with winged angels. The normally good acting of Christopher Walken is stra- ngely absent from this film and Natalie Wood, to whom the film is dedicated, doesn’t really bring any- thing special to the role of Walken’s wife. Louise Fletcher, too long absent from films since ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest’ turns in the sole good acting in this movie. The use of the military as the villians after the device is a very trite and a.cliched aspect of this film. Brainstorm is only worth seeing if you are willing to ignore the gaping holes in the plot and concentrate on the fairly decent special effects and good action cam- VERTIGO “Alfred Hitchcock is un- doubtably one of the finest directors in motion picture history. Every stage of by Dave Watson production was overseen to the smallest detail by this enigmatic man. His films were his creation alone and he had the power to exert total dictorial control on almost all of them. To Hitchcock actors were cattle, a good actor would do exactly what he was told and no more. Hitchcock’a con- ception of a movie would be exactly how the final edited version would appear. In fact the screenplay tor Verti- go was written by Samuel Taylor based only on Hitchcock’s impressions ot the original book and a previously rejected adapta- tion. This extreme control results in possibly- Hitchcock’s best film. Jimmy Stewart plays ’Scottie’ Ferguson, a San Francisco detective who re- signs from the police force after a friend falls off a rooftop while trying to save him. The trauma of the experience gives him acro- phobia, a fear of heights. An aquaintance from college asks him to follow his wife, Madeline (Kim Novak) who he feels has been possessed by the spirit of her great grandmother. Madeline attempts suicide but is rescued by Scottie who then falls in love with her. This film has the strongest erotic undertones of any of Hitchcocks movies, reflecting Scottie’s desires fighting his fears. To tell any more of the plot would ruin the fine suspense Hitchcock creates through- out the movie. . I will say however that the solution to the mystery is revealed 45 minutes before the end of the film because Hitch felt the emotional trauma’s of the human psyche were more intriging than a simple suspense thriller. It would be hard to think of a better actor for such a complicated role than Jimmy Stewart, who has the natural grace ot total uncon- ciousness ot observation. The vertigo of the title represents Scotties’s insta- bility of personality and sanity as much as a fear of falling. There is a fantastic hallucinagenic dream _ se- quence full of fear and tension that predates the pschedelic era by ten years. Hitchcock’s fine camera- work includes a 360 degree pan of Stewart and Novak that almost makes one dizzy and several frightening ver- tigo shots that recreate the mood of teetering on the edge of a very great fall. This is one of 5 classic movies that Hitchcock pulled from release in the early sixties to ensure an estate for his family. The prints are brand new with excellent colour. The Ridge theater will be showing all five of these rereleased- movies in the weeks to come and I would recommend all of them, both as fine enter- tainment and as a view of one of the most brilliant of the great directors. 1958, colour, 126 minutes. Connery is James Bond At last the real James Bond has stood up. After ten years of steadily declining Roger Moore films, Sean Connery by Dave Watson is back in Bondage. The plot follows the same basic form- ula as almost as almost all of the Bond films and is even more familiar because Never Say Never Again is a remake of 1965’s Thunder- ball. Connery is the factor that makes this film rise out of the mediocre state that the Moore Bond films have fallen into. Moore plays Bond very cynically and cold without much emotional depth, Connery plays Bond more sympathetically as an older, wiser and more human sec- ret agent with a license to kill. Connery is also more physically suited for the role and when he throws a punch he makes it look real. Moore has been putting on weight lately and in ‘Octapussy’ it was pretty obvious which scenes were filmed with a stuntman. Of course, Moore is a year older than Connery. so perhaps he should start acting his age. The humour in ‘Never Say Never Again’ rises naturally and dryly out of the situa- tions rather than the poor puns and cheap double- entendres of most of Moore’s Bond films. Some nights I can’t sleep when I think about the pitiful ‘Moonraker’. The action scenes include a shark fight inside a sunken ship and a jet equipped motorcycle chase. The vil- lan, Largo, is well played by Klaus Brandauer in his first english speaking role. This 007 is the natural follow up to the mid-sixties Bond films, possibly be- cause in addition to his $5 million dollar salary and profit percentage Connery received total creative con- trol over all aspects of the film. His wife even thought up the title. Go see th is movie if you enjoy an excell- ent and entertaining action movie. You may even feel like pounding the stuffings out of those gazebos who sit behind you and tell their friends all about the next scene.