Friday, 4/18/97 SCREENSCENE
"Kissed" Directed by Lynne Stopkewich Starring Molly Parker and
Peter Outerbridge The biggest problem the makers of this Canadian
export may face is scaring off the audience that would most
appreciate it. The film tells the story of a young woman named
Sandra Larson and her lifelong attraction to death. But "Kissed"
will disappoint the black-clad fans that routinely see films about
such taboo subject matter as necrophilia, since the movie aims to
be a bright, damn near Disneyesque look at humping the dead. Sandra
(played earnestly by Molly Parker) speaks to us in dreamy
voice-over, starting in her early teens, about why the Other Side
is such a draw, and Stopkewich relies a bit too heavily on the
poetry of the voice-over and repetitive fade-to-white effects in
the course of spinning her yarn. The biggest problem with "Kissed"
is that it was based on a short story, and it shows. Rather than
develop characters further than their original incarnation or
creating new characters to populate Sandra’s universe, the film
tries to stretch a few characters into a feature-length narrative,
when they were only designed and developed to accommodate a short
format. The film should have either been made a short film or more
forcefully adapted to full length. Next, the film wastes too much
time trying to make necrophilia palatable and understandable to the
Average Joe when the time would be better spent simply showing the
character acting in his or her universe without much regard given
to how the audience will judge them (see "Crash" for an example of
this approach). Both of these faults lie with newcomer Stopkewich
and her insecurities with the material, Parker, and co-star Peter
Outerbridge (playing Sandra’s would-be suitor Matt) do their
respective best with the characters, although Outerbridge’s
character is so thin and on one note that he scarcely has anything
to do most of the time. The film feels long even at 78 minutes, and
the conclusion can be seen coming a mile away and moves from that
distance at a snail’s pace. To their credit, Stopkewich and company
don’t cheaply exploit the subject matter just to be sensational,
and she wisely eschewed making a trendy faux-Lynch shocker. But
neither this fact nor the college try given by the actors can
salvage this humorless, uptight film from being a yawning
disappointment. Grade: D Brandon Wilson "Eight Heads in a Duffel
Bag" Directed by Tom Schulman Starring Joe Pesci Tom Schulman’s
alleged comedy "Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag" has an undeniably
humorous cornerstone in Joe Pesci, but tragically he’s unable to
appear in every scene, and in his absence the movie is an utterly
predictable, embarrassingly juvenile dud that makes "Weekend at
Bernie’s" look like a Bergman film. Pesci plays Tommy Spinelli, a
professional of the Mafia variety (the kind who makes people
disappear) who can’t quite fit his travel bag of eight severed
heads into an airline overhead compartment (who can these days?),
so he’s forced to check it through. Of course, an unsuspecting,
rather benign-looking medical resident, Charlie (newcomer Andy
Comeau), picks up Tommy’s bag at the airport just before he heads
down to Mexico for a vacation with his romantic subplot, Laurie
(played by Kristy Swanson of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") and her
repulsively upper-crust parents, played by Dyan Cannon and George
Hamilton. Tommy sets off to find the bag while Charlie tries to
hide it from everyone. After 10 or 15 minutes of the movie, there
is a brief moment where upcoming plot twists, dialogue and most
likely the ending are revealed, as well as any possible sequels to
this disappointing farce. Pesci outfits himself in a new coat and
hat for every mobster he plays. No exception here. His timing is
precise, his demeanor uproarious. He plays Tommy straight and
that’s the key – never laughing at himself. At one point, in an
attempt to extract information from two friends of Charlie’s in
their apartment, he tortures them not by shooting their knee caps
or cutting off their fingers as tradition would have it. No, this
ruthless goon begins relentlessly towel-whipping them, with a
straight face. David Spade, one of the friends, is funny at times,
and Schulman realizes that Spade’s reactions are the essence of his
talent. But it’s of little consolation in a film which is so
ludicrously constructed and inane. Nothing in "Eight Heads" makes
any sense at all, especially the antics of most of the supporting
cast. Somebody should have put sedatives in their Evian bottles,
because only Pesci and Spade play their parts with the slightest
crumb of intelligence or credibility. The rest of the script is so
madcap and incredulous that it becomes tedious. Only Pesci finds
sources of comedy other than the most dully obvious schemes. And
time after time, characters act solely in the interest of placing
themselves in position for the next recycled joke. In all its
volcanic creative fizzling, "Eight Heads" can’t escape the flat,
stereotyped caricatures that always dwell in poor comedies, dooming
it to mediocrity from the start. The father is disapproving of
Charlie, the mother is presumed hysterical because she’s on
medication, the hotel steward thinks they’re all gringos and of
course Andy won’t show the heads to anybody because he’s anxious
about impressing the parents of a girlfriend. And yes, of course,
the dog keeps trying to steal the heads. Suspension of disbelief is
well and good, but to the best of my knowledge, numbing your brain
to the extent necessary for this film is more than a bit of a
stretch. Farce used to be a pretty funny thing back in the days of
Beaumarchais and Moliere. Maybe it was the outfits. But also, it
was the rhythm and the fact that even at its most absurd moments,
the humor came from character, a quality which this film does not
contain. The real dismay is that Schulman tries to advance a story
about reconciling a troubled relationship between Charlie and
Laurie. It’s about as convincing as a detergent commercial. With an
Oscar on his mantle for his "Dead Poets Society" screenplay as well
as several other scripts to his name ("What’s Wrong with Bob,"
"Medicine Man"), Schulman has proven himself as a writer. But
there’s no finesse or style to his direction and none of the grace
of an able comedian. To its credit, "Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag"
is better than any other film with that many severed heads. To its
detriment, there are no such films, and hopefully that will not
change. Grade: D John Nein Andy Comeau plays Charlie and Kristy
Swanson is his girlfriend Laurie in "Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag."
Kissed
Designated Mourner