By Noel Murray, Rob Nelson, and Jim Ridley

MARCH 2, 1998: 

On the wall--new releases

David Halberstam's The Fifties In the wake of an atomic blast, the telltale strains of "Let the Good Times Roll" fade up, and images of advertising icons and civil defense propaganda flicker across the screen. Thus begins each episode of a remarkable seven-part miniseries, now on video after its airing on The History Channel last November. Unlike Halberstam's fine book, which showed the relevance of a seemingly "tame" decade through the chronological accumulation of anecdotes and biographies, this documentary version takes a more direct approach, skipping across the years and using pointed interview reminiscences to make bold connections. There are episodes on sexuality, race relations, the cold war, youth culture, and more. But two installments stand out: "Selling the American Dream," about how new advertising techniques were used to pitch a president and his foreign policy, and "Let's Play House," which contrasts the family-centric image of the decade with three popular books that the '50s spawned--The Feminine Mystique, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, and Peyton Place. (NM)

Gravesend It's hard to say which is more outlandish--the plot of Gravesend or the movie's origins. For this 16mm mean-streets indie about four Italian-American boys who accumulate a trunk-full of dead bodies during one long night in Brooklyn, 19-year-old NYU dropout Salvatore Stabile used a three-man crew, two hot-wired lights, and a $5,000 inheritance from his gramma. He then went on to earn completion funds, a Seattle Film Fest screening, a rave review in Variety, a "presented by" credit from Oliver Stone, and a two-picture deal with Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks. Certainly, Stabile's story is more original than his movie's amalgam of Cassavetes, Scorsese, Gomez, Tarantino, and Kevin Smith; even though none of the hothead ultra-V is as shocking as it wants to be, Stabile does get the utmost out of unprofessional actors, cramped-hallway sets, and the F-word. And since Gravesend is a far more convincing piece of schlock than Stone's early-'70s Seizure, you never know what this kid might have in store. (RN)

Ma Saison Prfere This riveting French melodrama focuses on the archetypal situation of a middle-aged brother and sister forced to care for their dying mother; it's characterized by the constant refusal of director Andre Techine (Les Voleurs) to take the easy way out in style or theme. Scene after scene serves the emotional truths that most American films go out of their way to avoid. Out of touch for three years, the siblings--lawyer Emilie (Catherine Deneuve) and neurologist Antoine (Daniel Auteuil)--come together in Toulouse feeling an equal measure of love and rage toward each other and toward their 70-year-old mom (Marthe Villalonga), who's pretty bitter herself. Despite the overwhelming bleakness of the proceedings, there's a thrill to the way the horrors of familial relations are so unjudgmentally, therapeutically laid bare. (RN)

Off the wall--alternatives to new releases

The Stunt Man The biggest cheat of The Game was the way Michael Douglas' extreme paranoia turned out to be completely founded. Much cooler is Richard Rush's 1980 cult classic, wherein what's real and what's make-believe remain tantalizingly ambiguous up to the final frame. The film's main attraction, though, is Peter O'Toole's witty romp as a megalomaniacal director who takes a desperate, fugitive criminal (Steve Railsback) and turns him into one committed stunt man. Railsback is as good as dead anyway, so what's the harm in squeezing every last drop of blood out of him for the camera? When the tape ends, you'll be pleased to find that this is one puzzle that doesn't fit together neatly. (NM)

Laserdisc

• Nashville Scene's Video Archives
• Noel Murray Archives
• Weekly Wire's Film Vault - Interviews with stars, auteurs, projectionists, you name it
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