Poor screenplay makes 'Ghost' invisible
Set in late 19th century Africa, "The Ghost and the Darkness" seeks to document
the terror and chaos that ensue when forces seemingly within man's control assert
themselves. Based on actual events, the film does feature moments of true fear
and suspense. However, these instances are overshadowed by the murky screenplay
and the specifics of the film, which ultimately lead to its demise.
Scatterbrained 'Celestial Clockwork' fails to entice its
audiences
Fina Torres has created a visually stimulating, but ultimately disappointing and
vacuous urban fantasy that transplants the fairy tale of Cinderella to the
hyperaestheticized, intellectually eclectic and multicultural setting of modern
Paris. "
Belle's gimmicky failure goes 'Down'
"Going Down" is the story of a young woman wishing to be an actor, struggling to attend NYU and financing it all as a call girl. The novel follows Bennington Bloom through a rambling series of somewhat promising misadventures that quickly lead to nowhere. She starts as a high-class call-girl, then gradually slips down a slope to less prestigious work. As she gets sucked in further, her prostitution begins to interfere, unhappily, with her normal, other life. Filled with numerous subplots, Belle makes a fair attempt at exposing the entirety of her character's life, rather than simply focusing on the tabloid-esque professional sex.
Perverse Tarantino style bleeds into crazy
'Curdled'
Curdled. And I'm not talking about milk. I'm talking about the blood that
congeals after an outline has been drawn and the body has been taken away by the
coroner. As the newest Tarantino-istic offering from the movie industry,
"Curdled" comes packaged with all the blood, gore and perversion you can
handle.
Network's 'Radiation' glows bright
"Human Radiation" used abstract means to explore the energy of human
consciousness and to illustrate the idea that thought is an entity in itself. The
set included a variety of small appliances and household objects that were
designed to appear like a mysterious broadcasting station, an experiment lab and
a ceremony space, simultaneously. Smith was the lone performer, the writer, the
artist and the director, all wrapped into one.
10-15-96