3 ntertainment Trio of movies features stellar performances

NEW YORK (CNS) — "The Fabulous top-secret Manhattan Project in a remote Baker Boys" (Fox) charts the last hurrah New Mexico lab. Oppenheimer drew to of a duo of piano-playing brothers, who Los Alamos top U.S. and European minds work the Seattle cocktail lounge circuit and and together they turned energy .into a take one last stab at revitalizing their third- force capable of destroying die entire rate careers. planet. When Frank and Jack Baker hire singer Although die Germans were soon Susie Diamond (Michelle Pfeiffer) to jazz defeated and were never close to producing up their stale act, the smokey-voiced escort a bomb as rumored, and the Japanese were service veteran re-charges bodi the act and similarly reported to be close to surrender, the brothers. Groves continued the project. He also Older brother Frank (Beau Bridges) has strong-armed Oppenheimer, who struggled to support a wife, two kids and a house in with a crisis of conscience and yet ulti­ the suburbs, so by necessity he's learned to mately pushed for die bomb's completion look at each miserable booking through as well. Groves is depicted here as a single- rose-colored glasses. As their business minded, self-aggrandizing military admin­ manager, he's had to smile at empty tables istrator who wanted to get the job. done to and obnoxious lounge owners who have prove U.S. military strength and to save begun paying the boys not to finish their face after having spent two years on a $2 two-night contracts. billion experiment. Frank also tries to keep cheerful for Jack Oppenheimer, on the odier hand, is (Jeff Bridges), who is his alienated shown as a complex man wim a communist younger brother. The more talented of the Brothers Beau (left) and Jeff Bridges in "the Fabulous Baker Boys," portray sympathizer for a mistress and ingrained two, Jack has spent-15 years as a profes­ Frank and Jack Baker, piano-playing brothers whose failing act is revitalized humanistic values. A troublesome security sional with Frank, playing the same old when a beautiful singer, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, joins them risk for Groves, Oppenheimer had, tunes, 250 nights a year. Emotionally tapose the political awakening of the white compatriots are morally bankrupt. however, a genius for tapping and mediat­ numb, Jack gets his kicks by jamming in a book's white protagonist wim me horrify­ Bound by his conscience,' which is remar­ ing die work of the diverse scientists at Los local black jazz club, bed-hopping and see­ ing plight of me black characters who jolt kably absent in his racist wife (Janet Suz- Alamos. But in the end, bom the mistress dling in silence as he plays along with him into taking a stand, j man), daughter (Susannah Harker) and and the humanism were discarded by Op­ Frank's desire to keep the act afloat. Slowly — and without stooping to grand employer, Ben forges ahead with Gordon's penheimer, who, like Groves, became ob­ When Susie shows up on die scene, Jack moral flourishes — die film traces die case with no diought of how his activism sessed with completing the mission no mat­ meets his match and the act and the broth­ growing awareness of j white Afrikaner will ultimately threaten his own life. ter what its human cost or devastating fu­ ers are never the same again. It's no sur­ schoolteacher Ben du Toit (Donald Suther- Despite its brief but brutal scenes of vio­ ture potential. prise that the trio finally cracks over land) to the abuse of blacks during me 1976 lence in which school children are shot at whether to keep the song "Feelings" in the Soweto uprisings. Somehow Ben and his point-blank range or beaten to death during It's evident that director Roland Joffe act. All three have swallowed their real privileged family have managed to remain their peaceful Soweto demonstrations and ("The Killing Fields," "The Mission") feelings for so long that something even­ blinded to die cruel reality of apartheid un­ die clear implications of grim prison tor­ employed top-notch technical and subject tually has to give. When the song goes, so til their black gardener, Gordon (Winston tures, "A Dry White Season " can and specialists to create an air of scientific and do the illusions and pipedreams that each Ntshona), and his young son become its should be shared and discussed by parents historical accuracy. He does slip up by in­ used to rationalize their failures. gruesome statistics. and older adolescent children. jecting a gratuitous but brief sex scene be­ tween Oppenheimer and his mistress Jean Kloves, who also wrote the sensitive Aldiough Ben uses his influence to in­ Due to some brutal scenes of racist- Tatlock (Natasha Richardson) and by con­ adolescent romance "Racing with the vestigate uie young boy's disappearance inspired violence set widiin an historical cocting a sappy romance between doomed Moon" (1984), has a remarkable feel for during a demonstration by uie black context diat did not differentiate between young Chicago physicist Michael Merri- me lounge milieu, diese fringe performers schoolchildren of Soweto, Gordon's own men, women and children, uie USCC man (John Cusack) and nurse Kathleen and the dreams and nightmares of being a search for his boy leads him to his own classification is A-UJ — adults. "The Mo­ Robinson (Laura Dern). brother. This film showcases die multita- grave. u. tion Picture Association of America rating lented Bridges brothers — starring together The reality of Gordon's grim life finally is R — restricted. Director of photography Vilmos Zsig- for me first time in a major film — and sinks in for Ben when he's forced to iden­ mond ("Close Encounters of die Third Pfeiffer, who sings her own songs in a sul­ tify Gordon's fatally beaten body. He hires Fat Man and Little Boy Kind") and production designer Gregg try, utterly transfixing fashion. a prominent human rights attorney, Ian Fine production credits and serviceable Fonseca ("Honey, I Shrunk die Kids") McKenzie (Marlon Braido) and charges acting highlight "Fat Man and Little Boy" manage to create a striking visual, tension Due to some profanity laced with sexual uie sadistic police chief, Capt. Stolz (Jur- (Paramount), uie latest and hopefully the for a story that could easily have sunk into vulgarities and brief sexual situations with gen Prochnow), with Gordon's murder. last attempt to dramatize the behind-the- a sea of tedious, technical mumbo jumbo a flash of nudity, me U.S. Catholic Con­ Cynical McKenzie knows uie trial will be scenes creation of uie world's first atomic (as witnessed in AT&T's recent TV ver­ ference classification is A-JJJ — adults. an exercise in futility, yet he takes uie case bomb. sion "Day One"). The Motion Picture Association of Amer­ and Ben seals his fate as an anti-apartheid Opening in 1942, uie film explores the ica rating is R —restricted. Despite some contrived, Hollywood tou­ activist working underground wiui Gor­ professional and personal agendas that mo­ ches, "Fat Man and Litde Boy" comes as don's wife Emily (Thdko Ntshinga) and A Dry White Season tivated the two key players in a scheme of close as any dramatized account could to her activist friend Stanley (Zakes Mokae) events that changed the world for ever. Director Euzhan Palcy attempts to boost projecting die reality of tins black moment to build a case against Stolz. the black perspective in "A Dry White Responsible for building-uie Pentagon, in the history of humanity. Season" (MGM), her adaptation of Andre Brando's much-heralded presence here Gen. Leslie R. Groves (Paul Newman) was Brink's 1979 novel about apartheid in is too brief to be politically important, but assigned uie task of building the bomb. He Due to a shadowed, adulterous sexual South Africa. Sutherland powerfully evokes Ben's selected physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer encounter with nudity, a grisly deatii from As a result, she manages to carefully jux- naivete and painful realization mat his (Dwight Schultz) to oversee uie two-year, radiation and minimal rough language, die U.S. Catholic Conference classification is A-JU — adults. The Motion Picture Asso­ ciation of America rating is PG-13 — par­ ents strongly cautioned mat some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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