MEDIA COOL
LIGHT OF DAY (Tri-Star) Those expecting one long MTV video would be better off at the new Stallone flick, since director/writer Paul Schrader has crafted an emotional family drama centering on the relationships between brother and sister Joe and Patti Rasnick (Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett), their manipulative mother (Gena Rowlands) and ineffectual father (Jason Miller).
MEDIA COOL
This Month’s Media Cool was written by Karen Schlosberg, Bob Nevin, Richard C. Walls and Richard Riegel
LIGHT OF DAY (Tri-Star)
Those expecting one long MTV video would be better off at the new Stallone flick, since director/writer Paul Schrader has crafted an emotional family drama centering on the relationships between brother and sister Joe and Patti Rasnick (Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett), their manipulative mother (Gena Rowlands) and ineffectual father (Jason Miller). Though the flawed screenplay is beyond repair, the four leads pull nuances and textures out of thin air, making the film absorbing in spite of its gaping holes. Fox bravely and successfully takes on a passive, almost supporting role, for the central dynamics are intended to be between Patti and her mother. Rowlands turns in a scary, deliberately ambiguous and magnetic performance, but the film ultimately belongs to Jett, who, in her acting debut, is perfectly intense as the driven, angry and anguished Patti, trying to live for an idea within a society of rules. That ethos makes this more of a rock ’n’ roll film than the scads of contemptible pretenders from Flashdance on. K.S.
PLATOON
(Orion)