Conference bookie::movies

641.0. "Blue Sky" by 58633::TRP109::Chris (prognosis negative) Mon Sep 12 1994 12:14

The Toronto International Film Festival is on from September 8-17 and, lucky 
me, I can get free tickets to most of the movies because my brother is the 
box office manager.  I thought I'd post notes on some of the movies I've 
seen because I noticed a few of them are also appearing at the Boston Film 
Festival soon.  This is the 19th annual festival in Toronto and I believe it 
is the 4th largest in the world - this year over 300 Canadian and 
International films will be shown, including many world premiers.

So far, I have seen the following (out of 5 *****'s)


BLUE SKY (***)  

This was the last movie that Tony Richardson directed.  Some of his other 
credits include "Tom Jones", "The Lonliness of the Long Distance Runner" and 
"Hotel New Hampshire"  The cast included Tommy Lee Jones, Jessica Lange, 
Powers Boothe, Chris O'Donnell, Carrie Snodgress and Amy Locane.  The movie 
has been languishing on the shelves for a couple of years because it is an 
Orion production, and that company has gone bankrupt.  I imagine it is being 
released now to take advantage of TLJ's popularity. The plot involves a 
nuclear engineer in the US army who has been sent to an out-of-the-way base 
in Nevada.  His wife is a frustrated, high-spirited woman who hasn't 
adjusted well to the conformity and becomes increasingly alienated from the 
rest of the army base.  A sub plot involves secret underground testing of 
nuclear missiles and I really didn't feel like the domestic storyline meshed 
with the nuclear testing.  TLJ gave another fine performance, and for the 
most part, Jessica Lange did as well, but I couldn't decide if she was 
overacting in scenes, or was just trying to portray how outrageous the 
character was.  Amy Locane (she was in the first season of Melrose Place and 
also "School Ties") played the daughter and she had some good scenes with 
Chris O'Donnell, however, I found it distracting to watch them because they 
were so much younger when this movie was made.

Side note - Roger Ebert was sitting in the last row in the theatre - he 
attends this festival every year - and if anybody had access to the Chicago 
paper he writes for, I am curious to know if he does daily columns (or any 
columns) on the festival.

Also, the scriptwriter (can't remember name) was there, and she read two 
faxes that had been sent by TLJ and JL indicating their admiration and 
respect for Tony Richardson and what a joy it was to work with him.

>the scriptwriter (can't remember name)
The three credited writers are Jerry Leichtling (not him; you said "she"),
Arlene Sarner (also wrote Peggy Sue Got Married), and Rama Laurie Stagner,
who also wrote the story (and the TV movie And Then There Was One).