'Explorers' imitates Mork from Ork in ordinary outer spacealien tale "Vlr,,,TV, ;:M? WL I?1 ) J Mi W ftf,! III I V r ."fA Pi , 1 I'Left to right: Jason Presson, River Phoenix and Ethan (L HSwke survey the damage in a basement laboratory after , ft, mysterious force field goes out of control and explodes several cases of soda in "Explorers." . l" rnll i oTTTn Video Views b' Itick Brough and Robin Moench :iYj; lit' English with a Scottish accent. Not all the moments in the film work. The married life of Alan's best friend, who supposedly provides a little warmth and sanity, is rather boring. But "Comfort and Joy" shouldn't be missed. It's amazing to see a movie this'intelligent and light-fingered light-fingered in mood in the video stores along with the sex and violence flicks the film equivalent of "mun-chies," "mun-chies," "slurpies" and "chewies." NinjaHI: KB The Domination Martial-arts movies meet "The Exorcist" in "Ninja." An evil Ninja assassinates an important scientist in California, then is pursued by a large platoon of police. He wipes out most of the cops, but is finally shot to death by the survivors. Before he dies, though, he passes on the sacred sword that holds his spirit to a telephone lineswoman who happens to be in the neighborhood! Before long, the sword is floating around the woman's apartment, while winds blow and bright lights flash. She is possessed and compelled compell-ed to don Ninja gear and bump off the cops who killed the evil Ninja. Here's an interesting variation of the "slasher" formula: In some cases, it's implied the cops deserve to be offed because they're middle-aged middle-aged lechers. Unfortunately, the woman's new boyfriend is also one of the cops. Meanwhile, a mysterious one-eyed stranger (Sho Kosugi) appears on the scene a good Ninja who is an old enemy of the evil spirit. "Ninja III" doesn't make you eager to see Parts I and II. The heroine (Lucinda Dickey, who starred star-red in the two "Breakin"' musicals) tries to keep her mind off murderous thoughts by doing aerobics, but it doesn't help. She distinguishes herself in one respect, however. When making love to her boyfriend, she pours V-8 juice down her neck as a turn-on! -RB A Classic I Recommended I Good double I feature material I Time-killer I For masochists I only I Many of the films you have read about in the Quickies movie reviews now are available for home viewing on video cassettes. To refresh your memory of those movies, Record entertainment writers Rick Brough and Robin Moench have recycled their capsule summaries and list some current video offerings below. Explorers Director Joe Dante gives us an amiable Boys' Life adventure for two-thirds of this movie until it turns into Silly Putty. Ben (Ethan Hawke), a devotee of 1950s science-fiction science-fiction movies, is haunted by bizarre dreams that provide him with the details for a method of outer space propulsion someone up there is calling him! He fashions a spaceship with the help of a wimpy but brainy computer com-puter whiz (River Phoenix) and a tough kid (Jason Presson) with a magical knack for refashioning junk. Through most of the picture, the tone is warm, goofy and low-key, as the three misfits transform an old tilt-a-whirl chair into a spaceship, which they use on a maiden flight to buzz a drive-in. In line with Dante's fondness for parody, the drive-in movie is about a peroxide-head space hero called i Starkiller. j: The script by Eric Luke coasts, lightly through the story, mixing it . well with the relationship of the three young heroes. Hawke's fresh-faced fresh-faced enthusiasm plays well off-Presson's off-Presson's streetwise portrayal. The two are like Richie and Fonzie at a junior high school level. Phoenix is owlishly funny, but he doesn't seem comfortable with his ; brainy dialogue and trappings. The story also has a few intriguing supporting characters. These include in-clude a helicopter pilot who spots the kids' spaceship and remembers strange dreams he had as a youngster and a ferocious guard dog who can be pacified with gum. "Maybe I'll teach him to blow a bubble bub-ble someday," muses Presson. So why is "Explorers" an ordinary or-dinary picture? Because the story collapses when the aliens are revealed reveal-ed as two outer space nerds who have overloaded on earth TV and spout quotations from Bugs Bunny, "Let's Make a Deal" and Popeil salesmen. They're grade-c imitations of Mork from Ork. In the background, their spaceship viewing screen explodes ex-plodes with clips from movies and TV. The movie is a step back from Dante's "Gremlins" and more like the movies in which he was sidetracked by pop culture gag-gery gag-gery like the in-jokes of the "The Howling" and the cartoony frenzy of his segment of "The Twilight Zone." It's a shame. RB . .. ..X'- ,.,,v 'i-Sj . ' y2Return to Oz '"h '"' In "Return to Oz," the Oz characters are largely mechanical creations, not human actors. That tells you why "Return" is weak compared com-pared to Judy Garland's "Oz" or weak compared to any other good fantasy film. In this sequel no matter how much the Disney Studios deny it, that's what it is Dorothy is haunted by dreams of Oz. So Uncle Henry and Auntie Em (Matt Clark, Piper Laurie) send her to an asylum that specializes in an early version of shock treatment. ..Dorothy escapes during a rain storm and a river flood sweeps her into Oz, where the evil Gnome King has turned most of the citizens into stone. Unfortunately, the remaining peronalities are just as stiff. Dorothy is aided by Belinea, a talking talk-ing chicken from Kansas; a metal soldier named Tic-Toe; Johnny Pumpkinhead, who has a voice like a pimply teenager; and a flying couch with a moose head. All these folks have the forced liveliness of characters in a Japanese cartoon. As in "Wizard of Oz," the cruel nurse in the asylum (Jean Marsh) turns up again as the witch, Mombi, and the quack doctor (Nicol Williamson) appears later as the Gnome King. But neither one comes off very well and shrieking Marsh sounds like she was dubbed by a man. Fairuza Baulk as Dorothy is competent, but Walter Murch hasn't directed her to summon up any par-. par-. ticular spirit or warmth. " There are some good special ef- fects in the Gnome King's Castle, and Mombi offers one nice chill : Her wardrobe is a collection of heads that all moan and caterwaul when aroused. There's no magic in "Return to ' Oz." It looks like you've stumbled into in-to a mediocre amusement park. -RB y2Comfort and Joy We don't know why, but for some reason it was decided to put out a video cassette of Scottish filmmaker Bill Forsyth's latest picture. His brand of picture is a type all his own wry comedy with dashes of satire, sadness, placid absurdity and plain cockeyed turns of plot. He's also known for the films "Gregory's Girl" and "Local Hero." The local hero in "Comfort and Joy" is Alan Bird (Bill Paterson), also known as radio disc jockey "Dickie Bird," whose life quietly crashes and burns. In the middle of a mundane afternoon, after-noon, his live-in girlfriend starts wandering around the apartment picking up her things and announces she's moving out. Within seconds, a group of her friends show up as an impromptu moving crew, scouring out the place. "Let's not drag it out," she pleads. Hit with this, Alan tailspins into a funk. He's dissatisfied with his life of making bright chatter on the radio and doing commercial voice-overs for junk food various "munchies," "slurpies" and "chewies." On the rebound, he stumbles into a local war a hooligan fight between rival ice-cream-truck companies, McCool's and Mr. Bunny. At first, he tries to cover the story to show he is a serious journalist. Then he attempts at-tempts to act as peace-maker in an attempt to find himself. "My life was the wrong flavor. I was raspberry when I should have been vanilla," he bubbles. Forsyth's style isn't raspberry either. He doesn't go for the jab-in-the-elbow joke, but for droll humor and quiet absurdity. His warring icecream ice-cream vendors prowl the streets as if they were on "Glasgow Vice." Mr. McCool is a genial "Godfather" type. And his oldest son uneasily straddles two cultures he talks Italian with an Italian accent and