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Show Imaginative director puts life into 'Dead a comedy for teens Quickies by Rick Drouth ; " 1 Even with that, there are cute per- NOW Showing ' formances from Cusack, Kim Darby fefeBvmvoM.: ssssr-Davld oeden Curtis Armstrong the actor who Better Off Dead was chased by Guido the killer pimp . 'Commando m "Risky Business"-has the best ifcSilver Bullet line in this picture, too, when he Sweet Dreams gives the hero a ski lesson: "Go down there really fast. If something rMrrrrrrrrrrM gets in your way turn!" Better Of f Dead The director of "Better Off Dead", bills himself as "Savage Steve Holland," which promises a - fun time. And, for a while, the picture has a tone that is part early Woody Allen, part Mad magazine in its prime. John Cusack plays a high-school kid who's so in love with the local . blonde princess (Amanda Wyss) that he practically wallpapers his room with her picture. Unfortunately, she decides to dump him because, as she candidly admits, "It's in my best interest to go with someone more popular." Cusack inhabits a bizarre, car-toony car-toony world of sight gags. His brainy kid brother builds a space shuttle in the attic. Two Japanese kids roam the street in their car, looking for drag races. One of them taunts motorists over a loudspeaker in a Howard Cosell voice. The weird thing is not that the. Japanese accent clashes with a Cosell imitation, but that it fits perfectly! And in math class, where kids are normally bored in this kind of movie it turns out that Cusack is the only deadhead. All the other students are prodigies, eagerly gobbling gob-bling up calculus. Worst of all, a ferocious paper boy whom the movie treats like a horror-movie horror-movie chainsaw maniac is hounding him for a $2 late payment. solutely unrecognizable, charming without being too cute. According to the script, he has a yen for soap opera and Grey even makes up for those elements in the character that were shoved in as token right-wingism. right-wingism. The man is racist, sexist and chauvinistically pro-Korea. Fred Ward is a likable hero and navigates well through the action sequences, se-quences, in particular a showdown with three thugs on the scaffolding around the Statue of Liberty. Wilford Brimley is his boss, who has a nifty desk computer that can call up every chip of data in the world. Charles Cioffi is a coldblooded cold-blooded heavy who makes defective weapons for the Pentagon. And Kate Mulgrew is a shrewd Army Ar-my officer who catches on to his. scam. "Remo," on the whole, shows promise of becoming the blue-collar James Bond. . Agnes of God "Agnes" can be recommended as an actress' showcase. It is less satisfactory as a study of faith vs. reason. Jane Fonda stars as Dr. Margaret Livingston, a psychiatrist who is called in to examine a young Canadian Cana-dian nun, Sister Agnes (Meg Tilly), accused of giving birth to a child and then killing it. To learn the truth, she has to penetrate the fog of innocence and unworldliness around the conventor con-ventor is the atmosphere more that of secrecy? No one, it seems, knew of the pregnancy, not . even Agnes. The young, naive nun hears heavenly voices, tortures herself with accusations accusa-tions of unworthiness and in the confessional con-fessional admits to sins like not eating her lima beans at supper. The Mother Superior (Anne Bancroft) Ban-croft) prefers to think Agnes is "special" and that her motherhood smacks of the miraculous. Dr. Livingston Liv-ingston (yes, the Mother can't resist asking "I presume") sees instead a mind stunted by the world and seeks a rational explanation. Meg Tilly steals the picture as Agnes, a radiantly zealous girl who doesn't deserve the situation con- founding her. Tilly shows a wispy devotion to her faith if she's demented, she's so joyous in her ' dementia you almost wish she could stay cozily wrapped up in it. Jane Fonda is a fine heroine like her father, she can play a character who is the very essence of decency and compassion. But she also shows the obsessional side of the character. Not just relying on the stage business of being a chain-smoker, chain-smoker, Fonda shows Dr. Livingston Liv-ingston still grappling with her fallen-Catholic childhood. And finally, Bancroft as the Mother Superior is a pushy hen who turns out to be a tough old bird when she contends with the doctor, a couple cou-ple of times, she manages to pierce Dr. Livingston's cynical armor. The picture is an intriguing sparring sparr-ing match, with fine performers from three generations of American actresses. But the script simply rules "no decision" to the conflict between Religion and Reason. In the , end, Fonda finds evidence to explain the pregnancy (a secret passage where a rapist could gain access to the convent), but Agnes also displays stigmata and even psychic ability the doctor can't explain. The story tries to satisfy both sides too much. The film doesn't even give an in- dication if the resolution of the case has changed Agnes, for better or worse. Director Norman Jewison does a nice, craftsmanlike job with the movie. But "Agnes of God" sinks to earth, weighed down by the fuzzy thinking in the script. I 1 A Classic Recommended Good double feature material Time-killer For masochists only ' Bi He also is driven to despairing thoughts of suicide by his strange home life. At Christmas, his mom gives TV dinners as birthday presents, while in the corner, a video cassette of a crackling fire blazes in the corner. Holland has a weird, wonderful mind, but halfway through the picture, pic-ture, it turns into a conventional teen movie. Cusack pines after his old girlfriend, and tries to lure her away from her blonde-bully love by skiing the most treacherous run on the mountain. Meanwhile, he doesn't notice he's caught the heart of a cute brunette (Diane Franklin), a French exchange ex-change student living with a hideous host family a shrewish mom and her piggy son. This leads the picture into a collection of routine fat jokes. Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins Our hero, Remo Williams (Fred Ward) may be able to dodge bullets, but he can't get out from under the thumb of his cranky, but lovable, Korean mentor. "Remp" scores as an adventure, based on this funny father-son relationship rela-tionship and a great deal of nicely-handled nicely-handled action. Remo is a tough cop who is drafted by a small organization that specializes in "terminations" for bad guys who escape the law. They've also arranged for Remo's "death," First, however, he must take a heavy-duty course in combat, cunning and skulking to leave no trace. As his teacher, Joel Grey is ab- |