‘Crash,’ Get ‘Lost’ Or Wait For ‘Guffman’

From comedy to action/adventure, with a bit of strangeness thrown in, the movies available this week on video run the gamut of tastes (if not simply taste).

The week’s releases:

Waiting for Guffman

***

Hired by the town of Blaine, Mo., to stage its 150-year anniversary celebration, a former chorus-line wannabe (writer-director Christopher Guest) gets excited when he hears that a New York producer - the Guffman of the film’s title - is planning to attend the opening. A mock documentary, this “Spinal Tap”-type movie is a hilarious send-up of small-town drama types without ever being cruel or inordinately vicious. Don’t forget to break out your “My Dinner With Andre” action figures. Not rated

Lost Highway

***

Strange happenings (redundancy alert) abound in this new film by David Lynch about an accused murderer (Bill Pullman) who, halfway through, unaccountably turns into someone else (Balthazar Getty). Meanwhile, Patricia Arquette plays two different women, Robert Loggia plays a mobster with a big gun (and a confirmed dislike of tailgaters) and Robert Blake creeps up the screen big-time as a wide-eyed, face-painted symbol of evil. The movie moves along, sometimes making sense, often not. Then again, neither plot nor sense are Lynchian priorities. “Lost Highway” is your basic tour into the psyche of a troubled mind (Lynch’s own, perhaps?); in an essential sense, it is an extended meditation on male insecurity. Taken as merely that, it has more than a few effective moments - many of which you can discuss later with your therapist. Rated R

Crash

**-1/2

David Cronenberg specializes in movies that, sometimes in a science-fiction context, explore the dark landscape of the human psyche. This film, a special prize winner at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, takes the Canadian filmmaker’s vision to the limit - and then beyond. Based on the novel by J.G. Ballard (“Empire of the Sun”), “Crash” involves characters, sedated beyond feeling by a seemingly meaningless sort of existence, who derive sexual pleasure from witnessing, and experiencing, car crashes. James Spader and Deborah Unger portray a married couple who, following an accident that nearly kills him, become involved with a group led by Elias Koteas that stages recreations of famous fatal crashes. And then they all congregate, so to speak, to lick each other’s wounds - again, so to speak. Definitely not for the squeamish, this is a trip into a weird world of obsessive behavior. But, ultimately, there may not be a whole lot to learn from it. Rated NC-17

The Devil’s Own

**-1/2

Director Alan J. Pakula (“All the President’s Men,” “Klute,” “The Parallax View”) is better at the thinking-person’s portions of action-thrillers than he is at the pure action parts. Considering the many silly aspects to “The Devil’s Own,” which occur almost any time someone picks up a gun, it’s surprising that the film ends up being as good as it is. Credit that to Pakula and to the actors - Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford - whom he allows room to work. Pitt is “Frankie the Angel,” an IRA terrorist, sent to America to buy missiles needed to shoot down British helicopters. Ford is the New York cop who, without knowing who Frankie really is, takes him into his home and befriends him. The relationship part of the film, which involves Margaret Colin as Ford’s wife and Natascha McElhone (“Surviving Picasso”) as Frankie’s lover, is what’s worth watching. The political references exist only on the most elementary levels, and even then they don’t always make sense. Stories were rampant during production about how Pakula started shooting without a finished script. The end product is a good example of cinematic jury-rigging that almost works.Rated R

Everyone Says I Love You

**-1/2

Writer/director/star Woody Allen takes another look at love in this musical comedy about an extended New York (where else?) family experiencing the various tribulations involving romance, betrayal, reconciliation, divorce, friendship, etc. Allen’s character, divorced from Goldie Hawn (now married to Alan Alda), uses his daughter to make a relationship work with Julia Roberts. Meanwhile, Edward Norton is romancing Drew Barrymore, but Tim Roth threatens to come between them. All of this seems familiar, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But then the occasional song breaks out, rendered mostly by voices that should never have left the shower. The ultimate result is a curiosity piece that exhibits only occasional humor. Rated R

Mother

**-1/2

Writer-director Albert Brooks stars as a twice-divorced man who, seeking to find out why he can’t make his relationships work, decides to move back in with his mother (played by Debbie Reynolds). His intent: to confront the source of his problems. Brooks, known for such savage satires of contemporary life as “Real Life” and “Modern Romance,” has lightened up immensely. And it isn’t necessarily to his credit. There are funny moments here, many of them involving the superb Reynolds or Rob Morrow who portrays Brooks’ “healthier” brother. But the film’s energy dissipates as Brooks settles for a pop-psychology ending that is neither believable nor satirical. Rated PG-13

Don’t tell Tigger

One kind-hearted reader, laughing hard, pointed out that the title of Disney’s most recent straight-to-video release was a bit off in last week’s column. Instead of “Pooh’s Grand Adventure - The Search for Christopher Robin,” I typed “Pooh’s Grand Adventure - The Search for Robinson Crusoe.” The problem obviously was due to the fact that my column runs on Friday. , DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo