CONEY
ISLAND

Happy New Year!

15647 W. NINE MILE at Greenfield
Southfield
(810) 569-5229

3999 CENTER POINT PARKWAY
Pontiac
(248) 335-3303

HALSTED VILLAGE (37580 W. 12 Mile Rd.)
Farmington Hills
(810) 553-2360

LAUREL PARK MALL (37622 6 Mile)
Livonia
(313) 462-9121

30985 ORCHARD LK. RD.
(Between 13 & 14 Mile)
Farmington Hills
(248) 626-9732

6527 TELEGRAPH RD.
Corner of Maple (15 Mile)
Bloomfield Township
(248) 646-8568

841 EAST BIG BEAVER
Troy
(248) 680-0094

4763 HAGGERTY RD.
West Bloomfield
(248)669-2295

154 S. WOODWARD
Birmingham
(248) 540-8780

15131 Sheldon Rd.
Plymouth

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OPENING SOON!

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Special Summer
Salad

Chicken Salad

Served w/Pita

$ 4 95
Reg. $525

he Total Bill

With coupon •Expires 10-17-97

Expires 1 0-1 7 97

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farm for decades as a sleeping fury.
We're supposed to think it was sheer
willfulness, and lust for Larry's proper-
ty, but the odds are huge that she
would have exploded and left long
ago. Jason Leigh is poorly used. We
wonder why she did not get time
wasted on Colin Firth as Jess, an eco-
minded toucher and feeler who
returns to the county in time to bed
Rose and Ginny, both frantic for a real
man. Jess is special: a stud service with
a neutered personality. He's like Bill
Holden in Picnic, yet wondering if he's
really gay.
A smug lawyer says, "Millions of
dollars is never ridiculous." Yes, it is,
when spent on movies like this. A sort
of King Lear for Corn Belt magazine, it
hoses us down in the bitter brew of
this family, then has the nerve to have
Ginny the ninny (in a final voice-over)
peep one last time about "hope." Oh,
brother (and oh, sister).
Robards is a mere gargoyle, Firth
and Jason Leigh are plot utensils (ditto
Carradine and Anderson). Even the
robust powers of Lange and Pfeiffer
cannot save this grind of heartland
misery and mawkish sisterhood. For
such waste of talent, the filmmakers
should be sent to a work farm, with
Larry. Rated R.

Reviewed by David Elliott

STILL SERVING THE SAME
"NEW YORK STYLE" ITALIAN CUISINE

In Theaters

(featuring Executive Chef Vince Young)

THE GAME

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EARLY BIRD DINNERS

4 p.in.-6p.m. • $795

M-TH: 11-10 pm • FRI: 11-11 pm
SAT: 5-11 pm • SUN: 4-9 pm

We Take Reservations

Is Available
For Private Parties
on Saturday and
Sunday Afternoons.

Most Major Credit Cards Accepted

Seating for 120.

25938 Middlebelt Rd. (at 11 mile Rd.) • (248) 476 - 1750

We Wish Our Friends and Customers
A Healthy and Happy New Year

Odiden Pildenix

170

In the first movie from PolyGram
films, Michael Douglas does one of his
clotted, grip-jawed performances as
another upscale, overachieving jerk.
For 128 minutes, Douglas suffers as
Nick Van Orton, a near-billionaire
manipulator of money in San
Francisco. He's all alone in the family
mansion, apart from a gentle house-
keeper (Carroll Baker). Long ago, his
father killed himself by jumping off
the roof as Nick watched, but that
isn't enough to make Nick, who could
live anywhere, wish to leave the place.
His warm wife left him, maybe
fearing she'd suffer terminal heat loss
around Nick. Frigidly obsessed with
business, he dumps a fine old publish-
er (Armin Mueller-Stahl) simply to
perk up the bottom line. Nick's impu-
dent brother, Conrad (Sean Penn),
seems to hate him, enough to lure
Nick into "the game," run by the mys-
terious Consumer Recreation Services.
All predatory work and no predato-
ry play is making Nick a dull boy.
CSR can shatter his doldrums by lead-

Sugar Tree Plaza

6257 Orchard Lake Rd.

■

West Bloomfield 855-3570

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Reviewed by David Elliott c'

COPLAND

Sylvester Stallone shambles behind
his expanded gut as Freddy, a nice,
get-along cop in a town housing New
York police from across the Hudson;
they run it as their cozy turf, seeded
by dirty money. Harvey Keitel is the
dirtiest, while Robert De Niro is the
Internal Affairs detective who teaches
Freddy to open his eyes, then act after
much provocation.
Michael Rapaport is a hapless
young cop, hiding in the woods like a
scared deer from his deadly pals. Ray
Liotta, as a guilty cop, has the most
bolt-awake moments, but Stallone is
rightly given prime credit for holding
our interest, against his usual type
(he's less Rocky Balboa, despite the
"urban western" shootout finish, than
Rocky Raccoon).
Director and writer James Mangold
pads it out, much like Sly's waistline.
Rated R.
* * 1/2

t _I_ -Li

1111

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Reviewed by David Elliott

EXCESS BAGGAGE

Chinese American Restaurant

9/26
1997

ing him into a dangerous maze of sur-
prises, with no game plan and few
clues. But we sense a moral imperative
- that smug, constipated Nick is going
to get therapeutic value for his night-
mare. Rated R.
# #

Alicia Silverstone is cute and has
smart attitude to spare, but just as
we've stopped worrying about her fad-
ing weight problem, we have to con-
centrate on a little moustache she
sports in this film, off and on. Alicia,
get it together!
Otherwise, not much happens here.
She's the spoiled but unhappy heiress
who kidnaps herself to win the love of
her cold daddy (Jack Thompson), but
gets more warmth from her criminal
uncle (scene-stealer Christopher
Walken, as always from his own plan-
et). And she falls into ginchy-cute
romance with a car thief (Benicio Del
Toro, a mannerism boutique: grown-
up Ricky Riccardo Jr. trying to be
James Dean).
The simple chase story has wheels
but no motor of mind, and you can
forget the story as you view it. Rated
PG-13.
##
Reviewed by David Elliott

CONSPIRACY THEORY

Crap in a blender of dumb plot,

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