In Movie Theaters the Week of
August 5th, 1996

3 films are being released this week

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This Week's Releases

Friday, August 9th

Matilda

Rated: PG

Matilda (Mara Wilson) is an extraordinary girl, a child of wondrous intelligence. Unfortunately, her neglectful and deeply stupid parents, Harry and Zinnia Wormwood (Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman) are too wrapped up in their own little lives to care, or even to notice that their daughter is a budding genius, in love with books and with learning. When the Wormwoods finally grant Matilda's wish to attend school, they bundle her off to Crunchem Hall, a bleak brick prison where students cower before the whip-hand and fist of a hulking monster, principal Agatha Trunchbull (Pam Ferris). Amid Crunchem's darkness, Matilda finds a single light in warm-hearted Miss Honey (Embeth Davidtz), the first-grade teacher who recognizes the girl's remarkable skills -- including a very special talent that allows the spirited girl to turn the tables on the wicked grownrups in her world.

Basquiat

Rated: NONE

n 1981, Jean-Michel Basquiat catapulted from being an unknown nineteen year-old graffiti writer to becoming one of the most successful, controversial, glamorous artists in the world. His shows were anticipated as the big events of the New York season, and his paintings were bought by the most powerful collectors and museums. Every aspect of his life became a subject for the media. By 1988, he was dead at the age of 27. Jean-Michel Basquiat was described by The New York Times as "the art world's closest equivalent to James Dean." In spite of his success, this turbulent and talented young painter was also plagued by loneliness, self-destruction and the belief that people did not really accept him for who he was. As the first black artist to really succeed in the powerful white art world, his early death shows that he was a casualty as well as a phenomenal success. BASQUIAT is a film based on his life, and marks the motion picture writing and directing debut of his fellow artist, the equally-controversial Julian Schnabel. Schnabel did not make the film to lament the artist's death, but to honor his life.

John Carpenter's Escape from L.A.

Rated: R

Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) resurfaces fifteen years after his escape from New York into Loas Angeles to find little hope after a devastating earthquake has left the city an island inhabited only by warring gangs, outcasts and miscreants. Snake has been injected with a genetically engineered virus that will kill him in 10 hours unless he takes its antidote, must capture the President's daughter and return the top secret "Black Box" she stole from a space defense lab. Only after Snake delivers the secretive Black Box and Utopia back to the President will he receive the viral antidote he so desperately needs and be fully pardoned of every immoral act he's committed in the United States. As Snake comes to know just what's contained in that Black Box he realizes that whoever holds it, holds the fate of the very world in his or her hand.