Kalifornia

Maybe we can blame David Lynch. After all, Blue Velvet helped to popularize the artsy-smarty psycho flick.

But I liked Blue Velvet. In fact, it's funnier every time I see it. And it offers the definitive statement on beer brands and class structure.

I didn't like Kalifornia, and its self-consciously hip misspelling with a "K" is only one of the reasons why. (It also doesn't know a thing about American beer-drinking habits. At least Lynch did his research.)

Here's the set-up: David Duchovny and Michelle Forbes are an ultra-cool couple. They wear a lot of black. He's a grad student and would-be journalist who's obsessed with serial killers. She's a photographer whose work resembles Robert Mapplethorpe's. Together, they decide to drive cross-country to visit famous murder sites for a photo-book they're compiling.

But they're low on money, so they advertise for a rider to join them on the magical mayhem tour. Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis play the couple that hops aboard. Immediately, we realize that Duchovny never bothered to do a simple reference check.

But their poor fashion sense isn't the only problem. Pitt just happens to be your typical, workaday serial killer. You know, the kind who whacks the landlord before moving. The rest of the film writes itself. The journey becomes a hellish descent as Kalifornia gets downright mean and nasty. And only Lewis picks up any fashion tips.

Kalifornia is even worse than its cheap plot, which was cloned from The Hitcher (the Rutger Hauer film with the infamous french fries scene). The movie is another volley in the new yuppie horror genre of anti-working class films. It's as if the displaced labor force has become an exotic, dangerous threat to the children of the managerial class.

In Kalifornia's violent collision between Tobacco Road and the Village Voice, no cliches are spared. What's more, in the movie's journey from the industrial wasteland to an abandoned nuclear test site, it flaunts a political pose that it doesn't believe in.

The whole gory mess is a misguided missile in contemporary class warfare.

What's Eating Gilbert Grape

There was an incredible overload of movies lined up for release last sum­mer. So many, in fact, that the studios are still releasing them. What's Eating Gilbert Grape has been stewing in the limbo that exists between limited screenings and the video store since last June. It has only now gained wide-release sta­tus, due to the surprise Oscar nomination of Leonardo DiCaprio for best supporting actor. Otherwise, these grapes would be rot­ting on a shelf at Blockbuster.

The long wait to see this movie has been less than worth it, however. This pastoral tale about small-town, dead-end melancho­lia take forever to deliver a Generation X variation on The Last Picture Show, minus Ben Johnson and the movie theater setting. What it does offer is a rural family with a fruity name, a missing father, a humongous mother, a sampling of mild-mannered but confused youths and some great shots of Texas standing in for Iowa.

Johnny Depp brings his usual blankness to the character of Gilbert Grape, who's the sole source of support for his odd family. His mother has slid completely into a fat-laden depression as a result of father Grape's desertion, and his two sisters have become a Jekyll-and-Hyde pairing of bitterness and nurturing. Then there's his younger brother Arnie (DiCaprio), a severely retarded boy with an unexplained obsession for climbing water towers.

Gilbert also has romantic problems. He's grown disinterested in his affair with the local lust-driven, middle-aged housewife (Mary Steenburgen) and finds himself slow­ly (very slowly) becoming involved with a young girl (Juliette Lewis) who's traveling with her grandmother in a camper.

The whole film plays like a college grad­uate's first novel, and Lasse Hallstrom's direction lingers way too long on every minor point. Only the excellent photogra­phy by Sven Nykvist ultimately maintains one's interest.