HBO Pricing "Platoon" Lovers Out of the Market?; : New Releases for Everyone From Art-Lovers to Gore-Fans

By DENNIS HUNT

Aug. 28, 1987 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

HBO may have blown it. Pricing “Platoon,” the 1986 best-picture Oscar winner, at a record $99.95 has infuriated many retailers, particularly the small store owners.

At last week’s Video Software Dealers Assn. convention in Las Vegas, the “Platoon” price was one of the hot topics of conversation. The Vietnam War drama will debut on home video Oct. 14.

Like all home-video companies, HBO gets no cut of the retailers’ rental royalties. The only way it can capitalize on the anticipated popularity of “Platoon” cassettes is by boosting the selling price. But a higher retail price means store owners pay a higher wholesale price for rental copies.

Already about two dozen store owners from around the country have said they are livid about the increase, which is $10 above the $89.95 that’s becoming the norm for “A” titles, and have vowed to buy fewer copies. If other retailers feel the same way, that will be bad news for would-be renters: There will be a shortage of “Platoon” cassettes in circulation and you may have a long wait to get hold of one.

Two of the highlights of the star-studded Video Software Dealers Assn. convention involved a veteran star and a relative newcomer. At an opening-night dinner sponsored by RCA/Columbia Home Video, actor Sidney Poitier was awarded the association’s presidential award for sustained creative achievement. At a closing night dinner, Michael J. Fox got the video-star-of-the-year award, mainly in recognition of the success of MCA’s “Back to the Future.” Fox’s next home video release, MCA’s “The Secret of My Success,” is due out Dec. 10 and is expected to be a big rental hit.

COMING MOVIES: Once announced as a Sept. 2 release, Vestron’s “Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn” is actually out Sept. 30. While gore-lovers are awaiting “Dead 2,” they can revel in another grisly sequel, “Silent Night, Deadly Night 2,” due Sept. 17 from IVE.

For the art-house crowd, Lorimar’s “Swimming to Cambodia,” director Jonathan Demme’s film of Spaulding Gray’s one-man stage show, will be out Sept. 30. For that same audience: “Square Dance” (Sept. 22), starring Jane Alexander and Jason Robards, and RCA/Columbia’s “84 Charing Cross Road” (Oct. 15), featuring Anne Bancroft.

Two of the major rentals early next month will be Media’s “Mannequin” and HBO’s “Hoosiers”--both Sept. 9 releases. For lovers of lowbrow humor: Touchstone’s “Ernest Goes to Camp” is out Sept. 29.

Next week: “An American Tail,” “Light of Day” and “From the Hip.”

NEW RELEASES: Warner Video’s “The Mission,” directed by Roland Joffe, is what is called a historical highbrow movie--one with sweep, grandeur and lofty themes. Set in South America in 1750, it’s about Jesuits who help peaceful Indians battle the callous representatives of two colonial empires. Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons star.

The cinematography is stunning. You may not always understand what it’s about--the presentation of issues is often confusing--but it’s certainly great to look at. Chris Menges won the best-cinematography Oscar to go with the one he collected two years ago for another Joffe movie, “The Killing Fields.”

Though its Oscar nomination for best picture should attract renters, its slow, pious, history-book tone may turn some people off. Warning: The last part of the movie is not for the squeamish. It’s filled with slaughter scenes--including child murders--that are as unsettling as the massacres in “The Killing Fields.”

Nelson Entertainment’s “The Stepfather” is the dark side of such family entertainments as the old “Father Knows Best” TV show. Imagine if Jim Anderson, the ideal dad played by Robert Young in that series, was a maniac out to kill his own family.

The stepfather (Terry O’Quinn) in this high-tension thriller is as wholesome as Anderson--on the surface, that is. Ecstatic when he’s the hub of a happy, all-American family, he turns killer when that happiness turns sour. In the movie, he worms his way into a small family made up of a widow (Shelley Hack) and her teen-age daughter (Jill Schoelen), who stumbles onto his secret.

The high-quality of this low-budget thriller--possibly the year’s finest--surprised most critics, who expected slash-and-spatter junk. However, the generally good reviews didn’t generate much interest in movie-goers. But in the home video rental market, where fans love a good thriller, this has Top 10 potential.

In CBS-Fox’s “Dead of Winter,” Mary Steenburgen plays three characters. One of them, through most of this thriller, is a corpse. Mainly she plays Katie, an actress who’s a dead ringer for the dead woman. A sinister, crippled psychiatrist (Jan Rubes) and his servant (Roddy McDowall) lure Katie to an isolated, country mansion, supposedly to audition for a movie. But they actually plan to use her as a pawn in a blackmail scheme. Set during a snowstorm, this frequently chilling tale is reminiscent of those damsel-in-distress movies that were done so well back in the ‘40s.

“Dead of Winter” wasn’t a box-office hit. It got mixed reviews from critics, many of whom noted that this is not a seamless thriller. Though they generally praised Steenburgen, some weren’t dazzled by the direction by Arthur Penn, contending that it wasn’t slick enough to cover up the inevitable implausibilities.

CBS-Fox’s bleak, provocative “The Good Father,” directed by Mike Newell, tackles two unsettling subjects: the consequences of emotional isolation and the way kids unintentionally wreck marriages. Set in bleak London, it focuses on the efforts of a magazine executive, brilliantly portrayed by Anthony Hopkins, to recover from the breakup of his marriage, which produced a son who is now 6.

Much of the movie shows the executive getting vicarious pleasure out of helping a passive buddy through a child-custody battle with a wife who’s turned gay. Like most of the characters, the angry, selfish, confused hero is unsympathetic. Most movie fans don’t want to see unlikeable people grappling with unnerving issues. Even rave reviews didn’t attract crowds to theaters to see this one.

Continental’s “Deadtime Stories” is three short tales--told by an uncle to a toddler at bedtime--that clumsily mix horror and comedy. Two of them are gory, leering parodies of the well-known kiddie stories about little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks and the three bears. Some of the horror--such as a hand that’s sliced off and wanders away--is so ghastly that you don’t know how to respond. Teen-agers with a stomach for sick humor--and with very strong stomachs--may find this palatable. Scott Valentine, a regular on TV’s “Family Ties,” is the only well-known name in the cast.

Valentine also stars in RCA/Columbia’s “My Demon Lover,” another mixture of horror and comedy. He plays a cursed young vagrant who turns into a monster when he gets amorous, making him the prime suspect for the homicidal maniac who’s terrorizing New York. Falling in love with a dizzy blonde (Michelle Little) complicates his life. Often this blend of comedy and horror is in bad taste, which may enhance its appeal to certain teen-age renters.

Charter Entertainment’s “Working Girls,” written, produced and directed by Lizzie Borden, is a provocative, revealing look at a day in the life of high-class hookers in a New York bordello. Though there’s no real plot to this absorbing movie, there’s drama and abrasive humor in the relationship between the snippy, catty madam (Ellen McElduff) and her “girls,” who include a Yale-educated lesbian (Louise Smith). There’s a lot of sex but, for these bored women, it’s passionless. For them, turning a trick is as exciting as typing a letter is for a secretary. Critics lauded both the movie and the terrific cast of unknowns.

MGM/UA’s “Munchies,” patterned after gremlins, of course, are rowdy, foul-mouthed, smart-alecky little creatures. Seven of these extra-terrestrial delinquents, the direct opposites of kindly E.T., run wild in a middle-American town. One is discovered in an archeological dig and transported home by a archeologist, played by Harvey Korman. The Munchies, who thrive on junk food, multiply when they’re chopped up. Directed by Bettina Hirsch, this comedy, which satirizes just about everything, is high-spirited, low-brow and only intermittently funny. Korman plays both the archeologist and his slimy brother, a junk-food tycoon.

OLD MOVIES: The 130-minute version of director Lewis Milestone’s grim, classic anti-war film, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” (MCA, 1930, $29.95) features some restored footage. Starring Lew Ayes, it’s told from the point of view of young German schoolboys who march naively into World War I and then are disillusioned by the brutal realities of trench warfare. Since it was made in the early days of the post-silent era, it’s bogged down by some of the holdover, heavy-handed traits of the silents--such as overacting. But the uncompromising war sequences in the middle of the film and the poetic ending still pack a wallop.

The dramatic parts of MCA’s “The Benny Goodman Story” (1955, $59.95) are terrible, as is Steve Allen’s woefully understated performance as the great swing clarinetist. But the glorious music numbers make this a must for swing fans. You could even fast-forward to the rousing finale, the historic 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall, featuring Gene Krupa and Lionel Hampton.

“100 Rifles” (Playhouse Video, 1969, $59.98) was notorious for the steamy love scenes between Jim Brown and Raquel Welch. In those days, interracial love scenes were a novelty. But that’s not the reason this big-budget movie, about a war between Indians and Mexicans, is a favorite among Western fans. What they savor is the sprawling, action-packed battle scenes. Brown plays an American lawman who unites with a renegade Indian (Burt Reynolds) and a gorgeous revolutionary (Welch) to battle the villanous Mexican troops.

The last three Fred Astaire movies in the MGM/UA vault will be released in December--”The Barkleys of Broadway” (1949), “Three Little Words” (1950) and “The Belle of New York” (1952).

CHARTS (Compiled By Billboard magazine) TOP VIDEOCASSETTES, RENTALS 1--” ’Crocodile’ Dundee” (Paramount).

2--”The Color Purple” (Warner Video).

3--”Black Widow” (CBS-Fox).

4--”The Golden Child” (Paramount).

5--”The Three Amigos” (HBO).

6--”Hannah and Her Sisters” (HBO).

7--”Crimes of the Heart” (Lorimar).

8--”Little Shop of Horrors” (Warner Vid-

eo).

9--”The Morning After” (Lorimar).

10--”No Mercy” (RCA/Columbia).

TOP VIDEOCASSETTES, SALES 1--” ’Crocodile’ Dundee” (Paramount).