BritFest Films : Following are capsule reviews of screenings in the American Film Institute’s BritFest during the UK/LA ’88 Festival. All screenings are in the Mark Goodson Theater on the AFI campus in Hollywood. :
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Saturday
‘NATIONAL FILM SCHOOL SHORTS’ Goodson, 8:45 p . m.
An eclectic array of British styles and ideas. “The Web” is an engaging medieval yarn accomplished with stunning stop-motion camera animation. An improbable, but largely successful comedy-thriller fueled by an energetic style, “No Man’s Land” centers on an IRA kidnaping and the anti-hero who wants no part of it. “The Riveter” strains to make its complex story of the Scottish lower class, gangsterism, hope and family mesh organically. It doesn’t succeed on a narrative basis but film maker Michael Caton-Jones almost pulls it off on an emotional level. Similarly, “Shore Leave,” the story of a sailor searching for the truth of his brother’s “drug suicide,” bogs down in plot intricacy to such an extent that its conclusions become meaningless.
