dir Richard Kwietniowski - Love and Death on Long Island features a tour de force role for John Hurt, perhaps his best film ever. His performance is so professional - at once amusing and poignant - that we in the audience cannot tire of him, even if the object of his affection, a teenaged movie star, does. John Hurt inhabits the role of Giles De'Ath, a London-based writer of scholarly books and lecturer in the museum circuit, who enters a movie house to catch an adaptation of an E.M. Forster novel. Instead, the screen shows a vapid, teen-targeted exploitation work, "Hotpants College II." De'Ath is about to leave when he catches its impossibly handsome young star, Ronnie Bostock (Jason Priestley), and it's love at first sight. The aging widower shucks off his research into ethereal matters and begins to collect what he calls Bostockiana - the star's videos, vapid magazine articles - and assures his housekeeper that he is too busy to have her cleaning his room. Finally, he flies off to Long Island to meet his new hero on his home ground, where he tries to persuade Ronnie to eschew banality and return with him to Europe to pursue arthouse fare. "If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd be writing 'Hotpants 3'," he assures the incredulous young man. "In Europe film can change the way people think," De'Ath contends. A clever and thoroughly entertaining Love and Death on Long Island proves his point. Maury Chaykin has a delightful role as the owner of the Chesterton town dive. (UK 1997) 93 mins. AA Home | March Calendar | April Calendar | Cinema Info | Advertisers