The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
Eaters of the Dead
Interview with the Vampire
House of the Spirits
The Sparrow
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Antonio!
REVIEW BY PAT BROESKE He is one-half of a famous show business couple -- one that frequently makes the pages of the tabloids. But Antonio Banderas is known for more than his marriage to wild-child-turned-actress Melanie Griffith. Along with enjoying pin-up status for his darkly exotic and sensual looks, he has come to be known as a durable and critically admired leading man. The Spanish import, who first found international fame in a string of subtitled movies directed by Pedro Almodovar, burst onto the U.S. scene in 1992 as one of the stars of The Mambo Kings, an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, by Oscar Hijuelos. Banderas went on to deliver vivid portraits of complex characters in movies ranging from Philadelphia, in which he dared to play a gay character, to the low-budget gunplay opus Desperado, to the more recent big budget paean to swordplay, The Mask of Zorro. August will find him doing more battle, this time circa the tenth century. The 13th Warrior is based on Michael Crichton's ambitious Eaters of the Dead, which in turn is based upon the real-life account of an Arab who traveled and fought with the Vikings. Actionmeister John McTiernan (of Die Hard notoriety) helms the movie, which is said to be rife with conflict involving both humans and monsters. We shouldn't be surprised. Crichton is a master at generating emotional fury amid lost/exotic worlds. Think Congo, Jurassic Park, Lost World, and Sphere, among others. Mesmerizing otherworlds are a familiar stomping ground for Banderas. He pulled out all stops for a scary, sexy turn as Armand, the seductive bloodsucker of the controversial movie version of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire. On a far subtler turn, he was one of the few members of an impressive cast (headed by Meryl Streep) who seemed at home in the sprawling South American saga about the Truebas family, depicted in Isabel Allende's acclaimed House of the Spirits. And yet another book-to-film is in his future. In The Sparrow, based on the futuristic thriller by Mary Doria Russell, he will be a Jesuit linguist on the trail of intelligent life on the planet Rakhat. Pat H. Broeske is the co-author of biographies of Howard Hughes and Elvis Presley.
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