YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO DOWNTOWN TO GET HE ZIP hoping that Steve Martin would break free of Mamet's finishing school and do something silly, perhaps asking Rebecca Pidgeon if she is related to the Pigeon sisters in The Odd Couple. Rated PG. 4xx:x "The Spanish Prisoner" opens today, exclusive- ly at the Main Art Mamet directed with prim, pedan- tic control, and Gabriel Beristain's photography is as crisp as the conver- sation (still, couldn't anyone say, • "What did it ever do for ya?" instead of "What did it ever do for one?" The dialogue seems made to be dia- "Prosperity built on a house of cards." grammed for your least favorite Eng- That's how filmmaker Michael Moore lish teacher — pardon me, one's least (Roger & Me) described our "boom- favorite). ing" economy at a question-and- There is some layering of tension, if answer session at the Sunday premiere not quite suspense — we realize that of his latest film, The Big One (PG- Mamet is far more enchanted by his 13), at Royal Oak's Main Art Theatre. clever manipulations than by the effect Moore thanked Miramax for its • of the manipulations, which is a support of the film, which will reverse of Hitchcock). attempt to do business in metro The movie asks us to be dumbly Detroit without any publicity in the hypnotized by his cleverness — like Detroit News or Free Press. The pre- Joe, who does many foolish things miere was a benefit for the Strikers (having been told he's a nice chump, Relief Fund. he keeps validating the demeaning compliment). Here is a man who spends his working life gazing at intricately demanding formulae on paper and blackboards, but falls for a sleight-of-eye trick involving the club membership form. And when he visits his friend, Lang (Ricky Jay, the Mamet pal and card-magic wizard), Joe bum- bles into-a murder scene so reck- lessly and incriminatingly that he graduates from being an absent- • minded genius. He's a doofus, Nike C.E.O. Phil Knight with Michael • more hapless than Robert Cum- Moore in "The Big One." mings in Hitchcock's Saboteur. The film traces Moore's cross-coun- Although Mamet is generally con- try odyssey is search of an answer to sidered a big gift to theater — I defer his question: "At a time when corpora- to other pundits on that — his contri- tions are posting record profits, why bution to movies is eccentric. I liked a are so many working Americans still lot his first film as director-writer, in danger of losing their jobs?" House of Games, but the rest are smug A documentary, The Big One is contraptions, self-enamored parlor both wickedly funny and seriously • games rescued from tedium by good thought-provoking. "Kids are getting /- casting (as in Woody Allen's films, the out of college and finding jobs that actors seem to be in a spell of grati- pay $6 an hour," said Moore. "They'll tude to Mamet for using them — as if be the ones to change things.'" he were a new Orson Welles or Bertold Brecht). Gail Zimmerman Though not an ordeal like Mamet's Oleanna, The Spanish Prisoner (the The Big One opens today, exclu- title is explained in the film) is a slot sively at the Main Art Theatre. machine of diminishing returns. I kept Recommended: The Big One — • Italian-American Favorites • Pasta Specialties • Variety of Chicken dishes • Pizza • Filets Mignon • Chops • Seafood • Cocktails Ferndale's Favorite Since 1961 Monday to Thursday 11 a.m. to 2 an. Friday 11 a.m. to 3:30 a.m. www. Como'sPizza. corn Saturday 12 noon to 3:30 a.m. Sunday 12 noon to 2 am. Woodward at 9 Mile t)' Il t-7 Family Operated (248) 548-5005 Pl< odesta Qistortavae, Di IN MARKET STREET SHOPPES, 29400 Northwestern Hwy. Southfield 358-0344 Presents Vfrtale,in Ceedrattiot Enjoy Our Award-Winning Cuisine And Favorite Specialties From The Former ^ 7* At Crosswinds Mall Live Music and Dancing Sunday, May 3, .5 p.m. Buffet 5:30-8 OM. or 4m1 MI = WO = - MP. Dine In or Carry-Out 29558 Orchard Lake Road S. of 13 Mile • Farmington Hills (248) 628-0804 Fax: (248) 8211-0822