CINEMA II PRESENTS FRI. Adventures of Robin Hood (director Michael Curtiz, 1938) Errol Flynn creates an unforgettable, exhilarating image of Robin Hood. Aided and abetted by an all-star cast including Olivia Do Haviland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains and flanked by the rest of the Sherwood Forest gang. All a-leaping and a-bounding in what remains the most enjoyable film ever mode. Academy Awards galore. Plus Short- RABBIT HOOD-starring Bugs Bunny (Never fear, never fear, Robin Hood will soon be here). SAT. Small Change (director Francois Truffaut, 1976) All shows at 7:00 & 9:00 $1.50 Angell Hall-Aud A SUN.-Hitchcock's THE BIRDS & MARNIE Page 8A-Friday, September 8, 1978-The Michigan Daily 'ANIMAL HOUSE' Life m the ultimate summer camp EXHIBI TI Ok A ND SA LE OF FINJE C5 kT PRIkTS K 4,. . N ... *1- -. ' -N3 . . .. .-. - ' ' . By OWEN GLEIBERMAN - Self-indulgence comes in many varieties. We're right in the thick of one form, of course, namely the Me Decade. No one feels especially guilty about dashing after those medical and law degrees; after all, former self- proclaimed sixties idealists are running for Senator and working for Dow Chemical. Why not learn from their mistakes, take the short route, and end up in the same place with a whole lot less sweat and mental anguish? The characters in National Lam- poon's Animal House, on the other hand, are blissfully unconcerned with anything. In this hilarious college far- ce, the mangy "animals" of Delta House at Faber College in 1962 are hedonistic upstarts who inflict their own form of gleeful anarchy on the straights. Matters of academia don't Rudran$nd$$Ashr$m 640 OXFORD, ANN ARBOR OFFERS INTRODUCTORY CLASSES IN MEDITATION AND KUNDALINI YOGA For Further information Call 995-5483 Free hatha yoga classes are offered every Tuesday and Thursday at 5 pm. even take the bottom rung on the ladder of priorities. The Deltas aren't out for anything higher than a little old- fashioned fun, but the difference bet- ween their self-indulgence and ours is something the National Lampoon people understand only too well. IN THE SEVENTIES, with everyone pursuing pleasure in the form of the big bucks, we slave forthat moment when, ten years from, having landed the job and secured our finances for life, we can sit back and reap the profits of so many torturous years of academia. The seventies variation of the American Work Ethic-putting love of money out in the open in the face of our supposedly recently discovered political con- sciousness-reeks of practicality, and betrays a spiritual malaise the charac- ters of Animal House are having too much fun (or are too dumb) to under- stand. The Deltas never plan much beyond their next scheme, and that is their saving grace. In 1962, the film's makers would have us believe, acting like an asshole constitutes the sincerest form of liberation. Animal House turned out rather sur- prisingly in the light of its parent publication. Although scripted by Harold Ramis, Doug Kenney, and Chris Miller-thd latter two being old Lam- poon veterans-Animal House isn't the Lampoon, providing neither the scathing stretches of blackhumor nor the intermittently razor-sharp satire that are (or were) the hallmarks of the magazine. Animal House is often pure slapstick, and more an affectionate tribute to craziness that a satire of what the crazies are up against. The theme of deviants combatting the rules of an in- sanely straight world was accorded more biting treatment by Robert Alt- man when the surgeon-heroes of M*A*S*H socked it to the Regular Ar- my Clowns., THE WILDEST antics of the Deltas are more suggestive of a kind of prepubescent joy, the pure fun one derives from smashing the system. John Belushi's Bluto, a Jack Daniels- guzzling Neanderthal creature in his seventh year as an undergraduate, is the archetypal animal. Pouring mustard all over himself, devouring an Bluto (John Belushi) does his best to cheer up Flounder (Stephen Furst) in a scene from "National Lampoon's Animal House." .'~ M.H.T.P. presents for the benefit of THE CHILD CARE ACTION CENTER (SCHOOL OF EDUCATION) Location: The Fishbowl and Michigan Union Lobby Date: Friday, September 8 and Monday, September 11-15 Time: 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Buy 2, GET ONE FREE! ... priced at $3.00 each or any 3 for $6.00 enormous hamburger in one bite, Belushi's masterfully subhuman ac- tivities remain strangely untouched by the evils of the outside world. When one of his first brothers is down in the dum- ps and Belushi tries to cheer him up by cracking bottles over his own head, the message rings clearly: Cheer up-how bad could things be? / ANIMAL HOUSE comes closest to the sensibility of the Lampoon when Pinto (Thomas Hulce), the movie's Holden Caulfied, undergoes benevolent rites of sexual intitation with the thir- teen-year-old (don't believe it) mayor's daughter. One episode, which could have been lifted whole from one of Chris Miller's college stories, has a Delta brother feigning grief at a coed's death so the deceased's roommate will go out with him, as well as a scene in an all-black bar that offers one of the few outwardly racist jokes in modern movies. In the midst of all this, the Deltas variously smoke dope with their hip English professor (Donald Sutherland), shtupp the Dean's wife (Verna Bloom), and destroy the homecoming parade, which features a float of JFK's head adorned by four pink-suited Jackies. Although the morter of the plot isn't much, the joke holding all this together is that the animals, even at their mangiest, are college students. Scenes like the orgiastic Toga party and Bluto's "midnight peep" into a sorority demolish the pretence of stoic academia so endemic to the notion of "higher" education. The Deltas are among the privileged few at Faber College who understand that college is really a four-year summer camp. They may seem foolish or self-indulgent, but at least they aren't striving to look otherwise. In that light, the rest of Faber's inhabitants don't stand a chan- ce. * * * Animal House co-writer Chris Miller is the creator of "those dirty stories" that graced the pages of the National Lampoon in its heyday. One of the characters of Animal House-the well- meaning jut post-adolescent Pinto-in fact comes'straight from Miller's long- running series "Tales From the Alpine Lodge." When the Lampoon people were considering doing a college movie, Miller seemed the natural choice for writer; as with most of the Lampoon Founding Fathers, he's never entirely gotten over his obsession with college life in the early sixties. "THE SATIRE in Animal House isn't even that intense," Miller ex- plained, sitting inside one of the tiny hotel 'rooms at the Detroit Plaza. "It's hard to pin the film down. . . It's cer- tainly got elements of satire and parody in it, but it's got other elements: it's a nice story, it's a celebration of a time and a place, it's a nostalgia film-it's many things." Speaking so romantically of any era may seem anthithetical to the prevailing image of the Lampoon's humor, but Miller's manner-devoid of that hit-em-over-the-head-with-jokes appeal so many comic writers seem to cultivate-betrays his essenitially ;gen- tle spirit. In -fact, during. his Lam~poon years he stayed out of the maimstamof editors to avoid what he saw as rivalries fought out Ion the basis of "wit and the well-turned phrase." 1962 WAS CHOSEN as the year for Animal House, says Miller, because "it was the last year of a long kind of see ANIMAL, Page 12 Get Maxell's best tape at the best price in town this week. Save now on Maxell C-90 UDXL I or II Epitaxial Cassette Tape. UDXL I or II Cassette Tape $3.49 each Reg. Price $4.70 each. Use XL-I tape with normal bias and EQ settings or use the XL II for "CR", chrome or "70 microsecond" switch positions. In any case, XL tape achieves a level of performance never before possible to get the best sound possible from your cassette deck. Leading stereo manufacturers recommend UDXL Series recording tape for their machines--so do we. Stock up now for all your fall recording needs. So there's enough for all, please, only one case per customer. Limited quantities. 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