'age Eight THE MICHIGAN DAILY SUNDAY MAGAZINE March 1., 197 / The Oscar orgy (Continued from' Page 5) particularly events t h a t have touched us all so profoundly that we can scrutinize them on screen with the jaded, bitter sophistication, to know a cine- matic phony when we see one. And President's Men is no phony. In wisely concentrating on the detective rather than the politi- cal side of the Woodward-Bern- stein unraveling, director Paku- la successfully walked an ar- tistic tighttrope throughout, cir- cumnavigating the pitfalls of lurid sensationalism on the one hand and t e d i o u s, timorous civics lessons on the other. Perhaps the picture's most surprising quality is the genuine excitement it projects through- out, considering we all know which side won. Director Pakula pulls no punches, yet maintains the film's grace and dignity throughout. While President's Men may lack the sheer crea- ti_ thrust of a Taxi- Driver, it is quietly magnificent. Which leaves us with the two p r e s u m e d heavyweights for Academy honors, Network and Rocky. Of the two, the latter seems to have succeded in spite of an overkill of media hype, while the former seems to have prospered solely because of it. Why all the fuss about Net- work? Does it contain a single moment of insight not previous- ly imparted to us in far more socially cogent and artistically stimulating ways? Paddy- Cha- yefsky's cut-rate polemic about a race of New American Zom- bies mesmerized by the great mediocre god television is the product incarnate of the ° very genre he pontifically tries to de- bunk; it is sophomoric, super- ficial and dull. In other words, a perfect made-for-TV movie. CIIAYEFSKY'S "outrageous" tale of a TV news anchor- man who cracks up on the air and is subsequently converted into a "mad prophet" by cynical executives, suffers from a dual terminal case of schizophrenia and atrophy. At one moment it's pure black comedy and the next it's a ponderous and pom- pous Chayefsky sermon, then back again. And even if director Sidney Lumet appears to have done nothing to .assist his writer's literary murders, he must at least be held an acces- sory to the crime. An undistin- guished and rambling director who was bailed out in films like Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon by strong scripts and superb acting, Lumet seems to have simply capitulated all authority'. in Network to Chayefsky. There isn't a single visual in the film that's even remotely memor- able. The unfortunate acting lumi- naries involved in this arch mess work dutifully and hard at c eating meaningful characters C of the stick figures Chayef- sky has t h r u s t upon them through which to sandblast his hackneyed speeches. But their efforts are doomed. The poor souls o b v i o u s l y don't know whether they were meant to be Jeremiahs,. tragedians, or buf- fons, so they simply wander through the film like marionettes dangled from the spastic fingers of their turgid creator. But as least there's Rocky, the perfect antidote to pomposity. There's been a tendency among critics to say, almost embar- rassedly, "Well, I like it even if it was pretty corny." I fear this as an elistist reversal of the Hollywood moguls' fear of "negative" pictures; in other words, if a film "makes you feel good." it must automatical- ly be qiute maudlin and of little "true" artistic value. Bullshit. I found little in Rocky that wa , "corny"; Sylvester Stal- lone's story of a punk fighter cheated by life, who finally finds his place in the sun seemed real- istic and believable scene after scene. Director John Avildson's seedy depiction of Philadephia lowlife p r o v e s unexpectedly brilliant (considering his past work), and Stallone's perform- ance of his loser-hero is as vi- brant as his script. It's true that Rocky isn't all that originally (stylistically bor- rowing-ironically-from Paddy Chayefsky's "Marty"), but yes, it does make you feel good. Like doing cartwheels afterward, in fact. SOUR OF THE five nominees make an interesting contrast: Network laments that it's too late to change society, Taxi Driver says it's too late to change the individual; converse- ly, Rocky asserts the individual can carve out his niche in life, while All The President's Men ringingly affirms the optional for changing The System, how- ever feted and entrenched. This is the year of the upbeat; and there's little doubt in my mind the Oscar contest lies be- tween Rocky and President's Men. The groundswell for the former has been awesome - crowds line up across the coun- try for it, the film's dual theme songs blare constantly over in- numerable radios. And yet I'm going out on an extremely thin limb to pick All The President's Men by a whisker. I'm just not ready to believe the forgetful- ness syndrome has been so per- vasive as to discard the most crucial event of our time; Rocky depicts the salvation of one character-All The President's. Men the probable redemption of all of us. The following are my intrepid predictions for the remaining 'major awards of the evening: Best Actor: Robert De Niro (Taxi Driver) (T o p challenger: Sylvester Stallone-Rocky) Best A c t r e s s: Liv Ullman (Face to Face) (Top challenger: Sissy Spacek, Carrie) Best Stpporting Actor: Jason Robards (All The President's Men) (Top challenger: Burgess Mer- edith, Rocky) Best Supporting Actress: Jodie Foster (Taxi Driver) (Top challenger: Jane Alex- ander, All The President's Men) Best Director: Alan Pakula (All The President's Men) ' (T o p challenger: J o h n G. Avildson, Rocky) Best Original Screenplay: Syl- vester Stallone (Rocky) (Top challenger: Paddy Cher yefsky, Network) Be sure and pay up Tuesday morning, you bums. l% Downtown transit (Continued from Page 7) BUT OCCASIONAL use of pub- lic transit is not at all the same thing as regular use, and does little to reduce the likeli- hood of an imminent traffic/ parking crunch downtown. Two AATA programs designed to help meet the needs of down- town workers and alleivate the present parking shortage have had disappointing results. One, the Authority's "Bus Pool" scheme, has been a lim- ited success; it could point the way to greater use of mass transit by employes of down- town businesses. Under the pro- gram, employers offer their workers free bus passes as an alternative to free parking. Only two downtown businesses - Ja- cobson's department store and Huron Valley National Bank - have taken advantage of the plan. Both businesses have en- listed a respectable percentage of their employes in the Bus Pool venture. But many other employers in the central business district have either refused outright to participate or have claimed that workers would r a t h e r drive downtown than take the bus. In cases w h e r e employes have voted on the issue, they have always rejected the Bus Pool alternative, largely out of fear of being deprived of parking spaces in the future. The other attempt, a plan for "peripheral parking" in which Jacobson's participated, was a dreary failure. Jacobson's em- ployes were asked to park their cars at a lot located some dis- tance from the downtown area and take a Dial-A-Ride shuttle from the lot to the store. But bus service was so undependable that most employes, disgusted with the program, went back to driving the rest of the way into town. The Downtown Plan drawn up by the city Planning Department and approved by City Council last year includes several pro- visions for downtown bus serv- ice: a passenger circulator to carry shoppers from one loca- tion to another, a transit "cor- ,.cam r" oi1pl Waehimntonn S t and a series of shuttles to carry passengers from outlying park- ing structures into the business district. Other proposals, such as an intensive grid of fixed-line buses within the district and a downtown AATA terminal, have been put forward and received some support. BUT MOST OF these proposals suffer from the same draw- backs that defeated the peri- pheral parking scheme and have plagued the Bus Pool program since its inception. The most obvious of these is the inefficiency and infrequency of bus service-both regular and Dial-A-Ride-in Ann Arbor. The wait between fixed-line buses is ;enerally a half-hour or more- io fun min cold or wet weather- mnv anybody who owns a car is umlikely to stand around outside for that length of time. And the iynredictability of the Dial-A- Ride system is practically pro- verbial: persons who need to get somewhere in a hurry cannot rely on 'the system to deliver them on time. Many city leaders, including some members of AATA's ruling Board, feel this situation can be improved by scuttling or reduc- ing Dial-A-Ride to elderly and handicapped residents and ex- panding the fixed-line system to make it more frequent and more dependable. On the other hand, many other leaders see this as a short- sighted approach to the prob- lem, sipce a great many Ann Arborites depend on Dial-A-Ride to meet their transportation needs. Both systems,they argue, have a right to exist side-by- side in a balanced transit sys- tem. AATA HAS prepared a set of six alternative systems us- ing Dial-A-Ride and fixed-route buses in greater or lesser amounts; but it is unlikely that any decision will be forthcoming in the near future, given the at-. mosphere of paralysis which exists on the Transit Authority Board. Members of the Board are not elected, which is unfortunate in a public body with the powers and financing of AATA. Instead, they are appointed by the may- or and City Council, and their appointments thus r e f 1 e c t a great deal of political accommo- dation and compromise. The re- sult has. been a six-member structure incapable of taking any kind of decisive action. The only hope, says Mayor Wheeler, is that positions can be filled with energetic people as they become vacant. The term of Chairwoman Joyce Ches- brough, described by critics as a woman who "hates to make decisions;" expires this coming September. "About the only thing we can do is select replacements that don't have to have a bomb go off before they start moving," says Wheeler. He would like to see, he adds, a series of rapid express lines leading into the downtown areas during peak rush-hour periods. But no matter what kind of Board administers the Author- ity, and no matter what kind of transit system it finally decides to promote, the problem still remains of persuading car-own- ing Ann Arborites to take the bus to work instead of using their private autos.-. There seem to be, two ways to change the image of public transit as something used only by children and poor people, and to encourage the general public, even those with cars, to take advantage of the service. The first of these is to per- suade community and business leaders to use the mass transit system, and to make AATA well-known through an aggres- sive and positive public rela- tions campaign. Most observers feel the Authority has failed to promote itself as thoroughly as possible, largely because several Board members still consider mass transit "a social service like food stamps." The other method is to cut off the supply of off-street parking downtown abruptly, making auto use downtown less and less pref- erable to an effortless bus ride to the store or office. "It's like getting your child to stop eating candy," says Mc- Gee. "You have to just stop giv- ing it to him. And of course you're going to have to listen to a lot of screaming for a while." Other factors independent of the city's control--the price of gasoline, for instance-may con- tribute to making the mass transit system a more attractive alternative to the private auto. But any attempt to push mass transit still holds the potential to bring proponents of the bus system into direct conflict with those who advocate increased downtown parking in city-owned carports.wAnd the resulting con- flict not likely to be resolved quietly. Mike Norton is a Daily Man- aging editor. 0 r, . '.r s . 1 A j \. /\!/ ,r+ l . +« J, t ',^. . J ..1 ". " , ' w r ", 'j 1, 3 d J w { \ + f s' R 1 S.. r f vI. f ° t a . t t i1 F { s F r '" 1. °. :t" \ :-. 1, i R " r+ y+wee s °+ " : °t a ' .. , J ' eat " ,/' , r*s'" "' ! . .j ( ++ \ F J . ol t "t t" " 1 9 { { f j a" ;° >.' f' tit; " { ' 1 .'1 K f ' " 111 F t i o . 1 .. F t { r e " l F (/' " t .yt . 1 . .i "r F- t r w The new jazz... Mass transit mess U1of M MEN'S GLEE CLUB LEONARD JOHNSON, Director PRESENTS ASPR-ING CONCERT APRIL 2 HILL AUDITORIUM-----8 0 -P.M. For Ticket Information Call: 764-9238 n XOFFICE OPEN MARCH 23 Oscar follies preview . .other perspeci Srjnnlpmpnt #n Tho Michigan Dailu. Ann Arbor. 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