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Family fun at the film fest?
The Michigan Daily-Sunday, March 16, 1980 Page 5
THEYEATS
TH EATRE FESTIVAL
present
By RJ SMITH
The Ann Arbor Film Festival-great
fun for the family ! Take this exchange
between members of my family that
began when we entered the lobby of the
Michigan Theater Friday night.
Junior (a five-year-old with new
wave wraparound glasses): Can
we get some popcorn? I want
popcorn I
Morm: Oh be quiet. Hey, how
come all the people here look like
haracters from some collegiate
ext Stop Greenwich Village? Don't
poor people come here?
Junior: (Now crying) Popcorn!
Popcorn i
Sis:' l wanna see something
funny.
Pop: Me, I'm a documentary
man.
Junior: Car-toons I
RJ: They've got -all that and more
at the Ann Arbor Film
,festival-great fun for the entire
amilyl
See what I mean?
ALL THE FOLKS seemed to have a
good time Friday evening (some people
even brought their grandparents). By
far the most crowded evening at the
Michigan (it seemed darned close to
capacity at the 9:00 show), there was at
times as much noise off the screen as
there was on it. And if very occasionally
this was obtrusive, more often it was
nderstandable: the judges must have
expected as much when they presented
us with Willard Small's Disco Dog, a,
film in which many minutes are. given
over to repeated showings of Un Chien
Andalou's eye-slicing scene, while disco
music is played. The latter half is
repeated edits of a famous
assassination in the streets of Vietnam,
first seen on television. Over this, too, is
played disco music. We're all
desensitized to violence by the same
rocess that gives us disco's mind-
numb, and the heathens shake, shake,
Daily Photo by MAUREEN O'MALLEY
Just when we'd finally mahaged to forget about de-evolution along comes
these characters-calling themselves de-environmentalists. What will those
crazy artists think of next?
instructions on how to make a paper
airplane) sufficient to serve its purpose
of being a documentary about flight. A
good deal of the films' tongue-in-cheek,
B-52's-ish ambience certainly has to do
with the way age trivializes, but one
can't help thinking Doug Rideout (the
filmmaker) was even then making fun of
the times.
THE BEST of evening's animation.
seemed to succeed not through
virtuosity, but from humor and
imagination. Paul Tassie's Apeman
was clearly tops here; relying heavily
on the effective rock music, Tassie
wrote, it was a dimestore dada drama
involving a trio of found-object
creatures, made up of such things as
tennis shoes, model rockets, and
novelty eyeglasses. Their bodies
changed constantly as they moved,
adding to a mood of uncertainty.
Also top-notch, if less innovative, was
Mike Conner's In Search Of, a bit of
clay animation involving a disturbingly
masochistic clay torso that has lost its
head.
By the time the final film of the
evening comes on, and it turns out to a
lengthy abstraction with a name like
Near And Far/Now And Then or
Displanted Visions, a knot can form on
the back of your neck the size of a
billiard ball. But this was not so with
the 15-minute Floating Reflections,
much of which presented images of
such things as a flower garden, fish
under water, and various sports
superimposed on similar shots. Moving
from the ominous to the muscularly
intense, it was a memorable sort of
lyric abstraction.
By the way, my grandmother died in
the theater-she couldn't take seeing
that eye get sliced by the razor' over and
over again. But other than that little
thing, my memories of Friday's shows
are warm ones. "Good fun," my
mother said. I agreed.
CARMINA BURANA
POWER
Today at 3 p.m..: CNE
With Guests from Ireland
open to the public
without charge
Please call the Center for
Western European Studies,
764-4311, for the complete
festival schedule
"YEA TS AND
MODERN DRA MA"
A COLLOQJUIUM
MARCH 19-22, 1980
shake their booty while people die in
Asia. Get it? (The inside lowdown is
they threw it in to clear out the house so
as to make room for the 11:00 show.)
Personally, I did no hooting. The
occasional film of contention could be
overlooked, for the winners that
generally) sandwiched it (ingenious how
that worked out, isn't it?).
FOR ME THE highlight of the
evening was a 30-minute documentary,
Kittyhawk. Disqualified from the
festival's competition among other
reasons because one of the actors in it,
George Manupelli, is also a festival
officer, Kittyhawk takes techniques
from 1960's straight-laced
documentaries of all sorts (it was made
in the 60's) along with a general
disruption of story-telling approaches,
chucks in a great sense of humor, and
comes up with something pretty
spectacular.
"I think the most superficial things
peopledo are what they're doing
anyway," explains one character in a
central scene. Kittyhawk takes a look
at all the superficial things a group of
people do while they set out to make a
film called Kittyhawk, while at the
same time providing us with visual
proof along the way (shots of a jet,
I
The Yeats Theatre Festival is made possible by a grant from The Michigan
Council for the Humanities & is sponsored by The University of Michigan
Center for Western European Studies
i
l
FI
Now Playing at Butterfield -Theatres
WEDNESDAY IS
"BARGAIN DAY"
$1.50 UNTIL 5:30
ADULT R SA SN
EV OIDAYS $350O
MON THRU THURS
VENGS $3 00
FCHLDRN RIU$T SN
MINES UNTIL 5 30
EXETHLIDAYS $2 50
EIN 4 UNDER $1 50
MONDAY NIGHT IS
"GUEST NIGHT"
Two Adults Admitted
for, $3.00
I
t
11
k
Marshall Tucker still at it
rCampus
1214S. Unav. ity 668-64161
Mon. Tues, Thurs, Fri at 7:30, 9:15
Wed, Sat, Sun at
1:j0,3:00,5:00.7:00 9:15
IT'S COLD
IT'S WET
IT'S HEW I
(R)
II
I
14
Iq
r
A
By STEVE HOOK
If touring rock musiciarfs were to
adopt catchy slogans to reflect their
product, from among those
currently used for other consumer
goods, the Marshall Tucker Band would
probably describe their current conert
performances as "The Best Surprise is
No Surprise.'-
Onstage at Crisler Arena Friday
night, the boys from Spartanville, S.C.,
took few chances and treaded few
unfamilar'water in displaying their
talents. For the casual, detached fan,
market, the Tucker boys were ready
and waiting. Sure, they played
authentic Southern rock, and could get
cowboys dancing from Detroit to
Dallas, but they could, .and had the
notion to, appeal to a vastly larger
audience by throwing in all kinds of
diverse influences. Hell, the musicians
don't even agree on what it is they're
playing anymore: bass guitarist
Tommy Caldwell calls it "country=
jazz," his brother Toy thinks of ther
group as "a real progressive country"
band, rhythm guitarist George
McCorkle likes the term "an American
influences run amuck in the Marshall
Tuckr Band: a delightful ingredient in
getting airplay (i.e. million-selling
records). 'There's something for
everybody in the Marshall Tucker
sound,' their Warner Brothers press
release gloats, a distinction which
ultimately spells doom for purists, but
which surely pleases the WB brass,
whom the, Tucker boys have recently
signed on with. (McCorkie: "Our
exeitement now is the move to Warnrs.
It's a new opening with a big company.
We can utilize their big personnel and
abilities. It's a new highlight in our
lives.")
ALL THIS IS well and good, but oh
wouldn't it be thrilling to see them shed
their heavy vests, roll up their sleeves,
and kick out on a different tangent,
show us something new. Instead,
onstage at Crisler, the Caldwells and
McKorkle, who formed the emotional
nucleus of the band, lumbered from
song to song with mock intensity,
rehashing their stand-bys with labored
enthusiasm; in a few isolated instances
they actuallyt managed to appear'
excited about playing their music, like
for a few seconds during "Heard it in a
Lovesong."' (To be fair, the band did
offer a smattering of new music,
including¢a live debut of their recent
single, "Running Like the Wind.")
To make matters worse, the band. is
physically incohesive onstage. Lead
singer ahd tamborine-slapper Doug
Grey is located way off to the left, and
keyboard/alto sax/flutist Jerry
Eubanks off to the right of the three
guitarists and drummer Paul Riddle.
The spotlight is shifting so 'quickly
between a bellow on Eubanks' flute, a
wail on Toy Caldwell's lead guitar,
Grey's hog-calling vocals, that you lose
the sense of continuity between the
musicians, of unified spirit and
intensity. Their physical separation
from each other onstage, an
See SOUTHERN, page 7
Waysi de
302 0 htenow 434-1762
Mon., Tues Thurs. Fri., 7:30-9:15
Sat.,SunWed
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A curse
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An American Dream
hmes a love.stbr.
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CANNON FILMS RELEASE on.,Tues., Thurs Fri
Mon., Tues.,Thurs. Fri 700-9:30
etSat.,Sun., Wed. 1:00- 400-700- 9 30
1:30-4:30-7:15-9:45
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(UPPER LEVEL) Mon. Tues., Thurs. ,Fri
Mon., Tues., Thurs., Fri. 7:10-9:40 7:009:30
Sat, Sun., Wed.S SotSun. Wed
GEORGE SEGAL- NATALIE WOOD NOMINATED FOR
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today 1-3 p.m.
PHONE: 763-3333
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'Carmina Burana'
Dancers in the Court of Love enact affection between boy and girl in a
scene from "Carmina Burana," Carl Off's acclaimed symphonic inter-
pretation of 13th-century poems by wandering scholars and monks. The
University Symphony Orchestra, University Choir, dancers from the School
of Dance, and the Contemporary Directions Ensemble will perform "Car-
mina Burana" and William Albright's "The Seven Deadly Sins" for a final
time this afternoon at 3:00 p.m.
r
HOUSING REAPPLICATION
their effortless renditions of songs like
Take the Highway and Can't You See
made for an enjoyable set, but for those
hoping for something beyond his, a
Whance to hear some fresh, spon neous
wSouthern rock, an updated "stat of the
art" as it were, their appearance was a
disappointment, and cast senous doubts
on the group's natural reputation as the
South's most Pride of the South.
CLEARLY, THERE is nothing
dishonorable for artists to exhibit their
most familiar and popular works in
concert-audiences tend to clamour for-
these. But this falls short when the
musicians just seem to be going
*through the motions, as the Marshall
Tucker Band were doing Friday night.
'But why should we take a step
forward,' you can imagine a
bandmaster asking, when we can draw
four encores side-stepping?'
Apparently, "Ramblin'," "This Old
Cowboy" and "24 Hours at a Time,"
songs which debuted when Nixon was
still president, have enough miles left in
them to deter the band from dabbling
with new material: as long as the
rock and roll band which plays
traditional American music," and
singer Doug Grey describes it as
"blue'sy rock and roll." Diverse
DRAWING
I-
For students presently living in the residence
halls who wish to return to the residence
halls for the academic year 1980-81.
TUESDAY, March 11
-1 1:30 p.m.
..
.
SIGNING OF LEASES
TUESDAY THROUGH FRIDAY
MARCH 11 -MARCH 16
CM"A l'