4 ARTS Saturday, March 7, 1981 The Michigan Daily Page 5 Pavlovian Syndrome strikes again Margolin eclipsed By CHRISTOPHER POTTER If nothing else, Inside Moves is 1981's first walkawaycontender for Pavlovian Film of the Year honors. Pavlovian films are distinguished from run-of-the-mill Hollywood inanities in that Pavlovian film- makers always inject a prearranged amount of social topicality into their movie's otherwise absurd innards. They craftily lather their bogus sub- ject matter with just enough trendy grit to get their film labeled a "serious" work, then shamelessly massage their audience into salivating on cue at each prescribed emotional high in their product. Inside Moves' behaviorist im- presarios are thorough professionals at their calling. Though the film hasn't an honest bone in its body, you'll likely leave the theater feeling vaguely entertained and satisfied. For most, it will prove a blushing pleasure queasily akin to an uncon- trolled marzipan splurge at Drake's. Inside Moves lays on the jam of ersatz-urbanism immodestly thick. The film's similarity to 1979's Pavlovian tapestry of inner-city phoniness, And Justice For All, is no accident - both were penned by the same screenwriters, who have now honed their manipulative formula to computerized perfection. Even their choice for Inside Moves' locale - Oakland, Calif., losers' paradise - rings the bathos bell. Salivate, please. Thank you. DIRECTOR RICHARD Donner's camera introduces us to Roary (no last names in the movie - it's cuter that way), played by John Savage in what is becoming his standard lost- teddy-bear motif. At film's opening we see Roary enter a downtown of- fice building, take an elevator to the top floor, calmly open a window, then swan dive out of it. Omigod! Ding. Salivate. Needless to say, he doesn't perish, his fall being impeded first by a tree branch, then an automobile roof. Still, his body is sufficiently smashed and mashed to leave him permanently crippled - doomed to wobble through life like a spastic marionette. Poor Roary. Yet, God and Hollywood move in mysterious ways. As though by predestination, Roary hobbles out of the hospital straight into the hole beatitude of Max's Bar - a kind of divine, neon sanctuary for the halt, the lame, and the blind. At Max's the maimed and mangled of all shapes, sizes, and colors gather to find salvation - through his subsequent disability he finds all the things in life he lacked when his body was whole. Perhaps the rest of us shoud try the cure. Inside Moves insults the aged as well as the infirm. While Roary and Jerry are fleshed-out characters with ongoing problems, the more elderly patrons of Max's are used strictly for comic relief bridging the film's dramatic highs. Is Donner implying one's suffering eases as one gets older? Does life at some point miraculously metamorphose into one continuous cartoon? It would take acting of Olympian proportions to bring such drool to life. Inside Moves' thespians fall well short of the mountaintop, though newcomer David Morse is af- fecting in the pivotal role of Jerry, and the wonderfully talented Amy Wright tries everything she can to breathe life into her junkie-hooker stick figure. AS ROARY, John Savage seems in perilous danger of succumbing to the Robby Benson School of Smarm - he pouts, fidgets, and preens his way through his role in a feverish ef- fort to look impishly adorable. In the process he's threatening to become one of the most cloying, mannered actors currently at work. Where did the white heat of The Deer Hunter go? For a work of such saccharine mendacity, Inside Moves contains a jarringly grotesque finale. While at- tending Jerry's pro basketball debut, Roary gives a surreptitious shove to a villianous black pimp, who early on in the film had his goons beat Jerry to a pulp. The pimp goes hurtling head over heels down, down, down the arena aisle to land in a writhing, screaming heap, seriously and quite possibly crip- plingly injured. Roary watches his agony with a conspiratorial leer while being laughingly congratulated by his fellow gimps, then exchanges a raised-fist salute with Jerry, who's been eating up the bloody spectacle from out on the court. What on earth are Donner & Co. saying? That all cripples secretly wish to maim non- cripples? That a wheelchair in- surrection is imminent? Or, more practically, that a little vengeful bloodletting is just the catharsis to send the movie audience home hap- py? Methinks the Pavlovian method hath blown a fuse. Ding. Salivate. Dong. Barf. By FRED SCHILL she advertisements said "The Bob Margolin Blues Band." That is the reward for working one's way to the top; you get your own band. To the vic- tor goes the spoils. That makes it all the more em- barassing when some unknown swipes the show. Mouth harpist Doug Jay did just that when the Margolin band played three sizzling sets at Rick's American Cafe Thursday night. MARGOLIN himself is. an accom- plished and respected blues guitarist - he played lead guitar for Muddy Waters for seven years, and that's where you run out of rungs to climb. His guitar solos range from the soberly reflective to the scintillatingly insistent, while skillfully enlivening a repertoire of unusual diversity. The band's material cuts a swath through twenty years of the finest blues and early rock and roll. Most of it pulsed with new life, as Margolin and his fine young band rent each tune with palpitating, frenetic power. It was blues with a twitch. Or at least the music was. Margolin's vocals alternately ranged from the ac- ceptable to downright wooden. His voice was most effective when it was eagerly engulfed in the fury and frenzy of the livelier tunes; once, during "Just Keep Lovin' Her," I thought I detected a moment of genuine graininess in his voice. But if you blinked, you missed it. MARGOLIN flunked out altogether during the slower tunes and in his presentation of a particularly dismaying tribute to Waters. His voice quite simply fell flat. He has little vocal range and no inflectional flexibility to speak of; even "Got My Mojo Working," which ought to be exhilirating all by itself, hung languishing in the air under Margolin's treatment. In fact, he was at his best during two rock numbers - Little Richard's "Rock It Up" and Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away." The latter was par- ticularly excellent, as it was given a roughness and bluesiness it rarely acquires. It was Doug Jay who was responsible for salvaging the show, however. I don't know where Margolin found him, but he ought to go back for more. Jay plays mouth harp with contorted vigor, reeling off fat but emphatic solos with sweaty abandon. His work is often har- sh, often piledriving, but somehow not quite raw; the rage and rambun- ctiousness are there, but they are represented with a mastery almost plush in its richness. He did everybody from Slim Harpo to Little Walter right, and that's saying something. Jay is also easily a finer singer than Margolin. He ripped off Louis Jordan's "The House Party" and "Saturday Night Fish Fry" with expressionistic ease, and covered Fats Domino's classic "I Hear You Knocking" with a delicious vengefulness as he hovered over the words "I hear you knocking/But you can't come in." The next knock Jay hears may well be opportunity, for he surely will move on to bigger and better bands. As for Margolin, he had better take some, voice lessons or stick to playing blues guitar. He's quite good at the latter, more than capable of keeping old style blues refreshingly alive. He just wasn't. blessed with a suitable voice. Join Ulie 1aUiE Arts Staff John Savage, as Roary in 'Inside Moves,' signals success at pushing someone down a flight of stairs. Wait a minute ... isn't the hero supposed to be at least likeable? mutual love and comraderie, in- sulated from the callous barbs of an unfeeling world. Blemished but proud, they smile through their tears. Ding. Salivate. ONCE ADMITTED to this brotherhood of courage, Roary finds the love and respect he achingly lacked in his former life. Roused by all the positive strokes, he swiftly ascends to his true calling: Sain- thood. With the homely grace of a disjointed super'man, Roary selflessly bestows good deeds left and right upon his misshapen flock. Inside Moves' plot unrolls like a Saturday afternoon thriller: Will Max's be saved before the bank forecloses on the mortgage? Will Roary's best friend get the leg operation he needs to become a pro basketball star? Will Jerry's girlfriend, Ann, be redeemed from drugs and prostitution? It's SuperRoary to the rescue! Yippee! Ding. Salivate. Director Donner and scenarists Valerie Curtain and Barry Levinson deliver their hokum with the pre- packaged grace of snale oil ped- dlers. There's not a beat out of place in their celluloid formula - nary a superfluous scene, a wasted camera angle, a throwaway gesture. If they haven't managed to completely banish reality from their product, it's not for lack of trying. DONNER AND friends would have us accept Max's as a spiritual metaphor, accept the notion that the lives of the handicapped are cuddled in an endless New Year's Eve of revel and frivolity. There's nary a hint of the pain, the loneliness, the daily humiliation of being different that provides the true test of courage for the physically deprived. Roary's building-top leap proves to be his -the inn arbor film cooperative TONIGHT presents TONIGHT CASABLANCA. 7 & 10:20-MLB 3 PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM 8:45-MLB 3 $2 single Feature $3 double Feature Marvin Gaye Dead Kennedys Marvin Gaye - 'In Our Lifetime' (Tamla) - It's always most discouraging to see an artist who was once one of the greatest in his genre embarrass himself to no end on a new work some years later. But alas, with his latest album Marvin Gaye has definitely joined the ranks of the Paul McCartneyites. Called In Our Lifetime, Gaye's new record is a compilation of funk-soul tunes that are too long, mean little, and go on forever. It wouldn't be so traumatic listening to these unconvin- cing four-minute drones if one couldn't compare them to the old Gaye who sang "What's Going On?" with such convic- tion. GAYE WROTE, arranged, and produced the album, which only mathematically works out to two-thirds of a disaster since the production is quite interesting at times, featuring lots of fade-in, panning, and guitars that come from nowhere. But even production wizardry can't save these songs. They are sparse lyrically and deal with the fascinating themes of happiness (e.g., Love Is Good, Life is Good, Good is Good, Bad is Good, etc.). In essence, there is not a whole lot of depth. Fortunately, the fantastic Gaye voice is still intact, so all may not be lost. Gaye is in intense financial trouble, so we're likely to hear from him again on record. Let's hope he takes a nice long vacation instead of throwing together MANN THEATRES ~GE4 VILLAGE 4 375 N MAPLE 769130 Daily Discount Matinees Tuesday Buck Day All seats $1.00 Nominated for 6 ACADEMY AWARDS including BEST PICTURE BEST DIRECTOR As timely today as the day it was written. another clunker right away. Living legends deserve more. -Mitch Cantor Dead Kennedys - 'Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables' (Cherry Red Records) - Like the last scream before neutron bomb annihilation the Dead Kennedys are not comforting - but then neither are they boring. Jello Biafra's grating vocals and an "im- minent-death-is-rapidly-approaching" style of minimalist instrumentation serve as dual reasons to start listening to Muzak right away - by choice - for balance. No, the Dead Kennedys are not a band for the squeamish. But there are reasons to want this record that go beyond self- gratification. With their fellow Califor- nians, Ronald and Nancy Reagan in the White House, states' rights is an impor- tant issue. That's why the Dead Ken- nedy's include their theme song, "California Uber Alles," on this disk. Don't let it be said that with such favorites as "Holiday in Cambodia" that they ignore international problems either. WHATEVER YOU DO, don't ig- nore the Dead Kennedys, hoping that they'll go away. Instead, check out their alternative social theories ("Kill the Poor") as well as their own very special brand of slash-and-burn economics ("Let's Lynch the Lan- dlord"). At their best, the Dead Kennedys combine unbeatable sing-along tunes with a chainsaw approach to produc- tion. Given a few spins on your record machine, you'll find this album frighteningly addicting. Soon, even such lines as "God told me to skin you alive" will not phase you. Get this record before the Dead Kennedys find out. -Jeff Yenchek A ROMAN POLANSKJ FILM 'TESS' ® A COLUMBIA PICTURES RELEASE 1:15 4:30 8:00 Nominated for 2 ACADEMY AWARDS Nothing's going to stond in your way. RICHARD DREYFUSS1:45 IR NG4:15 -, IRVING 9:45 A COLUMBIA PICTURES RELEASE p Nominated for b ACADEMY AWARDS #63- 1..- - ft__ - U