ARTS

The Michigan Daily

Saturday, September 13, 1980

Page 5

I I


Cream of the crap
to play next week

DETROIT 1963-67

Artists kick

out the jams

By DENNIS HARVEY
If ignorance is blessed, then surely
the late Edward D. Wood, Jr. is at the
moment playing a lute on some cloud
Sout there in eternity, clad in a nice
white dress and carrying his usual
megaphone.
Wood is the most outstanding auteur
among many whose works will be
celebrated next weekend at the World's
worst Film Festival, which will stop in
its nationwide tour at Ann Arbor's
Michigan Theatre. Conceived by "Plan
9 Productions" collaborators Michael
Bate, Lauren Drewery, David Mac-
Donald and Barry Torno, the festival
offers a choice selection of ten camp
masterpieces, works oblivious to all

tly-about transexuals, though Bela
Lugiso was mysteriously on hand
around the sidelines once again, acting
as if it was all another horror show.
Also to be shown is Phil Tucker's
Robot Monster, all about a mechanial
marvel in a gorilla suit (with a diving
mask) who plots to destroy the Earth;
The Terror of Tiny Town, the world's
first and last musical midget western;
The Creeping Terror, which is
visualized as a large shag rug
maneuvered by a few high-school
students who scurry around (father
visibly) underneath it; High School
Confidential! featuring Jerry Lee
Lewis and the formidable-Mamie Van
Doren in a tempestous 1958 tale of evil

By CAROL WIERZBICKI
Kick out the Jams: Detroit's Cass
Corridor 1963-1967 comes to the Detroit
Institute of Arts at an interesting time.
What with the reinstatement of draft
registration this summer, and in-
creasing emphasis on patriotism, this
exhibitconfronts us with anti-war but-
tons, news photos of love-ins, and lots
of other nose-thumbing memorabilia
that constituted a cultural explosion
just ten years ago.
Black and white photos of jazz
musicians, street people, and Detroit
poets contrast the full-color, pop-art in-
terior decorating sections of The
Detroit News, circa 1967. Glass cases
filled with women's lib buttons, bum-
perstickers, and poetry a la Allen Gin-
sberg attest to the fact that the sixties
are now officially history. One postcard
simply exhorts: "Do stuff!"
AND THE names are there, too:
Several photographs of John Sinclair,
"King of the Detroit Hippies", the MC5
shouting from their album covers, and
Ken Mikolowski's "Alternative Press"
poetry, featuring bookmarks and post-
cards by Diane di Prima, Faye

Kicknosway, and Gary Snyder.
The artwork itself sparks some
memories. I recall at age nine reading
such multi-media categories as,
"Burlap, steel, string and thum-
btacks", and these constructions
delight and puzzle me as much now as
they did then. One large white canvas
has nothing painted on it but a "frame"
of crooked wires of color sizzling
around the edges for a real eye-
stopping effect. Photographed outdoor
sculptures, such as a redwood "patio
floor," need imagination to be created
yet invite us to imagine what's not
there.
Wierder yet are Brenda Goodman's
works: her ink-scratch drawings of cats
and nightmare shadowboxes are ob-
scure, totemic images that hark back to
the surrealism of Miro.
STILL OTHER pieces capture the
essence of Pop art, just when I
thought I had forgotten it. Super color
blow-ups of comic-strip lovers, huge
black disks drawn with charcoal on
paper, and artworks using industrial
plastics and scraps, all show an accep-

tance of, and maybe even enthusiasm
for, the influence of mass-production on
aesthetics.
The most fascinating examples of
this are the "factory environments"
used by Michael Luchs and Gordon
Newton. First we see photos of the ar-
tworks in their surroundings: a pain-
ting of beached rowboats in an old lum-

beryard; a bright mural of tabular
shapes in a pipe factory; a diamond-
shaped "easel" of layered and painted-
over fabric in a factory washroom-and
we see how each artwork reflects and is
shaped by its environment. On the
second floor of the museum are some of
those same paintings and sculptures, in
the flesh!

Tonight CINEMA GUILD Presents
THE LONG AWAITED
TREE OF WOODEN CLOGS
On the surface this film follows the lives of four peasant
families sharecropping in Italy at the turn of the century. But
it's impact and meaning go beyond the narrative, exploring
universal ideas of family community and the individuals re-
lationship to them. 7:00 & 10:15.
We make our home at Old A&D (Lorch)
FILL OUT AN APPLICATION AND JOIN US I

d *O
,< *
 .1939's The Terror of Tiny Town, a musical midget western, is just one of the ten
. films that will be shown next weekend at the Michigan Theatre as part of the
World's Worst Film Festival. Other schlock classics to be screened include I
Changed My Sex, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, High School Confidential, The
Creeping Terror, Bride of the Monster, and The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who
Stopped Living and Became Crazy Mixed-up Zombies.

Join the Arts page
The Daily Arts page needs new contributors. If you have an interest and
some knowledge in the performing or static arts as well as an all-
encompassing desire to write, this could be the opportunity you've been
,waiting for.
What does being an arts staffer entail? That depends on you, your in-
terests and writing ability. We need new talent in every sphere,
especially fields like classical music where the Daily's coverage has been
something less than exhaustive.
But there's a lot more to arts reporting than writing a concert or movie
review. We are currently in the process of expanding and (hopefully)
upgrading both the format and content of the arts page, so we need fresh
input more than ever.
Joining the Daily may be your big break as a journalist, or it could
become a satisfying outlet for your creative ability while providing a
much-needed service to your fellow students. Some people even think it's
fun. At any rate, you'll never know until you try, so come over to the
Student Publications Building (right around the corner from Student Ac-
tivities Building) at 420 Maynard. Our annual arts staff get together is
slated for this Sunday, September 14, at 3:00 p.m. If you want to get a
head start, assemble a typewritten sample of your writing that somehow
reflects your interests and bring it along. If you can't get to the meeting,
stop by the aforementioned office and ask for the arts editors. We can't
wait to hear from you.

ACADEMY AWARD WINNER
Best Boy
A FILM BY IRA WOHL
Photographed and Designed by Tom McDonough
Best Feature Documentary


Sat, Sun-1:20, 3:20,
5:30, 7:30, 9:30
Sat, Sun $1.50 til 1:30
(or capacity)
Mon, Tues-7:30, 9:30

'>:

ONE
WEEK
ONLY

;' 9'

laws of technique and coherency, along
with various unrepentably awful short
subjects and ludicrous coming-
attraction trailers.
-FEATURED WILL, BE noless than
three classics :o. ineptitude by the
famous transvestite S di ector Edward
D.. Wood, Jr., including the science-fic
tion fiasco Plan Nine from Outer Space,
which has often been named as the wor-
st film ever made. Battling for that
position with equal vigor, however, is
his 1953 Bride of the Monster with Bela
Lugosi, and the notorious I Changed
My Sex, which managed a modest coup
of taste (if not artistry) in 1952 by being
a semi-documentary-well, not exac-

drug rings in suburbia; the startling
expose, The Saved Hitler's Brain; and
Ray Dennis Steckler's extraordinary
The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who
Stopped Living and Became Crazy
Mixed-up-Zombies. Asif that wasn't
enough, the latter film also went by the
title of Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody
Mary.
Showings of the films will be from
Friday night, Sept. 19, through Sunday,
the 21st, with regular evening
programs, midnight movies on Friday
and Saturday, and Saturday matinees.
For further information, contact the
Michigan Theatre.

L.


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MASS MEETING FOR
NAUGHTY
MARIETTA
Ann Arbor Public Library
Monday, Sept. 15, 7:30
The Comic Opera Guild
For info, call 665-6074


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You must be 18 and
prove it with a
driver's license

CALIGLILA

MALCOLM
McDOWELL

Carter to staffers:
'Ignore GOP attacks


Sat, Sun-1:20, 4:05, 7:00, 9:45
Fri, Sat, Sun All Seats $4.50
Mon thru Thurs All Seats $4.00

Mon, Tues-7:OO, 9:45
All Seats $2.50 til 2:00
(or capacity)

s/


By The Associated Press
President Carter told his campaign
workers yesterday to expect distorted
and irresponsible Republican attacks
en the "failures or disappointments or
delays, which are inevitable" in ad-
ministration programs.
-.Carter made a brief excursion to his
campaign headquarters in a
Washington office building to rally his
.troops, speaking for four minutes to
about 300 campaign workers and then
posing for pictures with most of them.
LATER, HE MET for about 15
minutes with key labor leaders, in-
cluding Douglas Fraser, president of
the United Auto Workers union, who
,were having lunch with campaign chief
Robert Strauss. One participant said
.the luncheon was arranged to discuss
organized labor's voter registration
programs.
Meanwhile, George Bush yesterday
attacked the administration's "sense of
honor" on security mat-
ters-specifically, the administration's
official disclosures that the United
States is developing a sophisticated
new warplane.
The Republican vice-presidential
nominee told a breakfast of GOP con-
tributors that the Carter ad-
ministration's confirmation that the

United States is developing a new top-
secret "Stealth" aircraft that can
evade radar detection was done "for
purely partisan political purposes."
IN ANOTHER appearance yester-
day, Bush hammered away at
President Carter's "incompetence" in
domestic and foreign affairs. He said
Carter has a record of "failure" is the
real reason the president has refused a
three-way debate with Reagan and in-
dependent presidential candidate John
Anderson.
"I believe he wants to avoid debate
because he wants to avoid talking about
his economic record," Bush said. "How
do you debate the merits of an ad-
ministration that has taken a rate of in-
flation of 4.8 per cent and rocketed it to
as high as 18 per cent?"
"How do you debate the merits of an
economic pojicy that's put 1.9 million
American men and women out of work
over the past 12 months?
"IF YOU'RE Jimmy Carter, you
don't. What you do instead is sit in
splendid isolation in the White House,"
Bush said.
Meanwhile, Anderson attacked
Republican Ronald Reagans' newest
economic proposal yesterday as one
that tries "to balance the budget with
mirrors."

Read the
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