ARTS
Wednesday, September 28, 1983
the Michigan Daily
Page 5
Angry females
getting rough
Wood'
S
last
By Joe Hoppe
: E VIOLENT FEMMES have gone
bigtime since their last time in Ann
Arbor. T-shirts and buttons are being
sold by the cigarette machine at Joe's,
and the price of admission has gone up
a couple of bucks. They've just retur-
ned from Europe - been on the road six
,months now. But they're not singing
,about how tough that life is yet, they're
..still having fun. So was the audience
Sunday night.
The Femmes used to play on the
street. Gordon Gano sang unam-
plified and played an acoustic, Brian
- Ritchie lugged around his big mariachi
bass, and Victor Delorenzo kept the
drun kit down to the tranceaphone and
maybe a kick snare. They'd set up on a
streetcorner and just play. It was a lot
like that at Joe's. They stood three
abreast, DeLorenzo standing up in the
e middle with everyone else, they put an
amp or two on a convenient chair, tur-
ned it up to a point where you could still
talk on it, and just played.
The only change was Gano now with
an electric guitar, Ritchie switches
between the amplified acoustic and an
electric - but no rock star posturings
Gano takes a small solo with his face
turned toward the wall.
Real relaxed, at first they weren't
even in tune, starting into a song on the
album, or one recently recorded in
Britain, then going off on a goof.
"Hey guys, let's do this, and let's do
that. Let's have Brian take a silly
cellophane whistle out of his pocket and
play a solo. Let's stop in the middle of
everything and tell horrible jokes; ex-
posing ourselves as true people. Let's
argue and threaten to break up the
band right here. Let's turn it all over to
Victor and his paisley Egyptian priest
pill box hat, jazzy brushes and tranced
tranceaphone. Let's just do it." And
they did, like on some streetcorner
where you can do whatever you want
because no one is paying much atten-
tion to you anyway.
But everyone was paying attention. It
wasn't the street, it was a bar, and
everyone was squished together tight.
So the crowd got to participate too. Call-
response with Gano, who was
seemingly amazed that everyone
knows all the words and was actually
getting involved.
The Femmes stop, ready to speed up
into a chorus of "Confessions" when a
dancer in the thick of it all, knowing all
is about to explode and he will be
crushed with the rising tempo yells
"No, don't do that." The Femmes of
Violence have mercy, and they don't.
We aren't just passersby on the
film to open
on Friday
CULVER CITY, Calif. (AP) - Brain-
storm, Natalie Wood's last movie,
finally reaches area theaters Friday, 22
months after the actress drowned
before filming her final scenes and the
studio tried to scuttle the production.
Director Douglas Trumbull's original
concept had to be altered to get around
Wood's loss but he managed -- with the
help of Lloyd's of London - to fight off
two attempts to terminate the project.
"Natalie was three scenes away from
finishing and I had three more weeks of
shooting," Trumbull said. "I reviewed
what was left to shoot and decided im
mediately that the film could be
finished. It never crossed my mind that
it might be terminated."
He reworked the script to eliminate
Wood's unfinished scenes.
Three scenes were eliminated
because of taste: a love scene in a
canoe with Wood and Christopher
Walken; a shot of both leaping into-4
swimming pool; a fantasy of their son's
drowning. Part of Wood's dialogue was
given to actor Joe Dorsey.
Brainstorm is a science fiction movie
about video-taping human memory.
At preview screenings, the end titles
were followed by a simple dedication:
"To Natalie."
The Violent Femmes did their damage Sunday night at Joe's. Daily Photo by DOUG McMAHON
boulevard, we're giving the Femmes
our attention, and they give it back; a
show, fun and entertainment.
The road manager comes out with his
saxophone and honks. "Kiss off", one of
the best on the Femmes' album, gets
lost in the middle and becomes
"Pipeline." Everybody surfs. They're
just playing, playing music, playing
around.
Getting right down to it, though, the
band was as great as their nicely jux-
taposed name would lead one to think.
The Femme end comes from being
called that in high school lockerrooms.
The Violent "sounds neat."
The kernel buried within all the fun,
the secret ingredient, was Gano's great
high school woman-caused angst. Can't
get none. As in "Gimme the Car" with
his entire existence riding on this one
weekend night, the car is a necessity.
"C'mon, Dad, gimme the car. C'mon
dad, I ain't no runt, C'mon girl gimme
Quality quartet supports Man'
By Emily Montgomery
T HE LATEST production of the.
Brecht company, A Man's a Man,
opened to a sparce but satisfied audien-
ce Thursday night. The comedy, direc-
ted by Bob Brown, is at the beginning of
a four week run at the R.C. Auditorium
in East Quad.
Unlike most plays where the success
or failure of the production depends
solely upon the performance of the
main character, A Man's a Man
challenges a company above and
beyond this in that it requires four main
characters, all of whom must be excep-
tional actors. Their skill is needed in
this show and the Brecht Company
delivers.
At the ,top of this list of extensive
talent is Blake Ratcliffe, who is delight-
ful as Polly Baker, an English speaking
your..." and the guitars discretly blurp
out all the hidden promise and mystery.
Or Gano will go to the other extreme,
back to the locker room and lie about
many loves: "I've got girl trouble up
the ass!" We know he's lying, but it's
okay. We know h:ow it is, Gordon.
That established, the Femmes go
back to more streetish music, blues and
country and "Country Death Song":
Gano is a farmer out to destroy his own
kind, pushing his daughter into a bot-
-tomless pit - "She screamed as she
fell, but I never heard her hit." On into
gospel rock, "it's going to rain for forty
days and forty nights" and everyone on
the dance floor will clap their hands.
The last song was "Gone Daddy
Gone," and they were; real gone dad-
dies.
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chap whose motto for life it "All's fair
in love . . ." and keeping out of trouble.
Next, but certainly not any less talen-
ted is Martin Walsh who plays the
manipulative but lovable Uriah
Shelley. Sideways glances and an air of
total insubordination to anything-in-
cluding the play itself-was what en-
deared him to his audience.
Given the difficult but rewarding op-
portunity of playing under these two
masters is John Pollins who portrays
Jesse Mahoney, the slightly less
significant but every bit as enjoyable
comrade of the aforementioned
pranksters.
Last is Galy Gay, a poor (in more
ways than one) porter whose main
motivation in life centers around fin-
ding something to fill the great em-
ptiness in his gut, which can only be
matched by the great emptiness in his
head. Jeff Wine is so believable in this
part, that it's scary. He is as incredibly
average, devastatingly dull and.
awesomely airheaded as the part
demands. As he stares off in space and
fantasizes about a fish which he will
never be permitted to eat, one can't
help but feel sorry for him. He's such a
sap.
Of the company, John Shaw and
Roger Kerson as supporting actors
should not be overlooked. Shaw was
downright enchanting as Jeriah Jip,
who, if it is possible, was almost as
ignorant as Galy Gay. Kerson por-
trayed the vicious "Bloody-five." His
voice was domineering but his ap-
pearance was diminutive-an
irresistible combination.
The play is fairly long, 3 hours, but at
no point did it seem to drag. Some of the
singing left something to be desired but
these parts are few and far between and
can be overlooked since the play on the
whole is so exceptional.
A Man's a Man will continue Satur-
day night at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 6:30
until October 16th. Tickets cost $5 and
are available at the door and before the
show.
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:. I
'Cruisers' doesn't
go distance
By Joshua Bilmes
f The Buddy Holly Story had been
done by Sylvester Stallone in the style
of Citizen Kane while he was under the
influence of a bad Hardy Boys novel,
somethng like Eddie and the Cruisers
would have been the result. That's not
bad, in a way, for many of the elements
from which Eddie borrows are some
very fine things indeed. The problem is
that the four elements. just do not fit
well together. Sylvester Stallone would
not have directed Citizen Kane, and
Buddy Holly is not at all like a bad Hardy
Boys novel.
Fortunately, the mystery element
stands off to the side for the first part of
the film, which starts out in a manner
similar to Citizen Kane. Maggie (Ellen
Barkin), a reporter for Media
Magazine, watches old news footage of
'50s singer Eddie Wilson and his band,
the Cruisers. Shortly after completing
an album, Season in Hell, Eddie drives
off a bridge. His body is never
discovered, but he is presumed dead.
The tapes for the album disappeared
the next dlay. A few decdes later,
Maggie decides to go looking for
Wilson who she thinks is still alive.
Like the reporter in Kane, she goes to
interview old members of the band.
There's Doc, there's Joann, and there's
Fred. The three are played by Joe Pan-
toliano, Helen Schneider, and Tom
Berenger. Fred is the most important.
He spends most of the movie remem-
bering the good old days, and these
scenes are the movie's best. They make
you wish you were back with the band
- they look good, and they feel good.
It's too good to last, though. The
easygoing fifties start to dissolve into
backbiting and artistic arguments. The
band's saxophonist dies. The
management at Satin Records seems to
not like A Season in Hell. Eddie
(Michael Pare) drives off in a rage with
Joann, while the rest of the band
bickers over who to blame. One can be
forgiven for not wishing they were back
in the '50s.
But what the movie provides in the
present is something which makes one
wish they were outside the theater. The
band members all get together, spurred
on by Maggie's interest. The dialogue in
these scenes is vintage bad Hardy
Boys. It's almost as funny as the
''somebody is putting people into
comas" line which Genevieve Bujold
had to deliver in Coma. The incidental
music and the photography would have
been perfect for a good mystery. When
used on a film such as this, the most
noticeable thing is how inappropriate
they are.
It all ends up on too happy a note. A
few quotes from the film's ending best
serve to indicate the film's Rocky in-
fluences. "Shortcuts kid. I never could
do things the easy.... (The ransacker's)
a dreamer, and the world needs
dreamers....I'm gonna make you proud
of me....Go get 'em (ransacker)."
The film is good enough that I hate to
reveal any more. It has enough virtues
that it is very possible the movie will be
enjoyed by those that see it. John Caf-
ferty composes and sings some very
good songs for the movie. The
photography by Fred Murphy is above
average, and the acting is not bad. But
the screenplay from P.F. Kluge's novel
is simply unpardonable. It needs less
uplifting, less trite mystery, and a little
more Kane and Holly. Considering the
built-insobstacleecourse the script
provides, however, Eddie and the
Cruisers is a surprisingly enjoyable
film.
THE JOURNEY HAS BEGUN
If you'd like to be part of an electronics
story that's still unfolding, come to the
Hughes Career Opportunity Presentation.
Hughes representatives from the Space
& Communications and Radar Systems Groups will
be on campus to meet EE, ME, Computer Science,
Physics or Engineering Systems majors:
Wednesday, Sept. 28, 4 - 6 PM
Room 311, West Engineering Bldg.
(refreshments will be served)
Records~
Grant meets capitalist (record buying)
pigs halfway - enough tfuth amongst
the bass beats to make a sensitive ch-
ochlea tremble with discomfort. Always
the same, pleasure with pain.
-Ben Ticho
Eddy Grant - 'Killer on the
Rampage' (Columbia)
Copteus thumps and a round of
barumbas from the newest crown prin-
ce of the dreadlocks. Grant is the great
black cum soul cum last remnants, of
disco hope for the record industry,
which has successfully promoted Killer
into a homicidal sales monster.
$A~' e003
Creating a new world with electronics
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