ARTS
Wednesday, November 16, 1983

The Michigan Daily
'All th

Page 5

By Steven Susser

A MPIPE PENNSYLVANIA is a town
A Ithat boasts an ugly steel industry.
The sky is blackened by thick,
bituminous clouds belched from fac-
tories where men are condemned to
pour molten metal eight hours a day.
Ampipe also boasts Stef Djordjevic
(pronounced Georgiavitch), high
school senior and talented football
player. Stef desperately wants to
escape from the mills that claimed his
grandfather, father, and brother. He
desires to study engineering at a
prestigious university. To do so he
must receive a full scholarship; the sole
way to get a scholarship in Ampipe is
through football.
Having acceptable academic creden-
tials and an impressive on-field record,
Stef begins to receive some offers. At
just this time, however, he clashes with
his coach.
Coach Nickerson, like Stef,
desperately wants to put Ampipe and
high-school football behind him in order
th coach a college team; his passion for
this goal has made him volatile. Com-
bine this with the pride, stubborness,
and pugnacity that both Stef and
Nickerson share, and they are ripe for a
confrontation. When it eventually hap-
pens, Stef must reevaluate his goals,
his outk, and his immediate future.

Right
The story is not centered around
football, rather football is a vehicle
through which several themes are ex-
plored. To the players, it is a ticket to
whiter skies and a way to win status
and approval. To the steelworkers,
football is an opiate that temporarily
dulls the pain of monotonous work and a
hopeless future. It is a way for them to
live vicariously, and to support and
identify with glory long gone from their
lives. A win by their team is a win for
the town and a victory over all the un-
seen forces that relegated them to a life
of drudgery.
The film, although it does not ignore
futility, is about dreams and ambitions,
particularly Stef's. Stef, after his
problem with Nickerson, must combat
the fear of failure, and the apathy and
resentment it produces. It is hard for
him to hope for college wherr, compared
to the steel that surrounds him, it is
only an etheral image.
The acting is excellent, with Tom,
Cruise deserving special mention. His
ingratiating boyishness mixed with an
angry manhood make him surprisingly
real and complex. He rarely descends
to convention and eludes categorization
- one moment he is cunning and the
next asinine, one moment foolhardy
and the next timid. Nickerson as the
over-zealous and out of place coach is
also effective and convincing. These
two, and the rest of the fine cast, are

Moves'
believable and likeable. As a result, the
audience is attracted to them and bet-
ter able to understand their predicat-
ments.
The script is polished and shines with
integrity; it is neither one-sided nor
confusing, but proceeds smoothly and
adroitly from one scene to the next.
The mood of many scenes is effec-
tively transmitted. When Ampipe High
plays football, the, movie theater is
palpably tense and, when the steel mills
are shown, their lugubrious nature is
contagious. We wince at Stef's gaffes
and cheer at his successes. The movie
creates such empathy that the audience
is almost immediately drawn in and
beguiled by its progress.
All the Right Moves oc-
casionally descends to corniness or
I've- seen- it- a- hundred- times- before
routines, as with some of Stef's interac-
tions with his girlfriend or his antics at
school. These segements conflict with
the sincerity of the rest of the film. At
the end, pieces of the script fit together 2
too cleanly. Life is a lot more am-
biguous and complex. All the
Right Moves is a realistic film,
which, at times, forgets this.
Nevertheless, All the Right
Moves is a fun, moving and thought-
provoking film. As an exploration into
a declining one-industry town and one of
its inhabitants, it moves very well in-
deed.

dodges difficulties

Tom Cruise and teammates contemplate what an upcoming game might mean to their futures.

Company gets marginal
return on its investment

By Michael Fisch
C UTE IS FUZZY little teddy bears.
Cute is kittens playing with yarn.
Cute is cuddly bunnies.
Comedy is not cute. I hate the word
cute, and The Comedy Company (a
comedy troop composed of Michigan
students that played the U-club Sun-
day) should hate it too. Because if they
had cut out their cuter material, they
might have had a great show. The cute
skits were predictable and not par
ticularly funny.
I must admit, though, that as far as
the audience (and a rather diverse one
it was) was concerned, the troop could
do almost no wrong. The crowd was en-
tertained by this amateur comedy
troop, and so was I.
The Comedy Company's best sketches
were the ones that really moved. When
the players threw witticisms and puns

at each other, without moralizing
pauses, they pulled off some hilarious
stuff. An attempt at intellectual humor
in Act 1 was a failure. Frozen Fever
was a sketch about two guys in the An-
tarctic who were so bored with life that
they eventually turned into trees. This
type of stuff belongs in English 407
discussions of Ionesco's Rinoceros. It
isn't funny and it doesn't belong in a
comedy show.
I was basically pleased with Act Two..
Steven Kurtz who sang his own
creation, "Tears Are Falling,"uwas juti~
pathetic - pathetically hilarious that
is. Like Woody Allen maybe? I don't
know. I do know that I couldn't stop
laughing the whole time he was on
stage. His humor isn't scripted and
plotted and discussed - he's got spon-
taneity. After nine scripted sketches I
really appreciated that. The Comedy
Company ought to take a few hints from
Steve.

And remember guys, stay away from
those cuddly bunnies - in this case
they'll kill you.
WEDNESDAY;
LIVE CRAB
RACES
GET LUCKY - CHEER FOR
YOUR FAVORITE CRAB!
Read The
Daily Classifieds

Te C
The Comedy Company talked business at the U-Club Sunday night.



Records


P Joe Jackson-'Mike's
Murder Soundtrack'
(A&M Records)
It was only a question of time before
Joe Jackson took a stab at film scoring.
After Randy Newman's brilliant score
for Ragtime and Mark Knopfler's
gorgeous Local Hero soundtrack, it
seemed inevitable some producer
would see Jackson's potential and offer
him a crack at a film. Unfortunately,
what we have here fails to live up to any
reasonable expectations of the man.
The score for Mike's Murder (reputedly
such a bad film it may never be
released) is an occasionally enter-
taining, but mostly timid offering.
Technically this is very much a
Jackson album with its upbeat rhyth-
ms, bright percussion, spunky
keyboards, and lively production.
MWhat's missing is a feeling of coheren-
ce, and heart. All of the songs were
written around situations in the film,
and sound rather lifeless on their own.
The lyrics are vague and forgettable,
the music too similar. Only two stand
out at all, "Memphis" (which has been
getting some airplay) and a slow
romantic song called "Moonlight."
IDVen these two, the best of the lot,
sound more like leftovers from the
Night And Day album.
'The second side is comprised of three
instrumentals and is the better half of
the record. There's some sense of in-
, entiveness and thought here, par-
6iularly in the eerie "Breakdown."
Even then, these tracks are ultimately
disappointing because they're really
only extended jams. A truly effective
mm m=- - -

film score is composed of themes and
musical statements interwoven in a
precisely organized manner. Jackson
has taken the lazy way out and given us
something we would expect of any
moderately talented pop songwriter.
He's shown us in previous albums he's
much more than that. Still, there is
enough promising material here to
warrant another try in the future. Wait
for this one to hit the cut-out bin.
Ray Manzarek-'armina
Burana' (A&M)
Classical-rock was a term coined
during the early '70s to describe a par-
ticularly ugly period. It was a time
when groups ike Yes or ELP routinely
clumsily adapted or outright stole from
Prokofiev, Copland, Brahms, and the
other masters. It was hardly a period of
experimentation but one of pseudo-
intellectual self-indulgence. No
thoughtful tears were shed when the
movement finally died.
Now, here in the post-Sex Pistols age,
former Doors keyboardist Ray Man-
zarek dredges the dinosaur up for one
more atrocity. The result is Carmina
Burana, a collection of 14th century
poetry set to a "classical-rock-jazz"
score, based on a 1935 arrangement by
German composer Carl Orff. The out-
come is predictably dismal.
Not that there's something inherently
wrong with adapting traditional verses
for modern arrangement. Both
Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention
did so regularly in their days. Traffic's
"John Barleycorn Must Die".and Pete
Townshend's "North Country Girl"

also come to mind. Their success lay in
the fact the material was handled by
the contemporary equivalent of min-
strels, whose sensibilities are of an
unassuming, simple nature.
Manzarek, with production assistan-
ce by minimalist Phillip Glass, has op-
ted for a stiff and rather "serious"
approach. The instrumentals are played
with enthusiasm but no charm. The
performances are technically adept but
emotionally vapid. The arrangements
are glaringly unoriginal, sounding
sadly like a bad clone of the British
group Sky. The verses are sung by a

chorus in straight classical style, and
merely mixed into the background. The
result is uncomfortable, with two
dramatically different styles clashing
against one another.
Yet the whole thin gis done in such an
unabashedly light tone, it's hard to
severely criticize those responsible.
While still portentious, Carmina
Burana is not nearly so ponderous as its
predecessors. One suspects Manzarek
undertook, the project for fun more
than anything else. The result is
forgiveable but equally forgettable.
-Byron Bull

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IN CONCERT

MICHIGAN and OHIO STATE

Patrick Gardner, director

James Gallagher, Director

MEN'S GLEE CLUBS
8:00 p.m. Saturday, November 19, 1983
HILL AUDITORIUM
TICKETS: $5.00, $4.00, $3.00, students $2.00 available
at Hill Box Office starting Nov. 14-8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Part Time Position Available
FREE UNIVERSITY
STUDENT COORDINATOR
Part-time, three month position " Plan and publicize Free Univer-

-


It's enough to fry their eyes-a stadium full of maize
and blue! What better way to shake a few Buckeyes
out of trees.
WHAT? You don't have a 0. of M. scarf, cap, jacket, or
pennant? With Ulrich's there eager to fill your every
need?
Run right over. Ulrich's can help you be of good cheer.


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