4 ARTS The Michigan Daily1 Tuesday, September 11, 1984 Page 6 Eastwood nervously walks 4 the psycho Tightrope By Byron L. Bull IGHTROPE, the latest film vehicle for machismo star Clint Eastwood, has been getting an inordinate amount of good press from critics who should know better. I suspect that a good deal of the favorable reviews are coming from closet Eastwood fans, who are willing. to overlook Tightrope's numerous flaws because it's probably the closest project to resemble a full fledged movie that its star has been in a good many years. ANN ARBOR INDIVIDUAL TNEATRES rALY MATINEES! $1.75 TUESDAY ALL DAY! While there are some minor attempts to flush out this Eastwood protagonist beyond something as zombie-like as Harry Callahan, the final result is only a slight notch above the Dirty Harry adventures that preceeded it. The major reasons for that being prin- cipally that the script is not thin to the point of being skeletal, and that the violence, while still lavishly spread out through the story, is refreshingly toned down. As Wes Block, a middle aged New Orleans homicide detective, Eastwood is in not unfamiliar skin. Only instead of being a heartless loner without con- science, Block is a harried divorcee father with two preadolescent daughters and a houseful of taken-in stray dogs attached to him. Like Eastwood's shell-shocked pilot in Firefox (one of the few other attem- pts to depict Eastwood as a troubled character), Block is a lonely, nerve- racked basketcase. He can't keep up with the pressures of work and finds himself failing to give his domestic life any semblance of normality. Beyond all that, he's cursed with a wrenching inability to find any sexual or emotional fulfillment through a relationship with a woman. Investigating a rash of bizarre sexually related slaying, Block immer- ses himself in the sleazy underworld of New Orleans' French Quarter, and in little time is indulging in all manner of aberant experiences with the whores and sex-act queens he comes into con- tact with. As his escapades become in- creasingly kinkier and more bizarre, Block begins to see the darker corners of his psyche, and wonders if he's fun- damentally any different from the killer he's pursuing. See EASTWOOD'S, Page 7 4 4 ENDS THURS.! ONE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT LOVE .. JACQ.UE LIN E BISSE T A FILM BY JOHN HUSTON DAILY 1:00, 7:30, 9:40 Say .flI-nek- MI DISCOUNT MUFFLERS AMERCAN AND FOREIGN CAR SPECIALIST lnstalled By:..* t, Trained *FITS MANY Specialists SMALL CARS Installed *AT PARTICIPATING DEALERS FOREIGN CARS Featuring CUSTOM DUALS H HEAVY DUTY SHOCKS One of the finest names CUSTOM PIPE BENDING in automotive parts! Y PSi LA N TI 2606 Washtenaw Ave...... 572-9177 (11/2 mile East of US 23), Individually Owned & Operated INAND OUT IN 30 MINUTES IN MOST ,ASES OPEN DAILY AND SAT8-8 PM Copyright©1983 Meineke mg Clint Eastwood plays a nervous version of 'Dirty Harry' in pursuit of a psycho killer in the film, Tightrope. Bolero offers little worth 4 and even By Richard Campbell B OLERO is bad. There's really not much more to say than that. It's certainly not worth the price of a regular evening admission and not even worth the cut-rate matinee prices. Seeing it for free on cable will still be too much of an investment. What makes Bolero only the slightest bit interesting is director-star team John and Bo Derek's lack of talent but abundance of good intentions and their Barnumesque approach to advertising. Over the past six-months, the Hollywood rumor mills have been working overtime on the film. Mainly, the gossip centered on the dizzying heights of sexual excess that Bolero' would exhibit. The Dereks were going to throw all propriety to the winds, ignore convention, and make if not an artsy XXX-rated flick, an XXX-rated a- flick nevertheless. A lot of people greeted that news with a raised eyebrow and a stifled' yawn. Whatever interest there is in seeing Bo writhe naked on satin sheets would surely be dashing through the inept direction of John. Suprisingly, Bolero didn't turn out that way. For a film that was supposed to get an X-rating, that titilated moviegoers with promises of wild orgies, Bolero is. amazingly tame. A few scenes feature naked bodies throwing themselves around on a bed, but those scenes are very few indeed and offer little that is shocking or intriguing to jaded film fans. If you want to see sex on the silver screen, you had better look elsewhere for your daily ration. Of course, sex isn't the only reason' we go to the movies. Mostly, we're looking for interesting characters in situations that explore man's purpose on this planet, all wrapped up in a film that pushes the medium to new limits. John Derek's direction seems to show that he is as inept as ever, but that he knows enough about filmmaking to con- fuse the most experienced critic. Bolero nominally concerns the wayward adventures of a young American girl in the roaring '20s who graduates from a stuffy English boar- ding school and promptly goes off to the continent to lose her virginity. Her first encounter with a pseudo-sheik ends without success, so she travels to Spain and falls in love with a bull-fighter. less Bo Their affair is cut short when he is gored by a bull and may not be able to, ahem, do it, anymore. Can Bo save a man from a fate worse than death??? Although the socially redeeming value in such a plot may be hard to imagine, there are frames in the film where it looks like something positive may emerge to save the movie. It is unfortunate that Bo Derek stars in Bolero. Though her physique is above average, she can't act her way out of a paper bag. Since her character is sup- posed to be just over 20 years-old, Bo has decided to play the sexual adven- tress as a giggly, nervous, starry-eyed youngster. That may seem appropriate, until you see Bo's rendition of those qualities. What was undoubtedly writ- ten--into the script as the word "naivete" comes across on the screen as "airhead." But in the background is one suprising performance - at least sur- prising in the context of the movie. As the ch'auffer/father-figure, George Kennedy says and acts as little as possible. But behind his typecast mannerisms is an actor light-years ahead of the Dereks. When Kennedy moves, talks, or simply listens to another character, there is the simple feeling that you are watching a real human being. And during a drunken yet G-rated love scene, Kennedy grabs a sincere laugh bigger than any Bo gets for her non-acting. 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