ARTS The Michigan Daily Wednesday, October 1, 1986 Page 7 'Blue Velvet': rough, shoddy, confused By Geoffrey Riklin Blue Velvet is a film that manages to self-destruct in virtually every way. 4Our protagoninst, Jeff, comes home from college for a few days to visit his ailing father. While walking through a field one day, he discovers a human ear, which he takes to the police, and which causes him to involve himself in a mystery. The essentials of the story are that Sandy, a daughter of a police detective, leads Jeff to an odd nightclub singer, Dorothy Vallens, who in turn is involved with a local gangster, Frank. Suffice it to say that the plot is thoroughly conventional. Many serious problems plague Blue Velvet. To make Blue Velvet a movie worth seeing, the performances must be inspired. Kyle MacLachlan as Jeff turns in a performance that might be passable in a television movie, but not in the cinema. There is nothing interesting to begin with in his character, and MacLachlantdoesabsolutely nothing to change that. Laura Dern as Sandy is nice, but her role doesn't amount to a great deal. Isabella Rossellini as Dor- othy Vallens is utterly misdirected. Rossellini plays a woman who is abused in a variety of ways by Frank, the gangster. Rossellini's character is a bit off to begin with, and her trauma causes her to become downright neurotic. But for her to do the things she does, she would have to be insane in a completely unimaginable way. In short, her character is not convincing. Rossellini does the best she can and she does well within the limits of the character; the director, David Lynch, bears the responsibility for the failure of the part. Finally, Dennis Hopper, playing the deranged gangster Frank, does a pretty good job with a cartoonish character. David Lynch wrote and directed Blue Velvet, and the reason it fails is him. The point of his film is that underneath the placid surface of the small town of Lumberton insane things are taking place. The you-can't-, judge-a-book-by-its-cover theme is not exactly new, but in capable hands it can work (in capable hands, anything can work). There are so many flaws that the few good points are destroyed. The character of Jeff is really a cipher. Sandy is all right though limited. And both Dorothy Vallens and Frank are generally ridiculous. There are several idiotic scenes, the worst of which consists of a drug pusher/pimp delivering a surrealistic rendition of a Roy Orbison tune. In the scene that follows, Frank beats up Jeff, once again to the Orbison song. During the beating a hooker, who was brought along by Frank's gang, starts to dance on the roof of a car, oblivious to the violence. How stupid. One would expect that any prostitute in her right mind would be worried at least by the violence since prostitiutes themselve are so often the victim. In other words, she could be next. The flashes of surrealism are completely misplaced. Lynch should have decided whether he wanted to make a surrealistic film or a realistic one. The few surrealistic scenes simply do not fit in. The two styles are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but Lynch cannot successfully combine them. All of which leaves us with an eminently forgettable film. Isabella Rossellini meanaces Kyle MacLachlan in David Lynch's new release Blue Velvet. J UFOria' ends up mocking only itself .y Lynn Gettleman Church revival is the theme of Melvin Simon's 1981 film VFOria, but why anyone would want to revive this film is beyond reason. UFOria, starring Cindy Wil- liams, Harry Dean Stanton, and .Fred Ward, is a combination of bid plot, bad acting, and even worse dialogue. The purpose of this fim is to mock and scorn evangelists and church revival; UN Arts & Pr This Week at the M' Monday, Sep Friday, Octo " ~Rock Poster S 10am-S pm Ground Floor Retrospective] ROam-5pm . Room 1209 4L( rc( 4ii the result is a movie that mocks itself. Th" plot is relatively simple. Two lonely people, Sheldon Bart (Ward) and Arlene (Williams). meet out in the boonies of California. He's a drifter/con artist, she's a checker at the local supermarket and a born-again Christian. Sheldon is currently making money by being "healed" at the revival meetings by a fellow con artist/stolen car dealer, the evangelist Brother Bud (Stanton). Meanwhile, DN ."~Y >gramming chigan Union..... ember 29 - er 3 hibit (hibit= Ir II IV~ Arlene believes that God is sending a UFO down to save her a la Noah's Ark. Bud wants to use her for profit during his revival meetings, and poor Sheldon is caught in the middle -- what a conflict. The acting in this movie is the absolute worst. Ward expresses emotion with a predictable grimace, Stanton pauses for ten seconds between every "meaningful line," and when comparing William's wide-eyed looks and whine to her previous acting experience, Laverne and Shirley deserves an Emmy. Dialogue and predictability is where this movie is best. When Arlene tells Sheldon about the pt( :)b4 ale EX UFO, he says, "Baby, I'll take you to space without a rocket." Since Arlene believes with all of her heart that a UFO is coming to get her, can you guess what actually happens? You can, but it isn't worth four dollars. The point this movie attempts to make is that everyone has to believe in something. The actual outcome of UFOria, however, is that you can't believe you wasted almost two hours and four dollars watching it. , . ... . . . ..... .......... .. 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