9
RESTAURANT
FILM
Stomachs,
rejoice! Prepare
for
The
Choice
J, H
4
New Life:' C'm(
By Stephen Gregory and
Alan Paul
hat do you get when
you cross an average (well
actually a little better than
average) dorm cafeteria with daily
entrees like some of the best fried
chicken in the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti
area and char-grilled halibut? The
answer is simple - The Choice, All
You Can Eat, Smorgasbord.
Yuppies may call this place a
"buffet," but it's definitely a "smor-
gasbord" in every damnambit, down-
home sense of the word. There are no
hors d'ouvre here, no roe, no chateau-
briand, no baked brie, just plenty of
baked chicken, lima beans, tacos,
fish patties, and even something
called "bread pudding" for desert. But
that's not all, not by a long shot...
Before we go any further, let's get
one thing straight - the food is
pretty good for the most part, but it's
the price that makes going to The
Choice a must for broke, famished
students. "Cover" is only S5.99 a
head, and you can literally eat all you
want, even to the point of throwing
up which is exactly how most people
feel when they walk out of these all-
you-can-eat places; that's why they
go to them. The Choice is no differ-
ent.
Starch-o-rama may be an appropri-
ate nickname for this place that
serves four different kinds of rolls and
muffins, baked potatoes, fake mashed
potatoes, macaroni and cheese,
Franco-Americanesque spaghetti, etc.
Get the picture? The restaurant
should have a disclaimer in its sign
to the effect that all those easily
wired by excessive amounts of car-
bohydrates should stick to water. If
you don't, you'll be buzzin' all
night.
It's difficult if not ridiculous to at-
tempt a serious food critique about a
place that is gunning for quantity and
value rather than quality. To make
WEEKEND ROBIN LOZNAK
Although this roast beef may look impressive, it really needs a little au jus1 to b~rie,,; it to life,
Reai
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Daifq
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the point, here is a list of everything
(we think) The Choice offers for a
meal or two or three:
Six different soft drinks, milk,
coffee, stir fried shrimp, Mrs. Paul-
ish fish patties, completely inedible,
raw slimeball wing dings, homemade
chicken noodle and tomato soup,
cornbread, two kinds of muffins,
rolls, barbecued spareribs, spaghetti,
roast beef with au jus, au gratin
potatoes, macaroni and cheese,
canned corn, canned green beans,
mixed veggies, made-from-flake
mashed potatoes, fried chicken, baked
chicken, char-grilled halibut, ravioli,
a taco bar, a baked potato bar, a well-
stocked salad bar, hash, potato salad,
and carrot salad.
Now for dessert (hold on to your
seats) there is: /
A vanilla/chocolate soft serve ice
cream sundae bar with your choice of
strawberry, a somewhat shady blue-
berry, a gooey lemon, cherry, choco-
late, raisin, peanut, or marshmallow
topping. Ah, but you don't like ice
cream, you say. Don't worry, The
Choice takes care of you too. Alter-
natives include: strawberry shortcake,
jello, Boston cream pie, lemon
meringue pie, apple pie, pumpkin
pie, peach cobbler, and that now in-
famous "bread pudding."
Much of the food suffers from the
we-have-to-please-the-masses bland-
ness of cafeteria food but there is
Tabasco, soy, and Worchestershire
sauces available to spice things up.
But blandness aside, the fried
chicken, chicken noodle soup, and
grilled halibut were clear standouts.
But the mashed potatoes and wing
*dings are to be particularly avoided.
So the choice is yours, you can
either keep on with the same old,
over-priced Ann Arbor fare or venture
out to Ypsi, the world next door, and
sample something you haven't had
since your last dorm meal but made a
whole lot better. U
PASS
IT
AROUND
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By Lisa Pollak
Y ou're enjoying a beautiful fall
afternoon in New York City,
having lunch with your
significant other at an outdoor cafe,
and pondering the beauty of life itself
- when you're suddenly jarred by
the whiny, melodramatic strains of
an amateur string orchestra playing
Pan of
the Week
I,
Bach concertos. Before you can ask
yourself why the beat is timed to the
traffic and why the sun has turned to
snow, you realize that your once-
loving relationship has fallen apart.
And just when you think t h e
situation couldn't get worse, you're
,x surrounded by herds of out-of-work
sitcom actors offering heartwarming
insights into love, family, and life in
the form of dreaful one-liners and
corny soliliquies.
A terrible nightmare or an Alan
Alda movie? It's A New Life , and
it's both.
Yes, the man who brought us to
tears of boredom in The Four Sea-
,.;
sons proves that with some capital
and creative control - Alda wrote,
directed, and starred in both films -
anyone can use the silver screen for:
some masturbatory moviemaking in;
their midlife malaise. Divorce,1
remarriage, laughter, tears, childbirth,
beauty, truth; yeah, yeah, yeah, it's'
all there. And, okay, maybe you like
that type of thing. And maybe you're
a recent divorcee in your mid-40s,
and maybe you're turned on by the
sight of Alda in a perm and grey-
tinged beard.
And maybe you're not.
A New Life is the story of Steve
(Alda) and Jackie Giardino (a heavily
mascaraed Ann-Margret,) a dull cou-
ple who are dejected after the break-
up of their 26-year marriage but not
too dejected to "enter the frightening
but funny world of blind dates and
new relationships," which to the
viewer seems more like the frighten-
ingly cliched and hardly funny world
of predictable sex jokes and stiff
middle-aged actors making fools of
themselves.
So Steve conveniently meets Dr.
Kay Hutton (Veronica Hamel, in a
sickeningly sexist scene in which she
measures his "mysteriously" elevated
heartbeat and massages his back at
the same time.) In less than 90 min-
Ann 6' oro roJLULc AC~lSlynt1JlnUwithLJ J UUnl~fl.Chu in A1ewTife
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ISRAEL'S 40TH featuring...
A CONCERT BY "THE GATHERING"
-
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20, 8PM
5:30pm Anderson Room, 6:45pm Michigan Theater
Michigan Union - Reception for all who wish
Community wide memorial to sample Middle Eastern
service for the fallen munchies.
soldiers of Israel,
i
8:00pm Michigan Theater
Concert by "The Gather-
ing" one of Israel's most
original
groups, which has created
a new form of Israeli music.
By John Shea
t never ceases to amaze me
when talented young actors and
actresses agree to play leading
roles in horror films under the
pretense of doing "greater work" in
their field.
To be sure, the money that comes
with these scripts is exceptionally
attractive. And when you're young
and just starting out in the business,
plumb roles are not going to fall in
your lap. But films revolving around
haunted house and masked men
yielding axes are generally venues
that get actors nowhere.
Remember Wil Wheaton? He made
his sparkling debut in the summer of
1986 as Gordie, the aspiring writer
and adolescent-in-turmoil in Stand by
Me. Great picture, great performance.
Some in Hollywood even whispered
that he might get a supporting actor
nomination for it (he didn't).
So what does he do for an encore?
He signs up for the lead role in a
cheap horror flick called The Curse.
Perhaps you remember seeing the ti-
tle last fall at your favorite multi-
plex before it was swept away two
weeks later. The most generous es-
timation of the film was that it was a
grade-A turkey.
Wil has not been seen since.
I doubt Demi Moore will disappear
altogether after The Seventh Sign
takes its deserved beating from movie
critics nationwide - she not only
sparkles with charisma but has
"talent" as well. But one is certainly
left wondering what possessed her to
take the role of a pregnant mother
whose unborn child plays an integral
part in the destruction of The World
As We Know It.
First, let me explain the story:
several centuries ago, it was foretold
that the advent of the Apocalypse
would be heralded by seven signs.
Sure enough, they start to come:
first, sea life of every form washes
ashore dead on a Haitian beach; then,
an Israeli desert village is discovered
frozen in ice; a Nicaraguan river runs
with blood; an unexpected eclipse
turns the moon red; and destruction
of all kinds comes pouring from the
sky. When the Sixth Sign, the exe-
cution of an innocent martyr, occurs
only one sign remains before The
End of The World As We Know It,
and that is Moore and her unborn
child.
The only two people on the face of
the Earth who seem to be phased by
these collective events are a priest
(Peter Friedman, Prince of the City)
and a stranger (Jurgen Prochnow, Das
Boot), who separately realize that
Moore is the Seventh Sign. Both
race after her; one of them wants to
See FILM, Page 15
-4
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Jurgen Prochnow has come to deliver the apocalyptic seven signs in, wha
llm~I
PAGE 16 WEEKEND/APRIL 8, 1988
WEEKEND/APRIL 8, 1988