0

Page 8 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, November 9, 1988

Ex-jock gets sacked by
his past in All-American

BY BRENT EDWARDS
It was with some trepidation that I
went to see Everybody's All-Ameri-
can. With two All-American stars,
Dennis Quaid (The Big Easy, The
Right Stuff) and Jessica Lange
(Tootsie, Frances), playing a football
hero and a beauty queen in love, it
could have been a rah-rah movie sap-
pier than The Natural. Fortunately, it
avoids this pitfall, and replaces sen-
timentality with meaning.
The movie begins in 1956 with
Quaid and Lange as college students.
Quaid is Gavin Grey, a.k.a "The
Grey Ghost," a football All-Ameri-
can who is idolized by everyone.
Lange plays a Southern belle named
Babs, the state's Magnolia Queen,
who is proud to major in "Babs and
Gavin." The film follows their
relationship over 25 years; as time
passes, both characters grow as peo-
ple, and grow disillusioned.
As a college student, the football
hero understands that the Gray Ghost
and Gavin Grey are two separate
people - when he stops making
touchdowns, the cheers will disappear
along with The Ghost, but Gavin the
person will still remain. However,
once he plays in the pros, he can't
see beyond The Ghost. And when he
eventually retires from football, he is
hired to tell football stories while
playing golf and sitting in bars; his
life becomes haunted by memories of
The Ghost.

Meanwhile, Lange's character is
forced to develop beyond that of a
beauty queen when Quaid becomes
unresponsible and unresponsive to
her. Out of necessity, she goes to
work, but she gains self-confidence
along with her success as a busi-
nessperson.
The supporting cast is headed by
Timothy Hutton, who plays Gavin's
nephew, Donnie, who idolizes The
Ghost. But Donnie is also in love
with Babs, and he remains so
throughout the 25-year span of the
movie. This triangular relationship
allows us to see the characters de-
velop: Babs's frustrations (the main
one being Gavin) are seen through
her talks with Donnie, and Gavin's
life becomes even emptier in contrast
to Donnie's fulfilled life. Hutton
plays his role with an innocence that
is more appropriate to Donnie's
younger self than his character later
in the film, but he does a competent
job nonetheless.
Dennis Quaid is excellent, espe-
cially when The Ghost begins to fade
into distant memories. It's all the
more depressing seeing his character
go from a confident football player to
a "Glory Days" has-been because he
makes the character so real; it's
heartbreaking when he goes back for
his 25 year reunion and realizes that
students don't know who the Grey
Ghost was.

Jessica Lange gives depth to the
Southern belle who must gain
strength to deal with the problems of
her marriage. The development of
both characters as they grow makes
the passage through the years seem
real. By the end of the movie not
only do they look older - thanks to
a great make-up job - but they
move older, their temperaments have
changed, and they even seem to think
older.4i
The director, Taylor Hackford (An
Officer and a Gentleman, Against All
Odds) handles the film with confi-
dence. To make the audience feel the
loss felt by the Ghost, Hackforq
starts the film with some Atl,
American scenes - the pep rally, t*e
big game, the victory party, the
wholesome love scene - and slowly
strips each one of these images away.
Also, the transitions are smoothly
done so that the audience is never
confused when the story jumps ahead
in time - potentially a major prob-
lem in the film.
Everybody's All-American begins
as a good love story, but it becomes
much more. It is really a story about
change in people, relationships, and
society, and coping with "ghosts" of
the past.
EVERYBODY'S ALL-AMERICAN
is playing at Showcase Cinemas and
at Briarwood.

If you hated people like this in high school, here's a chance for some
Everybody's All-American, Babs Rogers (Jesica Lange, left) and Gavin
find that the glory of the pep rally doesn't last forever.

vicarious thrills. In
Grey (Dennis Quaid)


Grant Hart
2541
SST
The most positive thing I
about this EP is that, in 3
Grant Hart does more for th
drug campaign than three ye
"Just Say No" ads.
For those of you unfamilia
HPart's history, let me explain
used to be the drummer for
Du, a band that was one of
greatest creations since chili
fries and otters. The band br
early this year, and though"
differences" were cited (the mu
dustry equivalent of saying
Soviet leader has "caught a
word has it that Hart's use
tain... ahem - substances -
major factor.
Well, kids, whatever Grant
taking, stay away from it. Al
the EP's title cut (which refer
address, not a year) starts off
with an eerie acoustic intn
haunting but humorous lyrics
had to run the stove all day/
mice wouldn't freeze"), it sab
itself by dragging on for a]
minute too long in a "Hey
style chorus.
Side Two will make you c
wet tears all over your copy o
Day Rising. Both "Come, C
and "Let Go" are musical half
stretched out into entire song
neither are representative of h
ent. The former sounds like a
Donovan imitation; the latte
boring attempt at Lou Reed-lik
rytelling, which ends with a
b4rassing verse filled with
metaphors (I'm not kidding).
2541 wouldn't be so bad i
hadn't already proved himself c
of doing much better. I mean,
this is the man who wrote "Te
Psychic Warfare" and "Don't V
Know if You Are Lonely"! W
gets half a year apiece to writ
r,
ti
6
r
s
r4
s-
rI
a
r
d

songs, I'd expect them to be three
damn good songs. They're not.
This is drugs. This is Grant Hart
on drugs. Any questions?
can say -Jim Poniewozik
e anti- Pet Shop Boys
ears of Introspective
Capitol Records
ar with As I sat in my dorm wallowing
. Grant in self-absorption and trying to think
Husker of as many hip references I could
God's make as a music hack, I thanked
cheese myself I was ME. Oh Narcissus, in
oke up the realm of my self-immolation I
artistic listened to the Pet Shop Boys' new
usic in- disc Introspective, and I mused,
that a "Thank God I have a European
cold"), sensibility, short hair, and am in
of cer- love."
was a This long player is the most
acutely modern, sad and sexy record
's been released since Kraftwerk graced us
though with Electric Cafe. I sincerely hope
s to an it irritates the hell out of guitar-'
f great, fixated rock 'n' roll luddites. It's
ro and laughable that people still use
s ("We Fender Stratocasters when the
so the Roland Emulator synthesizer can
otages reproduce the sound of God!
bout a Europeans love the sound of the
Jude"- heavens. We dig repetition. I could
fill you in on the zen-like properties
cry big of rhythm but I won't; .I'll just
f New inform you that Introspective is six
Come" slices of maximum dubplate dance
f-ideas pressure and downright common
gs, and sense. "Left to My Own Devices" is
his tal- another vignette of dancefloor
feeble deadpan; it's "Che Guevara and De-
er is a bussy to a disco beat" and laced with
ke sto- the kind of resignation we Brits
n em- specialize in. Music to drive on the
cookie left-hand side to! "I Want a Dog,"
like Suicide's "Cheree," has you
if Hart crying on the dancefloor. It's so
apable simple, but throbs its way into you
Jesus, to ache in all the most susceptible
rms of places. "Domino Dancing" is rich in
Mant to instrumental texture and could be
hen he about love's battlefield or U.S.
e three foreign policy. "I'm Not Scared" is

at once fluid, succinct and loaded
with pathos. I do declare: the Pet
Shop Boys are the Giacomettis of
pop. "Always on My Mind" is all
funked up; in my mind's eye I see
Elvis jacking his body in a,'
Kalamazoo ballroom. "It's Alright,"'
an oldish anthemic house tune, ends
the album on an uplifting note. '
The Pet Shop Boys know that to
err is to play live; and that
shopping, paying the rent, dancing
and loving are more important than
gothic fantasies and rock 'n' roll
evangelism. Speculate, reflect: it's
plain silly that good citizens take
Siouxsie & the Bankrupts, U2 and
Springsteen so seriously. In relation
to these artistes the Pet Shop Boys
bring to mind one of Maurice
Ravel's epigrams: "You don't have
to open up your chest to prove you
have a heart." The Pet Shop Boys
are sound! - Nabeel Zuberi

features inside my camera, if I
had snapped a photograph of you,
things would be different now."
Like the momentary yet lingering
pain of a flashbulb in unsuspecting
eyes and stark as the negatives of a
roll of film, Dorfman offers his
readers no luxuries of respite or
shelter from the assault on the
senses. Dorfman's voice is not
politeor gentle or eloquent. At
times readers of Mascara are forced
to hear the sick rantings of a man on
the edge and witness his execution of
the very controls he despises. It is
not neatly or beautifully or
interestingly packaged, but it is a
gift worth the value of understanding
the psychological reverberations of
terror. In an environment where
"memories rot quicker than bodies"
mascara symbolizes the masks and
hidden identities of an entire nation
under the bright operating light and
scalpel of the government.

jjrMascara
Cntinued from Page 7

The ontological and
epistemological questions of the
narrator soon turn into questions
about the questioners, creating
suspicions that the supposedly
objective and reactionary view of the
narrator is as sickly as the world it
betrays. Mascara raises questions far
more reaching than that of one man.
But the novel is not without
hope. Perhaps the most beautiful yet
tragic of the three narrators, Oriana
is a woman child who enters his life
and fundamentally changes his
fatalist view. Mentally imprisoned
in her fifth year of life, she submits
to his possessive and manipulative
love. She has no memory, no
identity, and is the only person who
cannot hurt him: "But the real house
where I had passed the first five years
of my existence was in ruins. I
watched those men opening the legs
of that girl where I had taken up'
residence since my birth. And I could
not do it. I could not return to that
body. At that moment I promised
that years later I would return to that
little thing leaning against an
unyielding wall .... I was going to
prepare my kingdom..."

It is also Oriana's voice that best
states Mascara's accomplishment -
one in which the news reels fail an4
literature succeeds: "I like the dead,
the people who are about to die.
They ask for nothing more than to
be relieved of their voices. They ask
nothing more than to die with a
smile."
-Margie Heinlen
C orrection
On yesterday's Arts page, an
article on the Brecht Co.'s production
of Drums inhthe Night incorrectly
stated that the set was designed y
Helen Hurwitz. It was actually
designed by Tim Moran.
THE DAILY
CLASSIFIEDS
ARE A GREAT
WAY TO GET
FAST RESULTS
CALL 764-0557

4

HILL STREET FORUM/GREAT WRITERS SERIES
Anne Roiphe
" fetson the
State of Jewry"
Black - Jewish Relations, Jewish Mothers and
Sons, Jewish Sanity and the Pope, The Holocaust
and Israeli Politics
Tuesday, November 15, 8:00 pm, Green Auditorium, 1429 Hill Street
Ann Roiphe's latest novel, Lovingkindness, has been on the New York Times
bestseller list and is considered her best book so far.
Tickets available at Hillel.
769-0500

Cornerstone

CHRISTIAN

FELLOWSHIP

(an interdenominational campus fellowship)
Students Dedicated to
Knowing and Communicating
Jesus Christ

Pd

Weekly Meetings:

Thursdays: 7:00 pm
219 Angell Hall

John Neff - 971-915Q(O), 747-8831(H)

LGOLD RING SALE

LIVE, LEARN & INTERN
in Washington, D.C. this summer
at the
Institute on Political Journalism
Georgetown University " June 9-July 22, 1989
If you are an undergraduate with a demonstrated interest
in journalism, political science. or economics. you will want
to apply to the 1989 Institute on Political Journalism.
Numerous scholarships are available.
While living on the campus of Georgetown University, you
will:
" Take 3 credit courses in Ethics and the Media and
Economics in Public Policy
" Intern in news media or oress offices

r

AT LASTS
A job that really does some-
ting FOR YOU!
_ " "$5.00-$6.50/hour rplus



/-\ ,4- .,4 .. . . 4,. . .I. .. ,.- --L, :-