ARTS Page 5 Fhe Michigan Daily Thursday, November 1, 1990 Sex, booze and hamburgers White Palace dir. Luis Mandoki By Gregg Flaxman M ax Baron (James Spader) leads a teflon-coated life. A diligent advertis- ing executive and aspiring anal-reten- tive, Max has meticulously fostered his distance. He reluctantly social- izes, rarely drinks and prefers self- pity to sex. It's been two years since his young wife's death and Max re- mains frozen in a tense, half-mourn- ing posture. He is, like almost every ether character in White Palace, a composite, essentially a collection of stereotypes. By all rights, Max's silent pain and hermetically-sealed world should have come off as cinematic patch- work. And by all rights, Max's sen- suous affair with older waitress Nora Baker (Susan Sarandon) should have been equally unrealistic. White .Palace should have been a feeble structure of convention. But Spader and Sarandon are so overwhelmingly appealing - if not convincing -- as the mismatched couple that they rise above the film's manipulative tech- nique and thin script. In the mo- ments when the filmmakers are least paying attention, White Palace crackles with something less than spontaneity but something worth- while nonetheless. After Max discovers he's been short-changed six burgers (at 49- cents a shot) by the White Palace hamburger joint, he returns to de- mand his money back from sweat- glazed overworked cashier Nora, who taunts dapper Max by referring to him as "Astaire" before foisting his money over. Sarandon's fiesty, se- ductive Nora knows that she's less than gorgeous; her face is attractive but worn. Yet in her compulsive consumption of cigarettes and gin- and-tonics, she's undaunted and somehow less vulnerable. Like Max, she's suffered life-losses, but her ap- proach has been aggressive rather than constipated. That same night, the two meet by chance at a sleazy bar where Max has decided to hole himself up and drown his problems in scotch. Sex between the two is inevitable, but both Spader and Sarandon take time and pleasure in getting there. Unfor- tunately, the consummation proves to be the climax of the film, among other things. The rest of the rela- tionship is based on prolonged and steamy sex that leads to more pro- longed and steamy sex. Everything is foreplay. The dialogue between Max and Nora is watered down or non-existent; the grounds for their relationship are never defined. What do these two talk about? Good chi- ropractors? Fast food? Basically, they just drink a lot. White Palace's greatest failure is that it never truly deals with its own premise. This should have been a film about the social stigma of a cross-class relationship, a film about slipping through social barbed wire. But the appearance of Nora's sister Judy (Eileen Brennan), an eccentric seer who understands Max's dilemma and knows the couple's future, un- dermines the realistic and relevant aspects of such an unlikely relation- ship. Director Luis Mandoki would have been well-advised to leave the mysticism to Doug Henning and fo- cus on the intriguing union of finan- cial and social opposites. Inevitably, Max is thrust into the agonizing position of introducing Nora to his friends and family, at a Thanksgiving dinner no less. But Mandoki leaves the scene limp where it should have been acidic. Spader's nuanced performance milks the situation for all its awkward un- dertones, and Sarandon conveys an acute discomfort. But the scene goes awry when a family friend starts to pontificate at the dinner table about Max (James Spader) and Nora (Susan Sarandon) engage in yet another steamy moment in White Palace, the best movie to focus on a burger joint since Better Off Dead. "the working class;" Nora's reply is incoherent, if not absurd. Nora is in- telligent enough to engage in more than vapid dribble; the scene comes off as ambivalent and pointless. Mandoki washes over every orig- inality in White Palace. In the midst of such non-confrontational filmaking, a scene in which a restau- rant crowd applauds as Max and Nora embrace can be nothing less than expected, whereas normally it might have been insulting. Nevertheless, Spader and Sarandon bring what vi- tality and complexity they can to the film, and Spader in particular proves enormously compelling. WHITE PALACE is Showcase playing at .Simpson's photos let viewer conclude by Ingrid Truemper The young Black woman lies with her back to the viewer on what appears to be a medical examination table, dressed only in a white cotton gown. Text surrounding the life-size photo proclaims "You're Fine; You're Hired," along with a medical *checklist and lastly, the casual title,"Secretarial Position." This same young woman reappears throughout this disquieting sequence of photographs and text fragments; yet her entire face is hever shown, contributing to the detachment that pervades these photos, which only serves to make them all the more compelling. Viewers of the sequence seem almost magnetically attracted by the beautiful images, and almost equally repelled by the seemingly nonsensical text fragments which accompany each photo. Lorna Simpson's collection of photographs at the Museum of Art demands the mental participation of the viewer, who must personally interpret the images; not an easy task, especially since the responses called forth are unsettling. Through this sequence, Simpson manages, in a few seemingly disjointed photographs and words, to make strong statements on rape, abortion and the status of African Americans in society. For example, much of the accompanying text refers to interrogation after a crime, with phrases such as "Lie Detector,""True or False,""Prints, Signs of Entry, Marks" and "Her Story: Each time they looked for proof." In another disturbing sequence, the face of the woman is four times reproduced in the shape of alphabetized filing cabinets. The work is subject to a variety of interpretations: is this a commentary on the cold, impersonal efficiency of American bureaucracy? Has the woman been raped? Is the crime being discounted, her story disbelieved, because of her race? It seems that the artist wants each viewer to draw her or his own conclusion, leaving the exhibit with previous beliefs and assumptions about American society perhaps not quite as intact as before. THE LORNA SIMPSON EXHIBIT will be on display at the University Museum of Art through Dec.2. Tiny Lights Prayer for the Halcyon Fear Absolute a Go Go In 1986, a friend of mine was kind enough to give me a copy of Prayer for the Halcyon Fear by a then-unknown band called Tiny Lights. Listening to the album was an ethereal experience as well as an enjoyable one. The band has since gone on to re- lease two other masterpieces and tour extensively - violin, cello, energy and all. Because of their unique ap- proach to rock (How many bands do you know that use violin and cello as an advantage, not a hindrance? And yes, anything by E.L.O. consti- tutes a hindrance, if not an atrocity.), Tiny Lights has garnered critical ac- claim. In other words, people are fi- nally figuring out who they are. Not a lot of people, but more than in 1985, when the album was origi- nally released. So their label got smart and re-released their first al- bum with two additional tracks to start it off. The entire album is stirring. The lead track, "Flowers in the Air" is mellow but infectious. Jane Scarpan- toni's cello-playing is mesmerizing to lay listeners and those in the biz as well. (Scarpantoni is also the per- son behind the mournful string sounds onBob Mould's Workbook.) Donna Croughn's vocals come See RECORDS, Page 7 _. r - - .,. + .y_ _ r WRITE FOR ARTS!!! CALL 763-0379!!!! I CLASSIFIED ADS I i : Our 20th Anniversary Sale November711 Copies. 990 Color Copies kinko's the copy center e Open 24 Hours 540 E. Liberty 761-4539 Open 24 Hours 1220 S. University Open 7 Days 747-9070 Michigan Union 662-1222 2W price is for black & white,8W x 11, autofed copies on 20# bond. 99 copies are81A x 11, Canon laser copies. Every Thursday 6-9pm is STUDENT "IIPPY HOUR LIVE BAND! NO COVER!* AT THE 25 cent beer or ._ ,. . __