8 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, February 16, 1994
'Ventura' lacks substance
By JOHANNA FLIES
A guy biting another guy is funny. Jokes about little
dicks are funny. Falling off roofs is funny. If you are nine.
Or drunk. Or both. There is a definite limit to the humor
that can be squeezed out of a story about a detective with
a wacky hairdo, even if said detective searches for lost
pets and wears striped pants with flowered shirts.
On par with the ever-popular Police Academy series,
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
Directed by Tom Shadyac; written by Jack
Bernstein and Tom Shadyac & Jim Carrey; with
Jim Carrey, Sean Young and Courtney Cox.
"Ace Ventura: Pet Detective," has the requisite football
star playing himself, the endearingly zany yet amazingly
sharp-witted main character and the beautiful, well-pro-
portioned female sidekick who, for some reason, finds the
hero too damn kooky to resist. Jim Carrey, the white guy
from "In Living Color" who is known to "get a little
crazy," has the dubious honor of bringing Ace to life on
the big screen. A finder of disturbingly ugly lost animals,
Ace is called on by the Miami Dolphins to find their
kidnapped mascot, Snowflake, before the Super Bowl.
When quarterback Dan Marino is taken hostage as well,
things get pretty dicey. With the help of Dolphins' em-
ployee Melissa (Courtney Cox), Ace uncovers a horrible
"kill Dan" plot and gets laid in the process.
Carrey's antics, meant to be the crowning feature of
this flick, are for the most part lame. OK, so his hair sticks
out all over the place and wow, he can make a funny face
when he yuks it up and neat-o, he can bend over and make
it look like his butt is asking for a mint. But there are just
so many times a person can joke about his penis before you
want to chop it off. Granted, there are a few funny parts in
the movie: one is that Tone-Loc is arguably the best actor
in the cast. Another is Carrey's impersonation of "Star
Trek" characters (which can just as easily be seen on old
episodes of "Saturday Night Live") and yet another is the
spoof on "The Crying Game," which, replete with Boy
George's song, deserves a grin or two until it goes
overboard with homophobic references. However, those
three gems are not quite enough to push the rest of the
hijinks over the top.
Considering that director Tom Shadyac was once a
joke writer for Bob Hope, "Ace Ventura" is, in a twisted
way, somewhat of an accomplishment. Heck, if the pro-
duction designer's resume isn't impressive enough, Sean
Young in dirty gray underwear certainly should be. There
was one spark of genius in this film, however, that cannot
go unnoted. Mrs. Finkle, some dude's mother, says, "Dan
Marino should get gonorrhea and suffer in hell." The
words themselves might be empty, but the delivery is
unbelievable. That utterance alone might be worth suffer-
ing through the rest of the show but better take a book in
case you get bored. Better yet, take a bunch of fifth
graders. They'll let you know when to guffaw and kick the
person in front of you. It'll be a scream.
ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE is playing at the
State Theater.
The life of a New York City subway operator can be quite daring as a Daily Arts staffer discovered. IViI~UL 1Iti/uaIIy
Motorwoman on the subway.
By MICHAEL BARNES
In many ways the subway is the
life of New York City. It takes you
anywhere you want to go, from the
East Village to the Bronx, 24 hours a
day, seven days a week. A model of
urban efficiency? Many New York-
ers would laugh at this description
maligning the subway system as a
dangerous, rat-infested hellhole. We
get a frightening somewhat paranoid
picture of the subway system, from
lascivious bureaucrats and deranged
killers to malodorous bums, through
the eye of Motorwoman Helen
McGrail, captain of the A line.
Daily: Could you describe to us
your job as a motorwoman?
Helen McGrail: I drive a train,
basically that's what I do is stop and
go. You have a throttle and a break
valve and you open and close the
break valve to apply or release the
brakes.
Daily: In your opinion is the New
York City subway system relatively
safe?
HM: No. It is not a fail-safe sys-
tem operation wise; that is why you
have so many draggings, accidents,
derailments. It's not so much what
happens but the potential of what could
happen.
Daily: Could you elaborate'?
HM: Well, there are curves that
have no signals or stopping devices to
slow us down before we derail. As in
the case of Rocko Ray, he was evi-
dently asleep. I don't believe he was
drunk.
Daily: Who is Rocko Ray?
HM: Rocko Ray was the motor-
man who derailed the Number 4 train
at Union Square. It happened August
28, 1991. He survived ... but five
people were killed and 205 people
injured.
Daily: How safe is the subway
from crime?
HM: We have shootings every
day on the subway. It is not as bad as
it was. They corrected that - they
have a lot of police down there.
Daily: Are there any precautions
to keep people from bringing guns
into the subway?
HM: There are no precautions
from people bringing guns into the
subway. Your best safety is to be
alert. You can not have a policeman
on every car of every train. They
cannot be there when the crime is
going down.
Daily: Have you ever witnessed a
homicide?
HM: I've had people mugged on
my train. Stuart Abramowitz (a sub-
way conductor) was shot in the throat
trying to help someone.
Daily: Could you explain the inci-
dent?
HM: There was estranged lovers
and the girl went to the conductor for
help. The lover shot the girl and the
bullet went into Stuart's throat and
severed his spinal column and now he
is a quadriplegic and he got fired by
Transit because he could no longer do
his job. Transit holds no allegiance
for us. They do not protect us. They
do not care about us.
Daily: I take it you have problems
with the bureaucracy?
HM: My husband and I refer to
them as kneeholes ... they work a
kneehole to get their position, kind of
like the casting couch.
Daily: A knee hole ... It's a peg
going into a hole?
HM: Use your imagination.
Daily: Other problems the sub-
way system faces?
HM: Right now there is a bo
homeless problem on the subway.
People turnaround and say that transit
isn't doing enough to help the home-
less, but excuse me, our name is tran-
sit not social service. We are trains.
We are not mobile hotels.
Daily: I've heard homeless people
sleep on the tracks. Have you ever
run any one over?
HM: No. I've seen them raci
across the tracks and scampering
around. It's hard to tell difference
between them and the rats. The home-
less are going to crawl into any space
or form. You can't fault them for that.
We can not be responsible for them
and we get very callous. I have kicked
people away from my position be-
cause I couldn't operate because of
their smell.
Daily: What kind of smell? 0
HM: Lots of them are rotting flesh.
Homeless people have gangrene.
Their meat is falling off their bones. I
mean they get in such a state of decay
that they are walking death and you
can smell this decay.
So if chance finds you in New
York this spring break, check out the
subway system. As Lou Reed sings
about the city itself, the tunnels b
neath the ground seem "something
like a circus or a sewer."
Jim Carney carries his goof-ball comedic approach a little far in the horrendous "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective"
At least little Mac's not around
By ALEXANDRA TWIN
I really like Anna Chlumsky. She'd be the coolest little
sister. She'd never grab the phone from you when you
were talking to your dearly beloved and start making
unidentifiable noises with her tongue. She'd never tell on
you when you smacked her around. In fact, you wouldn't
want to smack her around, even though the first rule in the
My Girl 2
Directed by Howard Kieff; with Anna
Chlumsky and Austin O'Brien.
"Book Of Older Siblings" demands it. Any one as smart,
sweet, tough, funny and original as that would inspire
secret confidences, not secret bashings. A natural actor,
she's got the skill to play Heidi, Lolita, Pippi
Longstockings, the little match girl and that cool little
sister all in the span of one hopefully not too over-exposed
childhood and that's pretty damn impressive.
Yes, I know that I'm supposed to hate this film. I know
it's hokey, it's a sequel, and Mac was in the first one, but
I don't care. I like it. And so should you.
What other child actor could ask questions as standard
as "Dad, how do you know if a boy likes you?" and make
it sound as if she actually cares what the answer is? She is
the complete antithesis of Macaulay Culkin, her "My
Girl" co-star, who's character was considerate enough to
die before he detracted too much from the first film (and
while we're on the subject, I hope that the little nutcracker
is soon whisked up by a large tornado and deposited
somewhere in the foothills of France where they appreci-
ate Jerry Lewis and other such oddities). But back to
Anna. Check out the scene where she's watching her dead
mother singing, via home movies. Watch her face, her
expressions. Well, if that doesn't warm the cockles of
your heart, then you must be any other "Daily" film
reviewer than me. Never mind that the Marilyn look-alike
who plays mama in this one looks nothing like that wispy,
anemic girl who played her in the first one, the scene is
great and so is Anna. What can I say? She's just cool.
The rest of the film is, well, as one critic put it, "the
dumbest idea for a sequel since Texasville." Little Veda
(Anna Chlumsky) is assigned a report on someone s*
admires but has never met, by her not-Griffin-Dunne-yet-
same-character poetry teacher. She picks mom. Awwww.
How sweet. Trouble is, mom's from L.A. and dad doesn't
remember too much about her. So, what are you gonna do?
Why, send the 13-year-old to L. A., of course! Luckily
enough, uncle Phil's just moved there and is all equipped
with a lesson in family values and a brand new, durable,
5' by 6", 13-year-old almost step-son, who can be used as
a sidekick, a love interest, a brotherly figure and a source
of realistic conflict when the plot gets too farfetched. Thb
streetwise Nick is played by the actually pretty capabl
Austin O'Brien, the kid from "The Last Action Hero."
(No, we didn't see it either).
As ridiculous as it sounds, with his lanky physique,
long-swinging '70s hairdo, and odd "street-like" way of
talking, O'Brien is vaguely reminiscent of Gary Oldman
in "State of Grace." But there's where the similarity
between this film and any one that attempted to come up
with an original plot ends. Veda and the Nickster traipse
about the city, looking for info on dead mom.
In their search, they encounter many old pals of her*
including poor Richard "West Side Story was my only
chance and I blew it" Beymar, who plays an, oh-my-God,
superficial Hollywood director. Who'da thunk? Yet, no
one's particularly helpful until they run into cabin boy
Jeffrey, mom's first real love, before meeting Dan Aykroyd,
the man of her (and Jenny Craig's) dreams.
Well, shockingly enough, the ending is happy, poi-
gnant and even insightful. So, I'm not gonna spoil it and
give it away to the two people who haven't figured it out
already.
I know that this is not a great film. I know it's hokey,
a sequel, and little Mac was in the first one. But I don't
care, I like it. And Anna Chlumsky's in it. And she is an
actor who you're going to be hearing a lot more about in
the future. Although hopefully not for her work in "My
Girl 3."
MY GIRL 2 is playing at Briarwood and Showcase.
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