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Page 16- The Michigan Daily - Friday, July 13, 1984
Streets Savaged by Linda Blair
By Dennis Harvey
T HIS HAS BEEN a depressingly
poor summer for really good movie
trash. Some.decent gloating could be
done over the visually exuberant and
impressively senseless Streets of Fire,
the papier-mache spectacle of Conan
the Destroyer, and that junior high joke
festival Bachelor Party. But those films
are jokily aware of just how dumb they
are. There has been a real need for
something unapologetically, genuinely
inane.
And here it is at last! Linda Blair has
been working up a track record for
memorable entertainments for several
years, ranking increasingly alongside
ANN ARBOR
IDVIDUAL TEATRES1
5. A eoflb" 161"I9700
DAILY MATINEES
DAILY 1:00 P.M. SHOWS $2.00
PMRRE GERARD
PR D DEPRDEM
At byFRANCSVEBER
CMPE-RES
FRI. 1:00, 7:10, 9:10, 11 P.M.
SAT. 1:10, 3:10, 5:10, 7:10, 9:10,11 P.M.
SUN. 1:10, 3:10, 5:10,7:10, 9:10
"A CONSISTENTLY
HILARIOUS MOVIE'
NhouseNewspapers
MOVIE? WHAT MOVIE?
TOP
FRI.1:0 7:20,920 11P.M.
SAT. 1:20, 3:20, 5:20, 7:20, 9:20,11 P.M.
SUN. 1:20 3:20 5:20, 7:20, 9:20
historical figures like Mamie Van ATTITUDE toward people and mistake-the first and most protracted
Doren and Annette Funicello in con- things-namely, WANT/TAKE/ piece of violence is sentimentally
sistently delivering the very finest in DESTROY. stacked (the victim is a deaf-mute, who
grade-B melodrama. First there was Meanwhile, Linda and her racially in- seems to have been directed to act like
the hilarious Exorcist II: The Heretic, tegrated group of unquestionably cool Bambi besides) to the point of un-
then the remarkable Roller Boogie best friends are attending school, more necessary unpleasantness. Otherwise,
(representative exchange-Linda: or less. Their school is one of those the action is too comic-book to be offen-
"But I don't want to be a concert great movie institutions of inter- sive. Director Danny Steinmann keeps
violinist! That's a drag! That's a bum- mediate learning where every biology the cheap thrills hurling at us with an
mer!" Concerned Parent: "I know class anatomical chart is certain .to admirable lack of intentional humor,
what it is! It's that infernal disco have a large penis magic-markered on and of course the performances are
music!"). And last year the standard it, the principal's voice has been swell.
was maintained with Chained Heat, refined to a hoarse bark by years of There's a particularly good piece of
possibly THE most lurid among all the threatening suspension, and each class support from John Vernon as the school
lurid women's prison movies. seems to be punctuated by interludes of principal-he never delivers a line in
Further proof that Linda's choice of dancing on the desks, less than a disciplinary bark. It cer-
star vehicles shows a discerning sen- Of course, no day is complete without tainly makes the viewer quake in
sibility rare these days is her latest, a hair-pulling "Leave my boyfriend his/her boots, though naturally Linda
Savage Streets, which is currently alone, slut" fight in the girl's locker just lights a cigarette and snarls her
making horns honk at drive-ins across room. When the Scars-who, besides tough-broad snarl.
the nation. This is a wild youth movie in having no manners, are awfully touchy Blair's moral decline from film to
the grand Blackboard Jungle tradition about the slightest offense to their film has been the sort of analytically
(though owing rather more to the less egos-find reason to grow annoyed with rewarding pattern that a film-studies
respectable examples, like High School Linda and her gang, the atmosphere of major ought to write a thesis paper on
Confidential! and Teenage Doll), with wholesome adolescent hijinks grows someday. Here she's fully evolved from
the usual cast of rather mature actors ugly. A few deaths later, Linda turns in- the sweet young thing who played with
playing 16-year-olds, plenty of bad rock to Charles Bronson, because "Even the crucifixes in The Exorcist to
and roll, and consummately lowbrow cops are pussies," and obviously postadolescent hard-as-nailsdom. She
action at a pace designed for those whose something must be done. She puts on is particularly satisfying at the finale
attention span won't accommodate her black leather duds, loads up mom's when, having reduced the chief cretin
more than ten seconds of straight nice new truck with a few lethal to a whimpering handicapped status,
dialogue. weapons, and heads out to she fires a crossbow arrow just a shade
- Likewise, the plot does not demand warehouseland to personally lynch too far to the side of his cerebellum and
much expenditure of intellectual those nasty punkscumbags. sarcastically laments, "Oh my! I
energy to understand. There's this One may question just where Linda missed. And I did'so want to see you
quartet of punks (not the kind that picked up the commando manhunting bleed to death."
travel on skateboards and listen to the techniques she demonstrates at the If you've had enough of all this good
Misfits, the old kind, with switch- climax of 'Savage Streets, but clean fun currently glutting theaters
blades) called the Scars. They hang out generally the film moves too fast for and want something refreshingly
in warehouses, shove each other around doubts about narrative sense to arise. tawdry, drop everything now and see
affectionately, and have a very BAD The movie only makes one serious Savage Streets.
Stellar star show shines brightly
(Continued from Page9) dodecahedron. system, and the special effects projec-
the sky, are projected from another Needless to say, the projector is wor- tion system. Indeed, the planetarium
light source attached to the th thousands of dollars, as are the sound was closed for eight months recently
while the special effects system was
redesigned and improved.
Showings of Dark Skies Over
Michigan are Saturdays at 11 a.m., 2
p.m., and 3 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m.
and 3 p.m. Tickets for the morning
show go on sale at 9 a.m. Tickets for the
afternoon showings go on sale at 1 p.m.
The tickets are sold at the second floor
information desk and cost one dollar for
the half-hour show. And when you con-
sider that ascrappy two hour movie may
R N cost you four dollars, one dollar for this
really unique half-hour show is quite
- bargain.
The Exhibit Museum, also known as
the Natural Science Museum, is at 1109
AThCiTT7TT Geddes Avenue.
ONE NIGHT ONLY
DETROIT CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
Presents
ENG EE"TAMBOURINES
TO GLORY"
a party of comedy and song. Writers AMuicol Comedy bytonson Hughes
id cinema musicals, Betty Comden Featuring a Cast of 25 Singers
en sing their greatest hits from such and Dancers in a
PLAUSE, ON THE TWENTIETH LIVE ON-STAGE EXTRAVAGANZA
YGIN' IN THE RAIN, and ON THE SATURDAY, JULY 21
heir party, RSVP now.
8:00 P.M.
B at the Power Center Box Office. Michigan Box Office
2-7 pm 313/ 763-0950 Theatre 668-8480
-8 pm- Power Center , Reserved Seating: $7,.8.
Students & Seniors: $5, 6.
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