.., _ MMUMP ftgwtwmi)au TJ. Kirk are jazz captains ,T.L Kirk, who get their name from Thelonious Monk, James Brown and Rashean Roland Kirk, swing the evening away tonight at 7th House in Pontlac. Their fresh blend of jazz and funk is a sure crowd pleaser. Be a part of that crowd - tickets are a steal at $8, and doors open at 9 p.m. Call 810-335-8100 for more information. ,-C Page 10' Friday, September 29. 1995" I 'Search' destro s all other co Walken, Turturro make emost of film's bizarre By Ted Watts Daily Arts Writer Write about what you know. That's what writers are always told to do. Movie people have found that to be true as well. Artsy movies about mak- ing movies keep coming out. These include "The Player," "Barton Fink" and now "Search and Destroy." Like those films, "Search and De- stroy" uses the movie industry as a backdrop. In this case, Hollywood life is really sublimated by the events surrounding Martin Mirkheim's (Grif- fin Dunne) attempt to break into the business. There is nothing too inex- plicable in this film, as in "Barton Fink," but there remains a certain ab- normal quirkiness which moves be- yond the fairly realistic "The Player." A4fter the opening credits, the movie begins with a shot of Dr. Luther Waxling (Dennis Hopper) on a televi- sion, speaking about his four -ules of success. Behind the TV is a yellow background, the first of many terrible early '70s solid color zones that are used to punctuate especially bizarre moments in the movie. The color scheme implies a certain cartoonishness in the same way the movie "Dick Tracy" did. It makes especially hard to swallow scenes more palatable. When the film gets to a less color- Search and r-"",._ Destroy Directed by David Salle; with Griffin Dunne and Christopher Walken At The Michigan Theater fully horrific scene, we encounter Martin, a small time Florida enter- tainment producer (i.e. he puts on circuses) who is at an IRS audit. Mar- tin is full of nauseating self-improve- ment phrases that he has picked up from Waxling's various products. Especially important to Martin is Waxling's book "Daniel Strong," which is basically an adventure story with certain other elements. The film occasionally cuts away to scenes from "Daniel Strong," which can be a bit disconcerting. The sud- den appearance of a naked woman wearing mime makeup while the Daniel Strong character fondles the clay breasts of a sculpture he is mak- ing in the mountains just isn't what you'd expect. These types of stylistic elements create the bizarre undercur- rents of the film which give the im- pression that something is a bit odd while at the same time the oddity is not entirely graspable. Martin is so effected by "Daniel Strong" that he decides he wants to make a movie of it (and makes the viewer see the periodic whacked out asides to Strongland). He flies to Dal- las to try to convince Waxling to al- low him to make the movie. At the same time, he becomes entangled with Waxling's secretary, Marie (Ileana Douglas, a.k.a. Mrs. Martin Scorsese). Dennis Hopper plays Waxling in his standard Hopper style, although mellowed a slight bit. Waxling isn't evil, or even essentially bad, so Hopper's standard acting has been altered slightly to fit the role, much like in "True Romance." Of course, in "True Romance" Den- nis Hopper and Christopher Walken tangled, so we must then consider Walken's character in "Search and Destroy." As Kim Ulander, Walken gives a fairly straightforward Walken performance. He is a businessman in a dark suit and is playing with an incomplete deck of marbles. This seems to be due to his devotion to "Daniel Strong," equal in strength to Martin's but not as good-natured. While Ulander carries his obsessions to the opposite extreme of Martin's, it for this reason that the two are thrown ntenders undercurrents so strongly together. Walken was born to play socio- paths and his casting here is as sure as it has been anywhere else. His com- mand of gesture and deadpan facial expression make him effective in most any role he plays. You may assume, though, that he'd probably have prob- lems playing a genuinely happy char- acter. Ileana Douglas's portrayal of Marie is effective in presenting a slightly malleable horror movie writer aspir- ant. She works well with Dunne's Martin, giving his rather aimless char- acter a solid base against which to be defined. Having their destinies tied so closely to each other keeps the movie from being a dismal "Death of a Salesman" clone. It might even qualify the film to be considered a mutation, because the originally pa- thetic Martin does evolve. For about an hour, "Search and De- stroy" bounces along before you real- ize that it's been an hour. Then things slow down sufficiently for the end to be eagerly awaited. And, thankfully, it comes along in a sufficiently short period of time. In the end, this film is underground enough to allow you to talk about it with your film major buddies and not feel bad about it. So go on, you've seen "Pulp Fic- tion" enough already. v An animated conversation with Ren and Stimpy creator John By Ted Watts Daily Arts Writer Recall, if you will, a cartoon show named "Ren and Stimpy." You may remember that it was very good. It was produced by a company named Spumco, until Nickelodeon execu- tives decided that they didn't like Spumco and so fired them. Spumco still exists, even though they no longer make "Ren and Stimpy." And its president is still John Kricfalusi (or John K.), the cartoonist who created the angry dog and the stupid cat. Spumco has just put out a comic book written and drawn by the Spumco staff, entitled "Comic Book." The first issue features the adventures of Jimmy the Idiot Boy as he searches for turtle food. So how does a cartoon crafter leap to direct comic book mak- ing? "Mort Todd, a guy at Marvel (Com- ics), a comic book artist, writer and editor, called me up," said John K. "He's a friend of mine. And he said 'Hey, you know 'Ren and Stimpy Com- ics' are selling, and those are imitations of what the show is. Why don't you do something with your animation artists for us?' So I said OK. We'd just gotten fired, we needed a job. We took one of the characters from the 'Ren and Stimpy Show,' George Liquor, (and put him in it.)" That's right, Nickelodeon relin- quished rights to George Liquor to Spumco. "They never really liked the character because they're a bunch of i v bastard."' Fortunately, Spumco will not let the character die. "('The Goddamned George Liquor Show') was in develop- ment (for TV), now it's in development for a feature. 'The Ripping Friends' (another feature) is kind of on the back burner. We want to do another feature first because 'The Ripping Friends' is just too manly to attempt as your first feature. We have to do a lot of working out first." Kricfalusi also spoke ofhow Spumco has had some trouble getting their work going. "Hollywood does not want to entertain people, they just want to take their money. So we keep running into this problem here of everytime we de- velop something with somebody, they want to ruin it, they want to change it into something it isn't. So we're sitting around, scratching our heads trying to figure out how to get our stuff just the way people like it on the screen. One way is to get the characters popularized in other mediums. So we have the comic book, and that's why we started the toy company. We're making these weird toys. We have this line of talking butt toys. Pull the string out of their butts. Pull a string out of George Liquor, Talking Man, and he says 'What are you doing back there?' or 'Look me in the eye when you do that.' Which is backwards thinking, but that's the way Hollywood is." But Spumco seems to be on track now. With toys in production and mul- tiple things in development (including Kricfalusi "Brick Blast Off From the Outback,0 which is about "a real rugged manli' captain of the space police who lives. 400 billion years from now"), these-" rebel cartoonists seem set to take thb- world by storm. "Comic Book" seems to be full of interesting stuff. "We have a story called 'Nutty the Friendly Dump.' We also have another story. called 'Weekend Pussy Hunt.' That's my favorite one... It's a film noir story about a dog and a cat, and the horrible things the cat goes through. It's really gripping." John K. and Spumco are working towards a better cartoon world through the creation of interesting stuff. When was the last time you made some inter- esting stuff? John K. said to "tell all the univer- sity girls to come out and see me. Smart ones, with big brown eyes.. He'd probably accept everyone else, too. He's going to be doing an appear- ance at Dave's Comics in Royal Oak tonight from 7-9. Call (810)548-1230, for info. He's also going to be at the Gibraltar Comic Con as well, on Fri- day, Saturday and Sunday. Call (313) 287-2000 for details. And finally, John K. said he'd be at Lili's Bar in Hamtramck in the next few nights to. just talk with people. Call (313) 875- 6555 for directions or to see if they know anything about it. You can also contact Spumco at spumcoinc@aol.com and complain to them or give them your credit card numbers or whatever. TNe berened and smoKing jacket-clad George Uquor Is Just one of te demented creations of Jonn Krcaii . left wing, ex-hippie, drugged out hippie ladies that went corporate. They don't like Republicans. They don't like men is what that comes down to. George Liquor represents all that's good and bad in men." John K. continued to explain the char- acter: "George Liquor's kinda like my dad. There's a lot of my dad in him. A lot of everybody's dad, probably. You know how dads love you, but at the same time they've got to teach you discipline? 'Gonna raise you right. I'm gonna raise you hard. I'm gonna love ya son, but I'm gonna love you haaard. Ain't gonna be no kind of pansy love, either. You'll know you've been loved when I get through lovin' ya. Little You've heard of HIV, but do you know about HV? Hepatitis B Virus (HV) is 100 times more contagious than HIV, with 240,000 new infections occuring each year. 75% of all cases occur among 15-39 year olds. ® IThere is good news: you can be immunized against Hepatitis 8... Iy -.4 " L p f 4, October 2-13 Why Risk It? The UHS Allergy & Immunization Clinic is offering Hepatitis B immunizations to UM students at i I