Oly, Oly, Oly, Oly, Overview

The Cooper Point Journal Volume 10, Issue 20 (April 22, 1982)

Some thoughts on what’s currently showing around town while waiting for Das Boat to make its Olywa debut.

For whodunit fans and those who, like myself, have always shied away from the genre for being insipid and/or for having a too obvious solution, I recommend Deathtrap. Translated to film by Director Sidney Lumet from Ira Levin’s hit Broadway play, Deathtrap is a neat little production. True to the best spirit of the genre all the necessary info is presented to the audience to enable s/ he to second-guess the action. All the same, it would be surprising if even the most die-hard mystery fanatics and armchair sleuths don’t get tripped up at least a few times by this one. Michael Caine, Dyan Cannon and Christopher Reeve (who in one fell swoop has permanently shed his Superman persona here) all turn in respectable performances as they drop double and triple entendres in this fabulously multileveled plot. It’s mindless, yes, but amusing, and it makes Agatha Christie look like a bungling nine year old. It beats 16 games of Pacman for its price.

Richard Pryor fans have two new movies to see: Live on Sunset Strip and Some Kind of Hero. They are both disappointing, but for different reasons. The Live show (filmed on two consecutive nights in LA) is reminiscent of Lenny Bruce nightclub footage a year or so before his death. Pryor appears to have peaked out. He has slowed down a few steps and his face is as puffy as an old boxer’s (though there is no sign of burn scars from his infamous freebasing episode.) Pryor’s humor in Live is muted and less speculative than Bruce’s, while his delivery is more fluid and coherent. It is touching to hear him talk about his real and very troubled life, a life in which comedy is his religion: something of a hope born of despair. The last thing I should wish to do is ring Pryor’s death knell prematurely but the sad fact is that the true guffaws are few and far between in Live.

The trouble with his other movie, Some Kind of Hero, is that it doesn’t know if it is supposed to be a slap-stick comedy or a socially relevant piece. Consequently it is neither one nor the other. The plot (a Vietnam POW comes home to an unfaithful wife, a crippled mother and a recalcitrant Army bureaucracy which refuses to give him his back pay– thus forcing him to bungle his way into the world of crime and, ultimately, a confrontation with the mob) is unbelievable; the actors (Pryor and Margot Kidder) one dimensional. The sight gags are pretty good though and, in total, Hero supplies more laughs than Live.

One movie you should be sure to miss is Chariots of Fire. Had it not won Best Picture a few weeks ago at the Academy Awards, and so raising our expectations, Chariots would have been innocuous enough. As it is though, Chariots is the worst “Best Picture” in recent memory. Pedantic, dated, Chariots is two-plus hours of religious invective leaving one with the impression that a better title might have been Chariots of the Cads. Really, who cares about the 1920 Olympics? Not me; nor you, I trust, should you be foolish enough to waste your time and money on this one. It’s sappy, from the soft-focus photography to the maudlin musical score by electronic keyboard whiz Vangelis. Chariots is just one bloody long bore.

While I have my rapier-like wit unsheathed, a few words about Vangelis. Some 15 years ago he was breaking new ground in the classical/ rock scene with his seminal band Aphrodite’s Child (does anyone out there remember their LP “666” ?). Later he did some lovely work with Jon Anderson of Yes, generating rumors about Vangelis replacing Rick Wakeman after Yes‘ disastrous Tales from Topographic Oceans tour. Instead Vangelis took to composing soundtracks for the cinema. His first scores (for such disparate films as L’Apocalypse Des Animals and Triumph) were powerful; stunning in scope and marked by some imaginative atonal structuring. These days though Vangelis has apparently succumbed to the banality of Hollywood with uninspired work in Missing and Chariots. He’d be better off splicing together Aphrodite’s Child tracks as he seems incapable of (or unwilling to) rekindle the old flames of creativity. One would hope this is a passing phase but the pressures (in the guise of big bucks, increased air play and more awards) are strong for Vangelis to continue spewing out the same mush as of late.

Back to the movies. Horror-movie freaks also have a couple of films to check out in town this week. Cat People (a remake of the ’42 movie of the same name) and American Werewolf in London are showing on a twin-bill at the Olympic. Both films are full of blood and guts and sex. Werewolf is at times an amusing spoof on the classic full-moon scam while Cat People highlights the incredibly seductive Nastassia Kinski. The symbolism in Cat People is drawn with such a heavy hand one winds up laughing whenever not being grossed out.

And lastly, by far the best movie buy this week goes down at TESC’s own Lecture Hall 1 on Friday night, April 23, at 7 and 9:30. At that time Francois Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player will be shown. Charles Aznavour is excellent as the piano player/concert pianist in what has been called an existential tragicomedy. Truffaut himself has described Player, as a “respectful pastiche of the Hollywood B-film” -but whatever– it is it displays a wild scene of comedy and is pictorially a magnificent accomplishment. One is reminded of Roman Polanski’s CuI De Sac which is my way of saying Player should not be missed. It’s a good deal at $4-for $1.25 it cannot be beat!