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About What's happening. (Eugene, OR) 1982-1993 | View Entire Issue (July 30, 1987)
■CINEMA Review: Full Metal Jacket Kubrick’s latest statement on war by Lois Wadsworth Genius filmmaker Stanley Kubrick follows a young recruit through the treacherous moral quagmire of Parris Island to the bloody combat zone of Vietnam to show us the final product of our civilization—a killer Marine. Director Stanley Kubrick always knows what he’s doing. So, when the sadistic drill sergeant names a green enlistee “Private Joker,” it’s a sort of, you know, private joke. The head-shaving scene is as fun ny as this film gets, but Kubrick lingers just long enough on the mounds of hair piled on the floor at the end to bring up the collec tive images of death camps and prisoners of war he wants us to think about. Brain-washing techniques rein forced by group pressures, fear of ridicule, and physical punishment work equally well in prisons, forced labor camps, concentration camps, and military boot camps. Gunnery Sgt. Hartman’s job, as he sees it, is to turn these worthless obscenities into Marines. He's eager to strip away their former identities, glad to obliterate their personalities, overjoyed to turn individuals with souls into de humanized killing machines. It’s his job. Kubrick explores the Marines’ special twist of instilling a deep seated enmity toward all that is soft, vulnerable, or, God forbid! feminine, in the male psyche. Trite to say, this hatred of the feminine within finds an easy outlet, as evi denced by their childish, vulgar sing-song chants and later, in country, by their crudity with the Vietnamese prostitutes they use. Sgt. Hartman assigns Pvt. Joker a big, soft, dumb guy to train, one “Private Pyle” (after Gomer of TV fame) who can’t even make up his bed, much less climb hurdles. The verbal and physical abuse heaped on Pyle’s weak ego is unrelenting and builds toward an inevitably brutal and shocking climax. Switch. We’re in Nam with Joker, who’s now got a cushy job as a journalist for Stars and Stripes dishing out euphemisms and outright lies, when the Tet offensive begins. He gets to Hue on a helicopter with a crazed gun ner, connects with old Parris Island buddies, and meets a hard ened killer called Animal Mother who challenges him, John Wayne style, to put up or shut up. Joker's still trying to wisecrack his way through the war. His helmet announces BORN TO KILL, while the peace-button he wears over his heart makes a state ment “about the duality of man, a Jungian idea.” But, of course, Joker can’t have it both ways. The battle scenes are brilliantly de signed, death is graphically slow and painful, remorse and grief are absent, and only murderous revenge flowers in these killing fields. Kubrick’s parallels between the cadenced chants shouted during training and the final scene as the battle-weary troops trudge past the wasted landscape of the city toward the river at sunset singing The Mickey Mouse Club theme song is his final irony. These American fighting men are the most deliberately unsympathetic ever brought to the screen by anyone in any war movie. Many will see Full Metal Jacket only as a great war movie—which it is— and not as a bitter, black essay on how easy it is to be born to kill. Terrific performances from Mat thew Modine as Joker, Vincent D’Onofrio as Gomer Pyle, and Lee Ermey as the drill sergeant enliven the boot camp half of the film. Adam Baldwin is the spec tacular brute Animal Mother in the Nam sequences. People will be talking about this movie for years. Critics will pick it apart and castigate Kubrick because he didn't make a different film. Lots of folks will see it and go home and run their “Ollie For President” banners up the flag pole. But some of us will think about what we’ve seen and will re main troubled by Kubrick’s vision of the institutionalization of the killer instinct and what that means for our world. U3 30g0022s8n2r KKKKKXXAALKKKEA L o i i a in Y • a s SWIMMING s s CAMEODA A JeNATHAE I EM Mt PICTUNEE 21 Fr-Sat 7:30 & 9.30 / Sun-Thur 7900 * 9001Bargain Miaanee 4 pm $3 "AMAZING... TwO ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UPP Siskel a Etan a Tht Movies E ‘...Hlaricus, horrilying and mesmerizing; it’s an evening that’s over only too soon. Director Jonathan Demme l 9 (Stop Making Sanaa) choreographs the Miming of Gray's ruminations - a sprawling lour through Gray’s magplel mind ha recounts various wonts occuring during the "ming of 1 or* The KMng Tielde" - so that H soong a to fly by, an Musion helped by wizardly editing and mysterious musical effects by Laurie Anderson." (9 Gan. Adm $4 / Students w/ID KKKKEEKECom 1.50 / Meer /Free al KZEL 96 PRESENTS BIJOU LATE NIGHT l = __~__ H kt’s bettor on the big screen late at night! £ LONE WEEK ONLY' Frl. July 31-Thur. Aug.6E R i l I i 11 M 6 THe ULTIMATE IN LATE NIGHT HORROR 1 “The greatest drive-in horror Ack of '86...snake J fish, insect heads, protoglopola slime monsters..’ an 87 on the Vomit Meter," Joe Bob Briggs, , Drivo-in nwio critic of Grapovino, Toxas I Fri-Sat 11:30/Sun-Thuri100 $2.50 ‘ xtOU GEC IS FORTUNE - Bette Midleri JADEPALACE CANTONESE & SZECHUAN CUISINE Professional Wok Cooking W DINNER SPECIAL $3.75 After 3 pm Buffet Lunch • All You Can Eat Mon.-Fri. 12:00-1:30 $3.95 906 W. 7th & Blair • 344-9523 Av D D A _GROr (rPAOOXN 5 FOURTH ANNUAL - ICE CREAM SOCIAL y & POWDERMILK , "BISCUIT BAKE-OFF Sunday August 2 3 to 5 pm Petersen Park Barn Corner of Bertelsen and Royal 7 FREE ADMISSION! ICE CREAM! SOFTDRINKS! Live music by SHUMBA ^^19.7 FM CrncrO FCKLETS Eugene’s Own Gourmet Ice Cream • 4th Annual Powdermilk Biscuit Bake-Off (Entries Due 1-2 pm) • KLCC General Store • Call 726-2224 for details. CINEMA 7 “Remarkable. Witty. Incandescent" —Molly Haskel. “See it by all means”—Newsday 0 Premier— July 31-Aug. 6. Shows Fri & Sat 7:30 & 9:30. Sun, Tues thru Thurs 8 pm. Monday 7 & 9 pm. Sunday Bargain Matinee 4:30 pm and All Shows Mon $3. Otzur ofthe JSlar IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII This brilliant, f award winning - story of a very unorthodox heroine is one of the year’s best films. Not to be missed. WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE SMILING? They’ve Just Given The Gift of Life. Donating blood plasma is a life sav ing gift. Plus you get paid $10 for each donation (you can make as many as eight every month). It’s safe, easy, healthful. Under medi cal supervision. Call for appt. This ad worth $5 for first donation; new donors only. EUGENE PLASMA CORP. 1071 OLIVE ST. 484-2241 POPULAR MECHANICS. west side FOREIGN AUTO L Maintenance & Repair * 1069 W. 3rd 484-4930 now showing NEW TO TOWN From Beyond: An adaptation of an H.P. Love craft tale, this horror movie by Stuart Gordon has exceptionally bizarre special effects. It starts Fri day as the late-night feature at the Bijou (686-2458). Hour of the Star: With humor and a keen eye for its times, this film brings to the screen a novel by the famous Brazilian writer, Clarice Lispector. Starts Friday at Cinema 7 (687-0733). The Living Daylights: Two firsts are in this new James Bond flick: Timothy Dalton now plays Agent 007, and he is involved with a new intrigue—mo nogamy. Fantasy/adventure. Starts Friday at Movieland (342-4142). The Lost Boys: A new twist in the annals of vampire stories, it combines rock and roll with ter ror. With Jami Gertz, Dianne Wiest and Edward Herrmann, starts its regular run Friday at the Na tional (344-3431). Maid to Order: Ally Sheedy goes from riches to rags. Co-stars Beverly D'Angelo, Michael Ont kean and Valerie Perrine. Comedy. Starts Friday at Movieland (342-4142). CONTINUING/RETURNING Adventures In Babysitting: Elisabeth Shue finds more than a calm evening of childcare. Springfield Quad (726-9073). La Bamba: Lou Diamond Phillips and Esai Morales star in this re-creation of the life of Richie Valens, a late-'50s rock star who died in a plane crash at the peak of his career. Los Lobos pro vides many of the musical numbers. Cinema World (342-6536). Beverly Hills Cop II: As off-beat cop Axel Foley, Eddie Murphy laughs again. Brigitte Nielsen plays villainess. Movieland (342-4142). Dragnet 1987: Dan Aykroyd portrays the nephew of “Just-the-Facts” Sergeant Friday, and Tom Hanks plays his side-kick, in a spoof of the TV series. Cinema World (342-6536). Full Metal Jacket: The long-awaited Stanley (2001) Kubrick film, it never lets up revealing the mindlessness and brutality of war, climaxing at the 1968 Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War. McDonald (344-4343). Innerspace: In this science fiction comedy about a secret government project, Dennis Quaid plays a macho brute reduced to miniature, then injected into grocery clerk Martin Short. Cinema World (342-6536). Jaws, the Revenge: Michael Caine and Lor raine Gary appear in this fourth man vs. shark thriller. This time, it’s a personal vendetta against the humans remaining from other Jaws adven tures. Moves Friday to Springfield Quad (726-9073). RoboCop: Sci-fi comedy about a cyborg employed to clean up on Detroit lowlife. With Peter Weller, it's graphically violent, satirizes l v news casts, and is more than comix brought to life. Movieland (342-4142) and Springfield Quad (726-9073). Roxanne: Steve Martin, with the longest nose since Pinocchio, and Daryl Hannah star in a modem-day comedy based on the story of Cyrano de Bergerac. Cinema World (342-6536). Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Heigh ho! This re-release of the 1937 technicolor Disney classic is at Movieland (342-4142) and Springfield Quad (726-9073). The Squeeze: Romantic comedy-thriller with Michael Keaton and Rae Dawn Chong. Double feature starting Friday with Whitewater Summer at Springfield Fine Arts (747-2201). Summer School: Mark Harmon, whom People dubbed "the sexiest man alive," plays a phys-ed teacher who has to spend his summer with remedial readers. Valley River Twin (686-8633) and Springfield Quad (726-9073). Superman IV: The Quest for Peace: Chris topher Reeve again plays the Man of Steel, up against Nuclear Man. Gene Hackman plays a villain, with Margot Kidder as Lois Lane, and Mariel Hemingway. Movieland (342-4142). Swimming to Cambodia: By Jonathan Demme (Stop Making Sense, Something Wild), it brings to the screen the stage monologue by Spalding Gray, about his role in The Killing Fields and other topics. Music by Laurie Anderson. Bijou (686-2458). The Untouchables: Robert De Niro, Kevin Costner and Sean Connery revisit the Al Capone era of Chicago in the 1930s. Brian De Palma directs. Valley River Twin (686-8633). White Water Summer: Kevin Bacon and Sean Astin brave the rapids in this comedy adventure. Double feature starting Friday with The Squeeze at Springfield Fine Arts (747-2201). Thursday, July 30 is the last showing for: Opera Do Malandro at Cinema 1. Three Amigos late-night feature at the Bijou. Space Balls and Revenge of the Nerds 2 at Movieland. Platoon and The Believers double feature at Springfield Fine Arts. Jaws at the National.
