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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 11, 1979)
Films Photo oourtaay Columbia Picture) "California Suite 's" Walter Matthau might consider this a night to forget in a scene with a call girl (Denise Galik), thoughtfully provided by Matthau’s brother. Galik becomes slightly tipsy and overly immobile and is eventually found the next morning by Matthau's wife, played by tiaine May. California Suite Directed by Herbert Ross Valley River Twin And you thought they only raise oranges in Southern California. Wrong. If Neil Simon’s California Suite is any indication, they also raise turkeys. The ads for this film claim it is the funniest film of the new year. That’s like saying last week's rate of inflation was the lowest for the new year. California Suite is not often funny. This is the type of film after which one hears members of the audience muttering, “But it got such good reviews.” Herewith is a bad review. California Suite consists of four very separate vignettes spliced together so that we don’t have a chance to become too bored at any one time with any particular vignette. Two vignettes deal with ‘serious” aduR relationships — Simon attempts to prove he is a mature writer. Two deal with slap stick situations and prove that Simon is very much an immature writer. According to Simon, serious adult relationships make for a lot ii of bitching and snide remarks. In one adult segment, Jane Fonda, as a New York career woman, goes to California in pursuit of her daughter, who has opted to live with her laid-back dad (Alan Alda), Fonda’s ex-husband. Fonda bitches at Alda, who lays back and catches. Fonda’s acting is good, Alda’s drab. Will the daughter stay in California or return to Newi York ? If she had a sense of humor she would leave bote parents. The other adult segment is about an English actress, played by Maggi Smith, who with hei antique-dealer husband (Michae Caine) has gone to California tc attend the Oscar ceremonies be cause she has been nominated for an Oscar. Caine prefers young men to th« aging Smith. Theirs is obviously meant to be a funny but touchine relationship. After all the Eng list bitching that goes on betweer Smite and Caine (as opposed tc the American bitching that goes on between Fonda and Alda, I was not touched. The problem is tha Simon tries to tie everything up into a neat Hollywood package where a happy ending is assurer -a Am m, Access to Eugene’s art and artists KWAX-FM 91.1 SATURDAY, 9:45 a.m. This project has been made possible in part by a grant from the Oregon Committee for the Humanities, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. UUl dl lilt; ddint umc iiu laivuo pains to be realistic. Real life doesn’t make for neat packages. The same fault troubles the Fonda segment. The result is phoniness and wasted first-rate acting jobs by Fonda, Caine and Smith. When Simon confines himself to simple, slapstick situations he manages to elicit some laughs. But the slapstick segments — skits, really — are as old as the hills. In one skit Walter Matthau fran tically tries to hide a drunken hooker from his wife (Elaine May), who has shown up at their hotel at the wrong moment. Matthau is funny, May acts like a zombie. In the other skit, vacation cou ples — Bill Cosby is one husband, Richard Pryor the other—rub one another the wrong way and even tually come to blows. In the thea ter where I viewed the film this segment was the only one which consistently evoked laughter. I’m not, by the way, prejudiced against Neil Simon work, I saw The Goodbye Girl and enjoyed it. In fact, I appeal to you to wait for its sequel — don’t waste money on California Suite or they might be encouraged to make a sequel to it, too. Please spare me the chore of reviewing a sequel. I’d rather stay home and watch repeat episodes of The Love Boat and Fantasy Is land. By William Kogut The Wiz Directed by Sidney Lumet National Theatre When pleaded with recently to sing “Over the Rainbow” for a screaming collection of her mother’s fans, Liza Minelli cooly replied, “It’s been done." Miner's determination to do instead of redo has assured that she won’t have to share the room Judy Garland has reserved in the hearts of fans and on the pages of National Enquirer. | The same determination distin guishes The Wiz as a musical that stands independently from the re vered 1939 classic starring Judy Garland, which was actually a re make of a 1925 silent movie ver sion. * I VwUvVI W l\l lw™ MIWJ » *» -- when the staged Broadway musi cal collected seven Tony awards including best musical in 1975. More than $20 million was spent putting the hit on film and a similar budget promoted it with splashy color ads, a double album, even a poorly written novelization of the movie. There’s something about see ing a Wiz scrapbook and a Wiz novel go on sale at Hirons that takes the charm out of lauding a good film. But what you can't laud, you can enjoy. The music, staging and attitude of the movie are energetic and original; delighting in an updated, transplanted land of Oz, spoofing and complementing the original story. The Wiz is wittier, less pre tentious and more lighthearted than its grandmother. The Wiz’s Dorothy, Diana Ross, is a black school teacher from Har lem. She’s never been to Kansas, much less wanted to go back. Judy Garland discovered that all rainbows lead to Auntie Em’s back yard. Diana Ross finds them in her own soul — “You must believe in yourself — la da, da da daaa. .." As one might expect, it’s Diana Ross who pulls the movie to gether, and, like Judy Garland, does so without a costume change. Her irrepressible spirit, expressive voice and sense of presence are principal delights in the movie. Ross is one of those dassy per formers who exudes all the energy she can summon, employing even her posture to develop her mood. Strong supporting perfor mances from Ted Ross (no rela tion), the lion, and Mabel King as Evillene, the wicked witch of the west, add to the effects. EviUene’s scene produces both the most memorable line of the movie: “Would you like mustard or sauerkraut.. .with your hot dog 7’ and the most memorable song, “No Bad News.” Caked with make-up and bur dened with a costume of fur, Ted Ross manages to be the most emotionally versatile of the sup porting crew, often without resort ing to dialogue. ~emu Food Service ing: Michael Jackson never seems to break through puberty in his portrayal of the scarecrow and Nipsy Russell merely lives up to the standards of dramatic in terpretation he and Arlene Francis set as panelists on “What’s My Line.” Music from the movie is lively and enjoyable, deriving most of its effect from staging and choreog raphy, though none of the cuts stands on its own when transfer red to vinyl. Seeing the movie is enjoyable. Trying to recapture that enjoy ment through promotionobilia isn’t. By Tom Wolfe The Boys From Brazil Directed by Franklin J. Schaff ner West 11th Walk-In Cinema In The Boys From Brazil the premier actor of the English speaking theatre, Sir Lawrence Olivier, plays a wizened old Jew who hunts Nazis and is called upon to deliver lines such as, “So there are Nazis in Paraguay, so vat else iss new?” The quintes sential American hero, Gregory Peck, plays the mad Nazi scien tist, Dr. Joself Mengele (known af fectionately by his former patients as “The Angel of Death”). In the film Mengele has cloned 94 little Hitlers and is about to carry out the assassinations of all the clones’ stepfathers. The step fathers' deaths, hopes Mengele, will duplicate the traumatic loss of a father the original young Hitler suffered. Thus not only will flesh have been duplicated but envi ronment as well, and as Mengele puts it, "Vee VHI haf a Hitler tailor made for the BOs.” “Who voud belief such a pre posterous story?” asks Olivier. “Only a dummkopf,” answers this reviewer. It’s impossible to take this film seriously. But if one does find the fanciful idea of clon ing Hitler the least bit interesting, then the film constitutes good, en joyable trash. The build-up to the revelation of Mengefe’s plan is well-paced, the various assassi nations are as clever as any in a James Bond film, and the climax — involving Peck, Olivier, a Dack of killer Doberman Pinschers and a young American Hitler clone — is wonderfully contrived. The final scene is a let-down (Olivier’s ac tions are not worthy of a true Nazis hunter), but manages to leave the door open for a sequel. By W1I-. Ham Kogut Archie critics plan ‘payoff benefit bash While Archie laughs, the Citi zens Cooperating to Recall Weinstein are $900 in debt from their defeated campaign effort. The group hopes to remedy that situation at the Weinstein Payoff Ball Friday, 9 p.m„ in the Eugene Hotel’s King Cole Room. The benefit dance and party will feature Billy Dee and the Party Kings and The Raccoons. Both bands are donating their time for the evening, and other local musi cians will be sitting in as well. The Recall Slaughter Players will present some irreverent thea ter, tentatively entitled “The Pimp and the Paupers." With a title like that, Archie won’t be the only one laughing. Tickets are $2.50 for the im poverished, $3.50 for the unim poverished. Must be 21 or over to attend; ID is required.
