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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 11, 1981)
4 Riding through centuries of sunsets with Time Bandits’ At his father's insistence, Lit tle Kevin pulls up the covers, puts up his book and flops over heavily on his pillow to sleep Suddenly through his closet door bursts a knight In full ar mor On a horse Who crashes through the opposite wall and is gone The next night. Kevin is prepared With a flashlight and a Polaroid at his side, he awaits another visitor Sure enough, along come seven dwarves well, six midgets actually They explain that they are The Su preme Being s servants, and have borrowed (well, stolen if you want to get technical) a map of "time holes'' from Him, and plan to use it to burgle wealthy people from different points throughout history And this is how Kevin (Craig Warnock) gets to meet folks like Napoleon, Robin Hood. Agamemnon an Ogre and his wife and eventually The Evil Genius and The Supreme Being himself And get msta-color prints of most of them "Time Bandits" is the best fantasy-adventure-comedy flick since Raiders of the Lost Ark, r and is put together by what's left of the Monty Python troupe it is written by Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam, directed by Gil liam, and starring John Cleese and Palm But it is a different style of humor, less bawdy but just as funny as earlier Python suc cesses All in all. "Time Bandits" is to earlier Monty Python as Velveeta is to medium Cheddar a little less bold, but a lot more palatable to us dull Americans The Python people haven't lost their sense of the absurd Robin Hood is a kind PR-type surrounded by slimy brutes who pound the poor to pulps as they distribute the booty The boat our heroes are sailing in is lifted from the water on the head of an enormous giant Napoleon makes the gang generals because they, too are short Nor have they lost their per versity but it is severely con fined (this is. after all, rated PG) The youthful audience squeals when one of the gang noisily munches a mouse like a raw cucumber What Gilliam and Pallin have 1 added is a thicker strand of logic connecting the story, a rich sense of fantasy and much more adventure No longer do we see the haphazard chain of events of Monty Python and the Holy Grail ' Although the story line is not predictable, it is also not irrational The fantasy and ad venture are good and rollicking, but aren't too far out This refining (and restraining) of the Monty Python style results in a film that is refreshing, ex citing, yet hysterical Warnock is great as Kevin It would be auite easy for the kid hero to be a real drip, especially when he s so sickeningly good and unassuming all the time Yet Gilliam manages to keep Kevin a great kid, someone you d like to have living down the street to come over and play Yahtzee with The midgets are also surpris ingly good David Rappaport (who stands 3 8”) is an excel lent leader for the gang of ban dits, adapting to the various oddball situations perfectly His character is likably real, yet silly enough to make the film really work Even Sean Connery is good in this picture, portraying a sur prisingly likable Agamemnon He makes an excellent king, rivaling Richard Harris' perfor mance in Camelot " Through it all, Gilliam keeps the story rolling and the giggles flying by at a perfect pace Combined with good timing, good camera work good acting and a great script, Gilliam's dir ection makes for an excellent film "Time Bandits" is a great children's movie for adults It's exciting, silly, lots of fun, and it even manages to say a thing or two While it would be a great ‘Decline of Western Civ.’: Prophecy of punk society? People lend to get confused When rock and roll first appeared, many older folks claimed that it would destroy the youth of our nation It didn't (did it?) Art doesn t destroy youth Art only reflects what is already there Art often acts as a bar ometer by which one can determine the condition of a society The film The Decline of Western Civiliza tion is aptly titled It is the story of art gone wrong And more It is the story, a brilliant expo sition. of man at his most disgusting It is the story of LA punk rock For 100 minutes we are shown a series of top punk bands playing on stage and talking at home Promoters, managers, and club owners also get in on the act as the film makers ask the obvious question. Why?'' Ranging from boredom to pent-up aggression to nihilism, the answers given are pretty much what one would expect Violence and frustration are the only metaphysical realities This is as apparent in the music as it is in the lyrics, for to spread the bad news of nihilism through an aesthetically pleasing medium would be the worst sort of contradiction The medium is the message The listener must be assaulted—he must be made to feel disgust and despair The makers of Decline'' know this well They want the audience to do more than observe in a reserved manner By zooming in for lots of tight face shots and freezing quick glances of despair, the film manages to capture the transcendental nature of the punk culture As the camera pans the crowd during a sequence of a Black Flag" gig, we see an incredible range of facial expres sions. from frenzied to comatose Yet the under lying reality is the same for all, it just surfaces in different ways Any serious viewer cannot help but feel the nothingness The punk scene in Britain (the birthplace of punk) is a dream world for Karl Marx Class division and struggle has produced a very angry young working class Their alienation is ex pressed in punk culture In LA. however, things are different Economics plays a very small role in punk de spair As Excene, a member of the group "X" says, "There are worse ways of being poor " The problem is not that some have and some have not The problem is that even the haves really don't have anything There's nothing to be had L A punk is the outgrowth of our social emptiness In a terrifying way it suggests what may become of us all. The lack of hope, and the growth of faith that trusts only the material, have left an interior void that will eventually eat its way outward "The Decline of Western Civilization" cries out prophetically for self-examination By offering a preview, a look into the crystal ball, the film begs for reflection and suggests "meaning" as the only way to avoid punk society One can laugh at "Decline's" funny faces, and be disgusted by its violence, but it is a film that deserves to be taken seriously and thought fully by tom senor _i Kevin (Craig Wamock) and Agamemnon (Sean Connery) loss if Monty Python were to turn to this style permanently, "Time Bandits" is an excellent piece of Americanized British humor, and shouldn’t be missed (Be aware, the Cinema World folks have relegated it to a small mini-theater reserved for kid s shows, and it tends to sell out well before show time.) by matt meyer FALL CLEARANCE Sale Ends Nov. 19 X-Country Sox Reg to $12 00 NOW *4.99 A l A PARKA THAT GOES EVERYWHERE! 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