At the movies
'Hoosiers' scores as family film
Underdogs can triumph
despite overwhelming odds,
say the makers of “Hoosiers,”
an Orion film released last week
in Eugene.
And this film triumphs, for
the most part.
Review by
(ackie Barry
It is classic, heartwarming
family entertainment about Nor
man Dale (played by Gene
Hackman), a basketball coach
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with a sordid past who is given
another chance when a friend
hires him to teach history and
coach basketball at Hickory
High School in Hickory, Ind.
Hoosiers are natives or in
habitants of Indiana.
The greatest successes in this
film are its photographic quality
and its well-constructed
messages that redemption and
realization of dreams are
possibilities in life.
Meandering location footage
of landscapes and rural 19508
era settings sandwiched bet
ween high-energy footage of
about a dozen basketball games
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■HI Catalyst Films Presents ■■■
THE TIMES OF
HARVEY MILK
FRIDAY MARCH 6
150 GEOLOGY
7:00 & 9:00 pm
ADULTS $2/KIDS $1
This extraordinarily moving
Academy Award-winning
documentary la a film about
American values In conflict Set In
San Franc taco In the ItTOs, It toNa
of the rise to power of Harvey Milk,
the first openly gay person elected
to office In the Uniited States, and
one of the gay rights movement's
most charismatic and powerful ae
tlvlsta. Both Mayor George
Moeeone and Supervisor Harvey
Milk were shot and killed by Dan
White, fellow Supervisor and
former policeman and fireman. The
sensational murder case that
followed rocked the nation.
lead viewers at alternating
paces through the story.
And Dale isn't the only one
who gets a chance to make up
for his past.
Shooter, the town drunk and
basketball historian (played by
Dennis Hopper), also achieves
redemption by kicking alcohol
addiction and gaining back not
only his self-respect, but the
respect of his son.
The basketball team, from a
school with an enrollment of
less than 200. also redeems
itself from being stuck in a
small-town mold by winning
the state basketball
championship.
Dale's drill sergeant approach
to coaching alienates a few
players and townspeople at
first. He tells the team they're in
his army from 3 to 5 p.m. every
day and refuses to let the local
busybodies watch practice. But
he gradually gains the respect of
some of the harder nuts to crack
when he stands firm on his ex
pertise, pulling players from the
game when they don’t follow
his coaching strategies — and
when the team begins to win.
Hackman gives a good perfor
mance as the friendly but ag
'52 Pickup' i
Harry Mitchell (Roy Sheider)
has it all: a multi-million dollar
business, a number of high pay
ing patents and a marriage of 25
years. On the eve of the nomina
tion of his wife, Barbara (Ann
Margaret), to City Council,
however, Mitch is confronted
by a trio of hooded blackmailers
with videotaped evidence of his
affair with young model Cinny
(Kelly Preston).
Review by
Sean Axmaker
Their demands are simple:
they want $105,000 or the tape
is given to his wife. Mitch ad
mits the affair to his wife and
then decides not to pay. The
blackmailers are not amused
and up the stakes — they
murder Cinny with Mitch’s gun
and cover her blood-soaked body
with Mitch’s monogrammed
jacket. Now they want $105,000
a year or they release the
evidence to the police.
Mitch can’t go to the police
now, but neither can he pay. In
stead, he begins his own in
vestigation and uncovers the
New coach Norman Dale (Gene Hackman) brings a drill
sergeant approach to basketball in “Hoosiers. ”
gressive newcomer in a town
full of narrow-minded
hillbillies.
Novices cast as the basketball
team, the Huskers, also give
good performances. Only one of
the eight team members, David
Neidorf as Shooter’s son
Everett, had any previous pro
fessional acting experience.
The individual performances
of these players, as well as in
teractions between the players
as a group and the players with
their coach create a solid foun
dation on which the rest of the
film plays.
Director David Anspaugh and
scriptwriter Angelo Pizzo had a
hand in creating this strong
foundation. When they were
fraternity brothers at the
University of Indiana, the pair
decided to one day make a
movie based on the the Milan
Turn to Hoosiers, Page 16
rides rough, gritty road
three men, whom he discovers
to be two pom merchants and a
pimp, and begins bargaining
with them even as he sets them
off against each other.
Based on an Elmore Leonard
novel, ” ’52 Pickup” is a gritty
urban thriller with a cast of
seedy characters and a set of
clever twists. The leader of the
blackmailers, Alan Raimy (John
Glover) is the mastermind of the
plot, quick to cross his partners
and quicker to have a handy ex
planation. Glover plays him for
all the manic intensity he’s
worth. Bordering on psychotic,
he isn't above violent abuse or
murder (yes, he had Cinny
killed).
Mitch is his intellectual
match, however, and plays on
the distrust the three have for
one another. Interestingly
enough, Mitch’s drive to beat
the blackmailers isn’t far from
Glover's violent intensity, and
his single-mindedness puts his
own wife in danger.
Director John Frankenheimer,
famous for his 60s features
’’The Manchurian Candidate”
and the flamboyant "Seconds,”
keeps a stylish but even hand in
” ’52 Pickup,” letting the ac
tion and the characters carry the
story.
While he effectively captures
the hard-boiled action and col
orful characters of Leonard’s
milieu, he also emphasizes the
terrorization of women (par
ticularly women innocent of the
scheme) by the brutal Raimy
and his partner Bobby. Like
most films of this genre, women
function primarily as victims
and men as threats or as saviors.
Even Ann Margaret’s Barbara
loses any sense of individual
identity by the end of the pic
ture. becoming simply another
woman for Raimy to threaten.
This is the major weakness of
the film. Barbara is set up as a
strong, interesting character in
the first few minutes of the film
but is all but forgotten as Mitch
begins his private vendetta.
Ann Margaret’s performance
makes her brief introduction
even stronger but even she can’t
create strength from the spec
tator position to which she is
relegated.
Despite this problem, “ ’52
Pickup’’ is an engrossing
thriller, not on the level of “To
Live And Die In LA,’’ but enter
taining in its own right.
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