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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 23, 1987)
At the movies Between laughs, 'Project X' full of deeper meaning It’s a chimp's life! Ask Virgil in the movie "Pro ject X.” Abducted «is a baby chimp from his mother in the wilds of Africa. In; finds himself Review by Mary Courtis consigned to a cage and then the psychology lab of an American university. Life looks grim. Hut along comes Tori {Helen ilunt). a bright graduate student who m.ikes Virgil the subject of her thesis. Over the next three years, she teaches Virgil sign language and other practical tasks, essentially becoming his surrogate mother. Life looks great. Then the government fails to renew Teri's grant and Virgil's days at the university are numbered. Teri is told that he is being sold to a children's /.ou in Houston. Hut instead Virgil ends up in the cluh lies of the Air force and is forcibly indoctrinated in to their "experimental pilot program. ’' YOU ARF INVITED TO ATTEND AN INTERDISCIPLINARY SYMPOSIUM REEVALUATING CLASSIC PARADIGMS where leading s< holars ex.imme m«ijor c (ranges <aused !>y lemimsl t hallenges to ( I.issk .11 literature, mk ial s< lent e, and philosophy sponsored by THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF WOMEN IN SOCIETY at the UNIVERSITY OF OREGON Gerlinger Lounge April 23, 1987 9:30 to 5:00 10:00 Page DuBois, University of California, San Diego, I em i nisi Kelli inking ot (.reek ( lassu s. 1 1:00 Mary Kay (.amel, University ot ( alilorm.i, Santa ( ru/, I his Day We Read further: Win feminist Interpretation is Necessary. 12:00 I unt ii break. 1:10 ludith Statey, University of (*ililor nia, Davis, ( an I here Be A feminist I thnography^ 2: to Naomi St heman, University ol Minnesota, I lie I ngendermg ot Philosophical Problems. 4:00 Panel disc ussion with the above speakers. __...._ I.iff looks grim again, until Virgil meets Jimmy (Matthew Broderick), a young pilot who has borrowed one too many Air Force planes and has been grounded until he learns his place. Being in the same boat, so to speak. Jimmy and Virgil are swift to strike up a friendship and soon become a formidable team in the training room, where chimps are taught to operate Air Force planes and take them on simulated flights Fife is looking up. Then Jim inv finds out what happens to the chim p s w he n t h e v “graduate" from the program; they are taken to another flight simulation chandler and sub jei ted to massive doses of radia tion The ohje< I of this cruel scenario is to see if human pilots would he able to fly long enough to drop their bomb loads on targets in the Soviet l Inion. These experiments are. in the Air Force's eyes, “necessary But to Jimmy, it is murder Soon Virgil will “graduate." Jimmy must choose between sacrificing the chimp or trying to save Virgil Broderick gives a surprisingly subdued and thoughtful perfor mance as the cocky smart aleck, ultimately forced to mature through his contact with the chimps, and Hunt is equally fresh and convincing as the warm hearted psychologist. ( ourli-sv Photo Jimmy Garrett (Matthew Broderick), a young Air Force pilot, becomes involved in a suspenseful adventure with a highly in telligent chimpanzee named Virgil in ‘‘Project X.” A lot of sex found in 'American Empire' II you’re looking for it bawdy oomt'dv to stimulate your men tal erogenous /ones, see "The Decline of the American Um pire." a Krench-Canadiau Don’t be confused MARCHING BAND BASKETBALL BAND GREEN GARTER BAND The ballot says “132% increase" and “115% increase", but it really means only 84* per term KEEP YOUR BAND MARCHING Vote Yes Ballot Measure Paid for by the UO Marching Band • No IFC funds used to pay for this ad release. This film depends primarily on continuous explicit dialogue by two groups of intellectuals about their varied sex lives, with detours into expressions of their feedings and discussions of their socio-historical interests. Review hv Jackie Barry The story jumps back and forth between a group of women and a group of men, all friends, who meet for dinner midway through the film. The women spend an after noon at a health club working out and talking about their sex lives, past and present. Their sexual niches range from the masochistic Diane to the subser vient Louise. After Diane's friend, Domini que. asks her about a series of welts on her rear end, Diane confides she has a new boyfriend. Mario. She says she fears her own newfound desires more than Mario’s sadistic behavior, because he will do anything to her that she wants. “The power of the victim is in credible.” Diane says. This is shown in contrast to Louise, who's only sexual in discretion throughout her 15 year marriage was to sleep with a man at an orgy because it made her husband, Remy, happy. The richly woven script presents strong characters for the audience to judge. One feels a definite dislike for several of the characters, something that wouldn’t have been possible without depth. The filmmaker presents a believable situation, often pok ing fun at the love webs human beings sometimes weave around their lives, and sometimes presenting poignant realities of the h u ma n condition. The women complain of men’s preoccupation with their organs, the men complain that trying to make a woman achieve an orgasm is like “looking for a needle in a haystack.’’ And Pierre tells his friends In; can’t fathom being married because after two years “the com promises begin.” The photography is absorbing and contributes to the medium pace of the script by including leisurely strolls into the en vironment, which depict times like sunrise anti winter in the lives of the players. The filmmaker makes com pelling use of tracking, rack focus and close-ups throughout the movie. After an opening sequence, the credits are folded up over a long tracking shot down an im mense, tiled university hallway. Later, the camera focuses between Diane and Dominique as they talk and work out. Perpendicular close ups reveal anxieties and reac tions of the players. People who find sex objec tionable in films should avoid “The Decline of the American Umpire,” but those who don’t mind it will probably enjoy this witty romp into the mating habits of a rather promiscuous group.
