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Dire Strait after secor Communique s (Warners) | By Lehman Stiles . J Ent?rt*lnm?m Editor < Following the midsummer [ release of their second album \ Communique, Dire Straits will < appear in the Township on Sept. 23. Dire Straits' premier album won J critical acclaim spftiiw npw 1 precedents for music with its J subtly powerful sound. i Communique is basically more < of the same from Dire Straits, < more a continuation of their debut 1 album than a completely new disc, i While Communique does in- ' corporate some expansion of the i Dire Straits sound, its songs are ! interchangable with those of the 1 first album. i Dire Straits' music is something < | Album Review | 1 < for which there are no foundations. The group, under the creative ] guidance of Mark Knopfler, seems i to ignore all the conventions and I stylish idiosyncracies that mark modern music. The image of Dire < Straits is having no image at all. ( "Subtlety" is an extremely 1 imnortant word when it romps to i discussing Dire Straits. Nothing I jumps at you in their music; nothing stands out against any sort I of repetitive background. The i lyrics are frighteningly impressionistic in the critical sense of ] the word, dealing with starkly specific images and colors. The fact that Knopfler uses subtlety so effectively in his songs Anton mort in her mo By David Baker Gamacock Film Critic AH^AnrtK T/v/\rvK Cnrrt/xnPn /^* ?I f-iJiuwu?w oat 5C111 o u^iuer an above-average psychological tl one can't help thinking it was primarily as an excuse to photograph Anton in the tightest running shoi producers could find for her to wear. The film opens six weeks before tl Moscow Olympics. A quint I Movie Review businessmen are trying to convince Jack Dryden (James Coburn) to a unknown woman sprinter, Goldine ! (Anton), to his roster of clients. The men insist that Goldine is going the 100, 200 and 400-meter races an nnpo cho Qppnmnlichoc cnnVi i fo vaavv u*?v uvwa??p?loilvu tJUVH U IM name will be worth millions dorsements. Dry den believes the me crazy, but when he is shown a film Goldine in action, he agrees to giv offer his consideration. The consortium flies Dryden to G< training camp, where he finds tha been used as a human guinea pig. W1 umc o nKilrl hut* PAiAwfCr*/wl* yy uo a vianuf 11^1 ov^icutioi iauici VpiC Curt Jurgens) injected her wi perimental drugs to increase her and strength. For the past few yea has been subjected to a be modification program. The drugs have now altered he chemistry to the point where she is curaoie aiaoetic, wnue tne w modification program has left her incapable of answering any question she hasn't been conditioned to hear. It's here that the script, by John makes a near-fatal mistake by introdi sub-Dlot about Drvrien and ftolriine fa love. Given the ages (he is 50ish, barely 20) and backgrounds of th characters, such a romance is prepos and it crrpjitlv HiminishM fhp imnnrl film's middle section. When the Olympics begin, ho Kohn's script gets back on the right very quickly. After the first trials, C begins to complain of heaviness in h and feet. After she wins her first gold \ s comes to < id LP 'Com , s a true indication of musical i genius. There is no need here for I synthesized disco explosions or : endless overdubs; with his careful guitar work and stunning lyrics, < ECnopfler strikes at the very heart < *\f kite DI?KlfU>fo Jk IUO ouwjtvio. J In fact, next to this music disco < and punk seem no more than the mindless ramblings of third- ' graders. Dire Straits' work is < jnquestionably mature, totally i ievoid of catchy imagery or I commercial short cuts. There is a feeling of the classic about this i music, from the moody cover art to i the museum-quiet tone of the arrangements. Somehow Dire Straits does not seem even to belong to the contemporary music < scene. The effect is almost i otherworldly. , The album opens with "Once < Upon a Time in the West." an I obviously allegorical song about i "heap big trouble in the Land of ' Plenty.'' The cut daringly employs i a nonstandard meter that rein- i forces its spooky, troubling lyrics: i "Sitting on the fence; that's a i dangerous course; you could even ?et a bullet from the peacekeeping I force ? even the hero gets a bullet s in the chest, once upon a time in j U/oct " ff VOi. J "News," the next cut, seems to be about a man caught up in the i imagery of "Once Upon a Time"? ! "It may be a game, but I won't ] play to lose" ? a man who lives i "too fast to stop, he makes a line in ] the news." The listener is allowed < to fill in the details of this ab- ] surdist, bone-bare story, and the j ; than sex sy vie 'Golden she becomes subject to fits o paranoia. By the time her 1 igirl is around, Goldine has becom hriller, junkie, popping pills in an i made remain alive long enough t< i Susan gold medal and to take r rts the people who have wrecked her Considering the fact that he 1980 have been treated like a sex pt of shp hn<5 tVlA nntonHol fr* Kann w v - ..v?w |/vwv*avAUi W kfVW filming of every scene, Antor impressive performance, ful wit, with just a bit of patho good measure. Had she bee ! agent uke an actress, she might r< add an outstanding. Serafin The film's main problems inadequacies of the supporti \ to win from the choDDv editint? o id that, editor. at, her NBC helped finance Gol in en- condition that it be allowed t in to be film as a four-hour mini-sei clip of coverage of the Olympic e their perhaps the added footage poor editing job and make t jldine's bit more thought-out. t she's hen lyeci by v th ex- .i0wlt growth r' >i ^ .re, she -: _ ? a ^HR>'>:v:'T-~y > Columbia I munique9 I song is that much more powerful for letting us create our own suicidal, fast-lane fantasy. "Where Do You Think You're Going?" is a "love" song, again so devoid of flashy imagery that the listener creates his own events and nhnrnctors tn fill fHo lurino rw?f which consist for the most part of fj the title line repeated over and jj over. Is the singer worried that his I girl is leaving him for good, or does U he desire her so that he does not |1 want her to leave at all? The I questions are as unanswerable as I the question of the title. , * Side one closes with the title cut, which, appropriately enough for Dire Straits, points out the great deal of empty communication done in the world. Knopfler shows an almost sarcastic voice here as he describes the meaningless chatter that fills our ears so that we cannot j fmlv honr thot Ulhinh io imnnrfnnt V TT IJUVt* AO IIlipt/1 141llt, rhis is fitting; the very arrangements of Dire Straits utilize silence as an element as important as sound in conveying meaning. Due to some strained symbolism, "Lady Writer," the first single from Communique, is the album's worst song. But side two moves quickly on to "Angel of Mercy," a bluesy, swinging number that demonstrates Dire Straits' top-drawer musical ' proficiency. They are, thankfully, ' not subtle here: the humor-tineed' j - o plea "Angel of mercy, angel i delight; give me my reward in ) Heaven tonight" is a wonderful i singalong chorus if suspicion and ;hird race rolls J ? e pracucaiiy a nsane effort to ) win her third evenge on the 'i life. ? she seems to piiS symbol (which me) during the p I turns in a very II of charm and s thrown in for f n treated more V Jrtl u% ially have been * stem from the Tifl If 1 I ng players and &. 1 f an unnamed ByI Q?m? deneirl on thp mi . . j i Tl mougn i enioy< o broadcast the m8 remake of Do ies prior to its Body Snatchers> .s "e"t year. pressed by any of wi 1 erase the man has directed, he film seem a Wanderers. The Wanderers gangs. As compai hopefully shoi than Walk Proud, Nights, and not a Based on Rich novel about grow film's script, by Kfi details the story o school friends, ca their nuMt tn at*?v i " " 1--" "-?.7 > rougher neighborh The dangers into are, of course, otl group called the named the Del B known as the Duck; the Fordham Bald v * \ N Mark Knopfle album's moodier moments well. The album closes with "Follow Me Home," another "love" song that has ail kinds of subjective connotations. The music here is st Slllvilia^ otl/l /MiitAf no fn Ka JUUUUVU miu ?^uici ao w uc giwuijr and the final effect of the song is almost tragic in nature, actually cathartic. Yet it is impossible t< pin down the exact reason for this; the instrumentation, the wording the performance is so understatec that one can look at the song only on the basis of its overall effect rhis makes the number a true urnrlr nf ar>f it n w* u* v. If this album does nothing else, il should definitely establish Marh Knopfler as the best guitarist or record today. He rarely indulges ir j movie 'W of too-fair >avld Baker events cock FMm Critic with fl hi uie second half of his and-oi n Seigel's Invasion of the field. I never have been im- The the movies Philip Kauf- stylize including his latest, The realist nausea is a movie about youth an(j # ed to the other films in an(j g t-lived genre, it is better su8pei , on par with Boulevard audiei nearly as. good as The Hon niAviP that afro V * ?V o Sl&DDf ation with gangs. right^ mm" " ""l laps i View I ranot I , of it. lard Price's celebrated At ti ing up in the 1960s, the fema* lufman and his wife Hose, "e sec f a group of Italian high ueci tne Wanderers, and w\l" 1 ilive in one of New York's m"leu oods. DePal ;rent to the neighborhood f??tt>a ler gangs ? an oriental aPP?a Wongs, a black group 8ame* ombers, an Irish group I* Dnua o nrl n ifmum i?1A ; uv;oa>iun5luU);tflUCU ies (so called because all ^ * e shaved their heads). picturi is when a member of the 884(1 b o the Baldies as4 'a bunch * dersta "This sets off a series of ^elea Ik % ' jM il 7 ' r of Dire Straits flashy solos; he never uses fuzz } boxes or the like, but his playing is , extremely concise and exact, I technically perfect, yet at the <xnma Hmp omntinnollu rumiorfnl J VM?V?IV?IWI? J pvnVAAUl. His subtle slides and ornaments ! are most reminiscent of Eric t Clapton in his glory days, but > Knopfler goes beyond even Clapton in transferring emotion into music. Communique is not a | remarkable album; it is what one r expected after Dire Straits' first album. It goes far in establishing J the most distinctive style in modern music. If Communique is t not very different from the debut . album, it is only because Dire | Straits simply cannot get much , Detier, and tiiey would never allow themselves to get worse. *T * ^ 'W r . I ysp . i Wanderers' liliar genre \ that brings each gang into conflict ill the others, culminating in an out ii war on a neighborhood football violence here is not the beautifully id violence of The Warriors, but tic head-knocking of the most ating sort. Kaufman's lack of focus te slap-dash editing of Ronald Roose tuart H. Pappe fail to generate any lse or any empathy from the ice. estly, The Wanderers is so arbitrarily (d tflDPthpr that norto nf J* ?? r-11 ? ? o~ ?WJ VTA IV OCV1II IV mil off the screen and into the viewers' to ten-minute segment of it looks even ely like any other ten-minute segment Irnoe a. . - ...ivo, ivautiiian sceuui w oe trying 10 :e The Lords of Flatbush and at times ims to be trying to remake Saturday Fever. The Ducky Boys sequence, ts swirling figures and smoke-filled i, looks like it came out of Brian ma's The Fury, and the climactic 11 game (before it erupts into chaos) rs to be an imitation of the football i in both Robert Aldrich's The Longest >tUl DaW..4 A 14 - - ? - - - * ? mm nwci i muiian s point I'm trying to get across is that 'anderen is a very unoriginal motion e. Everything it tries to say has been efore and said better. I'll never unnd why anyone would want to make so s a motion picture.