The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, January 14, 1980, Page Page 19, Image 19
Movies From page 16
of his affections, Bo Derek was
most mouth-watering. The scene .
where Moore joined an orgy with
his face shot full of Novocaine will
be remembered as a classic.
THE 10 WORST
1. SKATETOWN, U.S.A. and
ROLLER BOOGIE. Indistinguishable
from one another,
therefore listed together. The
roller disco craze made its way to
the silver screen and tranished it
forever by subjecting us to
dialogue like "We'll win, but don't
go gassin' up the moped 'til we
do." The scantily-clad darlings of
the Clearasil set who made up the
casts of both films were so
defiantly cute that they seemed to
have the personalities of baby
fuhrers. Maybe that's why I longed
to see them transferred from roller
rinks to concentration camps.
2. LAST EMBRACE. Director
Jonathan Demme used so many
quivering hand-held camera shots
in this demented, tasteless rip-off
of Alfred Hitchcock that I became
: 11-. in ?-l-ii- *?- *
pnysiuauy in wnue waicning li.
Roy Scheider has never been so
laughably nervous in a role and, as
his foil, Janet Margolin made the
silliest looking hooker I've ever
seen. How such a film could have
been financed is beyond my realm
of comprehension.
3. AMERICATHON. By pandering
solely to antiestablishment,
pot-headed
teenagers, Neil Israel's futuristic
bucket of swill alienated everyone
else. But the film's major flaw was
that it tried hard to look like a
television show, even though
television served as the target for
most of its satire. The effect of
such inane plotting was that the .
film constantly seemed to be
trying to disgrace itself. A movie
so bad that two of the country's
hottest comedians, John Ritter and
nm vcjr lYui iuuu, uouiun i save ll.
4. THE VILLI AN. A live-action
Roadrunner cartoon for the lame
of brain. Kirk Douglas was a
handsome enough coyote, but
Robert G. Kane's shoddy script
and Hal Needham's childish
direction reduced a novel idea to
junkyard scrap, the only highlight
of which was Ann Margret's
bosom.
5. NIGHTWING. Steeped in a
urAtpcniip cnrt nf rolicf ir?nc
Awards rr?mpa3?16
appeals to things more enduring
than disco or meditation. The
music, by Paul Williams and
Kenny Ascher, is so damn happy
and optimistic that we couldn't
accept 11 irom numan oeings; we
have to get it from puppets. We let
Kermit and friends say the things
we'd like to say because if we said
them, we'd be laughed out of the
room.
THE TEN WORST ALBUMS OF
1979 1.
Get the Knack The Knack
x^rtu iiiusif, expiuiuiuve lyrics,
criminal ad campaign, plagiarized
image - everything bad about rock
and roll. The Knack sets the music
world back twenty years without
any of the nostalgia. Never have sa
many been so screwed by so few.
2, Blondes Have More Fun.... Rod
Stewart
It's hard to find words strong
enough to condemn this incredibly
bad record. The single "Da Ya
Think I'm Sexy" alone has done
more to reduce popular music to a
shambles than the Osmonds and
Partridges combined. And talk
about overplaying a record!
3. C'est Chic/Risque Chic
Who are these people? Why are
they doing such terrible things
with their voices and instruments?
And why are people dancing to
them? Disco has never been so
faceless, toneless, meaningless.
v.?w JtwA
fanaticism that sent even the most
gullible pea-brains into convulsions
of laughter, this tacky
little piece of garbage wasn't so
much a film as it was an insult to
movie-goers across the nation. In
no scene was director Arthur
Hiller able to create even the
smallest degree of suspense, while
the script, by Steve Shagan, Bud
ShrakeA'and Martin Cruz Smith
(based on Smith's novel), left no
Indian (or bat) cliche unturned.
And if all actors were as wooden as
Nick Mancuso, David Warner,
Steven Macht and George Clutesi
were here, America's furniture
makers would be well advised to
open lumber mills in Southern
California.
b. ilie, ih/vmi'. rnougn 1 aian i
see anyone crying at the screening
I attended, rumors were rampant
that while watching Franco Zeffirelli's
sugar-coated remake of
King Vidor's 1931 classic about an
over-the-hill boxer, people were
virtually awash in tears. I don't
know exactly why people reacted
that way, but I do have three
theories about them: l)they were
crying because they had wasted
two hours; 2)they were crying
because they had wasted three
dollars; or 3)they went into the
theatre so primed to open up their
tear ducts that even the slightest
bit of bad news (such as the girl at
the concession counter announcing
that the theatre had sold out its
1 _ . - V _ 1.1 t_
supply or popcorn) wouia nave
been enough to send them running
from the theatre in search of
Kleenex.
7. PHANTASM. Ghastly horror
item that featured the latest in
mind-blowing (and cookie-tossing)
special effects - gushing yellow
blood, severed fingers that
returned to life, and a flying silver
orb that bored through human
skulls while the owners were still
alive. Don Coscarelli directed the
no-name cast, all of whom are
destined to remain that way.
8. THE PROMISE. A young
architect couldn't stop thinking
about his dead fiancee, who, in
reality, had gone away merely to
get a much-needed facelift. One of
the first lines Steven Collins was
forced to utter in this outlandish
screwball non-comedy went
something like this: "Sometimes
it feels good to be corny." If that
were true, The Promise would
heard Chic. I'd rather hear the
animals die.
4. Cruisin'/Go West Village People
Just what music needs - a living
homosexual Saturday morning
cartoon.
5. Dynasty Kiss
What a sad waste of a good
guitar player. Who cares if Kiss
goes disco? If anyone deserves it,
they do, for promoting a silly
image through endless silly and
repetitive albums. Let Cher have
em.
6. Flag James Taylor
The world's best case of a
musician losing all of his
prodigious songwriting talent and
yet trying to make albums. Sorry,
but that's the way it is - Carly
Simon must have poisned him or
something, because Flag is the
latest in a line of sad efforts
without force or direction.
7. Toto Toto
8. Head First The Babys
9. Llvln' Inside Your Love . George
Benson
10. Monolith Kansas
have sent millions of viewers
rocketing off into the outer cosmos
of orgasmic bliss. But it doesn't, so
it didn't.
9. THE FISH THAT SAVED
PITTSBURGH. The cinematic
equivalent of a pimpmobile - loud,
tacky, covered with glitter and full
of trashy people, all of whom did
nothing but listen to monotonous
disco music and yell "Get down!"
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REQUIRE
READINC
EVERY MONDAY.
WEDNESDAY
& FRIDAY
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at the drop of a hat (or, in this case,
at the drolp of a pink fur beret).
The plot, to which about 15 minutes
of the movie's two hours were
devoted, concerned dissention
among the members of the Pittsburgh
Pythons basketball team.
10. PLAYERS. It was hard to tell
whether director Anthony Harvey
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intended Players to be a simple
love story between an older woman
and a younger man or a siirpleminded
love story between a
haughty older bitch and a younger
tennis-playing male bimbo, but
either way, the movie was destined
to fail the minute Ali MacGraw
signed on to portray the female
half of whichever couple it was.
1' is a slapstick feast. It's a
ovie, not a smile movie. "
?After Dark
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