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*??> I ? {?' 'f Simon (Alan / Brickman< By David Baker Gamecock Film Critic ' Together, Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman concocted the screenplays for, what are in my estimation. Allen's thre#? hpst filmc to date. Given the fact that Allen's other directorial efforts are not exactly what one would call inferior pieces of entertainment, I've often wondered what it was that Brickman contributed to Sleeper, Annie Hall, and Manhattan to make them stand out from the rest. Now that Brickman has ventured OUt 011 his Own With Simnn (which he wrote and directed), I've arrived at the answer: not much. In Simon, Brickman pokes fun at many of the sar. targets Allen satirizes- intellectuals, urban decay and sex, to name a few - but he does so without any of Allen's zingy one-liners. And without Allen's stinging barbs to keep to audience laughing, Brickman's outrageous situations come across as silly, condescending and almost totally devoid of humor. They're merely outrageous for outrageousness' sake. Brickman's scenario for Simon goes like this: A group of intellectuals are put together in a think tank (called thf,,!nstitute for Advanced Concepts) at the government's expense. But instead of coming up with ideas that might save the world, the group Srw?nH<J it? timA rlroaminn im - I .....V v.. up practical jokes to play on an unsuspecting public. An example of their prowess comes when they jam the Nielsen computers so that Donnie and Marie becomes television's number one hit. A story in The New York Times catches the eye of one of the think tank members. It savs that 60 percent of Americans believe in life on other planets. With that in mind, the IAC decides to give America an alien. With the help of a computer that sounds remarkably like Mary Hartman, the group locates Simon Mendelsson (Alan Arkm), a professor who has no living relatives that can identify when or where he was born. The tank brainwashes Simon into thinking that he is an extraterrestrial and then it springs Simon, spewing forth condemnations of the American way of life, on the world. The comic possibilities for such a story are limitless, but Brickman has picked up on only a few of them. The scene wherein Simon emerges from a 200-hour stay in a sensory deprivation chamber and' then proceeds to act out the evolution of man is brilliant, th a n Ire f A A rl/in'o I viiuimu iw Mi rvm JJ SUpCI IJ (IS a mime. A chase sequence toward the end of the film also works well, but it's too reminiscent of the escape scene in Sleeper to be heralded as anything more than mildly entertaining. Brickman apparently had trouble coaxing credible performances out of actors. Adolph Green mugs shamelessly as the leader of a commune. Fred Gwynne's five-star-general is pure > ' ^ I "f'i"T *';? " ' K| t :. 1 ^-Jb jH ^Fe \ rkin) being brain washed b y rest on his own' cartoon, and the members of the think tank, with the sole exception of Austin Pendleton, don't appear to have had any direction at all. Arkin, who can be hilarious in the right vehicle, is fine in the film's beginning, but he becomes a bit hard to stomach after the first hour. That's the point where his Simon character degenerates into a second-rate imitation of Peter Finch's Howard Beale character in Network. ! j I II cMe< You might say Rus suave, a little bit nar campuses, Russ has Russ' mind is fried c boredom; (3) the ran I above, Russ knows h readily available. In the Student Aei tertainment, cultural The Russell House Sounds, the USC Cu and Expeditions, anc committees, he can al Also in the Studen 200 clubs and organ leadership training. So when you find tl [ i drop in. slide on over. : | Cause in the Studei j of activities, clubs, or; j The Russell )arch scientists. 1 W1L11 OilllUIl In a brief role as an out-ot-work actress whom the IAC hires to lure Simon into their laboratory Madeline Kahn is excellent, But' then she's almost always superior to her material. Of course, with the material Brickman has provided here, even Ali MacGraw and Talia Shire would be superior to it. Now that, o c f hm; coir nn I r. uo iui.jf oct jr uii icicviaiuii, 13 III* credible. Simon opens in Columbia p on May 2. t I it%ss L s L. House is your typical Carolin >/> A .. ,1 ui.? ii rmu uniiKc ine misunderstooc found earnest enrichment in hi; md frazzled by: (1) the grind of ; * rcnlit V nf rpi/'flinn _ _ w1 a V^jvv.livyu, VI LL11U11 ail ovv to regain his composure throu tivities Office of the Russell Hou , and recreational activities to plea University Union sponsors nine i ltural Series, Free University, Ide 1 Visual Arts. Not only can Russ Iso participate in their managemci ( Activities Office Russ has found izations (randinff frnm ? Mvhut r.i. o r-> " "J "'8 v 1' ic need to become more cosmopoi Office. We've just had our offices < or mosey on down. nt Ac tivities Office it starts with u ionizations. programs, and servic< llouse University Union ? Y< { J*Mil j 1 [ IiMaTTial||[-j|[-yZ^rT^^BHBa^ BHL/A Earn Extra I Money I ? Urgently needed ? people with j Mononucleosis to. aid in Medical Research. If you have or had within the past 2 week$ Mono, you may qualify for $100.00 per week for 3 hours of your time. Call 2546 5&7 for more information. Serologicals of Columbia, Inc. j Suite 105, 2719 Middleburg [ j Columbia, S.C. 29204 ! j .House | a student. You know -- a little bit "cocky", a little bit j I masses who (dis)grace the grounds of other college i 5 educational experiences. More importantly, when 1 academir --- ' Li- * * j, K~, i.iv- utuuiciauie uurcien ol pure i ; id depression created by a lost love; or (4) all of the I j gh self-enriching activities that are legal, moral, and j j se University Union you can find educational, en- j j se every little Russ and every little Russetta. j student committees: Cinematic Arts, Contemporary t j as and Issues, Special Programs. Video Trine attend the programs sponsored by these student j j I Carolina Cares, the Homeeoming Committee, over | j jb to a chess club) and structured opportunities for j j itan, look for the experience of your college career in j ; on the 2nd floor of the KI1UU remodeled. So come by, [ ] s (and our extra-curriculum . > \ M :*s) but it ends with you. ^1 U 1 I I russo* house iafittiiwyfiw