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Vincent\ By David Baker ? Gamacocfc F*m CrHIc ^ "I haven't done very many pictures lately because it's getting harder for me to accept things," J said Jan-Michael Vincent. "You < get offered all sort of stuff ? < Motorcycle Monsters From Hell 4 and Billy the Kid Meets Godzilla. < I'm just making those up, but i everybody's got some kind of i cartoon angle they want to push." 1 t VINCENT, WHOSE past films I include The World's Greatest i Athlete, Buster and Billie, Bite the Bullet, and Hooper, said he , receives between 20 and 25 scripts 1 every week, but the only ones that | interest him are those which have j strong relationships between the i characters. "It's so funny what interests you _ At. II ?? A ? 1 in someimng, vinceni explained, "because it's such a long way from when you're reading it to when it's finished. By the time it gets passed around to everybody who collaborates on it, you may not recognize it." One such film, Vincent said, "was this thing called Shadow of the Hawk. I accepted one script and by the time we started shooting, it was three scripts later. c j: we went uuuugii iuur uneciuis, two while we were shooting. With John Sii to the Si By David Baker OMiwcock Flm Critic John Simon, the fifth and final _ _ _ _ ? *fnn n i ? ?tr !i speaKer 01 ine uai; dpnng writers Series, is one of the busiest journalists in the country. He is the drama critic for The Hudson Review and New York Magazine, film critic for National Review, and a contributing editor for Esquire. He is also the author of five books, with a sixth, Paradigms Lost, due out this summer. Simon said he strives for Critic John Simon diversity because it keeps him fresh and it keeps him interested. "The reason why I would hate to be only a film critic and not a drama cnuc ana a nierary cnuc is simply that you become stale if all you know is one thing. You become lingered, you become monomaniacal, you become tired, you become a lot of bad things." REVIEWING FILM and drama, Simon said, "is like eating appetizers and desserts. You use the same organs, but the expectations are different. The emphasis may be a little different, you may look for slightly different things. "Obviously, if you're reviewing a play, you look at things like set design more than you do certain other things. If you're reviewing a movie, vou're more aware of photography and lighting. Ultimately, I think all criticism is the same. It requires intelligence, it requires the ability to write, it requires total honesty and uncompromising standards. ? , , 0 ? I A "I'VE ALWAYS said those are defiant* in ill that, I lost total track of what I s< vas doing," a y VINCENT'S NEWEST film, S Defiance, had only one director y [John Flynn), but it was still a r lifficult film for Vincent to make. 'I probably got more depressed ioing Defiance than anything I've c iver done in my life," he said. "We a ivere working horrendously long > lours and wie were working in ) these really blighted neigh- j twrhoods ? with winos in the r streets. I "We didn't work anyplace nice. F And so much of it was shot at night. I We'd go to work in the afternoon, f get off in the morning, stumble * around trying to sleep for two > hours, then go back to these * terrible places all over again. It 1 was like living a nightmare." * FOR THE ROLE of Tommy 1 Gamble, a seaman who returns J home to New York only to find his J neighborhood being terrorized by a < youth gang called the Souls, 1 Vincent made no preparations, but 1 then he seldom does. "You show i up, you see where everything is, ,1 he said. "It's all happening around i you, so you just react." Vincent is quick to add, however, that acting is hard work. ' "Especially if you're in the hot mon: a crit irinn U/rito '""D ' w the important things. If someone has spent 30 years seeing the total output of Hollywood, it's almost a hindrance. It's almost what makes (Andrew) Sarris and (Pauline) Kael sometimes hard to read; they've seen too much trash and it's gone to their brains." On the other hand, the major problem with filmmakers, according to Simon, is that many of them rely too much on movies to reflect the ways in which people live. "If all you did was hang out in one movie theatre after another, from morning to midnight, if you never allowed the light of the sun to shine upon your head, if you omitted any chance of living to see more movies, if you bypassed reading books as is typical of many artists ? if you go in to Marty Scorsese's New York apartment, you see hundreds of television sets in every corner of the room, you see betamaxes and moviolas. every kind of electronic equipment that you've ever heard of, but not a book to be seen ? then that, I think, is shortchanging yourself and shortchanging your audience." THE SUBJECT OF Simon's forthcoming book is how Americans are shortchanging the English language, through misuses of words and through redundancy. "The worst thing," Simon said, "is idiotic redundancy. Free gifts. Everyone will give you a Free gift. "The other day, my girlfriend and I went to a thing called Phillipsburg Manor (a reconstructed estate in New Amsterdam), and there's this girl, dressed in 17th Century costuming, 1 ik> :_ iu?i j ? saying rxuw in umu muc jn;riuu... You find this in every form. People have become so crass and so thick that a single word doesn't have any impact. "DO YOU KNOW anyone who does not say 'old crone?' The most civilized people talk about apple cider, but what other kind of cider is there? It's insane. It shows a lack of respect for words and it's insulting. It's as if I told you something twice that you could understand perfectly well if I told it to you once. It means that I new film 4/ % eat ? if you have to be in every ceiie. The hours get too long and ou lose track of your personal life, ix weeks into a film, you feel like ou're lost in the jungle without adio contact." MANY OF Vincent's films have ontained a great deal of violence md Defiance is no exception. Vincent said he doesn't mind iolence, though, as long as it's ustified, "Senseless violence ? ? 1-- ?i cvcngc iui icvcu^c t> iiiiKe ? gets >retty boring," he said, "and I'm >retty bored with playing those >arts, too. That's one reason why I iccepted Hard Country. It's totally i relationship film. It's about a vorking guy from Texas and his girlfriend. I haven't seen it yet, but ['ve got a feeling that it'll probably xj one of my best." Hard Country, which co-stars Etim Basinger, will be released in \ugust, as will Smokey and the Bandit II, in which Vincent has a :ameo role as himself. Vincent still has not decided what will be his twentieth film, he said, "but I'd sure like it to be something with a good director and a relevant story." Whether he can hold out until U _ u: _i _ _1 sucu a vciuuic conies uiung, however, "will depend on how far past due the rent is," he said. ical end i u atiiiKb consider you an idiot to have to tel it to you twice. "It's painful for me to hea jargon. If someone kicked me i the shins, I doubt it would make m feel worse." ATTEN | GRADUATIQ | 10AM COMI FOR AN INSE | INVITATION Lavai THE s 1 on A scale Of sa P Pants <?? I Skirts \ _ Blouses j Jeans I - $8 BL ? I *-v '^Sdm''l^'?f^^&^^m^::v0^:'' "t > < ?' - v, v p HHb^K'? Mr R vKs?:--I;>' ^1 ^E^mK-''f^^HHWl^K *'; 9^H - ?' I iU^ J# BWte? wHb | lPRVS ^^H^^^.Vy"^.;""' MhH^ JL Jan Michael Vincent, the star of the hard-hitting romantic drama 'Defiance'. 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