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Page 8 - April 19, 1985 E ntertainment THE GAMECOCK _ Critic probes the art of beino tackv $ ttr 1 Andy Duncan Copy Desk Chief Beauty may lie in the eye of the beholder, but tacky hits you right in the gut. I only fully realized this a few weeks ago, when one of the gnomes in the next office bore into the newsroom a framed black-velvet portrait of Willie Nelson. "Look at this, the proud owner cried. "Isn t it wonderful? I was reduced to incoherent grunts and wheezes. "Gug," I said. "Whup!" I crashed into a nearby chair and pointed at the abomination. "Argh," I elaborated. THE PAINTING, a study rendered primarily in neon orange, bile yellow and Kryptonite green, must have been commissioned by the Pentagon in the days before Nixon proclaimed the end of offensive chemical weaponry. It was repulsive but fascinating, like a road accident or "Divorce Court." Tacky is a vague term. We all know it when we see it, but it's not easy to define. Webster's goes to a whole lot of frnnhlp unH nunf#?c n whnli? Int nf npnnlp h/>fnr#? finallu throwing up its hands, sputtering, "Marked by lack of style or good taste," and changing the subject to tacmahack (a variation of tacamahac). So much for Webster. I admit, 1 have a lot of tacky habits myself, such as wearing old baseball caps when I'm too lazy to comb my hair. But I draw the line at the neon Nelson. Here's a thought. You can find dozens of magazines devoted to beautiful homes, elegant fashions and sumptuous recipes. But does all that bear any relation to what most people actually live in, wear or cat? I doubt it. What we need is a periodical called "Tacky Homes and Gardens" or "The Tacky Republic." TIIK FILM critic, a true apostle of tacky cinema, could ridicule movies such as "Amadeus" and "A Passage to India" while praising the tacky virtues of "Hot T-Shirts" or "The Toolbox Murders." And the potential for full-color photo spreads on tacky fashion and tacky hairstyles is limitless. Just look around the Russell House cafeteria one day. BUT THERE are limits. While I typed this into the newsroom version of HAL 9000, an associate lumbered through and asked what I was writing. I told him a tacky column. "So what else is new?" he asked. I thought that was pretty tacky. msgsSSSSSSfm^mmmm"9SBBSSBSSBSBSBSSSBSSBM wr - aw?'hW??Bm MARION BlILL/TKt Qwnacoc Laa I?Mi fava m intsrssting factura at the Southern Circai aLL. a I Filmmaker i By Mark Armstrong Independent filmmaker Eagle Pennell will screen his critically acclaimed movie, "Last Night at the Alamo," at the Southern Circuit's last presenta null Ul lilt SCIIIClliaiCI . The film is set in the Alamo Bar, a seedy saloon in a nondescript suburb of Houston, where the same crowd of regulars have gathered for years. The movie is about the regulars' last stand at the bar, which will be torn down the next day to make way for condominiums. THE FILM was inspired by the denizens of Crosby, a small town about 30 miles from Houston. "When I started writing the script, 1 realized 1 needed help," Pennell said. "I didn't have enough money to shoot the story 1 proposed." To write the screenplay, Pennell enlisted the help of Kim Henkel, whose previous credits include "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Henkel honed and whittled PennelPs ideas down to a story tha^is confined to one steamy evening and only a few run-down locations. PENNELL AND Henkcl worked together to find the bar that serves as the setting for the film and discovered mm ms&B8G? * SBUB ..-. J Tha Southern Circuit will present Eagle I Southern st By Andy Duncan Lee Smith, the writer who turned dow Milos Forman, author of a novel inspin of the ftnlhriiKP Mnrili>r( cnpals wistful the Border again. Obviously, Smith is the most origina out of Grundy, Va. ^ Smith read selections from her upcc j Linen," at Belk Auditorium Tuesday ni f ing Writers Series. . A DECADE ago, Czech director Fo Oscars for "One Flew over the C "Amadeus" ? asked Smith about filn her 1973 novel "Fancy Strut." She saic In the Capitol Restaurant on Main St Smith defended her decision. She figi foreign-born Forman know about a no^ in Alabama? "Well, he had just come over, and he recalled. "He said, 'Vat is dis var? Vat ii what?' He said, 'Dis var between da st? ISmiiu is the favorite short-story wrii res ence William Price Fox, who sat a table and expressed horror when he tear classes to teach at North Carolina Stat morning. "YOU DON'T have tenure yet?" he give you tenure right now." ramun saia snc s prouaesi 01 "urai ti that drew upon taped interviews with ir over a period of several years. k At the reading. Smith said "Family Li ft this fall, is a mystery inspired by a lurid i the Outhouse Murders, a bit of modern to show orig The Barn in south Houston. "If The Barn has five people in it, it's a busy night," Pennell said. Although "Last Night at the Alamo" is shot in black and white, Pennell insists that this was an aesthetic and not an economic choice. "Hardly anyone understands that it is more expensive to shoot in black and white than in color," Pennell said. "Once people get into the story, I don't think they'll be as concerned about it." i ne actors in tne mm were recruited mainly from regional talent Pennell had worked with before, including Sonny Carl Davis as Cowboy and Louis Perryman as Claude. The story is mainly Cowboy's, full of secret doubts about his identity, his future and his self-confidence. But his outside costume Drings mm respect from the other regulars; he's got them convinced that he is a cut above them. COWBOY'S PLAN to save the bar includes contacting a Texas legislator. Cowboy roommate during his only year of college. It becomes apparent that the regulars will just have to move to another bar the following night. Movie critic Vincent Canby of The New York limes said, "The dialogue is so good that it doesn't sound as if IB?my Pannall's "Last Night at the Alamo" tonight ii nrvfmtar visii in which a hypnotic /n a movie offer from e<j the audience ? ed by the strange case lly of visiting South of Smith said the ba I writer ever to come been rearranged an your mother in, yoi >ming book, "Family name it 'Another V ght as part of the Spr- or something." THE SELECTIO 'rman ? later to win named Myrtle, who Cuckoo's Nest" and tain her happy mar ling an adaptation of side, "a skinny boy I no thanks. Another charactc rcet after the reading, Enquirer, where sh( ired, what would the the Prayer Family o /el set in a small town who wears a wire a times. Smith worked for talked cn fnnnv " th?? helrM?ft hi>r u/ri s dis var?' I said, 'Var talk to all kinds of ites. Dat var.'" The experience al ter of USC writer-in- the one about the q ? ?i L J -V ti*A k. i L i inc umcr cnu 01 ine mc icg iu spue ncr n ned that she had four The last writer in th e University the next at 8 p.m. in Belk A Smith spent most everyone for mispla cried. Stay here, III was my favorite pa She shrugs off mi ustory," a IVM3 novel her to Eudora W lembers of her family O'Connor and eve that's really dumb, When an admirer M I LI'-' * ' iien, iu ue puoiisneu writer ? six novels newspaper account of "Well, I'm real olc Appalachian folklore tion." She's 40. m linal movie anyone could have actually written it." He called the film "American filmmaking of exceptional order." ? I--- - *t?n? ?Un film IC "tVlO v^anuy rtuuiu mai mv u uiv kind of low-budget, regional movie that suddenly reminds us that, between New York and Hollywood, there's a vast, unruly, exhuberant continent and filmmakers still capable of seeing and ^ hearing what's going on in it." W "IF I had to choose the one current film that most accurately reflects what a certain kind of American life is like today, this would be the film," Canby said. Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert described the film as "a lot like a night in a bar. In the early pasasages, it has moments of laughter and moments of truth, and in its later passages it turns into pathos because the laughter and the truth get mixed up." ? Penncll obtained funds to make the film through grants from the National Fndnwment for the Humanities and the Southwest Media Project, and then had to stump throughout Texas to raise additional funds after the money ran out on the final day of shooting. The film will be shown at 8 p.m. tonight at the Belk Auditorium in the Business Administration building and is free to the public. Pennell will be present to discuss the film and answer Questions about his work. a. n the Balk Auditorium. ^ :s Columbia :d woman ? "This is gross," Smith warnrecalled seeing her mother kill her father cir romoinc ilthrxnoK mnoU C i? Un<. div awvu ivtiKUMJ, U11IIV/U5II IIIUVII UI II IIC13 d fictionalized. "I figured, if you'd turn 1 would certainly sue a writer. I wanted to /orld,' but I couldn't. It was copyrighted i >N she read Tuesday included a character talks about how hard she works to mainriage, even though she has a lover on the with no knack for conversation." r lives in the fantasy world of the National e exults in the adventures of R*?v Al and f Fresno, Calif., and an electric housewife ittached to her ankle to ground her at all a time at The Tuscaloosa News, which she ting because "You get to just go up and ^ people." so gave her some good stories to tell, like uarrclsome housewife who shot herself in nckonil D..? U?UI.. 1 I I- - .1 uaiswuu. uui juu piuuuuijr imu to uc mere. ic series is poet John Hollander, Thursday uditorium. of her time at the reception apologizing to cing one of her manuscript's pages. "That ge, loo," she said. ention of Ihnw frifi?-? u/hn cnmmi'a/l city, Katharine Anne Porter, Flannery n William Faulkner. "Oh, that's dumb, " she said. complimented her on beino such a nmiifir _ and dozens of short stories ? she replied, ^1 I. You've got co take that into considera