University Daily Kansan, June 22, 1981
Page 5
Comedv-drama 'Atlantic Citv' uncommonly good
By MIKE GEBERT Contributing Reviewer
ATLANTIC CITY
Starring Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, Kate Reed, Hollis MLCaren, Robert Joy, Michel Piccell, Screenplay Malle. Guarded by Louis Malle.
The movie industry spends its days looking for the megabucks with infantile comedies and expensive toys like "Raiders of the Lost Ark," that, even if they are very good, are still kids movies for adults. If there is any artistic hope for the movie industry (and years of history show that the movie industries have been in collapses, and always manages to turn out a few first-class productions), it will lie with people of imagination who scrape together funds to turn out a good
movie despite all the hindrance of studios and distributors.
ONE THINKS OF "The Elephant Man," which was made with Mel Brooks' money and released only after a lot of wheeling and dealing on his part; or "The Stunt Man," which sat on the set of the movie, getting a release; or of Robert Altman's last film before "Popeye," "Health," which to this date has played in less than a half dozen theaters in this country. And there is "Atlantic City," a production by the director Louis Malle, completed in 1978 and only being released now.
It's a film that defies description, beyond the phrase "uncommonly good," it's about gangsters and urban sprawl, but it's scarcely "The Godfather" is its whimsical. of of of best writing the movies have heard in a while and performances you should fall in love with.
BURT LANCASTER plays Lou, an aging errant-boy for the local small-time hoods in Atlantic City, filmed in the upheavals that accompanied its remissance as Las Vegas-by-the-rainmaker man. He must long buried, and he works for Grace (Kate Reid), the widow of an old pal and bigshot.
Lou isn't much in the scheme of things, but he keeps up his dapper appearance—a false front not unlike the one Atlantic City puts on with the influx of new gambling money. He lives across the way from a woman (Susan Sarandon) training to be a croupier, the best of all, and returns of her husband and sister—the husband having made the sister pregnant.
The future business-woman has no room for these flower-children, but the husband (Robert Joy) comes in contact with Lou when he is mistakenly told that Lou can help him get rid of the cocaine he stole from some mobsters.
The husband gets killed, Lou gets the money from the coke and with it becomes a bigot at last, graciously accepting his offer, when she doesn't know whose money it was.
THE MOVIE IS A KIND of clockwork game—the pieces are set up, and then the movie runs on its own course, with very satisfying results. Pieces fall delightfully, correctly into place without being predictable.
One of the glories of the film is the screen play. It is written by John Guare, a playwright who has had a few modest successes on Broadway, among them 'Marco Polo Sings a Sol' which, if I remember correctly, was about the identity crisis of a young man in about 2000 whose father was also, through the wonders of a sex change operation, his mother.
Guare doesn't write flowery prose, but neither does he go in for the minimalist-mum-boried approach of the "Tape Man" always Rings Twice." His
KU summer camps offer intensive study
By LINDA LANG Staff Reporter
A tall, dark-haired youth lay sprawled on a bench in front of the main door at McCollum Hall, luggage nearby. One of the hall desk clerks pointed to the student and said the youth would answer questions about the KU journalism camp for high school students if someone could awaken him.
The youth, Eric Burcher, a Topena West High School sophomore who had attended writing classes at the clinic was waiting for his parents to pick him up, looked bleary-eyed and finally sat up.
"It WAS FUN," he said. "It was also very intense."
Another camper, Aaron Levine,
Lawrence High school junior, said he
liked the clinic.
Burcher said he intended to return for music camp this summer because he was interested in jazz improvisation.
"It was great," Levine said. "Gary's teaching was just phenomenal."
Gary Mason is a KU journalism professor who taught photography classes at the camp.
BECKY LUCAS, Mission High School junior, said she learned a lot of valuable shortcuts in her classes.
"I learned things I could do to make
the paper run smoother and make things easy for myself," she said.
All three of the students participated in a one-week summer camp session for intensive study in journalism, one of five subject areas offered through the Midwestern Camps, held every summer at KU for the past 43 years.
THE OTHER FOUR study areas are astronomy, speech and debate, art and design, and music.
The Midwestern Camps are not charged for use of KU buildings or for services provided by University Relations, according to David Leavitt. He said the Midwestern Camps. He said his office staff was subsidized by the state.
Camps for students interested in golf, basketball, track and general fitness also are available. These camps are the courses of the KU coaches who direct them.
"We're treated as state, as part of the University," he said.
WHEREH THE CAMPS are subzidized by KU or not, they give students a university atmosphere in which they can develop their areas of interest or possibly find out about potential careers.
Robin Rowland, director of the Midwestern Speech and Debate Institute, said he thought students should aid by hearing lectures of size KU because they would have
access to a good library and a good speech and debate staff.
"It gives them an opportunity to interact with 100 bright high school students," he said. "The competition at the end of the camp tournament gives an experience they couldn't get back home."
Most camps offer individual attention, workshops and recreation, although the amount and the difficulty of the work depends on the camps itself.
"I think they work pretty hard, but that is recreational if you're doing something you enjoy," Busheau said. "Our kids put on a concert every week. When they're in class, that's kind of a work-recreation."
ROWLAND SAID the students in the speech and debate camp were kept busy from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Students begin the day with elective courses in argumentation, speaking to inform or persuade, or extemporaneous speaking. Later in the morning, they take a class in either beginning or advanced theory of debate.
In the afternoon, students participate in intensive workshops. They spend evenings doing research in the library, according to Rowland.
CAMP DIRECTORS generally said that even though admission requirements for the camps were not strict, only students interested in the
particular field of study or sport would apply to the workshop.
"They pretty much self-select," Bushouse said.
The exception is the art and design camp, which limits its enrollment to students with recommendations from artists or professional artists or designers.
- Midwestern Astronomy Camp:
senior high, June 28-July 11 and July 12-9
- KU Camps for this summer are:
- Midwestern Journalism Camp:
senior high. June 21-July 3.
- Midwestern Music Camp: junior high, June 21-27. Senior high, June 28- July 25. July 28-July 11 and July 12-25
- Midwestern Art and Design Camp *
junior high, June 12-27. Senior high,
June 28-July 25, June 28-July 11,
and July 12-25.
- Speech and Debate Institute: senior high, June 20-July 3 and July 5-19.
- Jayhawk Track and Field Camp for 13 to 17-year-old Boys and Girls: June 21-26.
- Ted Owens 1981 Basketball Camp: June 21-26.
- Ted Owens 1981 Jayhawk Basketball Camp for 11 to 17-year-old Girls: June 28 July 3.
- Ross Randall's 1981 Golf Camp:
Boys, July 5-11 and July 12-18.
Classes in skills and fitness, cheerleading and drill team will also be held. A softball clinic will be held in other towns to instruct students.
dialogue is always pleasant and functional; at times he produces a marvelous turn of phrase that is sublime. Beyond that, he reaches something that challenges the listener, because it is so rare: different speech patterns for each character. I don't mean obvious use of slang or anything; but the things that Sarandon says are what a thirty-year-old, career-minded woman would say, and the things that Sarandon doesn't say are old, colorful old character would say. The common denominator is charm.
I SUSPECT THAT Lancaster will be honored at the least with an Oscar nomination, but really the whole cast is just fine. Lancaster is the stand-out; after years of being the intellectual athlete, avoiding star parts and playing down his acrobat and latter-day dancer skills, he comes to terms with himself. Lancaster was always the most intellectual-seeming of actors, but there was an anxiety in his roles, as if he was checking to make sure you knew he wasn't just a pretty face. It undermined his convincingness; Gregory Peck, for instance, didn't care what you thought he was supposed to do beyond acting ability, and Paul Newman can wink at the audience and get them on his side. But Lancaster was always unsure; that he's older and realizes he has a certain dignified,
favorite-uncle charm, he can put a part like Lou on like a pair of old loafers.
Susan Sarandon (Janet from "Rocky Horror" and the mother from Malle's "Pretty Baby") is also very good; she's lost her habitual kookiness and picked up a veneer of practicality that can be broken at the right time. And in the supporting cast, Reid as Grace the widow and Hollis McLaren as the pregnant sister—two very different women—are both extremely good and demonstrate the movie's interest in tying loose ends in the most appealing way possible. It is McLaren who has one of Guere's best one-liners: "You know, if Jesus were alive today he'd be very into Hare Krishnua."
MALLE'S VISION of America, beginning with Atlantic City itself, is not a true foreigner's vision, like Werner Herzog '97; it's a sort of cockeyed native's look. Nowhere is this better typified than by the way a crime thriller turns out to be one of the most introspective and gentle movies of the year. Like Lou, the movie chooses to say to the bad things that happen—these things happen, but there’s a lot to choose from. The movie is in which Lou, in a desperate hurry, stumbles into a hospital dedication ceremony hosted by Robert Goulet. Showbiz brings things to a halt. Only in America.
The vital need for weather information was lacking in Lawrence Friday night as local radio stations were either off the air because of the high winds or unable to gather the weather data.
Local stations unable to broadcast emergency
The only area station that was broadcasting during the storm was KKKX in Ottawa, and prior to receiving calls from listeners in the other area, the station was not aware of the severity of the storm in Lawrence.
Spokesmen at KANU and KLZR said their stations were off the air for about an hour due to power loss.
lines had to be kept open. Todd said the station understood the Sheriff's problem.
TIM TODD, a disc jockey at KKKK, said the station tried to contact the Douglas County Sheriff's Office but were told the
When the station tried to contact the National Weather Bureau in Topeka, Todd said it was given the standard weather report without mention of a tornado in the Lawrence area.
Todd said KKKX received word of the storm from listeners in Lawrence because KKKX had no reporters there. He said it came as a surprise to everyone in Ottawa because the weather was calm there.
"We can't really complain about the lack of communication," Todd said.
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Tickets at Murphy Hall Box Office
All seats $3.00 general admission
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Enjoy summer by the pool, reading. We have a large selection of magazines and paper backs.
We also carry stationery, cards, bulletin boards, gift items, and giftwrap.
Malls Shopping Center
842-7152