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Old Boyfriends' is not enough
Tewksbury's
by Haryey Shapiro
Old Boyfriends, director )oan
Tewksbury's first effort, is both
confusing and intriguing. It is a
on
dependent
film
characterization
rather
than
theme or action.
The plot of Old Boyfriends
(written by Paul Schrader of Taxi
fame)
is
somewhat
Driver
confused. Diane, a woman in her
thirties, decides that if she can
determine why her old flames
loved her, she can love herself. So
Diane sets out to track down her
old boyfriends, hence the film’s
title. Interestingly, she works
backwards, first visiting her
college fiance Jeff (Richard
Jordan), then her high school
beau Eric (John Belushi) 1 and
finally her grade school love
Louis, who we find has been
killed in Vietnam. Undaunted,
Diane settles for his younger
brother Wayne (Keith Carradine)
to fill her needs; we never do learn
whether Diane comes to accept
herself.
Schrader (creator
of the
famous disturbed character of
Travis Bickle) characterizes Diane
as mentally unstable, -though we
are never told what exactly is
troubling her. Tewksbury relates
the character’s problems in a
rather unique way. When Diane
visits Jeff, she assumes the
film
debut
doubtful
personality that he remembers;
she becomes the educated woman
who philosophizes on all subjects.
Moving on to Eric, Diane adopts
the seductive personality that Eric
always thought she had, only to
surprise him in the end. The best
Tewksbury’s
example
of
technique is found in the scenes
with Louis' younger brother,
Diane becomes the seventh grader
adopting the mannerisms and
speech of a young adolescent.
Could’ve been better
One of the film’s major errors
is its failure to develop its main
character. Though the film is
Diane’s story, we learn little about
her, other than that she is
disturbed. Why she adopts the
characteristics her former lovers
expect
f her is never fully
explained. We do not know what
is troubling her psyche, leaving us
to guiss at the most crucial aspect
of the plot. Frankly, both
Schrader and Tewksbury could
have done a lot better.
While Diane is a mystery, her
three old boyfriends are fully
psychologically.
developed
Basically, all three of them are, to
a degree, as mixed up as Diane,
jeff and Eric are both going
through the traumas of divorce
caused, interestingly, by their
wives leaving them in order to
find fulfillment. Of all the
characters, Jeff is the most stable.
He knows what he wants out of
life ("I always said
I’d be
filmmaker and I am,” he tells
the
accepts
Diane
raising a child
responsibil
alone without regret. He is the
film’s one positive character
ather, hand, is a
tragic figure. He does not care
why his wife left him. He lives in
the past, playing nostalgic songs
with his band before scant,
uninterested audiences. When he
is not playing in small empty
clubs, this thirty-five year old
by
John M. Glionna
City
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ThePromise
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WEDNESDAY'S EDITION
will be our final
•
regular issue of
the semester.
All normal deadlines
will hold.
(Check today's
Big apple search
Eventually r through the help of
our
hero
learns
something of the whereabouts of
"the only girl he has ever loved,”
whose picture he spies on the
cover of a current fashion
magazine. After he and his
servant
eating
cockroach
(Renfield occasionally brunches
on snacks consisting of six black
widow spiders, twelve earthworms
and two caterpillars on rye bread
with a slice of onion enough to
make even Drac puke) set up shop
in the New York Hilton, the
flighty Dracula makes the rounds
in The City looking for both his
Renfield,
_
Backpage for
more info.)
dead.
The
best
Boyfriends
moments
occur
in
of Old
situations
only peripherally
commodity.
The acting is much like the
film itself; Talia Shire’s portrayal
of Diane is rather disappointing.
While the actors playing the
exceptional
are
boyfriends
throughout Old Boyfriends, she
seems confused about who she is
playing. She tries but falls short.
On the other hand, capturing the
essence of Jeff, Jordan steals the
show from Shire with a sensitive
portrayal of Diane’s one true love.
He injects some life into the
otherwise listless scenes between
Shire and himself. Belushi', as the
lover who lives in the past, is
effective playing the singing
scenes for laughs. Beneath his
exterior, we know ties the sadness
behind the character. Finally,
Carradine
the disturbed
as
younger brother, performs well.
Old Boyfriends is a film that
accomplish
many
tries
to
objectives, succeeding in some,
but failing to adequately resolve
within Diane’s
conflict
the
personality. And without this,
how can we care?
Playing at the Holiday 2.
Love a tfi rst bite' dies quickly
—
"
movie with pondering on what
American involvement in Vietnam
has done to the relatives of the
us how political campaigns are
any
marketable
sold
like
Dracula is re-yamped for '70s
“A vampire loose in New York
in the 20th century
Love at first' Bite is a
really!
zany, low budget comedy that
tries very hard to be funny. It
When were you last scared out of your wits by a movie?
actually succeeds in some scenes
but wavers on the verge of tedium
The night he came home
in others with its unrelenting
repetition of sick one-liners.
George Hamilton, who both
co-produces
nd stars in this
parody of the Dracula legend,
portrays a convincingly funny,
modern day Count Vladimir
Evenings 7 & 9 pm Sat. & Sun. 2, 3:45, 7, & 9 pm
Dracula who, after being evicted
Matinee Saturday and Sunday SI .00 till 5 pm
from his Gothic Romanian castle,
APLC TOttCST 1 a
ventures to the Big Apple in
search of romance along with
Renfield (Arte Johnson), his
Kathleen Quinlin and Steven Collins
devoted servant and sidekick.
Naturally, Drac makes the
in
Atlantic crossing in his casket
(trying to get hip quick by
brushing up on his American slang
“23 skidoo, flapper, red hot
to
is
love each other forever
mama") and through a mixup at
the airport ends up at a fyneral
Sat. Sun. 2, 4, 7:15, 9:20
Evenings 7:16 and 9:20 pm
chapel- in Harlem. After the
Matinees $1 till 5 pm
(Sherman
Hensley)
preacher
lectures to the black congregation
that “Brothers and sisters, when
—»
you is gone, you is gone and ain’t
nobody gonna bring you back,”
the casket creaks open and Drac
greets jthe scattering funeral party
with
a
classic
“Goood
Eeevening!”
HALLOWEEN
Tewksbury,
here,
makes a
statement which gets lost in the
overall plot of Old Boyfriends. I
wonder why she bothered to
complicate an already confused
connected to
the main thrust of the picture.
After Diane has moved on to her
nest boyfriend, Jeff tries to locate
her in Los Angeles where she lives,
engaging the services of a private
detective. Expecting results within
a few days, Jeff is startled when
after a mere five minutes and two
telephone calls, he learns Diane’s
name, social security
married
plays at high \chool dances and
telephone
number,
address,
tries to recapture the grand old
place of
her
number'
and
times of his adolescence. A sad employment.
So much for the
sight.
individual’s right to privacy in
Periphery
America. Another fine sequence
Wayne
also mentally making a short statement occurs
disturbed. It is apparent when we when Jeff is filming a'commercial
meet him; his speech is slurred
for a political candidate. In this
and he appears to be slow witted. sequence, we see that the whole
Later, we learn his mental set is 1 faked. There is a rubber fish,
imbalance was brought on by his artificial river pollution and fake
brother’s death in Vietnam. rhetoric. Here, Tewksbury shows
.
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woman and “a bite to drink." His
quest eventually leads him to a
chic New York disco in Which this
Prince of Darkness looks quite
natural amidst all the vampy
looking disco children. He puts
the make on the invitingly
promiscuous Cindy Sometime (“If
ya like’em, ya ball ’em once and
then its ‘adios muchacho’!”)
(Susan St. James) who doubles as
both model and disco queen, and
after hustling under the spotlight
to the beat of Alicia Bridges’ "I
Love the Nightlife,” it’s back to
her apartment where Drac gives
her one dynamite hickey.
Director Stan Dragoti’s Count
has some good lines in this movie
as he frequently sallies back and
foolishly
forth from being
sentimental (In bed, he insists that
Cindy not be honest but “be
beautiful, be romantic, be mine!’’)
to his moments of witticism,
“With you it’s never a quickie
always a longie!” Elsewhere, he
laments to Renfield about just
how much of a.lonely little Drac
he’s been these past 750 years,
tired of going'around dressed like
a head waiter and weak from an
all liquid diet.
Frankly,
much
of
the
underlying humor in this spoof
surfaces through the plight of this
outdated, romanticist
of a
vampire trying to cope with the
fast paced life and liberal values of
one, of the world’s largest cities.
—
Batty pursuit
Dracula’s eventual love affair
with Miss Sometime is jeopardized
her
and
by
Jeffrey
sometime-boyfriend,
Rosenberg (Richard Benjamin),
whose misguided attempts to put
the Count back in his coffin for
good provide some of the film’s
high points. The humorously
energetic
Benjamin
virtually
outdoes himself with hiS portrayal
bumbling
of
Rosenberg's
endeavors to bag this bat. In one
scene, he surprises the two lovers
having dinner at an expensive
restaurant and after firing three
silver bullets into Dracula’s chest
is told “Nice try Rosenberg but
the three silver bulletts are for
Werewolves!"
After the occurrence of several
unexplained crimes within the
city limits (people being attacked
by a strange, flying creature of the
night and the break-in and
robbery of a blood bank), a-New
York City Police Captain (Dick
Shawn)
joins
forces vwith
Rosenberg and their batty pursuit
of our hero leads to a slapstick,
keystone
cop chase through
Central Park and the streets of
New York^
Granted, this plot has a lot of
imagination but seems to be a big
step down the scale for many of
the
actors
involved. (Dick
Benjamin better hope that Neil
Simon doesn’t get wind of this
movie or he’ll never be cast in
another one of his plays. For Arte
Johnson after Laugh-In, where
else is there to go?) Harhilton
with
plays a believable Count
virtually no makeup but this
spoof pays respect to the original
although
storyline in name only
Drac does go around biting people
and has to be inside his coffin by
sunrise.
will
Basically,
this flick
probably do for Hamilton and
company what they, no doubt,
intended if to do, and that’s make
people laugh in the process of
but it
making a few bucks
won’t be all that successful.
Money must have been something
of an object here because it’s
obvious that not much was spent
in the film’s making. The special
effects that one might expect in a
type
movie
of
this
are
contrived
and
inconsistent,
unconvincing. (You can almost
see the strings as the bat flies
through the midnight air and the
antics of the car chase are enough
to make you want to race for the
exits.)
1 won’t go as far as to imply
that this version of Dracula sucks
but if you can’t catch "Love at
First Bite” before finals time be
sure to watch for it on Home Box
Office this summer.
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