This Is The Modern World?

This Is The Modern World?

CREEMEDIA

BREAKING GLASS (Paramount)

D.O.A.: DEAD ON ARRIVAL (A High Times Film)

DANCE CRAZE (Chrysalis Films)

by Toby Goldstein

Is it really time for punk to be categorized as nostalgia? Surely there’s enough anger still churning among the unsettled masses of America and the U.K. to keep the frenzy on the street. Yet given the ability of U.S. record marketers to have forcibly smoothed punk rock into new wave and the tendency of some Brits to treat rebellious movements as steps towards artistic godhood, it was inevitable for 1977’s excesses to become frozen into 1981’s archives.

Two English and one Anglo-American film examine the angry years with varied amounts of concern. Of course, considering that the latest English export is Piratemania escapism in fancy dress, all the above come off textbook serious. Least ambitious in its intentions is Dance Craze, a lengthy in-concert portrayal of six top nouveau-ska bands, filmed about a year ago at several venues. The giveaway to the film’s bias is evident in its first frames, which read, “Chrysalis Records present...” No one’s toes are going to be stepped on here.

Admittedly, you can get musical satisfaction watching dynamic performances by the Specials,' Selecter, Beat, Bad Manners, Bodysnatchers and Madness. In alternating sequences, each group plays the high points of its repertoire. The intercutting of Pathe News 50’s dance segments is entertaining, though one gets the feeling that ska will rapidly become (if it hasn’t already) just another bunch of kinescope memories. What’s harder to excuse is the almost complete omission of the left/right wing clashes that have ruined dozens of ska shows and at present, are responsible for the Specials ha vinggiven up touring. One quick scene of a bash-up while Terry Hall sings “Concrete Jungle” is far from adequate.

Reality is not the meat of Breaking Glass, which was very accurately described to me as a British punk version of The Rose. While Hazel O’Connor doesn’t relate to Midler’s sexual greediness or die on screen at the end, the movies are structured similarly. Hazel begins her career dodging beer bottles and spit, fronting an awful punk band, meets cocky Phil Daniels, an undercover chart fixer for a glossy record label, and grudgingly allows herself to be managed by, then involved with him. Her success, won by singing overtly doomy 1984-is-coming dramaturage, is unavoidable!, just like her gradual loss of principle as she becomes an artiste. Daniels, po6r sod, finds spme integrity as Hazel is shedding hers, so there’s no future for him with the group, and he ends up sadder but wiser, and intact. It’s a common theme that plays well even without a tremendous dose of originality.

Breaking Glass is at its best when it deals with the giants record-buying Britain hates most—the lavish labels. Without exception, the execs are dolts, out of touch with anything past Woodstock and frightened by innovation. When the film illuminates scenes of compromise, hush-ups, sell-outs and misdirected goals, it’s most worthwhile.

1 have never seen The Great Rock ’n’ Roll: Swindle, said to be an historical overview of the Sex Pistols, but I’d be surprised if it perpetrates the mental carnage demanded by D.O.A. Filmed on the Sex Pistols’ ill-fated 1978 U.S. tour without authorization, D.O.A. screamingly encapsulates the essence of what punk’s haters found horrific and its fans found indispensable. Lech Kowalski’s direction and ValKuklowsky’s editing are raw, confrontatory and without reprieve. D.O.A. is as close to a “you are there” experience as mental projection onto a battleground. When the infamous stoned Sid ’n’ Nancy footage is on, you wish you could be anyplace else. No escape equals no future.

Via the character of a failed punker called Terry, who lives in a London council flat, the film ' attempts to discuss punk’s reason for being, but it doesn’t have to. The comments of a pinched-face G.L.C. member, responsible for having banned the Sex Pistols, Damned, Stranglers, et.al., calling on the bands “to get off their fat (?) behinds” and speak the Queen’s English, are ludicrous. When in the next minutes, Johnny Rotten’s lyrics to “God Save The Queen” are flashed on screen like it was Singalong-with-Mitch time, one understands that the battle lines had been drawn from the start.

D.O.A. vibrantly captures the Pistols’

American tour, in spirit as much as in sound. Other bands, including X-Ray Spex, Generation X, Sham 69 and the Dead Boys appear as extra textures on the main canvas. It was wonderfully ironic that, at D.O.A.'s invitational opening, Billy Idol, no longer the voice of Gen X, sat quietly while the briefly reunited Dead Boys provided a rude running commentary upon the film, which was uproarious for those who realized that their image demanded the group act up, aggravating for those who didn't.

La La La, Nice Movie

HARDLY WORKING Directed by Jerry Lewis (20th Century Fox)

First off the top, I wanna tell ya that I went into this one adopting the rock ’n’ roll critic’s Primary 101 CombatStance—you knowthepose: head first ’n’ expectin’ the worst.

Well, guess what? Jerry done made good this time around, just like he did during his heyday of hits such as The Delicate Deliquent, The Errand Boy, Cinderfella and, his all-time greatest fantoonie moment on the silver screen, The Nutty Professor.

Let’s not forget for uno momento that The Stooge (roll over Ig, Jer was using the appellation as far back as 1953) has been at it since the first Martin & Lewis release way back in 1949— no mean feat when you stop to consider that the guy’s tippin’ the cosmic yuk scales at just over a half century of existence (and since we’re talking non-stop slapstick here, somebody please give this man a James Brown “Hardest Working Man In Show Business” merit badge, Hollywood division).

Jerry claims that he packed it in over a decade ago after he saw Which Way To The Front? on a double-bill with Deep Throat. Personally, it sounds like a good match to me (c’mon, Jan Murray and Linda Lovelace in the same theater?), but, then again, you’re talking to a man whose ideal team-up would 'consist of Son Of Flubber and The Tool Box Murders.

Anyway, in Hardly Working, Jer reprises his timeless persona as One Man Wrecking Crew, destroying (accidently, ’natch) everything that isn’t nailed down—and then some.

Sure, the gags are telegraphed 30 minutes in advance, but that’s the point. Just when you think that Jerry isn’t going to wipe out that busload of crippled nuns—he does. (Actually, if the truth be knQwn, there really isn’t any busload of murdered nuns in Hardly Working—just as there also aren’t any other forms of violence, sex or profanity, either. I mean, this ain’t no Matt Helm film we’re dealin’ with here, y’know.)

And, if Jerry’s personal life hasn’t been up to scratch these days (and, let’s face it: if you can’t believe the Enquirer, who can you believe?), you’d never know it from watching Hardly Working. It’s worst sin isbeingTerminally Silly but, rest assurred, it never even comes close to sinking to the level of out ’n’ out stupidity.

So, hey, I’m not afraid to come out and say that Jerry’s cool enough for me. After all, I didn’t see you with a best-selling DC comic book named after you in the mid-60’s.

Besides, you tell me how you can find fault wiiha guy like Jerry Lewis, Mr. Muscular Dystrophy hisself, who has the exquisite timing to release his first motion picture in over a decade in this, The International Year Of The Disabled.

I’m waiting.

Jeffrey Morgan

Chip Dip Zip

ZIPPY 3 by Bill Griffith

(Last Gasp, Inc.)

Somewhere in the Bismark Archipelago, a confused American presidential candidate asks, “Am I elected yet?” Before returning to his U.S. Holiday Inn campaign headquarters, he leaves the backward Bismarckians some mementos— Shaun Cassidy t-shirts, hamsters, dry-cleaning stores, and cable TV. “Don’t forget the chainsaws an’ valium!!” cry the pleased natives as he boards his jet.

Zippy the Pinhead is back, and better than ever. In Zippy 3, a truly hilarious compilation of Zippy anecdotes, we find the divine dufus Zippy on the U.S. presidential campaign trail. Bogus computer results, taken from a “random sampling,” tag him as prime presidential material , a role model for the 80’s. Surprisingly (or considering the last election results, not surprisingly), the U.S. populace falls hook, line, and sinkeiTor the muu-muued maniac, whose televised campaign speeches bring up such important grass-roots issues as . .The IRANIANS cannot pronounce CHAPPAQUIDDICK... ” “I wish I was standing on a CINCINNATI STREET CORNER holding a CLEAN, DOG... “Have a COKE and a SMILE!” Zippy’s following becomes so strong that both Reagan and Carter are visibly shaken, while California Governor Jerry Brown is forced to drop out of the race, urging his followers to put their “complete support behind a REAL PINHEAD!” To this Zippy replies, “Now can I marry LINDA RONSTADT?” In the great American tradition, Zippy and crew spare no effort to reach their goal (“I want the PRESIDENCY so BAD I can already taste the HORS D’OEUVRES!... I want to REDECORATE the OVAL OFFICE!”). Hisslimey, Belushi-esque campaign manager goes so far as to stage a fake assassination attempt on our hero. While the American public reads the shocking headlines (“He’s resting at CAMP DAVID.. .What a GUY!!”), the Pinhead “recuperates” at the presidential camp where, per Zippy’s request, all the grass on the grounds has been replaced with plush shag carpeting. There, an introspective Zippy relaxes in furry nylon bliss while contemplating the pros and cons of the office: “.. .Nobody will ever have to DO th’ DISHES or take out th’ GARBAGE again! Th’ BAD PART is that, at any given moment, JOHN DENVER may DROP IN!!”

For Pinhead devotees, Zippy 3 could easily become the Zippy bible. Part two focuses on Zippy history; “Dream of the Pinhead’s Progress” tells the story of how the Pinheads came to America; “Zippy, the Early Years,” observes Zippy as a child and teenager; and “Lippy, Zippy’s Twin Brother,” has his cynical, businesssuited bro from Toledo hiding the Cool Whip and Ho-Hos when Zippy comes to visit (“Oh, CHRIST... My brother ZIPPY is cornin’ to TOWN.. .Jesus...”). In addition, the Toadettes are back, and in the closingZippy 3 feature, an aged Bill Griffith joins the Underground Cartoonists Retirement Center.

Ah yes, Zippy, you are back, and in great form, but I want to know.. .Will you have enough CONTACT PAPER for your new CABINET? When will you RELEASE the HOSTESSES (Twinkies, Snowballs, and the like)? And, ARE YOU ELECTED YET?? YOW!!

Jean Macdonald