DRIVE-IN SATURDAY

DRIVE-IN SATURDAY

Cherie Busts Open!

Edouard Dauphin

by

Wondering what to get Sis for her birthday? How about a parasite? Yep, these little critters make the N perfect gift. They�re cuter than goldfish. They don�t take up room �cause they live in your stomach. And there are no messy feeding problems, since they chomp away contentedly on your insides. Best of all, when they finally decide to burst out of the nourishing organism that is You, they do it with style, ripping through your skin and spattering bits of your innards all over the ceiling just like in the movie, Alien.

Or just like in the movie, Parasite, right? Now you�re talking. See, Parasite is a lot closer to real life since it�s in 3-D and that means slimy, barf-inducing, eel-like grinders lunge out of the movie screen right into your Glutton Size popcorn buckets and your Great Gulp soda vats. Ooh-whee! More hot butter, please!

�Okay,� you�re probably saying, �it�s in 3-D and that means I have to wear those stupid glasses and I�ll get a headache.� Two reasonable, if wimplike, objections. Dauph solved the first by wearing Zany Zappers to the screening. Those specs are so stupid, 3-D glasses look sensible by comparison. As for the headache, it�s not the 3-D effects that�ll cause it—more like the screenplay and the acting. Parasite may be �the first futuristic monster movie in 3-D� but it plays like Twilight Zone meets Sha Na Na at the 3-D House Of Beef.

Parasite is set 10 years in the future in a post-holocaust America where the sparse population is dominated by a powerful conglomerate called ZYREX. Times are rough. A bowl of soup is negotiable for a quartz digital watch. CREEM is going for $72.95 a copy—up two dollars from the newsstand price. Groups of scavengers roam the land, including a youth gang called the Rayguns. Guess who�s in the Rayguns. Cherie Currie. But that�s alright—Joan Jett isn�t around at all!

Robert Glaudini—don�t remember that name—is a scientist trying to save the world from parasites. Unfortunately for him, a parasite is nesting in his belly. Talk about a style dilemma! He trades in his Jordache jeans for a pair of Fat Boy$ but the beast keeps growing bigger. To make matters worse, ZYREX�s Alexander Haig is chasing him around the desert in a foreign car. Enter musical comedy star Vivian Blaine as a cheerful landlady with a growth inside her face. Or, to paraphrase Vivian�s song in Guys And Dolls, �a person could develop a parasite.�

When Vivian�s little friend explodes through her nose right into your lap, you�ll be wishing this film was in 2-D. Cherie Currie gets to meet her Maker too and—surprise!—it�s not Kim Fowley.

See Parasite. It�ll grow in you.

A nauseous odor was emanating from the lobby of the theatre when I arrived for the late screening of Cat People. As the manager sprayed air freshener on everything from the patrons to the water cooler, he assured us nothing was wrong—just some kitchen fumes from the Rickshaw Express next door. Fifteen minutes into this cat-astrophe of a movie, I knew I�d been lied to. The picture was stinking up the joint.

A remake of the 1942 B-movie cult classic of the same name, Cat People is the work of Paul Schrader, a director whose string of consecutive flops—Hardcore, American Gigolo, and now this bomb—threatens to rival the failure streak of Robert Altman. Lensed in New Orleans, the movie manages to make this colorful city look drab. Meanwhile, the story is as choppy as a bowl of Nine Lives Savory Stew and the editing looks like it Was done with a cat o�nine tails.

Nastassia Kinski, the European fox who taught The Dauph a thing or two about eating cherries in Te$s, is Irena, a mixed-up virgin who has a thing for panthers. Coming to the Crescent City, she meets long-lost brother Malcolm McDowell, a cat-man who picks human bones clean like they were pieces of Kentucky Fried Chicken. He�s in heat for Sis but she is drawn to John Heard, a genial zookeeper who has been having a fling with Annette O�Toole. Does this sound like a soap opera? Nine Lives To Live. The Young And The Clawless. As The Cat Litter Turns.

The bulk of this boring flick has to do with Malcolm�s efforts to mate with Nastassia and Heard�s efforts to figure out what the hell is going on. Seems to me a veterinarian could have been brought in early on to have everyone spayed, sparing us all a very smelly movie.

Skip Cat People. It�s a dog. And when in New York, eat at Rickshaw Express. They deserve an apology!^