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Reviewer: Summer Films
Unsuitable Fare For Youth
PAGE 12 — The Georgia Bulletin, June 7,1990
NEW YORK (CNS) —
There’s more of the same
— but less of the laughs —
in "Back to the Future Part
III" (Universal).
In a convoluted opening,
viewers watch Marty
(Michael J. Fox) launch
his mission to rescue Doc
(Christopher Lloyd) from
the Old West of 1885 where
he is about to be shot down
by trigger-happy bully,
"Mad Dog” Tannen
(Thomas F. Wilson).
BY SISTER MARY ANN WALSH
WASHINGTON (CNS) - Hollywood is
spending megabucks to lure movie
viewers — especially young ones — into
theaters for summer 1990.
But the effort is "troubling,” said Henry
Herx, director of the U.S. Catholic Con
ference Office for Film and Broadcasting.
“The fact is there are few pictures really
for young people among the predicted
blockbusters,” Herx said.
To attract the traditional summer vaca
tion audience, studios have engaged in an
unprecedented spending spree, laying out
anywhere from $30 million to $60 million
per picture to promote such films as "Dick
Tracy” with Warren Beatty, “Total
Recall” with Arnold Schwarzenegger and
“Days of Thunder” with Tom Cruise.
Sequels to past hits also are rolling onto
the screen, such as “Back to the Future
Part III” and “Gremlins II: The New
Batch.”
Videocassette promoters likewise are
ready to profit from vacation movie
viewing. Among their summer rental of
ferings are “Harlem Nights” with Eddie
Murphy and “Back to the Future Part II.
Herx in an interview said summer movie
fare poses problems for more than one
reason.
In the past, summer movies have been
“family films,” but in recent years studios
have substituted “these dumb adolescent
movies” that usually have some adult
fare.
Examples of such movies were the
original “Back to the Future” and
“Gremlins,” he said.
The USCC classified both as A-III —
adults. “Back to the Future” was criti
cized for "implicit acceptance of sexual
promiscuity as standard teen-age
behavior.” “Gremlins” was criticized for
its “fierce, violent, savage sight gags.”
Today, almost every film that studios in
tend as traditional family drama has “im
plications of sexual hanky-panky and
hard-edged fright and violence,” Herx
said.
It is contemporary Hollywood’s “idea ot
general audience appeal films,” he said,
but “many of these aren’t good for people
of any age, especially teen-agers.”
The introduction of adult material in
films that the Motion Picture Association
of America rates as PG — parental
guidance suggested — is "troubling, said
Herx. Right now, with many of its PG
movies, Hollywood is promoting a
“hothouse environment” in which "a kid
goes directly from childhood into an adult
world.”
Movie executives acknowledge that the
youth market is their primary one in sum
mer.
Roger Birnbaum, president of produc
tion at 20th Century Fox, which this sum
mer will release "Die Hard II,” starring
Bruce Willis, put it succinctly: "Kids can
see three pictures a week. There are no
school nights.”
Paul Eisele, president of The Fairfield
Group Inc., a media analysis company
with headquarters in Westport, Conn., said
that “the biggest audiences are kids,” and
said that is why studios release their pic
tures during vacation.
Exhibit Features Six Black Artists
FUTURE SEQUEL — Doc, actor Christopher Lloyd, (left) and Mar
ty, played by Michael J. Fox, are transported to the Old West of 1885 in
“Back to the Future Part III.” The U.S. Catholic Conference calls the
film a “tame, tired and second sequel.” (CNS photo from Universal)
Six black artists and two performing groups will be
featured in “Lift Every Voice: Atlanta s Black Artistic
Heritage,” a new exhibit opening June 11 at the Atlanta
History Center Downtown. The exhibit runs through Oct. 13,
in conjunction with the National Black Arts Festival in
Atlanta July 27 through Aug. 5.
Rare photographs, artifacts, and in some cases, actual
paintings and sculptures by the artists illustrate the aspira
tions, struggles, and successes of these influential Airican-
Americans, all of whom worked and lived in Atlanta at
some point in their careers. Two Atlanta performing arts
groups are also highlighted.
All the artists featured have made significant contribu
tions to the arts. Mattiwilda Dobbs, aunt of Mayor Maynard
Jackson, became an internationally known opera singer
and was the first black soprano to star at the Metropolitan
Opera. Painter Hale Woodruff initiated Atlanta
University’s annual art exhibitions for the works of black
artists. Jazz musician Fletcher Henderson, a 1920 graduate
of Atlanta University, was instrumental in the creation of
the swing era. The other artists featured in the exhibit are
folklorist and musician Willis Laurence James, and
sculptors Elizabeth Prophet and Beverly Buchanan.
Big Bethel A.M.E. Church’s “Heaven Bound” production
and Atlanta University’s Summer Theatre are the two per
forming groups featured in the exhibit. The “Heaven
Bound” pageant, which has attracted audiences to the
sanctuary of Big Bethel since its first performance in 1930,
is still presented every November. The Summer Theatre,
which was founded in 1944, produced plays from Greek
tragedy to Broadway comedy until it closed in 1975.
The title of the exhibit is based on a hymn written by
James Weldon Johnson, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
Johnson and his brother J. Rosamond Johnson composed
this powerfully simple song for a 1900 Lincoln s birthday
celebration at a Jacksonville, Fla., elementary school, but
the song became popular nationwide. It was adopted
around 1920 by the NAACP, and soon became known as the
“Negro National Anthem.”
The Atlanta History Center Downtown is located at 140
Peachtree Street, N.E., at Margaret Mitchell Square.
Hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Admission is
free.
Stale Sequel Overreaches
Marty is taken in by the
McFlys, newly arrived
Irish immigrants who turn
out to be his great-grand
parents.
Marty and Doc have only
a few days to perfect a
madcap plan to hijack the
weekly train so it can push
the damaged DeLorean
time machine up to the re
quired 88 mph and on
through to 1985. But time
stands still when the new
schoolmarm, Clara (Mary
Steenburgen), arrives in
town. She and Doc discover
instant, eternal love, giving
Doc a severe case of cold
feet about going back to the
future.
Marty, meanwhile, can’t
get out of town fast enough
as Tannen challenges him
to a shoot-out and the
undertaker is eagerly
measuring his coffin size.
All problems are re
solved as the train propels
Doc and Marty towards
destiny with the feisty
Clara in hot pursuit.
The writer-director team
of Bob Gale and Robert
Zemeckis has come up with
what amounts to merely a
second sequel, following
last year’s Part II. This so-
called Part III in no way
triplicates the ingenuity
and fun of the original
movie.
By now the glitzy special
effects have grown stale
and, with virtually no
character development,
the movie is reduced to
cartoon-like situations
peopled by cardboard
characters. Marty is still
spry and Doc is as manic as
ever, but brief sight gags,
such as Marty moonwa Ik
ing or tossing the first
frisbee, can’t support a
tired, tame and thin
storyline.
The pacing is respect
able, but never ap
proaches the thrills ot a
big-budget, large-scale
Western. Just as well that
the DeLorean is demol
ished at film’s end, since its
premise has been milked to
the limit.
Because of minimal
street language and mild
and cartoon-like violence,
the U.S. Catholic Con
ference classification is
A-II — adults and
adolescents. The Motion
Picture Association of
America rating is PG —
parental guidance sug
gested.
*****
In “Total Recall” (Tri-
Star), set in 2084, Doug
Quaid (Arnold Schwarz
enegger) is beset by mys
teries. Total strangers are
trying to kill him, he has
dreams about being on
Mars with another woman,
his devoted wife suddenly
attacks him, and he dis
covers a completely di-
ferent identity is buried in
his subconscious. To learn
who he is, he journeys to
Mars.
There, among the
mutants and rebels, he
meets his dream woman
(Rachel Ticotin) and
together they try to evade
the killers and his wife
(Sharon Stone), who have
pursued him and are ac
tually agents for Mars’
ruthless tyrant, Cohaagen
(Ronny Cox). Unless Quaid
can remember the secret
trapped in his mind that
will lead to the dictator’s
downfall, he will be killed
— or worse — repro
grammed to his original
identity as Cohaagen’s
right-hand man.
Director Paul Verho-
even’s dazzling action
thriller deftly blends taut
editing, chilling sound ef
fects, gruesome makeup
and overwhelming special
effects, but the result
drowns in a tidal wave of
bloodshed.
Due to wanton disregard
for human life in countless
scenes of excessive, gory
violence, sexual exploita
tion and rough language,
the U.S. Catholic Con
ference classification is O
— morally offensive. The
Motion Picture Association
of America rating is R —
restricted. (GP)
1
ON THE BOARDS
— Atlantan Bruce
Evers returns to the
Georgia Mountain
Fairground in Hia-
wassee June 12 with
his “fire and brim
stone” interpretation
of an early century
preacher in the Ap
palachian drama,
“The Reach of Song.”
For ticket informa
tion, call 1-800-262-
7664.
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