4The Daily Tar HeelTuesday, November 27, 1984
'Just the Way You Are a lose? ' with a bad plot
By any measure, "Just the Way You
Are is. in a word, B-O-R-l-N-G.
Riddled with problems, the movie
brings to mind a jet that taxis for an
hour and three-quarters and never finds
the runway, let alone takes off.
Speaking of riddles, here's a tough
one: Why do so many human beings
spend so much of their time on such
obviously doomed projects as this one?
Answer: To pay the rent.
Writer Allan Burns, producer Lee L.
Fuchs and director Edouard Molinaro
simply had too much invested in Just
the Way You Are to pull out. The same
goes for its main stars, Kristy McNichoI,
Michael Ontkean and Kaki Hunter.
Especially McNichoI. The former star
of TV's Family and the ill-received Hie
Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,
she had hoped for a comeback, an
artistic vindication, with Just the Way
You Are.
She might have gotten it but for one
thing: the film's colossally dull, mono
tonic story stood in her way. Not even
Ed Bracket!
Review
Olivier high on acting pills could have
salavaged this boring, sloppily executed
mess.
Its scenes are not only uncinematic,
which isn't necessarily bad, but also
undramatic, which is. They appear to
be slapped together, much as boxcars
on a railroad siding.
The difference is that Just the Way
You Are boxcars have no couplers.
Hence the plot and the film does
have one somewhere beneath all the
fluff never develops.
Equally detrimental is Molinaro's
direction, a mishmash of awkward
pans, zooms and close-ups. A typical
transition shot includes an uninspiring,
trite view of Philadelphia, Paris or the
Alps, all unlikely stomping grounds of
flutist Susan Berlanger (McNichoI). In
fact, about halfway through, the film
threatens to become a travelogue but
doesn't, much to the chagrin of the
excitement-starved viewer.
Vladimir Cosma's music is the usual
teeny-bopper stuff, a hodgepodge of
electronic instruments that blare at the
slighest provocation from Burns's feeble
script. He receives some needed help
from various pop songs, many of which
come from the film's excruciatingly
long, unconscionable disco scene.
Just the Way You Are contains a
heaping portion of unintentionally good
laughs, most of them coming from the
clunky, ill-conceived dialogue. "Are you
famous?" a French traveler asks our
beloved flutist. "No, I'm Susan," she
answers with barely a pause.
The film also sets some kind of record
for onscreen introductions, as Susan
repeatedly tells one stranger after
another, "Hi, I'm Susan Berlanger!"
One of those strangers is Peter
(Ontkean), a photographer working an
Alpine skiing competition. Susan and
Peter are soon swept up in a pointless,
time-consuming (to the audience)
romance, an affair that might have
meant something had Burns and Moli
naro bothered to inject at least a
modicum of drama into a stale, tho
roughly unremarkable movie.
Faculty art show innovative but lacking in variety
:raaa.n:iiUi
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IW I Ml I ITI I I ltlBB
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SUPERGIRL (PG)
3:155:157:159:15
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JUST THE WAY YOU ARE (PG)
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George Burns
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GOURMET MEXICAN A
LIVE ENTERTAINMENT
The Ackland Art Museum's current
exhibition offers an excellent opportun
ity to view the work of some of the
art department's talented faculty.
Although the media of the works in this
exhibition are not greatly varied, there
are some innovative pieces on display
that certainly deserve attention.
One of the most unusual works in
the exhibition is Jean Gumpper's
Logging in Oregon. This multi-
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Virginia Smith ?
Review
dimensional, mixed-media work depicts
the effects of logging on an Oregon
mountainside.
It seems rather incomplete and
t primitive, like a junior-high science fair
project. This sense of simplicity may be
a statement by the artist about the
attitudes of Americans toward the
destruction of their forests, or just a sort
of sculpture of a barren mountain with
a highway winding around it.
Gumpper's Avalanche!, a color
woodcut, also depicts a mountainside
of leveled trees. The angles in this work
suggest the violence of a natural
disaster. When viewed with Logging in
Oregon, a comparison of the severity
of the damage done to the forest by
man to that done by nature comes to
mind.
Richard Kinnaird's Across the Ter
race Twice also seems to depict a scene
from nature. It could be interpreted as
an aerial view of a boiling ocean beneath
a cliffhanging terrace. This work is
acrylic and collage on masonite.
Artist Feeling Intimidated in His
Own Studio is Dennis Zaborowski's
marvelously detailed pencil drawing of
a group of people, among them the
artist, viewing a piece of his sculpture
in his studio.
Zaborowski's style is particularly
appealing because of the detail given
to the human faces. The artist's feelings
are quite apparent as he watches his
work being critiqued. The studio in this
work is drawn with a lighter hand than
are the humans, so that small objects
in the room do not detract from the
faces of the people in the studio.
This exhibition presents many large
works of art. Especially remarkable
among them are two acrylic, wax,
alkyd, and graphite pieces by Robert
Barnard.
Barnard's 84 j 4 and 845 are similar
works that vary somewhat in color.
Both are exciting collections of shapes,
patterns, and colors that somehow
coexist in the same space without
clashing.
Most of the works in the exhibition
are of a similar form: a picture on a
vertical surface. There is very little
variation from this form other than
Gumpper's Logging in Oregon and two
STATE-OF-THE-ART CINEMA
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5
Photo by Ackiand Art Musejoi
Nature's violence: 'Avalanche!', a color woodcut by Jean Gumppcr
works by Jerry Noe and Xavier Toubes.
Toubes' Untitled head is a ceramic
sculpture with multiple firings. The
contrast between the heavy, rough
texture- of the head with the smooth,
glossy base on which it sits is partic
ularly effective. The sad, unwavering
gaze of the head and the muted colors
of the head and base make the sculpture
one of the most unusual and attractive
works in the exhibition.
Neon is one of the media used by
Jerry Noe to create his Arriving at the
Golden Section, a triangle crossed with
a curve with lettered angles. The soft
glow of the neon against the dusky blue
background creates the illusion of a
moonlit geometry problem. This work
is by fai the most arresting of the
exhibition.
Although the majority of the works
in the faculty art exhibition are quite
worthy of display at the Ackland, there
are some disappointments. Richard
Stuffs three acrylic paintings of pyram
ids are not very interesting, nor is
Toubes' Untitled dome. These lev.
exceptions, however, do not detract
from the overall quality of the
exhibition.
The new Ackland art exhibition is
a collection of generally innovative and
exciting works. Anyone who sees it wiil
recognize how fortunate the University
is to have such talented faculty
members.
The UNC Faculty Artists Exhibition
will be on display at the Ackland Art
Museum through Dec. 2. The museum
is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday
through Saturday and from 2 to 6 p.m.
Sunday.
Support
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CAREERS IN CONSULTING
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If you are a senior graduating in fall 1984
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