The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 51

I ENTFRTAINMFNT She Montreal, Thursday, September 17, 1981 She SPORTSLIME I i Cineplex a film fan's $1.4 million dream i By BRUCE BAILEY Gazelle Film Critic Today at noon marks the opening of Quebec's first cineplex an interlocking series of nine movie theatres located at the McGill Metro track-level of the 2001 office and shopping centre at the corner of University Ave. and de Maisonneuve Blvd. Boasting a total of 828 seats, the $1.4 million complex will feature premieres of European and art films, retrospectives, first and second-run American and Canadian fare and children's movies, all at standard movie prices. Screenings will be in original versions or dubbed or subtitled in French or English with a slight majority catering to a francophone audience during most weeks. The slickly-designed theatres range in size from the 168-seat Theatre No.

8 to the 59-seat Theatre No. 3 and all of them feature two pull-away seats for the accommodation of wheelchair-bound patrons. The smallest theatre is equipped with a 16 mm projector (as opposed to the customary 35 mm machine), allowing the screening of some of the more off-beat, low-budget films available only in the smaller format. The space-age projection system is designed so the whole complex can be run by only two projectionists. The theatres are back-to-back, so that a single booth accommodates two projectors each of which unreels the film through an ingenious system allowing the movie to be shown again almost immediately, rather than after 15 minutes of rewinding.

The opening schedule includes The Getting of Wisdom (from Australia), Sent a Letter to My Love (with Si-mone Signoret), The Adventures of Picasso (an excellent multi-lingual comedy), Cannes Golden Palm winner Man of Iron (dubbed-in-French in one theatre and with English and French subtitles in two others), Un Dramma Borghese (Italian with French subtitles), L' Amour, c'est quol au juste? and Superman II. Advance tickets are available at the box-office daily. Plans are already in the offing to add two more cineplexes in Quebec City and to either expand the Montreal cineplex at its present location or to open another site in the city. The opening of the Montreal theatres means there are now a total of 103 screens operated by the Toronto-based Cineplex Corporation. The empire was started in 1979 when president Garth Drabinsky and chairman-chief executive officer Nat Taylor used part of Toronto's Eaton Centre to house their 21 -theatre com dian Films, the largest independent distributor in Canada), and exhibitors (Cineplex Corporation)." He's also put in a bid to renovate Toronto's Winter Garden.

"When we make that into a functional, live theatre, it will be the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle." Among his many achievements, Drabinsky has produced the films Tribute (with Jack Lemmon), The Disappearance (Donald Sutherland), The Changeling (George C. Scott) and The Silent Partner (Elliott Gould). His Tijuana and On the Brink are just about to get underway. See Getting of Wisdom review on Page 53. plex.

By the end of this year, there should be roughly 150 screens in operation across Canada (in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia). The addition of theatres in the other provinces and Los Angeles, Houston and Denver should bring the total to about 200 screens by the end of 1982. Toronto lawyer Drabinsky, 32, explains that it's "all part of Canada's first vertically integrated entertainment system something like EMI in England. "We now have a production unit (which owns Kleinburg studios in Ontario), a distribution arm (Pan-Cana et THOMAS Duran Duran is double the fun No, Duran Duran has absolutely nothing to do with seeing double after a welterweight boxing match. Duran Duran is actually a musical group named after a character in the Jane Fonda sci-fi spoof movie Barbarella.

The group, which will perform at Le Club Montreal on Sept. 25, describes its music as lying some where "between Kraftwerk and the Mon- kees." Music fans will be in a real tizzy on that date because the Shakin' Pyramids, a trio that plays reeferbilly music, will perform at midnight at the Mirage club on Park Ave. The Shakin' Pyra mids, fresh from a tour of Poland, have also thrilled audiences in Ens land playing at such locations as record i 1f 4 I 4 1 t'-stf r- "Vi .1 t'c, i i 1 1 4 f- ir -J -r iK: 1 1 1 -v: 'ij' f.f.rt-' shops, school playgrounds and even the occasional bus queue. Montreal psychic Joey Crinita says that Barbra Streisand, known for her dislike of public appearances, will be starring in a By GORDON D. MOTT Knight-Ridder Newspapers MOREL1A, Mexico Move over, Bob Dylan.

Allen Ginsberg beat poet, radical activist and devotee of Buddhism has decided rock 'n' roll music is the best way to spread his message. No more communism. No more capitalism. Everybody Is lying on both sides, neah, neah, neah. Ginsberg chanted the words in an off-key melody.

The bloody iron curtain of American military power is the mirror image of Russia's red Babel tower. It is net exactly Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone, or Blowing in the Wind or even Barry McGuire's apocalyptic 1960s anthem, Eve of Destruction. But Ginsberg is convinced that the song and a double album produced by John Hammond with help from Dylan himself will catapult him from 10 years of relative obscurity into the tape decks and stereos of America's music lovers. "I'm doing everything I can these days for some change in the world's culture," Ginsberg said in an interview here. "After all, it is going in the direction of insanity and blowing up the world." At first glance, Ginsberg hardly looks like a radical poet these days.

College professor is more like it. A clean-shaven face in place of the long flamboyant beard. A pin-stripe suit in place of a T-shirt. A necktie in place of beads. The tie and suit haven't changed Ginsberg.

His political rhetoric and cynical, sometimes scathing, world view are the real clues that Ginsberg is still Ginsberg. Mystique alive The mystique has not even diminished among his peers. Perhaps the U.S.'s best-known poet around the world, he mingled easily with old friends like German Gunter Grass and the American W.S. Merwin at the recent International Poetry Festival, Latin America's first world-class poetry gathering. "I'm much more anti-communistic than I used to be," Ginsberg said, staring intently out over the Morelia Valley from a restaurant table.

"But I'm more anti-capital- JOHN TRAVOLTA To direct? stage production, possibly on Broadway. Crinita also says, John Travolta will di rect and star in a movie sometime in the new year. He will play the part of a much older person. Despite rumors to the contrary, there is no truth to the rumor that he is in love with Brooke Shields. They are just friends.

Brooke herself will add singing and danc ing to her career and she will be romantically linked with someone not connected with show-business." Another Montreal psychic Marilyn Rossner predicts that Montreal will experience a return to small clubs and coffee-houses because "people don't have as much money." Rossner may be a very spiritual soul, but she can be practical when she wants to be. Says Rossner, "Mortgage rates will go down in October-November. Gold will go below $400 before the end of the year, but then it will zoom up again and there will be an in creased interest in health food." Michelle Murchison, the New Brunswick girl who posed for the April issue of Penthouse magazine, will celebrate her 26th birthday in Montreal during the upcoming Grand Prix, Sept. 25-27. Murchison, a fashion model who now lives near Boston, described her ideal man.

She says, "He would be tall, handsome, physically fit, intelligent and very secure, both emotion ally and financially. He should also have a good sense of humor." i'-fti'ni'tflifli nif-ffi iVn iyfcilfci-iiiifBirtTWfi' Bii ini llrtlr lirnnlr lrl Hr-JhliMturiihiiliWf lift Jfjfc'rt Made in Japan: There's going to be some commotion on Crescent St. this afternoon at the official opening of the Fuji, a boutique of fashions entirely imported from Japan. Noted Tokyo astrologer and calligrapher Kijun To-kayama will be in attendance and the models will actually parade some of the fashions in the store's windows. The cocktail crowd at Thursday's terrace across the street will never be the same.

Speaking of Japan, Quebec playwright Mi istic, too. Both the U.S. and Russia are so degraded these days in terms of allowing injustices that years ago would have been considered scandalous. "Like American participation in El Salvador We are taking part in a bloodbath Still, it's like listening to the U.S. government in the years before Vietnam got started up.

"This is one of the most horrible things we have ever done," Ginsberg said, launching into another verse from a song tentatively titled Capitol Air. Bishop Romero wrote Presi' dent Carter to stop Sending guns to El Salvador's Junta So he got shot. Struggling to find the melody, but keeping rhythm on the table, Ginsberg continued: Ambassador White blew the whistle on the White House lies. Reagan called him home because he looked in the dead nuns' eyes. The song was suddenly more important than the conversation and another verse came tumbling out.

If you can't tell the difference between a turkey and a provocateur, If you're feeling confused, chel Tremblay's play Boujour-la, Bonjour will be presented in Tokyo. I wonder if they will call it Arigato-la, Arigato. Allen Ginsberg, 55, whose poem 'Howl' caused such a controversy in double album, tentatively called 'Capitol Air', was done with the help the Fifties, has turned to rock 'n' roll to beam out his message, which of Sixties prophet Bob Dylan himself. Inset: The Sixties Ginsberg is that humanity is rushing headlong toward destruction. Ginsberg's pre-pin-stripe3 with his trademark wild hair and moving mouth.

Then the government's In ing books all over the country. the border and told to go home, cause the second holocaust of the there for sure. "Moral Majority types are be- take a shower and shave." Jews." Ginsberg used the second verse ginning to make people think Ginsberg's chief concern these The tirade against Israel to launch into an attack on the CIA they'll lose their jobs if they say days is what he sees as the world's prompted another verse from and covert American activities, something weird. rush toward destruction. Capitol Air, actually written "The CIA then goes and kills Tor- secure "It's not just my concern.

Hell, I aboard a CaPito1 Air 'ght from rijos. It front-page news down vvlJ otuul foun(i out about it from the news. Yugoslavia to the U.S. here, he said. "I don't have to worry about papers.

Ask any punk kid. He's I don't like Zionists acting Nazi "I just finished a book on inter- losing my job. But this could all just as worried," the greying poet storm troop ference with the U.S. underground turn to violence. What if someone said.

"Gives us poets a lot to do. Palestinian Liberation cooking press in the late 1960s and early is denounced as an agent of Satan? We have to learn to relate to mass lsrael lnt0 Moslem soup. 1970s. A lot more went on than has Some weirdo could take a potshot death. We can't turn our heads on "No nobody has the answer," been reported in the over-ground at him." it, but we have to look it in the Ginsberg said when asked if he press.

Ginsberg, 55, is teaching at the eye had an alternative to the dismal "That's one reason I come to Jack Kerouac School of Disembo- state of the world. festivals like this, so I can see died Poetics at The Naropa Insti- unf0tcly, there seems to are caught up jn fl techno-some of my Russian poet friends tute in Boulder, Colo. Ginsberg no ay or lndlvldua' re- iogical vortex Both sides seem t0 like (Andrey) Voznesenski. He called it a Buddhist-oriented verse the flow toward apocalypse, cultivate greed, anger and chick-tells me Russian secret police ac- school. 1 but lt en-heartedness.

It's been getting tivities, and I tell him about He is best-known for a legal wulKd b.e, bettcr 7Ka" saw we really acute lately in the United American secret police." furore that arose over his poem are Duildin.K a giant booby trap. states with Ronald Asked if he feared another "red Howl in the 1950s but his old rKaid t0 Ginsberg's ultimate answer? scare" such as Sen. Joseph antics seem to be a thing of the I DrcaK the ice and t0 talk "We need to have a decentraliza- McCarthy's investigations set off past. siraigni. tion of power each indivlduaI in the 1950s, he said, "Hah.

It's al- "This is the first time the U.S. "For instance, it is time people Everybody has to realize they ready started. government has paid my ticket realize the Israelis are acting like have to start working for them- "Bisbcc, is trying to ban a anywhere," Ginsberg said. "And Nazis. Maybe it's time for a Jew selves," he said, poetry festival.

There are four to the last time I tried to come into to say this. But the Israelis are "I would recommend meditative incidents every week of burn- Mexico, in 1967, 1 was stopped at going so far they are going to tion to achieve this." Hollywood actress Sydne Rome, who ap peared opposite David Bowie and Marlene Dietrich in the still-as-yet-unreleased film Just a Gigolo, recently called the Parachute boutique on Crescent St. Rome is planning to shoot a film in Russia and she ordered three felt jumpsuits, two samurai jackets and three ong coats. Says Rome, "It gets very cold in Leningrad during the winter, doesn't it?" Yes, Rome. It gets very cold in Leningrad, Thomas Schnurmacher can be heard dally at 7:20 a.m.

and 5:20 p.m. on FM96. 1.