The Toronto Star from Toronto, Ontario, Canada • 43

Gina Mallet Ron Hambleton reviews reviews The BluesC7 City BalletC3 EMiWIt Toronto Star Thursday April 19 1979 Section pages Cl C8 Cineplex lists wide assortment of international movies On the main floor a snack counter a restaurant serving espres so and international foods a smoking lounge and space for a book stall Altogether 40000 square feet of space a staff of 58 on three shifts some of whom clean every cinema after every show Patrons must come in at the beginning and stay for a second show is going to be a clean Taylor says popcorn left oh the floor from show to The complex opens at 10 am seven days a week with the first show at 11 am and the last at 10 pm be staggered starting times uture plans include morning screenings of films to keep the youngsters busy while parents shop at Eaton Centre Cineplex has attracted wide atten tion from major US newspapers and Newsweek magazine who have sent writers here for the opening A confident Nat Taylor talks about extending the Cineplex idea to Kitch ener and other cities across Canada wall and an oval shaped computer ized box office with attendant that points to more new world technology inside Even the tickets are color coded In all 18 theatres seating 53 to 137 persons and showing first run foreign films second time around Hollywood Cineplex a bazaar of movies ed together away from the walls Up front is a screen made of special glass to accommodate the rear projection of 16 mm prints used throughout the complex the front row" says some one who watched part of one of the movies so close and the so small you have to swing your head so far back get a crick in your In some theatres there are pillars off to one side but they block the screen Corridors throughout the complex curve rigni ana leu theatres are shaped the only lor that day showing Ten movie houses are on the floor and the other eight are located up a short flight of stairs The color coded areas are blue purple red and brown color coded sardine mut ters one wit on the press tour The movie houses themselves are unadorned Rows of seats are bunch By Sid Adilman Toronto Star this is part of a park ing says veteran Toronto movie mogul Nat Taylor No garage in North America has ever been the focus of such showbiz hoopla as surrounds Cineplex the 18 movie house complex that opens to night at 6 in Eaton Centre the largest cluster of cinemas under one roof a $25 million investment in what could be a wave of theatres of the future Cineplex is one flight below the northwest end of Eaton Dundas St entrance and linked to the Dundas subway station one floor below the garage It follows the shape of the garage itself Taylor one of three part ners flings open the doors for a pre view: a wide view of red carpet color coded directional signs over head abstract Canadian art on one those With specialized movie tastes an international Tay lor says But because moviegoers accustomed to so many choices and so many cinemas there could well be initial confusion not ffoinff tn advertise what fare classics ethnic movies with no theatres the movies are playing subtitles anything and everything for says showbiz lawyer producer Garth ty 'at' 1 1 wjw Mui Drabinsky another of the Cineplex partners had to bring this dqwn to a manageable he says how it will work: the ticket buyer sees he has a blue colored ticket for example he follows signs to the area painted blue and find the cinema number showing the movie he paid Tick vv vuuj mvuuvo aiv ohuljlu tilt ets may be purchased in advance but way they are because we were work ing with the elerpents as presented to us and we change Drabinsky says Cineplex was designed by architect Mandel Sprachman who has designed more than 200 Canadian movie houses including the six unit Imperi al on Yonge St Admission prices are $350 for adults and $250 for seniors III THEW CSStljSSgBK ASXXXXVAMX XX VAVSW XX XXX XX' KaxxNxxxxx4x vy VVWS XX xvxxxssxxxxs ssx vaxsxwXmXx xX XSV MW xx A 4 M'' I TiiTiT TV IT IT miii Newsfront a bright Cineplex opener Movies Phillip Noyce (far left) directed Newsfront Alan Bates (left) stars in The Shout Lucia Pezzoli and ranco Pilenga are in Wooden Gogs Weldon and Eunice Macauley a funny and mildly naughty mini mys tery and well worth seeing Peter Ustinov: Purple Taxi an unidentified farmer whose annual I loud bellow Similar misgivings are aroused by the movie as a whole a half baked oc cult thriller It has some stylish touches but it never quite delivers the high voltage promised by its begin ning 5 writer director Peter Kn'nra and Tiozirx ITwH A Dnk XX41AV uau AU1ZL OLUI uy iVUU ert Graves inspired the screenplay by sKoumowsKi anajwicnaei Austin Most of the film is a ions flashback 1 in the form of a bizarre tale told by one of the inmates of a mental asylum Remember movie newsreels? ree on the spot television virtually wiped them out by the end of the but in their great days they offered ticket buyers a razzle dazzle ever changing panorama of world events' rom Down Under comes News front a fast moving documentary drama about the private and public lives of Australian newsreel makers during the final big decade roughly from to one of the most interesting openers at Cineplex which is said to be the larg est cinema theatre complex in the world Written and directed by( Phillip Noyce Newsfjwnt perhaps assumes a closer knowledge of Australian histo ry than the average North American possesses (The New York open ing is set for late in May) But most of the story unfolds compellingly with 3 v's newsreels is seamlessly intertwined with fictitious scenes and re stagings of headline events One stubbornly honest veteran of the cameras (Bill Hunter) watches his own marriage fall apart because away from home too much and be cause he share his de vout Catholicism His high pressure brother (Gerard Kennedy) invades Hollywood and returns home a big shot An intelligent and beautiful same my duty to report that the woman (Wendy Hughes) does her best sound BateS as Crossley emits is a to succeed in a line dominated by disappointment more like a prolong males of wind than a supernaturally The sly hindsight of gives audience an ironic chuckle in an episode dealing with a Austra lian visit by the American vice presi dent Richard Nixon Says the newsreel commentator with hearty fervor: makes an immediate im The Purple Taxi an oddball output The Purple Taxi another Cineplex feature is an international package a rench Italian Irish co production made in English by a rench director in Ireland with a cast of rench Brit ish and American actors High flown and gabby with oddball characters and a lot of bookishly ornate dialogue the film is a cinematic equivalent of expensive junk food but it generates several robust laughs along the way Director Yves Boisset worked with Michel Deon on the script adapted from a novel by Deon The setting uncommonly easy on the eyes is a self consciously quaint village in the west of Ireland Philippe Noiret portrays an observ ant plump renchman in self exile licking his wounds after a family crisis Peter Ustinov is a flamboyant sold liar whose young bedmate (Agosti na Belli) may or may not be his own daughter Charlotte Rampling is a smoky eyed princess whose working vocabulary is upper crust porno' red Astaire is an Irish doctor an ancient leprechaun whose car is a purple ex taxi Also on hand is the ex jet setter brother a spoiled young man trying to find himself in the land of his triumph consists of stealthily fortify 3 for Edward Albert whose pretty boy ing his tomatotes with chicken ma face in this role looks strangely bloat nure which does the job better than ed and lumpy as though the lad is cow dung recovering from bee stings The Tree Of Wooden Clogs gets its Special Delivery title from one tenant's illegal action in chopping down one of the worth seeing trees to make crude shoes for his son Much less easy to explain is for presenting the National ilm sen inauigeni aecision to spreaa tins Boara uscar winnmg animatea glacial village scrapbook over 180 short Special Delivery Made by John minutes Half as much might have been twice as good pression with his cleancut direct ap The Shout is a bizzareyarn The Shout now having another North American premiere at Cine plex is not an Australian entry like Newsfront but a strong Aus tralian influence in its story This English language movie was made in England by the Polish writer director Jerzy Skolimowski whose touches of wry humor amid the fre earlier output included King Queen Anri Txzxzxrx TPvX4 A DaK quent tensions and Denis of the nrAfoccinn One young newsreeler (Chris Hay wood) loses his life in a flood he is covering ixoyce presents this inci dent with admirable restraint instead jn rural England The narrator ui uvvi uiw easy uduiub Archival' mafprini fmm bloke named Crossley He tells a visi tor ne uvea wun me Australian native dingly explores the turn of the cen illV fnllruravc nf nafura triHncra aVMkJVMJW uugv Plot conflict and suspense are quite pointedly lacking in this massivemosaic Ironically howeverone epi sode deals with a neighborhood story teller whose fireside yarns brimming with tension and expectancy hold his hearers spellbound good enough for peasants is obvious ly considered too good for us the audi ence in the theatre Among the earnest but inexpressive (that is amateur actors) in this stately compendium bright eyed little Omar Brignoli stands out as a schoolboy with academic talent bo do ranco Pilenga and Lucia Pezzoli as a bridal couple who spend their wedding night in a convent More memorable than any of these is CLYDE GILMOUR Weir earlier treated us to a couple of chunks of aboriginal mumbo jumbo in The Last Wave and Picnic At Hanging Rock Now that a Pole in Britain has given us a primitive death shout really more ear splitting than the average kiddie matinee tumult in Toronto I help hoping that the topic will be dropped for a while Enough already Tree Of Wooden Clogs insufferably dull The Tree Of Wooden Clogs if only for its three hour length is the major attraction at Cineplex It comes here thickly garlanded with European trib utes including the top prize at the Cannes estival The film was lauded to the skies last fall in a 7000 word article in Sight And Sound the British ilm scholarly article contained such phrases as timespace and such daunting words as diegetical semiolo gists ontological and distanciation Sorry to be a cultural barbarian andall that but have to excuse myself from the roster of soothsayers whohave rhapsodized about this high Ynindwl hut incnffarahlv rhtll Italian played by Alan Bates is an intense sociological marathon Written and directed by Ermanno Olmi it plod tribesmen the Aborigines for 18" years and learned some of their magic including a death dealing ter ror shout In the yarn as Crossley spins it he finally demonstrates the shout while sadistically humiliating one of the locals (John Hurt) and seducing the pliant wife (Susannah York) Sheep drop dead and Hurt falls down a stunned trance Just the A A' 'Wl 1 75 a Wx JRSl! i i a sskw la AO mEmkOiII TV HIGHLIGHTS Henry or a ball game Henry VIH was the king that much is certain and tonight The Shakespeare Plays takes a look at his life and connubial fortunes Henry had six wives some of whom lived to re gret the experience In this play the Bard looks at this conniving king in ah ambitious BBC series John Stride plays Henry and Claire Bloom stars as Katharine of Aragon The special starts at 730 on Channel 19 (See Gina Mallet's review on page Other than Henry and his massive appetite for food and women not much to keep you stimulated on television If you get home from work a littler earlier than usual you can catch the Toronto Blue Jays and the Montreal Expos in the annual Pearson Cup design ed allegedly to prove which baseball team is better The game starts at 4 pm'on Channel 5 and if the majority of the players home grown at least the announcers are Pepe is a fairly amusing movie starring comedian Cantinflas and Dan Dailey The 1961 effort on Chan nel 79 at 11 is about a Mexican ranch hand and his exciting times in Hollywood Bruce Blackadar SID ADILMAN Eyeon entertainment circus goes to an hour for next season Circus top Canadian rated series of the season goes to an hour each week in the fall to allow for more singing and dancing from co hosts Cal Dodd and Sherisse Laurence and other variety per formers But circus acts still will be a staple of the show which has been sold in England and Latin America and is playing on stations in New York and Los Angeles CTV entertainment program chief Arthur Wein thal must be doing something right He not only got Circus on the air but he successfully steered renew als for Stars On Ice the Al Hamel daytime talk show and for singer Patsy Gallant if she wants to continue On a less serious note Weinthal grumbles about the press guys keep writing about the Winnipeg showbiz mafia such as Larry Zolf and he says about the Anglo Montreal showbiz Okay something about that group Weinthal in his McGill University days pro duced that annual student Blue And White Revue ive years later the producer was James Domville who now is chief of the National ilm Board One of the producers between Weinthal and Domville was actor William (Star Trek) Shatter And just look at where key people are today who were behind My ur Lady the McGill originated revue that toured Canada to large audiences two decades ago Timothy Porteous is now second in command at Canada Council Donald MacSween heads National Arts Centre Domville runs the film board And Brian Macdonald former artis tic chief of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens choreo graphs and directs stage efforts and TV specials Donald Sutherland fresh from his box office suc cesses with Animal House and the remake of Inva sion Of The Body Snatchers will definitely co star with Suzanne Somers in the movie Nothing Person al to be filmed in Toronto in late May a Quad rant ilms comedy about the bureaucracy sur rounding Canada's annual seal hunt The movie will be the first for Suzanne Somers since winning star status on Company If a local cable subscriber and you have a channel converter get one soon When Multilingual Television (Channel 47) comes on the air Sept 3 it will have the Channel 4 spot on the cable dial That means W1BV the Buffa lo (CBS) channel will be available to cable homes only by converter Multilingual Television owners have final approval to knock off WIBV but that's the battle plan at the Canadian Radio televi sion and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) This time congratulations to CBC M's Stereo Morning program for getting critic Peter Harcourt with his mixed opinion of Riel movie the day after its press screening But a rap for CBC Sunday Morning show which two days after the Stereo Morning alertness delivered a promo tion for Riel when it had more than enough time to arrange for a review China and the US to exchange movies PEKING (AP) Chinese cultural officials have agreed to exchange motion pictures produced in China in return for a wide range of Hollywood movies a US film director says are interested in everything from Star Wars to Gone With The said Walter Durels a company executive based in New York The Chinese have signed a contract with Sino American Export and Import Co for the US dis tribution of 14 Chinese movies These include five features and nine documentaries ON TONIGHT One of the best Hollywood flicks that make it commercially in the past year is the assem bly line drama Blue Collar with Richard Pryor The music is worth the admission alone Tomorrow at 730 pm Tonight at 730 Royal Ballet stars re create the animal tales of Beatrix Potter ree with Science Centre admission: $2 students $1 kids 50 cents seniors free 770 Don Mills Rd 429 4100 or other goings on around town consult Street Talk elsewhere in Star I If A I A s'.