Pago 10
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By Stew M&xrason
John C. May has a lot of AS HRS.
days.
May is the manager of T&T Video,
217N.14th St. Running the video store
is like running a small theater, he said.
May tries to pick out titles that will be
popular with his clientele, 60 percent
of whom are UNL students.
In addition to 48 HRS., popular ren
tals include Raiders of 77ie Lost Ark,
Blue Thunder and Brainstorm.
These types of adventure movies are
the most popular because they don't
require a long attention span, May
said. "You can sit down, pop some pop
corn, have a few beers and not have to
really watch the movie carefully to
pick up the plot," he said.
Movies like Frances and The Verdict
are rented by an older crowd, most
prominently downtown business men.
But because these movies aren't rent
ed out often they just don't make a
profit. A video must be rented out two
to three times a week to be profitable,
he said.
T & Ts walls are plastered with
movie posters and promotional items
sent to the store. Many of the movies
displayed by the posters are not avail
able in the store itself. May sticks these
posters up to see if people will inquire
about them. For instance, he put up a
poster of the movie Jaws and an inflat
able shark to see if anyone would ask if
he had the movie. So far no one has
inquired and May said he probably
wont order it.
May said the business is growing all
the time, although the store does take
a loss when they buy a video no one
wants to rent. That's why he compares
the operation of the store to running a
theater. He has the pressure of finding
a movie that will be rented and the
theater manager has to find a movie
that will fill the seats.
This is part of the reason T&T spe
cializes in the new, "blockbuster" mo
vies and doesn't stock the older, classic
films. Although May said he prefers the
older black-and-white films, there isn't
enough interest in them to make a
profit. Even a classic like Casablanca
isn't in demand enough to make a
profit, he said.
According to May, T&T rents out
videos "for less than you pay to see a
movie at a theater." They have a spe
cial package deal for renting out both
movies and video machine together.
The store has 20 machines available,
but May suggests reserving the ma
chines for weekends ard suggested
reserving such popular movies as Raid
ers of The Lost Ark.
1 "
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Dave TroubaDa'Iy Nebraskan
John llzy, msnaer of T & T Video.
'Silkwood' inconsistencies detract from Film
Review by Eric Peterson
Silkwood succeeds as a human situation; it fails as
an adequate exploration of Karen Silkwood's death.
Because of sensitive screenwriting and sensitive act
ing, a full and true picture of an ordinary woman
forced into an extraordinary perplexity comes
through but there is no way the ending is full and
true. Silkwood hedges its bets, and cheats.
Karen Silkwood was a worker in an atomic energy
plant near Crescent, Okla. As a union organizer, she
collected considerable evidence of safety violations
at the Kerr-McGee plant, much of which was sub-
Celeste for president
Lovers of Latin unite
In the last installment of this column (soon to be a
major motion picture), presidential candidate
Celeste Underwood met her campaign manager,
Addison Steele. Her roommate, Harley Davidson
and Otis P. Davenport, had hired him in hopes that
'It
LA
Mary Louise
Knapp
he might smooth some of Celestes "rough edges. "
However, they weren 't prepared for Addison 's unor
thodox style.
"I dont know, Otis, this may have been a bad idea,"
Harley said as the two enjoyed Happy Hour in one of
Lincoln's watering holes.
"You may be right, Harley," Otis said. "Have you
heard Addison's latest scheme?"
Harley shook his head. "What is it this time?
Lavender wallpaper?"
"Not that bad, although he did recommend that
we throw away our typewriter and start writing the
National Intruder with a quill pen," Otis replied.
"He's get Celeste reading all these great literary
works and philosophy books. He says that the Amer
ican people need a well-educated president."
"Is he giving her any lessons in political theory?"
"Unfortunately, no. Addison thinks that politics is
something with which no lady should soil her hands.
No gentleman, either, for that matter."
"But questions about politics are sure to be asked
at next week's press conference," Harley said, sip
ping his beer. "How does he expect to get around
that?"
"It's not what you say, but how you say it," Otis
said, mimicking Addison's Anglo-American accent.
"He has instructed her to quote appropriate pas
sages from esteemed authors. Whenever a particu
larly difficult question comes up, she's supposed to
respond in Latin."
'- Continued enFase 11-"
stantiated by the Atomic Energy Commission. She
died in a car wreck on the way to meet a reporter
from the New York Times, and many believe she was
murdered by the Kerr-McGee management.
Silkwood's conversion from resentful but unin
volved worker to savvy and obsessive organizer is
convincingly shown by Meryl Streep. This is a role
unlike any other in which we've seen Streep inar
ticulate but very sharp, flirty, winning. In one of the
first scenes Karen tries to relieve some of the tension
at work by flirting with everybody in the lunch room
during her break; she kisses her lover Drew, played
by Kurt Russell, jumps away abruptly to take a bite
out of somebody else's sandwich, and then some
body else's, kidding and confronting all in the room.
In a parallel scene near the end, she questions
another worker about a safety infraction, starts tak
ing notes, everybody gets uptight at her snooping,
and the lunch room clears. Karen has stuck her
neck out, and a sense of isolation and suspicion
deepens.
Karen's growing activism turns everybody off
sends her lover away for awhile, and increases ten
sion between herself and her lesbian housemate
Dolly, strongly played by Cher. Their interaction is
very convincing Karen often feeling lost, sorrow
ing for her absent lover or for her children, who live
with their father in Texas, Dolly the ultimate realist,
even more plain-spoken than Karen. A number of
scenes between them are sensitively done, including
one in which Dolly hopelessly and quietly confesses
her love for Karen, and Karen as quietly and plainly
kills Dolly's hopes and offers the never adequate
consolation of friendship.
The kind of workplace we see at Kerr-McGee is
convincing and depressing. All of them Karen,
Drew, Dolly work there for at least part of the
picture, and it is in an all-pervasive weight on them.
The plant is a place of detention, complete with
time cards and a passive union, which the company
seeks to decertify, sleazy management practices and
an overall feeling of impotent resentment. This pic
ture of corporate oppression is a familiar and very
Madmen and Englishdogs
truJone for millions, but particular to the Ker
McGee plant i3 the kind of uneasiness atomic energy
workers will feel about what they do. Any questions
they may have about the sloppy management and ,
the ultimate safety of work in a place where heavy
exposure to radiation becomes almost inevitable at
some time are deadened by their need for a job.
Two shocking and very good scenes bring the per
sonal danger of nuclear work home when an
older woman and then Karen are "cooked" or
become contaminated by heavy radiation, are rush
ed down the old woman screaming as she goes
to a shower room where they are scrubbed in
showers and told whether they are in radioactive
danger. The shower scrubbings are very painful to
watch and, in the lack of dignity they induce, and
the helplessness, give the viewer the impression of
extermination camps.
It is with the crucial ending that the film becomes
sloppy and ultimately unconvincing. The atmos
phere of tension and suspicion at Kerr-McGee has
been for the most part well-developed, especially
with Karen's massive contamination and the night
marish search the Kerr-McGee radiation experts
make of her home. The house search and seizure is
filmed like an attack, in which the house is ripped up
and Karen's possessions are carted away in plastic
bags. "They're killing me," she later weeps to Drew,
and we are with her and do feel the paranoia and
are moved by her fear.
As Silkwood is shown on the road, going to meet
the reporter from the Times, we hear "Amazing
Grace" in the background for no very good reason
our fear builds as the voice lingers over phrases
speaking of peril and despair. Slowly, ominously,
headlights appear behind Karen's car, and we see
growing alarm on her face. Then we see the effects
and artifacts of death, the car wrecked with her
head hanging out, the gravestone, Cher weeping.
The film ends with a disclaimer that no one is sure
what occurred that she crashed into the concrete
wall of a culvert and that tranquilizers were found
in her bloodstream.
By DanWondra
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