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Show . " Page C10 Thursday, lanuary 25, Group of short films looks by RON GEORG Record staff writer With a list of short films which are never too surreal but usually still challenging, The Discovery Program has been a consistent asset to the United States Film Festival, and the year is no exception. ex-ception. In fact, this year each of the short films is very good. The first is a piece on retribution. Titled Private Debt, it's a story about a town's visceral reaction to a family's debt. Actually, it's not really a family, fami-ly, just an abandoned, pregnant mother. Her husband ran off after plundering the small farming town's bank accounts. She was left with the kids and the debts. So she turned their house over to the town, and put on her red dress to try and settle her debts. And she does manage to settle those debts without hocking anything. The next film in the series is called Conquering Space. Set in Florida at the beginning of the HI UTE Ranch Sleigh Rides OLD FASHIONED FUN Unique Ranch Setting 2 Horse Team Group Rates Day or Night Rides Call 801-649-9527 HI UTE Ranch Kilby Road Kimball Junction Park City, Utah P I) Lollipops Fun Largest selection in Park City POPCORN & CANDY Welcome Film ,n Old Fashioned Gourmet Candies & Chocolates O Gift Wrapping & Mailing Available J on all purchases. Open late til 9:00 pm 605 Main Street 1990 Park Record space program, the story looks at a family which is trying hard to believe in possibilities. Unfortunately, the wife thinks the husband is a dreamer, the husband thinks the daughter is growing up to fast, and the daughter is growing up. The son is still too young to be much concerned. con-cerned. And so the family heads for a more secure lifestyle, leaving the father's dreams behind, but not before catching a glimpse of the future. In the next film, To the Moon, Alice, the series looks at a much different family problem. The father, mother, and son trio starring starr-ing in this heart-wrenching short are trying to live on the set of a popular sit-com. Using a number of cunning scams, the family is managing the charade, and they are keeping fed. Still, they face a myriad of problems, not the least of which is discrimination against poverty. To the Moon, Alice is, at times, amusing but it never forgets it is dealing with homeless people. For the Unique Candy Valentine Gift Festival Guests! 7 days a week 649-7447 8 at wide range While the homeless were a major cause just a couple years ago the media seems to be losing interest, so it's refreshing to see the topic remembered in the festival. Finally, the series also includes a look at a hypothetical truce between bet-ween the notorious Crips and Bloods, Los Angeles's two largest gangs. While the film is a broad metaphor for all sorts of conflict, it also introduces the possibility that these gangs could join forces Maybe you Rodney Rincon is one of Nevada." Madneid, ob Melancholy, Oldektlt&Bed Valentine jbasj, Qlow&ti, ,-.ijr--iir-i iij wj-iij-il .MM of topics in and redirect their energies. . Hearts of Stone features two men, one Crip and one Blood. The two are supposed to play a game of Russian Roulette to allow fate to determine which gang should survive. The short develops into a powerful dialogue between the two, who are incredibly articulate within the context of their limited vocabularies. The idiocy of choosing choos-ing an enemy for the sake of con should decide to leave 1 the stars of "Never Leave 649-690 Afatof, ctfcHjOM, Jl alley, Ml Wvia, U Old 'Discovery' flict emerges as the central theme but the two must still deal with the problem of solving the conflict. The game of Russian Roulette is bound to generate plenty of conflict on its own, but this film doesn't rely solely on that it is an accurate sketch of human beings be-ings as caged animals. The Discovery Program will be showing one more time, Jan. 26 at 10 a.m. by RON GEORG Record staff writer In the middle of Nevada Beat-ty, Beat-ty, Nevada, to be precise you can sell your body, gamble money out of drunken visitors, help explode ex-plode bombs on a test range, or protest those bomb tests. And in and around all that stuff, people just live there. Never Leave Nevada weaves all of that into a love story starring a t-shirt salesman. Unfortunately, despite all the intriguing elements writerdirector Steve Swartz brings br-ings to the film, it is still flat. Swartz stars in the film as Sean, a salesman from New York who is following anti-nuclear protestors pro-testors around the country selling t-shirts, tube socks, and other no-nuke no-nuke paraphenalia. He and his partner Luis, played by Rodney Rincon, pull into Beatty to sell their wares at a rally near the bombing range and to stop in at Fran's Star Ranch, the local brothel. After straining his back in the sack with a large lady of the evening, Sean meets Betty, a local nurse who looks after the ladies at Fran's. The open West has already woven a spell over Sean, who would probably have proposed to the prostitute, had he not strained his back. So Sean finds escape from his supposedly unfulfilling existence in the New York business world. Luis is more pragmatic; he's wary of nuclear testing, and he doesn't like the racist overtones he finds prevelant in Western culture. Luis had been portrayed as "The Mexican Mule Boy" on a television Western as a child, and be is still running from the stigma. - He becomes involved with Lou Ann, Betty's gun-toting roommate who moved from the deep South to be in the deep West. The country coun-try girl is striving for sophistica-. tion most any way she can get it, but it's not coming easily. And despite good performances from each of these people, as well as a good concept to begin with, Never Leave Nevada falls far short. It's too disjointed to be effective ef-fective as a farce; it's not ironic enough to be called absurd; and it's not funny or sexy enough to be a romantic comedy. Never Leave Nevada is oddly compelling; it is not a film you'll walk out on. The string of odd desert characters is enough to keep you entertained, but it's not enough to bring the film together. |