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Show : -' ... Ms. ' K V l - - i Mm - -ii rn it 1 ti 1 i-iiiMiifi)iiniiMiimiii r. i.iininrn-r-1 unrrTrnni-iniiiiiiiitm- . J Anthony Edwards (left) and Robert Carradine (right) star as two outcasts who turn the tables on their oppressors. Teachers and nerds are in weekly line-up Liquid Heat in the football team's jock straps. On the palatable side, the nerds are appealing performers. Ted McGinley and Julie Montgomery Mont-gomery are deliciously wicked Beautiful People. And in a nice performance, Bernie Casey as the black frat leader maintains a sour expression at the idea of associating with nerds, even while he feels an outsider's sympathy with them. V-i Amadeus The film begins promisingly as a handsome, lyrical study of cruel, inexplicable fate. But over its nearly three-hour length, it dissipates into a conflict between two familiar character charac-ter types. The aged composer Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) wallows wal-lows in a madhouse and recalls to a startled priest how he ruined the life of the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. His justification? He was defying God, who gave Salieri the lust to write music to the divine glory, but no skill. He only has enough talent to recognize genius in Mozart who is a foul-mouthed, froggy little lecher. Two sounds dominate this movie Mozart's soaring music and his obnoxious giggle. But for the premise of Peter Shaffer's story to work, we have to feel that Mozart is an often-loathsome character who creates beautiful music. Yet Mozart is rarely unlikable; he's a combination of two comfortable comfort-able old stereotypes the quirky genius burning himself out, and the rebellious lout with a decent heart. He's modestly aware of his crudities; when he mocks royal authority, the victim is always someone who's a fool or a pompous jerk. At his worst, Mozart humiliates his rival by taking a Salieri piece, the product of hours of labor, and making it 10 times better with a few minutes of improvisation. But later, Mozart redeems himself. After Saliere premieres an awful, bombastic bombas-tic opera, he asks an opinion of Mozart, who replies tactfully ("I never thought such music possible.") pos-sible.") As Mozart, Thomas Hulce reconciles recon-ciles the slob with the genius. He's a stammering ball of energy, and equally convincting later, when tortured by the death of his father. (Ironically, Hulce's biggest previous credit was as one of the "Animal House" slobs.) Director Milos Forman has created a beautiful picture, with sumptuous sets, music and lighting. The second half of Shaffer's story, though, bogs down into a straight recounting of Salieri's intrigues. In the supporting cast, Jeffrey Jones is fine as a vague, unintelligent King Franz Joseph and Elizabeth Berride, woefully miscast as Mrs. Mozart, acts like a high school girl in a time warp. But if there's any rationale for seeing "Amadeus," besides the music, it's F. Murray Abraham. He takes us from young man, seething with repressed frustration, to old, forgotten lunatic who smiles with a crazed sweetness and creakily charts the wreckage of his life. Now showing atthe Holiday Village Cinemas: Body Double ( Not yet rated ) ' jKevenge of the Nerds Thief of Hearts ( Nol vet rated k A Classic Recommended Good double feature material Time-killer For masochists m only k V-i Teachers "Teachers" has a top-flight cast and a variety of interesting characters, charac-ters, but ultimately it just boils down to a preachy repetition of the question, "Where, oh where, is someone who will care about the awful situation in our schools?" At John F. Kennedy 4Iigh, the teachers are little more than wardens for the troublesome pupils. Teacher Nick Nolte is told by his old buddy, vice principal Judd Hirsch, that he's just there to keep the male and female students apart. (Nolte: "You mean I'm a contraceptive?" Hirsch: "One of the best.") Nolte faces a decision, however, when a former student sues the school because he was graduated without being taught to read or write. As the school superintendent (Lee Grant) coaches the faculty to spout the official line in court, the pressure grows on Nolte to join in or rebel. At the same time, he becomes interested in a talented delinquent (Ralph Maccio). Teacher and student ask each other the same question: You going to stay and fight, or leave? The picture keeps asking "Do people care?" and shows how some characters have answered that question. One old fossil (Royal Dano) is so misanthropic his well-disciplined class sits facing away from his desk. The school principal is benign and has no idea what's going on in his class (maybe the first indirect Reagan portrait in a movie). Nolte is like the Bogey character in Casablanca. He is reminded of his idealistic past by a woman in this case, JoBeth Williams, the lawyer suing the school (and a student of Nolte's in his firebrand days). For most of the picture, you wait for his true-blue nature to overcome his cynicism. Along the way, Nolte displays a gruff, angry restlessness. The ending comes about as expected with some lame-brained attempts at humor (a defiant strip tease by Williams). V2Revenge of the Nerds Yep, they've got the nerd uniform down all right the oily hair, toothy smile, pen set in the shirt pocket, Wally Cleaver shirt and glasses. And the best gag is the nerd laugh an asthmatic honk that is specially well done by Robert Carradine, as the leader of the nerds. But from a promising start, the movie becomes just another "Animal House" story about underdogs on campus fighting the evil jocks. Kicked out of their lodgings, they renovate an old building and form their own fraternity. (The only national frat that will even consider taking them is an all-black group.) From then on, they have to reply on brains to outwit the brute force of the villains. Their "revenge" consists of the predictable low gags installing sophisticated TV outfits to spy on the naked cheerleaders and spraying |