Word: starstruck
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...rebellion at a Soweto high school. During "notes," a 15- minute discussion of finer points in the performance, the kids jump up to argue with the assistant director, Mali Hlatshwayo, in rapid-fire Zulu. He thumps his chest. "Emotion," explains one of the cast. At the stage door, starstruck American youngsters gather for autographs, but the kids of Sarafina! don't preen like the show horses of your average chorus line. The girls are mostly hefty. The boys tend toward skinny. Plain faces, remarkably ordinary. Bopping and hopping onstage, they maintain a wary reserve off-hours. Their English is lilting...
...TOURED the T.V. studio where the PTL Club is filmed. The other tourists gushed--starstruck over the baby blue carpet and the gazebo set where the gospel singers perform. They were awed by the barn-like room where the Heritage USA congregation prays on Sunday (presumably to the T.V. cameras dominating the middle of the room...
...costumes are those of punks and new romantics gone off to the circus and while some seem inspired by the recent new wave film Starstruck, others are brand new and very clever. One cast member, dancer Glenda Medeiros, wears knee-length spandex pants. Spray-painted up one inner thigh and around and down the other is the message. "There is nothing." As she rolls across the floor, spreading her legs with each tumble, the audience sees the words over and over again...
Though intended as parody, a "piss-take" the Aussies would call it, of the old-fashioned movie musical. Starstruck is more than cotton candy. The difference lies in Armstrong's deadly satiric aim and her choice of targets. In attempting to make fun of the awkward staginess of giant musical production numbers, she produces routines which transcend that awkwardness, so that one can really imagine Julius and company breaking into song sporadically. Jo Kennedy and Ross O'Donovan play their characters not as stereotypical angry young punks, but as lonely eccentrics, breathing life into Jackie and Angus...
...taking itself seriously, Starstruck makes the current gult of new wave films look positively silly. From the stumbling lines and stagy acting of the Clash's Rude Boy to the slick but soulless Smithereens, the punk "message" film takes a deserved beating at the hands of its sendup. Having reached the likes of "Quincy," "60 Minutes" and Hollywood, New Wave is old hat, and somebody ought to be laughing...