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Time - Man of the Year
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1992-09-10
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REVIEWSShort Takes, Page 87
CINEMA
Outcasts of The Universe
Alien 3 is set in a maximum-security prison at the far,
forgotten end of the universe. This dark landscape bespeaks an
ambition to rise above sequel status. So does a glum, distancing
story, in which Sigourney Weaver's Warrant Officer Ripley,
depressed and, yes, alienated, feels pretty much at home in the
society of outcasts where her spaceship has accidentally landed.
Eventually they join her in the fight against one of the big,
nasty creatures she has unknowingly brought with her. But
29-year-old director David Fincher doesn't yet know how to scare
us witless, and the script neglects to develop the kind of human
relationships any movie needs to draw us into its web. A lot of
good, serious work went into this film, but it lacks the
conjurer's touch.
TELEVISION
Iowa Corn
Julie Carlyle is the star of a network TV variety show who
marries a veterinarian, moves to Iowa and still manages to do
her show every week from a local TV station. That is known as
having it all. JULIE, a new ABC sitcom, doesn't have much of
anything except Julie Andrews, who puts a little sparkle into
the drab material. Her dedicated husband (James Farentino) tends
to ailing heifers and brings home an injured dog to share their
bed. His two kids at first resent their stepmother (sure, who
wants a TV star for a mom anyway?) but are won over by her
sunny, motivational lectures. Andrews' husband, Blake Edwards
(Victor/Victoria, 10), directed the first two episodes, but it
helps not a bit.
BOOKS
Dark and Stormy
This windy, Cinematic spy novel relies shamelessly on
quick cuts and spectacular scenery, and never mind logic.
Anthony Hyde's CHINA LAKE (Knopf; $22) takes its title from a
secret Naval Intelligence station in the Mojave Des ert, where
a 25-year-old mystery -- Who gave the heat-seeking Sidewinder
missile to the Soviets? -- has never been resolved. Hyde leads
us lengthily through the murk of old lies, from California to
a wave-swept cliffside in Scotland to another cliff in Wales to
East Germany and back to the black depths of a lost gold mine
in the Mojave. Quick, light a match! Nope, despite tireless
soliloquizing by hero and villain (which is which constitutes
the book's main puzzle), motivation and plot remain obscure.
MUSIC
The Vibrant Cry Of the Wolf
The border between two cultures can be a barren place. But
for LOS LOBOS, a scrappy garage band born 18 years ago in the
Chicano barrio of East Los Angeles, the gap between American
music and its Mexican roots has been inspirational. The band
reached a commercial apex with 1987's La Bamba, an international
hit that was elevated beyond pop predictability by its intricate
acoustic coda. That flourish of integrity was no fluke. Los
Lobos' new album, Kiko, blends rock, jazz and Mexican folk
styles with authority and panache; David Hidalgo's lambent
vocals transport songs about hardship and redemption to a
numinous state. More than a mere blending of two vibrant
traditions, Kiko forges a new American sound.
THEATER
Linked Sins
Lee Blessing's plays are known for elegant language and
stately topics, epitomized by his witty dialogue of nuclear
disarmament, A Walk in the Woods. But in LAKE STREET EXTENSION,
at the Ensemble Theater of Cincinnati, the characters are feral,
the action grim and the vocabulary redolent of the gutter. Lake
Street sets a father who sexually molested his son against a
Salvadoran soldier who joined in the mass murder of peasants.
The 90 taut minutes strip away layers of secrets and suggest a
link between the men's sins -- a dependence on the propensity
of bourgeois Americans to look away from ugly facts rather than
decry them. A compulsively watch able young actor, Keith Brush,
portrays the incest victim grown up into a punky, self-pitying
male prostitute.