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Time - Man of the Year
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1992-09-22
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REVIEWS, Page 75Short Takes
MUSIC
Look Who Lightened Up
For those who have found the lyrics of INDIGO GIRLS too
overwrought, good news: in their new album, Rites of Passage,
they have injected a little humor into their songs. Amy Ray and
Emily Saliers provide, as usual, sharp, expressive guitar
playing and seamless harmonizing. But in addition, they have
turned down the melodrama and fine-tuned their writing. The
playful Airplane offers an amusing take on the fear of flying,
as a passenger barters with God to land her plane safely.
Galileo, with its reincarnation theme, pokes at Shirley
MacLaine. And the throaty Ray belts out a recklessly romantic
and downright sexy solo rendition of Dire Straits' Romeo and
Juliet that grounds the album with a hard-strumming rock edge.
THEATER
Pygmalion, Part 99
Andrew, a professor, is engaged to preppy, Lydia. But he
has the hots for Georgie, a low-life woman upstairs whom he is
tutoring as a yuppie. To avert infidelity, he "gives" her to his
buddy Edward, a criminal lawyer of no known scruples -- until
Georgie displays more street-corner savvy than either of them.
The setup smacks of formula, but Theresa Rebeck's SPIKE HEELS,
which opened last week off-Broadway, is full of tart wit,
feminist insight and quirky detours of plot. In a marquee cast
-- Saundra Santiago of Miami Vice, Tony Goldwyn of Ghost -- the
standout is film veteran Kevin Bacon as Edward, blending
ribaldry, rudeness, rapscallion reprehensibility and believable
redemption.
CINEMA
Hot Stuff
Return with us now to the thrilling days of yesteryear --
specifically the 1950s -- when the phrase "art film" whispered
an erotic promise that U.S. movies, gagged by censorship, choked
on. These imports generally offered about three minutes of hot
stuff and an hour and a half of lugubrious regrets. Vicente
Aranda maintains the classic balance in LOVERS. Set in '50s
Spain, it tells the story of a sulky ne'er-do-well (Jorge Sanz)
who is betrothed to a virginal housemaid (Maribel Verdu) but
smitten by his kinky landlady (Victoria Abril). Older moviegoers
may be nostalgically warmed by Aranda's sober replay of youth's
sweet cheats; younger ones will have further evidence that Mom
and Dad must have been really weird.
TELEVISION
Fundamentalist Festival
The term Fundamentalist is usually applied, dismissively,
to U.S. Christians with overly firm convictions. But the
documentary series THE GLORY AND THE POWER, on PBS the next
three Mondays, uses it to describe zealots in all faiths
worldwide. The series, based upon the University of Chicago's
long-range Fundamentalism Project, is flawed but refreshingly
free of hysteria. The first program portrays hard-shell
Protestants at America's Bob Jones University; the second,
Israel's Gush Emunim settlers in the West Bank; and the third,
militant Muslims, mostly in Egypt. The Muslims get the most
sophisticated treatment -- fittingly, since they seem the only
one of these groups destined to win political control someday.
POLITICS
Sound Bites
It's a good thing Bill Clinton has a job -- he'd never
make a living with his tenor sax. Sure, it took guts to play on
The Arsenio Hall Show, and sure, he looked cool in those
shades. As a musician, however, he was in way over his head. Of
the two numbers he played, Clinton seemed more at home on
Heartbreak Hotel; his growly sound suited the rhythm-and-blues
genre, though his attacks were sloppy. Billie Holiday's ballad
God Bless the Child was a mess. Clinton's phrasing was unsure,
his tone thin, his melodic lines disintegrated into meaningless
trills. But the audience loved it -- and maybe they were right.
In a campaign dominated by sound bites, it is refreshing to hear
a candidate come out with something really important like jazz.
Just don't buy the album.