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Cave
Continued from Page 4
Powers, former guitarist for the'
Cramps, and Mick Harvey, drummer
and keyboardist for the Birthday
Party and Crime and the City Solu-
tion.
"I don't have one of the best or-
chestras in the world behind me,"
explained Cave, "but I feel that the
Bad Seeds have created their own
kind of niche, quite separate from the
rest of what is going on around
them. We're becoming less and less
prone to fluctuating with the winds
of fashion and public taste. Our mu-
sic sits alone by itself, totally kind
of idiosyncratic to the group."
Cave feels that his move towards
a smoother sound is less a quantum
leap than a logical evolution.
"I was always into a wide variety
of music," said Cave. "I was listen-
ing to the Carpenters at the same
time I was listening to the Stooges.
Tom Jones is one of my favorites,,a
great singer, one of the truly great
singers... but I don't have the voice
of Tom Jones. Some of the perfor-
a=
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mances that really had an effect on
me were Elvis' late-period perfor-
mances. Some of the songs he was
singing then were incredible, and his
performances on stage were incredi-
bly moving, with so much pain go-
ing on, and probably had more of an
influence on me than any kind of
other musical statement I've ever
witnessed."
These days Nick Cave is a very
busy man. The last year has seen the
release of his book King Ink, an
over-priced collection of song lyrics
and assorted scribblings; an on-
screen appearance in Wim Wender's
Wings of Desire, performing "The
Mercy Seat" live on-stage; an
LP,Tender Prey (Mute/Enigma),
which finally seems to click where
his other solo records had tried and
failed; and the impending release of
his first novel, And the Ass Saw the
Angel, his own retelling of the Bible
filtered through an American South-
ern dialect. Add to this the implica-
tions of being cover boy on the
most recent issue of SPIN, and Cave
has made quite a transition from the
relative anonymity of underground
music limboland to having his face
plastered on every 7-11 or bookstore
newsstand, peering out from between
the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue
and Time. Cave, of course, is
characteristically modest about it all.
"Greatness is a kind of compara-
tive thing," muses Cave, "and I
don't think it takes that much to be
'great' these days. When you're
swamped by mediocrity, it's a diffi-
cult thing to raise your head above
it. My music right now has the po-
tential for greatness." U
. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds will
be performing at St. Andrew's Hall
in Detroit tonight. Tickets are
$14.50.
Poniewozik
Continued from Page 10
Inserting an eight-track, on the
other hand, is positively therapeutic.
Physical, tactile - and undeniably
phallic - the eight-track slams into
place with an ungh! that's like a slap
in the face of every obnoxious boss
in the world, every egocentric bastard
who ever guessed just one dollar
higher than the last contestant on
"The Price is Right."
ADVANTAGE: Eight-track.
Of course, I know nobody will
heed my advice. We humans are
nothing if not suckers for shiny
trinkets, and no doubt my beloved
LPs will soon join the Laserdisc and
the Fry Daddy somewhere in the
basement of the Smithsonian. And
as much as I hate to admit it, the
compact disc will probably have a
place even in my house someday.
Hell, I have to do something
about those unsightly coffee rings.u
1
S oi .,
The Fl m.:Swat thisfly
By Brent Edwards horror movie series. the obligatory lov
Picture a chamber that looks
more like a scientific laboratory than
a hospital delivery room. A preg-
nant woman lies in the center, her
stomach contorting and pulsating
like an angry ball of silly putty,
while men in suits watch through an
upper observation window. The
mother screams and something very
disgusting squirms out, making ap-
propriate slurping and crackling
noises. Sound good so far? If not,
read no further. But if it sounds like
a good way to begin a movie, then
The Fly II is for you.
The makers of this film were ob-
viously hoping to follow the success
of Aliens, an exciting, fast-paced
movie that was a sequel to a more
stylish, more intelligent film. The
Fly, directed by David Cronemberg,
was also stylish and intelligent, fea-
turing the tragic character of Seth
Brundle and his transformation into a
fly. The Fly II, however, is little
more than a gross-out movie at a
time when there seemed to be a re-
prieve from all the never-ending
In the first film, Jeff Goldblum
was brilliant in his sympathetic-yet-
horrifying character, but the talent is
wasted on his character's son in this
new movie. Eric Stoltz (Mask,
Some Kind of Wonderful) plays an
experimental subject of Bartok In-
dustries, a corporation that has
somehow obtained his father's
scientific work. Bartok plans on us-
ing the gene-splicing technique dis-
covered by Stoltz's father to create
new forms of people who will be
exploited by Bartok. For example, a
human could be combined with a
fish to do underwater work, or a hu-
man with a slug to write TV sit-
coms. Stoltz is competent as the
naive Brundle-boy, but even Judd
Nelson could have played this un-
challenging role effectively.
Apart from a couple of disgusting
special effects, the first half of the
movie is unoriginal and uninterest-
ing as we follow the development of
Stoltz and his relationship with
Daphne Zuniga (The Sure Thing),
rally, the possibility of another se-
quel is left open after she sleeps with
Stoltz. Even worse is that by doing,
so Daphne robs the proverbial cradle
since Stoltz is actually only five
years old, although his accelerated
genes make him appear 20.
Once Stoltz starts to metamor-
phose, however, the movie finally
starts to buzz along. The creature
looks like a mutated E.T., but he
doesn't want to phone home. Heads
explode, faces melt, backs get bro-
ken - Freddie Kruger would be
proud. The last half of the movie is
actually the only redeeming part be-
cause, as long as the violence
doesn't bug you, it is amusing to
see what bizarre things will happen
next.
So, all you Freddie headsters,
this monster doesn't have razors for
fingernails but it does power puke
acid vomit. Rejoice and get your fix
of gore from this movie, while the
rest of us enjoy the good films that
are out there.
1
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e interest. Natu-
Eric Stoltz and Daphne Zuniga try tc
cross-species problems in The Fly I
.::,
Stellar dancing
saves a rather
weak plot in Tap
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By Mark Shaiman
The cry of "Challenge!" goes out
and a half-dozen old men rush into
the room. It's a veritable showdown
of hoofers, tapping faster than
speeding bullets, showing up the]
youngster who claims that his
predecessors no longer have "legs."
Well, they've got "legs", and theyl
know how to use 'em.
Tap brings together some of the
best dancers of the past in a tribute
to their legacy, but unfortunately it
is a sometimes misguided tribute.
Director/writer Nick Castle is the
son of a choreographer famous for
working with Fred Astaire and Gene
Kelly, and while he brings his
knowledge of the history of the
dance to the film, he doesn't stay
true to it.
The beginning of the film is
reminiscent of any of a number of
great movie musicals. Just a thin
plot to allow for dancing - Max
(Gregory Hines) recently gets out of
jail and returns to the dance studio
his father started in Times Square.
Sammie Davis, Jr. plays Little Mo,
his mentor whose heart is ailing and
whose feet are aching to dance;
Hines is his vicarious outlet. But
Hines must choose between the easy
money of crime and the poor life of
a dancer.
There is also a love interest in
Little Mo's daughter, Amy
(Suzzanne Douglas), who holds a
weakening grudge against Max for
running out on her. And there is
Louis, Amy's son by another man,
whom Max helped to raise. It's all a
perfect set up for this type of film.
And for a while, things do go
perfectly. The opening scene of Max
practicing his dancing in jail shows
his unpolished, but natural, ability.
The "Challenge" scene will go down
in cinematic history not only be-
cause of the collection of talent, but
because the dancing is no less than
phenomenal. Jimmy Slyde, who
changed his name to fit his particular
style, defies all laws of gravity and
manages to move as gracefully along
the ground as on ice. Steve Condos,
who worked on the film soon after
major surgery, may not have much
flair, but he's got the fastest feet you
have ever "not" seen - and they
barely leave the ground. And Harold
Nicholas, known for his agility in
his act with his equally talented
brother, is still able to do a leap into
a split.
Savion Glover, who plays Louis,
is given a scene of his own in which
he teaches a group of youngsters
moves he learned from the older
crew. Glover played the lead role in
the Broadway hit The Tap Dance
Kid, and it is easy to see how he got
the part. Just give the 14- year-old a
few more years and he'll be the next
Hines and some classic tappers make a spectacular show of hoofing it
11
TWINS
12:20, 4:50, 7:20
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THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST o
12:15, 4:40, 7:20, 11:55
W Disneys OLIVER & COMPANY
$AT.SUN.M .1 0
Gregory Hines.
Hines' best solo number, has
him trying out for a show in front of
a director who is not a dancer him-
self. Max resents being harassed by
him, and re-choreographs the plain
routine to show him the true mean-
ing of tap. This is ironic, consider-
ing that Director Nick Castle can't
dance either, and needs to have the
same lesson taught to him.
Castle's plot is concerned with
combining tap and rock-and-roll. The
two have never been mixed before,
supposedly, because the music
would drown out the sound of the
tapping. Sandman Sims, another
old-time tapper who constantly
walks around scoffing at anything
modern, scoffs at this, too, and he's
right. So with a new device called
Tap-TronicsTM, there are receivers in
the shoes which can push the sound
of Hines' footsteps through a syn-
thesizer and extract them as any
sound on the other side. But this is
not what tap dancing is all about. In
a film about the need of returning to
tap dancing's roots, this scene has
no place at all.
Almost as needless is the sex
scene between Amy and Max, which
occu
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THE LAND BEFORE TIME
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PAGE 12 WEEKEND/FEBRUARY 17, 1989
WEEKEND/FEBRUARY 17, 1989