The Michigan Daily -Weekend etc. -January 23, 1992- Page 5 Scarlett no more in Fri~ed Green Tomatoes fried Green Tomatoes dir. Jon Avnet by Elizabeth Lenhard I'll bet Pat Conroy thought he summed up the Southern woman in his novel The Prince of Tides, via the character of Lila Wingo: "There was not a woman alive whom my mother did not consider a rival..." Call it the Scarlett syndrome. Hap- pily, Fried Green Tomatoes is one old-fashioned yarn that proves Mr., Conroy wrong. While each of the four women in Tomatoes may make a statement about the South, one thing they have in (un)common is their loyalty and There you are, sifting through the endless racks of CDs at yourlocal music supermarket. You're all set to do some damage to Dad's Visa card, but there's nothing to buy. From Guns 'N Roses over-blown Use Your Illusion I-XI, to the latest pseudo-dance Manchester trash, it's all just plain bad. But have no fear, the independents are here! Instead of blowing your parent's money on some MTV-hyped corporate "product," use it to support one of the many great local records that are now available. Big Chief's amazing new disc, Face, (Repulsion) is one such album. Forget Seattle - these local homeboys can out-tourque those kids any day. Incendiary tracks like "500 Reasons" and "Drive It Off 'stomp like Godzilla with a hot foot. The production on Face is stellar; there isn't a rock album out this bass heavy. Matt O'Brian and Mike Danner lay down a bottom that throbs like a metal Public Enemy. Big Chief also display more diversity on this release, adding some dusty blues and acoustic guitars to their killer brew. For now, this one is only available onnimport, but it's more than worth the time to track it down. These guys are Soundgarden's favorite band, and they should be yours too. Ann Arbor's own Southgoing ZAK, with the release of their latest album, Thump Strum & Stumble, show just why it is that this band rocks the hell out of other live performers. Live tracks taped at the Blind Pig such as "Bitter End" and "3000," while somewhat muddy in the mix, at least start to capture what this group is capable of doing. The studio songs are equally appealing and energetic. Julie Sparling's husky and sensuous vocals, and Jon Youtt's amazing drumming are obvious standouts on the record. From the first belted lines of "Bottom Dwellers" to the brilliant thrash and soul mix of "Grandma Thrash," Southgoing ZAK display a wide range of styles and influences. So instead of supporting all of those lesser musical scenes (Seattle, Boston, the whole country of England, etc.), find out why all great music eventually leads back to Ann Arbor. - Nima Hodaei and Scott Sterling Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson) returns from a day of freedom and nature to find an annoying male presence in her beloved home town, Whistle Stop, Alabama. love for the women in their lives. And men don't have a thing to do with it. Tomatoes (adapted from Fannie Flagg's 1987 novel, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe) jumps from Whistle Stop, Alabama in the 1930s to a present-day Birm- ingham nursing home. The heroes of the dominant storyline are Ruth (Mary-Louise Parker), a demure, quietly strong woman, and Idgie Threadgoode (Mary Stuart Master- son), who is wild, unapologetically unconventional and fiercely protec- tive of the few people she loves. The characters who "tell" the story are Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy) and Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates). The two meet in a nursing home where Ninny is stay- ing. Evelyn hides candy bars all over her house, dreams of seducing her neglectful husband with a cello- phanedress and attends support groups to raise the self-esteems of Southern women. She's in need of a friend and a route out of her midlife depression. Ninny's tales about Idgie and Ruth's adventures, and, more importantly, their friendship, bring Evelyn out of her mousy clothes and attitude, to the point where she impulsively knocks out a wall of her house and trashes the car of some insulting younger women. And as the stories continue, Eve- lyn's and Ninny's own friendship develops. Ninny's zest for life (she dyes her hair lavender and gobbles up the sweets Evelyn brings her) surpasses Evelyn's, who is decades younger than her. Soon Evelyn learns the value that can be found in a tiny train-stop town or a plate of fried green tomatoes. ' The plots are secondary to the film's relationships. Ruth leaves her cruel husband to open the Whis- tle Stop Cafe with Idgie, Idgie is suspected for murder and the pair are victimized for their equal treatment of Blacks. These sus- penseful elements are told well; but they're never separated from the context of the characters. The scenes from the cafe reflect the sights and smells of the South, and a bullet hole in the restaurant's window reminds audiences of the violence which liesabeneath the character and the warmth of the deep South. But what makes the movie breathlessly engaging is the four actors. Tandy is a biddy in the best sense of the word. She grins and crosses her high-topped ankles with the class of an 82-year-old widow who isn't afraid of death. At times, how- ever, her portrayal of spunky South- ern wit becomes tiresome, and you wonder if director John Avnet was trying to add a new twist to the profitable Miss Daisy. Bates takes a necessary part and turns it into something sincere and moving. It's hard to take any charac- ter seriously who cries into her Krispy Kremes or wails, "I can't even look at my own vagina!" But Bates takes Evelyn's midlife trans- formation - baby trampoline, sushi and all - and makes it a bit digni- fied. Masterson carries the film, de- livering a performance of incredible weight. Her character's foundations were expertly laid in scenes from her early childhood (Flagg and Avnet collaborated on the tightly constructed screenplay), and the ac- tor fleshes out her story admirably. She drinks and gambles, but shows innocence behind cunning. Idgie jumps a box car, dragging Ruth along with a hostile challenge, and then throws food to the poor people they pass. In her equal treat- ment of the town's Blacks and her guileless dip into a honey tree swarming with bees, Idgie acts upon instinct, teaching Evelyn and her au- diences the qualities of life that our contemporaries have forgotten. Tandy and Bates got Golden Globe nominations for their per- formances in Tomatoes, but Master- son created the depth in this picture. The Southern woman cannot be summed up, but Masterson's Idgie Threadgoode creates a literary type that might redefine the Scarlett syndrome. FRIED GREEN TOMATOES opens tomorrow at Showcase. Evelyn (Kathy Bates) is gleefully liberated from her straight-laced role of Southern matron through her friendship with Ninny. I Musicians Yamashita, Petri do Rackham . k 'by Roger Hsia S ome people only appreciate the musical literature for "The Big Three" - violin, piano and cello. The return of two stellar talents to Rackham Auditorium, however, should offer a fine chance to sample the music of instruments less rec- ognized at concerts. The young virtuosos, Michala Petri, a recorder soloist from Den- mark, and .Kazuhito Yamashita, a Japanese guitarist, will appear in a joint chamber recital. The character- istically whimsical and natural sound of Petri's recorder will warm and reward those willing to brave the elements. Music critics and audiences on four continents have attested to her technique and her fine grasp of dy- namic ranges. Since her debut at the Tivoli Concert Hall in 1969, Petri has toured the United States, Canada, Europe, Israel and Japan at presti- gious music festivals, including the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York. Her discography, covering numerous renderings of the solo recorder repertoire, includes six concerto albums with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. A Picture of Oscar Wilde - Entertainment for the Not So Mild by Peter D. Sieruta The Performance Network January 23-29th Starring Glenn Allen Pruett Directed by Thomas D. Mahard "Better to be irreverent than irrelevant," laughs Glenn Allen Pruett as he vamps about the stage as the ever witty Oscar Wilde. Peter D. Sieruta's funny, endearing portrait of this colorful character focuses on Wilde's favorite topic ... himself. Sieruta's script works not only because of its constant stream of Wilde's best quips - for instance, he says of a boring society matron, "If God had wanted her to speak, he would have given her something to say"- but also because of Glenn Allen Pruett' s fanciful portrayal of (and strong resemblance to) Wilde. A Picture Of Oscar Wilde visited the Performance Network last September, and returns this week due to its strong reception all over the Detroit area. The Network's black-box, off-off Broadway atmosphere lends itself perfectly to this simple one-man show that relies, not on an intricate set, but on the intricacies of Wilde's wit and creative use of language. Sieruta introduces us to the author at home, in his humble Petri's primary accompanist will be Yamashita, a guitarist known the world over not only for his playing but particularly for his transcriptions of Mussorgsky's Pic- tures at an Exhibition and Stravin- sky's Firebird. His virtuosity de- veloped under the tutelage of two masters - Narcisco Yepes and An- dres Segovia, culminating at a first place award at the Nineteenth In- ternational Guitar Competition in Paris. Kazuhito has also toured exten- sively around the globe. His U.S. debut with flutist James Galway proved to be an enormous triumph and led to two sold out tours of a dozen major cities. Saturday's program will kick off with Handel's Sonata in A Minor for treble recorder and guitar. Beth Gilford, who formerly taught recorder at the University School of Music, says, "the Handel Sonatas for recorder are standards in the Baroque repertoire. Handel, as well as Telemann possessed an intimate understanding of the instrument. In this piece, the recorder sounds the melody while the guitar in the con- tinuo provides the bass line for the piece, filling in the harmonic movement." Also on the slate are some works with which audiences may not be as familiar. The performance's center- pieces are a descant recorder piece by Heberle,Sonata in C major, and The Blackbird for treble recorder by Thommessen. The program will in- clude the Sonata in D major by and wit that have become his trademarks on the lively Preludium, Fugue and Allegro for solo guitar by J.S. Bach. In addition, he will perform Cancion and Danza by A. Ruia-Pipo, giving the audience ample time to appreciate the command of color and tone with which Yamashita is blessed. KAZUHITO YAMASHITA AND MICHALA PETRI performs at Rackham Auditorium Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets range from $16-24, but rush tickets will be available for $7 on Saturday from 10 a.m.-I p.m. at Burton Tower. For more info, call 764-2538. explains. "These kids don't really know what else to do." At first glance, an obvious com- parison might be made with last summer's Boyz N the Hood, but Kain calls Hood "more of a drama" and Juice "more of a story." "Juice isn't a lot of monologues and explaining how to feel," Kain says, describing his film as "action - people are brought into that en- vironment, and you decide how you feel." Also making a debut of sorts with Juice is Spike Lee's acclaimed cinematographer Ernest Dickerson, who sits in the director's chair for the first time. Kain, who fondly refers to Dickerson as "the Man," says that the director acted as a soothing force Sports Nutrition & Body Building Products .Vitamins & Supplements -Health Foods and a whole lot more 1677 Plymouth Rd. AnnArbor 665-7688 In the Courtyard Shops at North Campus Plaza Khalil Kain makes his feature film debut in Juice, the new film from Spike Lee's cinematographer, Ernest Dickerson. And according to Kain, "Spike Lee uses a lot of the techniques that Ernest Dickerson does." Actor gets juicy role by Mark Binelli on the mostly novice, and often anxious set. 'WYhether you're Black or you're When asked if he believes that white, if you're good, you'll work," Dickerson uses many of Lee's tech- says Khalil Kain, the young actor niques, Kain responds, "I think that who makes his feature film debut in Spike Lee uses a lot of the tech- Juice, a story about four Black niques that Ernest Dickerson does." teenagers growing up in Harlem. He notes that Dickerson is responsi- Kain - who shies away from ble for the trademark look of Lee's talk of "Black films," insisting films, and also adds that "whenever that skin color should not be em- Spike Lee acts, Ernest is behind the phasized as much as it currently is camera directing, and Spike Lee acts - can fully empathize with the in all of his films." characters in his film. He grew up Before landing his role in Juice, on Manhattan's lower east side, in Kain was involved in the theater. He the same neighborhood as A also made "plenty of commercials," Different World's Kadeem Hardison and even worked as a profegsional and New Jack City's Allen "Gee roller skater. Kain is also writing a Money" Payne. play. "To get more 'juice' on the street "There are so many storied to be - to get more respect - the charac- told," he says, "and I have quite a ters decide to commit a crime," he few." S. L L O R D E R + C A R D Please charge my copy of the 1992 Michiganensian to my student account. I understand that it will be available for pick-up in mid-April and that no refunds will be given. The