w r s HEAVEN AND EARTH THIS HOLIDAY SEASON Holiday movies abound By JOHANNA FLIES The halls are decked, the stockings are stuffed, the tree is trimmed and all that other great fa-la-la stuff. Finals are over and you find yourself with too much time on your hands, wandering listlessly from video store to video store trying to track down that elusive copy of "Sliver" that hasn't been checked out. But wait - 'tis the season after all. What better way to get in the festive and jolly holiday spirit than by renting a rousing Christmas tale? Though it is shown nearly 24 hours a day between Thanksgiving and Christmas, "It's a Wonderful Life" is still the best bet for a magically inspiring extravaganza, thanks in great part to Frank Capra, director extraordinaire of such non-seasonal classics as "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." Though not a huge success when first released in 1946, this story has turned into one of the most popular and best- known movies ever. Jimmy Stewart plays George Bailey, If desperation sets in for a slap- stick screwball comedy with a child wonder comparable to Shirley Temple both in popularity and repulsiveness, do not fright: "Home Alone" is the perfect remedy. father, husband and bank owner in a small, Middle Ameri- can town. When hard times hit, George decides to kill himself, figuring his demise will be the best solution to everyone's problems. Enter angel-in-training Clarence who swoops down and revitalizes George's hope by showing him what the world would have been like if he had never been born. Stewart's perfection in portraying the idealistic, com- passionate boy-next-door is what keeps this movie chug- ging along after so many years. And Donna Reed, as George's wife, is cute and spunky enough to keep even a diehard Sharon Stone fan interested for a little while. Hell, the whole town even sings "Auld Lang Syne" around a Christmas tree at the end. It doesn't get any better. "A Miracle on 34th Street" is another black and white holiday classic (unless you encounter Ted Turner's muti- lated colorized version.) The young, precocious and po- tentially annoying Natalie Wood has been taught by her well-meaning mother that Santa Claus does not exist. When Kris Kringle himself appears on the scene, all kinds of craziness develops, including Saint Nick ending up in an insane asylum. Eventually, Santa's power does prevail; the kid is convinced that he isn't just some bearded pervert, the mom is won over and there is even a good- natured guy who proposes marriage. Nobody sings in this flick, but everyone ends up happy at the end including, surprisingly enough, the audience. After doses of angels and miracles, it might be a nice break to see someone mean-spirited and cold-hearted do really nasty things. However, even villains are not im- mune to Yuletide, making the transformation/revelation theme hard to avoid this time of year. "Scrooged," starring Bill Murray, is a modern-day version of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." Frank Cross (Murray), a bah-humbug- ging TV station president, is visited by the requisite three ghosts. Murray is a very believable asshole and David Johansen and Carol Kane are viciously funny as two of the spooky intruders. If desperation sets in for a slap-stick screwball comedy with a child wonder comparable to Shirley Temple both in popularity and repulsiveness, do not fright: "Home Alone" is the perfect remedy.When little Macaulay is forgotten at home by his vacationing family, not only does he fight burglars Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern with wit and finesse, he also manages to convince some weird old man who lives next door to make peace with his estranged son. It is Christmas, after all, and if Mac wasn't the closest thing to an angel on earth, "Home Alone 2" would neverhavebeen made. The 37 different versions of the traditional "A Christ- mas Carol" are always available as a backup if no other movie can be found. One is as good as the next, and Tiny Tim, in the right light, can be even cuter than Culkin. If worse comes to worst, "The Sound of Music" will prob- ably be on TV. God knows it has nothing to do with Christmas, except maybe the brown paper packages tied up with string, but it should do the trick. The story is sappy and the ending is happy. Santa couldn't ask for more. Among the smorgasbord of banal, tired films opening this holiday season, there is one true jewel, "Heaven and Earth." Starring the ever-indomitable stud - and, coincidentally, Al Gore's Harvard roommate - Tommy Lee Jones, the picture tells the painful story of Phung Thi Le Ly (Hiep Thi Le), a female Vietnamese villager who migrates to Southern California with Delp from an American GI (Jones) in the wake of that so-called "Vietnam conflict." The film is written and directed by Oliver Stone, and while obviously a "period piece," seems pleasantly devoid of Stone's typical politically partisan panache. Filmed primarily in Thailand, "Heaven and Earth" is based on Le Ly's own autobiographical account of her experiences, "When Heaven and Earth Changed Places." The picture may also prove to be a litmus test for Jones. After a number of supporting appearances in such recent blockbusters as "JFK" and "The Fugitive," this might be *s most important starring role since "Coal Miner's Daughter." "Heaven and Earth" opens nationwide on Christmas Day. Ame che ruled light By JON ALTSHUL Actor Don Ameche, whose recent death of canceratthe age of 85 touched millions of film buffs around the world, was a performer who simply didn't know when to quit. Over the course of his inspiring 56-year silver screen career, Ameche ranked second only to Jack Lemmon as the king of light comedy. With his skinny, perplexed smile QTY Fire Lyric Cynthia Zarin Knopf The poetry of Cynthia Zarin is the etry of the senses. She writes with r eyes and ears, bringing to the page what she finds in nature and in soci- ety. In her collection "Fire Lyric," Zarin writes of relationships, not be- tween people or animals, but between what the senses experience and what the mind makes of these sensations. The first section of poems, "Terra Anima," collects -Zarin's images of animals. The poet packs the opening *em, "The Box Turtle," with vital and fresh images of nature, challeng- ing the reader to reconsider "the cucumber's umbrella leaves" and the turtle's head, "a thumb on the ground's warm / throb." The poem closes with the assertion that "the world is tigerish, like a debutante /looking both to stay and quick be gone." Zarin brings the world into focus through her senses d challenges the reader to readjust this new perspective. The rest of the poems in "Terra Anima" equally exhibit Zarin's ener- getic approach to new sensations of nature. In "The Cormorants," she de- scribes the birds' offspring, "who look like small, feckless / thunderclouds painted by a dabbler who / wants to get everything in." In "The Oppossum's Dream," Zarin captures * great mass of a whale as "dark / and huge, a world / entire." Through these poems, the poet recreates the world with her own distintive vision. The second section, "Shadow," features the long poem, "Learning German," a meditation on the Holo- caust. Zarin captures the feeling of h'orror tied to memories of the con- centration camps. She describes a photograph of "gray bodies / piled to make an astonishing / wall. Eyes, a foot, a hand hung / out breaking the smooth / fish surface." The poet later states the undeniable fact of the camps: "any hour holds your death." The only uncertain moment in an other- wise emotion-packed poem comes in the confusing closing lines, "here is your chin, / that says, tasting the earth in its mouth: / The dress is in the meadow having a dream." The final section, "Parts of the World," seems the least thematically unified of the three. The poem "Thee and Lew Freeman" details the story of a child's imaginary friends that he has given up and the speaker has adopted as her own. Zarin updates the lives of Thee and Lew, telling how "sometimes Thee will sing to me / of places where I've never / been, but given half a chance I'd go." The most light-hearted poem in the book on first reading, a serious undertone comes through in these closing lines, reinforcing the importance of imagi- nation in life regardless of age. Zarin's poems especially standout from those of other modern poets because of her compact building of metaphor upon metaphor. In "Sunset House," "Pickled wainscot / makes a mackerel sky, / and in places where the paint / has buckled, the fish / is a bird with its feathers / ruffled." These multiple metaphors keep the image turning and the reader's eye refocus- ing on the object of the poem, recon- sidering again and again the poetry inherent in the world. Zarin's poetry is intricate and com- plex. The poems in "Fire Lyric" re- veal deeper layers of meaning with each reading, rewarding the perse- verance of the reader with a poetry that is at once artful and immediate, universal and specific. - Matt Thorburn The Nitpicker's Guide for Next Generation Trekkers Phil Farrand Dell There are books in the world that are storehouses of knowledge abso- lutely vital to certain individuals. Zeal- ots have religous texts, English pro- fessors have Shakespeare, and some people may have this particular vol- ume in their syllabus of required vol- umes. However, there is something fundamentally frightening about the concept of such a person. As you may have inferred from the title, this volume is a magnum opus on the minutiae for the first six seasons of the television show "Star Treki The Next Generation." It is not, as some might expect, simply a col- lection of story synopses that enter into extremely minute detail. The syn See BOOKS, Page 8 and cool, cocky demeinor, the bon- vivant exploited his somewhat aver- age looks for all they were worth. Best known to younger audiences for his show-stopping appearances in "Trading Places" and "Cocoon," Ameche first achieved national noto- riety with starring roles in such FDR- era blockbusters as "The Story of Alexander Graham Bell" and Ernst Lubitsch's -not Warren Beatty's - "Heaven Can Wait." His career peaked in the late 1940's, and shortly thereafter Ameche's star power began to dete- riorate. Too old to be a leading man, yet still too young to be an effective grandfather, for the next thirty years he appeared in only a handful of mo- tion pictures, lowlighted in 1976 by the disastrous cameo-heavy, canine comedy "Won Ton Ton, The Dog Who Saved Hollywood." In 1983, Ameche's star took a dramatic turn for the better when he comedy teamed up with Ralph Bellamy and Eddie Murphy in the unforgettable smash "Trading Places." His unscru- pulous, bigoted Mortimer Duke -a role that he reprised in 1988's "Com- ing To America" - virtually re-de- fined selfish senility. Ameche's next role, in Ron Howard's heart-warming drama "Co- coon," garnered him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. The picture also starred such aging luminaries as Jessica Tandy, Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn and Maureen Stapleton, and helped generate a new demo- graphic group among movie-goers: the elderly. Since "Cocoon," Ameche has ap- peared in eight films, the last of which was "Folks!" with Tom Selleck, which was, by all accounts, a disastrous flop. Still, Ameche played his role as a dying father sublimely. Indeed, resilience was always kind to Don. U P Department of Recreational Sports INTRAMURAL SPORTS PROGRAM Ameche UNIVERSITY LUTHERAN S CHAPEL,LCMS I- INVITES YOU TO.: 2y THANKS!!! TO ALL THE STUDENTS, FACULTY and STAFF WHO PARTICIPATED IN THE FALL TERM INTRAMURAL SPORTS PROGRAM!!! The IM Staff looks forward to having you and many others participate in the upcoming winter Term activities. We hope that you have a enjoyable and safe holiday!H For Additional Information Contact IMSB 763-3562 1511 Washtenaw, near Hill St. Pastor Ed Krauss, 663-5560 1 I I committed students needed: MAKE A DIFFERENCE! enroll in soc 389, sec 007 PQity Comm t Help sup- port adults with mental retardation University Health Servyice 207 Fiuder urMn N ,a eorM410.1 Attention husbands, wives, significant others and Save 10% When purchased before January 5-$303 I I .1 A