8 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, September 24, 1996 WIVES Continued from Page 5 husband's office with him downstairs. The only way out is the window-wash- er's gondola. Wackiness ensues. All three women give good perfor- mances, but Hawn stands eut as the most engaging. She typifies a middle- aged movie star - caught somewhere in that space between "Baywatch" and "Driving Miss Daisy." Midler and Keaton are also excellent as the two repressed housewives. Keaton is unable to express anger, and Midler, quite capable of the same, is perhaps a little more emotionally attached to her hus- band than she'd care to admit. Although the comedy and the acting are superb, the film is not without its flaws. Chief among them is that the husbands are not depicted as deserving of the revenge they receive. If the men were made out to be severe jackasses, it would be a lot easier to root for the women. Instead, the story is very lenient on them, depicting them as only human (but jerks nonetheless), and making us wonder if they really deserve it. On top of that, and despite good performances, the characters them- selves are rather forgettable. While the story is unfolding, we care about Brenda, Elise and Annie, waiting to see what they'll cook up next. But outside the theater, they're lost in memories of the ridiculous ending, in which the women turn their absurd First Wives Club into a suddenly seri- ous Shelter for Women. Besides, Elise and Annie are more annoying than likable, and Brenda is the only one that we really feel for. The real question that most guys want to know about "The First Wives Club" is whether or not it's safe to go see with their girlfriends. Is it a "chick movie?" Even if such a thing as a "chick movie" exists (which it doesn't), guys can rest assured about "The First Wives Club." While some of the themes are assuredly female in nature, the humor and sentiment are universal, and the male-bashing is kept to a minimum. Besides, it's an opportunity to see three wonderful actresses working as a dead- on comedy team. Read SportsMonday, only in the Daily. will you be the next Vice President LOO#/C FOR SW*UDETS WI Tb GREAT 64ADERSH/P SK/llS TO BE THE EXT VP OF /4IMAM RtSOUecS £ Otet EOPMD./T zN $ TI/F LARGEST STUDEtT OR/4T/ZAI/O4 ON C4MPYS, All students welcome. Applications are available in the UAC main office. 2105 Michigan Union 763-1107 RECORDS Continued from Page 5 good album. Lines like, "You're not the boss of me / Meet my old man / He's just a funny / He makes lovin you well / Take it away / I've got the only wis- dom" just keep coming out. They make the song work against traditional struc- turing but still capture the attentions of anyone in the vicinity. "Captain Pungent" and "Berthas" on the other hand have so many tradition- al devices in them, although mixed with some experimental bits, that they could almost be KISS tracks, especial- ly considering the loopy ultra Gene/Paul riffs going on in them. But the album closes with the nearly folky "Cottonmouth," with its freaky distor- tion and train sounds, letting the listen- er off easy. From the individual tracks to the overall structure of the album, "Stag" is a beautifully executed piece of music. Hunt it down or get it at the porno shop. - Ted Watts Sammy Tales of Great Neck Glory DGC Sort of like New Coke to good old regular, Sammy is to Pavement - a smoother, blander version of a classic. Sammy distills the half-mumbled, half- sung vocals, loopy guitars, off-kilter percussion and sunny pop hooks that Pavement made its own. And slavish imitators that they are, Sammy can't chart the heights that Pavement reaches. That said, Sammy's major-label debut "Tales of Great Neck Glory" is a fun, if derivative album. Singer Jesse Hartman has a cheeky, knowing style on songs like "Neptune Ave. (Ortho Hi Rise)" and "Blue Oyster Bay" that makes the group's five-finger discount style of songwriting enjoyable as a sort of in-joke between Sammy and its audience. While they may not be the real thing yet, "Tales of Great Neck Glory" provides some entertaining lis- tening. - Heather Phares John Turturro, pictured in "Barton Fink," is no stranger to weird roles. John Turturro 1ves back into the bizarre: NEW YORK (AP) - John Turturro shows up for lunch with sunken cheeks and tightly cropped hair, looking so thin that the waiter talks him into a wheat germ "health shake" and a huge chick- en sandwich. He seems shy and subdued, nothing like Joel Millner, the fast-talking, big- hearted record producer he plays in "Grace of My Heart." It's a pleasant departure for Turturro, whose many characters haven't exactly been the kind of guys you'd invite home for dinner. He also has some of the fun- niest lines in the film. Turturro has been feeling gloomy since getting back from the Ukraine, where he's been immersed in the role of Primo Levi, an Italian Jew who sur- vived Auschwitz and described his experiences in a series of remarkable novels. It was a fulfilling experience. "I think he's just a marvelous writer. Very humane and delicate and detailed and not overdramatized. It's overpower- ing because it's so subtle." To prepare for the filming, Turturro studied the accents of Turin (Turturro's own family is largely Sicilian) and read every book of Levi's he could find. He also dropped 25 pounds, eating tuna fish alone in his room. "I ate by myself a lot, which, you know, is lonely. It was good for what.I was doing, to save my energy for it. It's just, sometimes, you can go a little crazy that way." With his soulful, dark eyes and- crooked, tentative smile, it seems at, times that what he needs most is a good hug. Along with his obvious intelli- gence, it's a quality that comes through even in his stranger roles, and helps to make manic screenwriter "Barton Fink" or "Quiz Show" loser Herbert Stempel somehow sympathetic. Turturro insists he'll soon emerge from his funk, and unlike Millner's pro-. tege, played by Ileana Douglas, he won't need anyone to cajole him irfio asserting himself. "I never had to have somebody push me," he says. "My wife (actress Katherine Borowitz) always says Im very healthy that way. It's innate. I just, go, 'Well, if they knock me down, MVl just get back up."' Turturro is an accomplished stage actor with a master's in drama from Yale University, but for years he worked in his father's construction business, tended bar and even taught 5th and 6th graders while trying to get film roles His first was in "Raging Bull." Along with Fink and Stempel, which earned him an Academy Award nomi- nation, he has played a psychotic rapist in "Five Corners," a conniving Jewish gangster in "Miller's Crossing," a series of blue-collar bigots in Spike Le. movies and a depressed widower ii "Unstrung Heroes." Many of them had a nervous, edgy quality, as if they were struggling on the rim of madness. "I know Madonna a little bit, and she'd seen me do something- 'Miller's Crossing'- and she said, 'You go so fare out, you've got to be really normal to do- that. You've got to be really stable, or you wouldn't be able to do that.' And -I think in a way she's right." I I l 4; T KJ' Io j sjA MICHIGAN RECORDS AVP7-- 11 W.Ar A 'A .. ,..... .,.r, ,..._.... ire saF . rI : real music.s grat prces phone: 663.5800 1140 south university (above goodtime chadeys), AA 0 ff Scde mon.-thurs.: 9:00a-10:OOp im fri. & sat.: 9:00a-11:OOp , . , . -- ,,, . : . r - _..__e # S v5 a full-l ength Ct' i s cI (vo41,cct'~ele" w K SETEIABER2 , i Ithe . pipe * uh I pbtgp ,p f l B I r nfT- I eft 2f'nt cola rnn Y t~ m