12
Thursday, April 28, 1983
Daily Nebraskan
rT IS Ql
Entertainment
with Wine that works
By Steve Abariotes
The troubled young man guides his
horse down the desert canyon, cursing
to himself through the thorny bush in
search of water. As he and his horse
quaff the sparkling water, our mythic
hero arrives. At first, only a shadow,
then magically appearing, mysterious,
he is brilliantly back-lit by the sun,
Film Review
finally nodding, revealing his roughly
textured and weathered face. He and
the young man shall ride.
"Barbarosa" is a conventional for
mula Western, but with keen variations
on the original theme - starting with
Willie Nelson (a country music star)
in the title role, an aging gunfighter
striving to become a member of a
Mexican family. Not only do they not
want Mm, they want to kill him. But
he wants to be a part of their family,
anyway. "They Ye good people! "
Upon yet another return for accept
ance, he meets Carl (Gary Busey), a
bumbling "farmboy" who is running
from problems at home. They become
friends, despite farmboy's honest
approach to lawlessness. Barbarosa
teaches him how to rob and shoot,
creating intense, as well as funny,
comments.
Busey is convincing as the clumsy,
overgrown farmboy who eventually
redeems himself for Barbarosa. Nelson
gives a fine performance as the outlaw.
He's consistent, yet his character lacks
the emotional peaks that make a char
acter really effective and memorable.
He looks the part, however, and his
twangy, witty wisecracks give cred
ence to his believability, and it works
beautifully.
Much of the film was shot with a
long lens, somehow lending a sense
of action even to the dialogue scenes.
Actors and objects are cleverly mani
pulated within the frame. The picture
ratio (that we saw), by the way, was
the old-time, wide screen cineama
scope used in many of the Westerns
of the 1950s. Its wideness helps to
accentuate the landscape and the "big
sky."
The musical soundtrack is aligned
effectively with the images, even subtly
arrayed to movements such as a rack
of focus.
Some of the plot occurrences seem
a bit contrived, but we know that
Barbarosa and the farmboy are bigger
than life, so we can let it pass.
One would not find it difficult to
notice similarities to the John Ford
Westerns, and the scene of Barbarosa
secretly whisking the captive farmboy
from the cave is downright spaghetti
Western-ish.
"Barbarosa" is a full-blown, shoot
em -up with a mystical hero, stylized
violence and even some romance. The
cameraediting pays painstakingly close
attention to cutaways that really punch
the film along. This is one of the best
Westerns in a few years, and a well made
film, too.
"Barbarosa" is playing at the
Sheldon Film Theatre tonight through
Sunday, with a barbeque for "The
Friends of Sheldon" Saturday night.
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The following is a list of local
happenings for the coming weekend to
night through Sunday:
BARS
Aku Tiki Lounge, 5200 0 St. - The
Great Impostors tonight through Saturday,
SI cover tonight, $1. 50 Friday and Satur
day. Chesterfield, Bottomsley, & Potts, 245
N. 13th St. - Brad Colerick Friday and
Saturday, no cover.
Drumstick, 547 N. 48th St. - Blue
Riddum Band and Cost of Living tonight,
S3 cover. Model Citizens and The Dick and
Janes Friday and Saturday, $2 cover.
Green Frog, 1010 P St. - Brutus
tonight through Saturday, no cover.
Larry's Showcase, 1316 N St. - The
Click and The Other Geese tonight, $1.50
cover. Dash Riprock Friday, $3.50 cover.
Kelley and the Kinetics Saturday, $3
cover. Charlie Burton and the Cutouts and
the Leroi Brothers Sunday, $3 cover.
McGuffey's, 1042 P St. - Jim
Saelstrom tonight through Saturday, $1
cover.
Pla-Mor Ballroom, -6600 W. O St. -Dennis
Wesely Saturday, $2.50 cover.
The Lincoln Czechs Sunday, $2 cover.
Rivera's, 1920 W. O St. - Sweet Potato
Band tonight through Saturday, no cover.
Sidetrack, 7th and P streets Joyce
Durand tonight through Saturday, no
cover.
Royal Grove, 340 W. Cornhusker
! - y-
- J:
Highway - Treu Bleu tonight through
Saturday, no cover.
Zoo Bar, 136 N. 14th St. - Pinky
Black and the Excessives tonight, S 1 .50
cover. The Leroi Brothers Friday and
Saturday, S3 cover.
THEATERS
Cinema 1 and 2; 13th and P streets -"Spring
Break" - 7:30 and 9:35 p.m.;
"Joy Sticks" - 7:20 and 9:20 p.m.
Cooper, 54th and O streets "Travel-s
ogue: The Mighty Mississippi" 2 and 6
p.m.; "Max Dugan Returns" - 9:25 p.m.
Douglas 3, 1300 P St. - "Sophie's
Choice" - 5:40 and 8:30 p.m.; "Flash
dance" 5:20, 7:20 and 9:20p.m.; "Bad
Boys" - 5:10, 7:25 and 9:35 p.m.
East Park 3, 6100 O St. - "High Road
to China" - 5:40, 7:40 and 9:40 p.m.
"Outsiders" - 5:20, 7:20, and 9:20 p.m.;
"An Officer and a Gentleman" 5:10,
7:30 and 9:40 p.m.
Joyo, 6102 Havelock Ave. - "E.T.:
-The Extra Terrestrial" - 7:30 p.m.
Plaza 4, 12th and P streets - "48
HRS." - 7:45 and 9:45 p.m.; "Monty
Python's Meaning of Life" - 7:30 and
9:30 p.m.; "10 to Midnight" - 7:15 and
9:15 p.m.; "Gandhi" -8 p.m.
State, 1415 O St. - "Lone Wolf
McQuade" - 7:30 and 9:35 p.m.
Sheldon Film Theater, 12th and R
streets - "Barbarosa" 7 and 9 p.m.
Stuart, 13th and P streets - "Tootise"
1,3:10, 5:30, 7:40 and 9:45 p.m.
GymsSuoe loses elussve GQ
bul finally gets Margot Efae
By Pat Clark
The G. Cue: I was doing time at a
hospital when 1 got a visitor I didn't expet
- Margot Blue. She said she was a private
eye looking for the GQ Guy and I believed
her. We both said we would take ourselves
off the case, and we knew we were both
lying.
The dame burst into my office just like
she had maybe a day, maybe a month ago,
the same pastel dreambomb of blue on
blue, heartache on heartache.
"Pemberton," I said without emotion.
"Gumshoe," she responded simply.
"I haven't found him," I said.
"You won't find him."
"I'll keep looking."
"You won't find him," she said again.
"He's not yours to find. He's mine. Even if
I told you what he looked like, even if I
knew what he looked like to tell you, you
would not know it was him if you saw
him."
I leaned back in my chair and rested
my hands behind my head. I heard the
muffled sound of my sleeve ripping as 1
did so. "Are you telling me to drop the
case?"
"Yes," she said. I looked at her, at the
weary glaze that could not quite hide the
spark in those wide-open hypnoeyes. She's
not mad at herself for expecting the hunt
to be so easy.
"You'll find him," I said. "Who's to say
he might not even find you?"
"1 might find him," she said, without
so much as the pretense of sadness in
her voice. "I might not. The important
thing is to keep looking."
She left as quickly as she had come, the
door silent behind her like it had shut on
its own. I noticed she left without paying
me, but I told myself I didn't care. I
wouldn't have paid me, either.
I slipped out of the office, trying to
make the door shut as quietly as
Pemberton had. The brass knob fell off
in my hand. Babs, sitting at her desk' trying
to swim to the bottom of a bottle of
Jack Daniels, looked at me and laughed.
It was the kind of laugh that makes a prat
fall worthwhile, a hearty rollercoaster
laugh that puts you down then takes you
halfway back up. I lobbed the door knob
at Babs, who caught it and slipped it into a
desk drawer.
As soon as I hit the street, I saw a dame
under a lamppost in the twilight. Trite,
I thought, very trite, but trite from the
finest bottle of imported vintage trite,
served on a day when trite would go with
anything. She was the kind of a dame you
could tell from the other end of the block
that you didn't want her to be at the other
end of the block, a double feature dream in
technicolor, only better than the best
movie fantasy because real and alive. I
knew I could not talk to her, and knew just
as certainly that 1 would try.
I started toward her with Gestapo
subtlety, breeding down the street much
faster than my mind could think of
anything to say to her. She was waiting for
me, I realized, but 1 hurried just the same.
"Light?" I said, reaching into my
pocket for a lighter I knew I didn't have.
"Yes it is," she said, pointing at the sky.
"At least it will be until dark."
We made mindless weathertalk for a
time, and I could tell she was getting tired
of that. She wanted to tell me that she was
a private eye named Margot Blue, but she
stopped herself. We swapped aliases. She
said she was a foreign affairs correspondent
for the Martian Chronicle. I said I sang the
blues and played some piano at a little
speakeasy in the bad part of Oz.
I shouldn't do this, I knew. She can
never be the person 1 imagine, any more
than I can be the one she imagines. I knew
that I would live to regret it, but if you
don't have anything to regret you pro
bably aren't alive anyway. Maybe we will
talk it over with our imaginations, I told
myself. See if they will accept a
compromise. But that is all for later.
"You wanna go for a drink?" I said,
my speech as sloppy as my clothes. "I may
not be the guy you're looking for, but
in the meantime 1 know a little place that
they'll have to fix it up a little before they
can call it a dive. They got a jukebox full
of blue devils there that'll wail out your
whole life story for two bits a tune."
"I know my life story," she said. "But
if they play yours, I'll put in the quarters."
We started for the bar, talking when we
had talk to otter, not talking when we had
silence to offer.. I kept looking around for
Diane Pemberton; she couldn't have
gotten far, but I didn't see her. She knows
everything I could tell her by now anyway,
I thought, knows that the GQ Guy wears a
lot of disguises, and hides in a lot of places.
But if he's the right guy, he can't fool her.
'Cricket Sings' earns fiction award
for UNL English instructor td'ng
By Chuck Jagoda
"It is not really unique but it is very
good," said Barbara Mischnick, general
book buyer at Nebraska Bookstore.
The book is Cricket Sings by Kathleen
King, a UNL English instructor. All 10
copies that Mischnick ordered sold out
within four days.
King will read from the novel tonight
at 7 pjn. in the Heritage Room at Bennett
Martin public library. Mischnick has
secured another supply of 50 paperback
copies and 10 in hardbound "because
of the reading."
Mischnick ordered the original 10
copies for the general book-buying public,
but when the book was assigned in an
English course, the supply was depleted.
The book, set in the culture of Mis
sissipian Native Americans before the
coming of Columbus, is published by
Ohio University Press. An excerpt won
the Alchemist Review fiction award for
1980.
King started the book four years ago
after visiting the Cahokia site where
archaeologists have uncovered evidence
of a prehistoric city stretching over six
square miles, with a population of as many
as 40,000 people.
"One evening I wrote a poem on the
Great Mound (the largest earth mound
in North America and one of 100 built
in the area). I took it to my poetry teacher
and, told him I was going to write a novel
about Cahokia. He said, '111 bet you
are.' So I went and wrote a novel," King
said.
The people of the Cahokia culture
settled near the confluence of the Mis
souri and Mississippi rivers as early as 700
A.D. and traded with tribes around the
Great Lakes and others near the Gulf
of Mexico. They used psychedelic drugs
and practiced cannibalism.
King said the central message of the
book is that people have to live by their
own sense of what is right as opposed to
the rules of culture.