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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 11, 1987)
Daily Nebraskan Page 7 (TP Brave Com es polkas new Wednesday, March 11, 1987 Ants life By Chris McCubbin Diversions Editor Let's clear up this rock Y roll thing. The secret to rock 'n' roll isn't electric guitar and a rhythm section, it isn't the Bo Diddley beat, and it sure isn't Day-Glo Spandex and a light show. The secret to rock 'n' roll is to play it fast and loud so it changes the pulse. Forget the technique, but never lose the momentum. Make them dance. Make them need to dance. Concert Preview By this definition, Brave Combo is a rock 'n' roll band. One of the best. That they happen to play polkas isn't important. But it is important, because, cultural bias "and the generation gap aside, polka is great music. It's exciting, it's sophisticated and it's sexy. You don't care, you say, you still can't stomach Ernie Kucera and the Six Fat Dutchmen. I can't either. The insular complacency of the polka establishment wracks my whole body with violent waves of indifference. But that's not the music's fault. But that's what's great about Brave Combo which is, by the way, playing tonight at the Zoo Bar. Brave Combo By Charles Lieurance Senior Reporter You can tell when a legend has been around a little too long. First, it becomes the skeleton on which to hang a first rate comedy, and then, in its final plummet from grace, it becomes fodder for TV sitcoms. Movie Review Occasionally, although not often, even after the legend has run J,he gamut of movie vehicles for Satur day Night Live alumni and fall TV pilots, some courageous and imagin ative soul manages to place the car rion in some new configuration. The legend of Faust selling his soul to the devil for worldly prosper ity and then attempting to breach the bargain certainly has been around the block a few times. Alan Parker, who gave the world "Fame," "Mid night Express," Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and "Birdy," has reconstructed Faust from the ground up, leaving only the basic premise intact, for his newest film, "Angel Heart." Faust legend "Angel Heart" is the Faust legend dressed in so many costumes and concealed in so many cinematic ruses that the infrastruc ure is, at first, revealed only in "dimestore" in-jckes. The names of the charac ters sound like a biblical pur.fest: Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro), Harry (Harold?) Angel (Mickey Rossrke), the lawyers Winesap and Macintosh. Over this, Parker drapes a genre hopping, terrifying and hideously violent plot that continually makes use of magician's sleight of hand to keep the audience guessing. As egendl barely IfoMdlein m Aitgel Lanford Wilson 's play 'The Fifth of July ' begins Thursday night Lanford Wilson's "witty, wistful and exquisite!" play, "The Fifth of July," opens Thursday in University Theatre's Studio, third floor, Temple Building. Alternately funny and moving, the "Fifth of July" deals with a group of former '60s activists and the changes changes the context, gooses the music with ajumper cable, and all of a sudden you realize that polkas are, somehow, still crazy after all these centuries. The legend goes like this: Brave Combo began in Texas, touring mental hospitals and doing an occasional wedding. A few years ago they released an album, "World Dance Music," and became overnight critic's darlings, garnering notoriety for turning the theme from "Rosemary's Baby" into a waltz and doing the Doors "People are Strange" as a Yiddish hora. After "World Dance Music," the. band acquired bass and tuba player Bubba Hernandez, who added lots of great Mexican-American material to band leader Carl Finch's already pro digious repertoire of European folk music and American pop songs. Now the band's new album, "Polka tharsis," is out on Rounder Records. If the new album lacks "World Dance Music's" manic edge, it outdoes its predecessor on sheer audacity, taking on such fantastically square chestnuts as "The Happy Wanderer" and "Anni versary Song," and winning. Miracles happen at Brave Combo shows. A past-middle-aged, Bavarian born polka-meister can share the floor with your average collegiate sludge rock foot shuffler and neither will feel any shame or resentment. Brave Combo's music sets up a major plot points are revealed, Parker veils the information in a sex scene. While he's shoving a resistant, squealing rabbit into his hat, we're staring at actress Elizabeth Whit craft's bosom. By the time the rabbit actually emerges, its ears firmly in Parker's grasp, the audience is hard pressed to explain the miracle. Rourke as Angel is a miracle. Rourke, who has been mostly a memorable face in his previous roles, now becomes a memorable actor. His performance as the down-and-out private investigator hired to find a missing prewar crooner by the (dare I say it) Mephistophelean Cyphre is a mighty amalgam of Bogart's Spade and Marlowe.Jack Nicholson's Jake Giddes, and the irrascible losers that populated in numerable film noirs of the '40s. As with the best hardboiled detective plots, Angel learns as much about himself during the film as he does about the missing person. It was once said, when referring to Jack Nicholson's role in "China town," that only he could play the leading man in a film while wearing a mass of medical tape over his nose. Rourke, in "Angel Heart," does a fine act of oneupsmanship, shuffling through the film wearing a baggy, stained suit, sporting a plas tic tan guard over his nose and remaining in a perfect state of unshaven slovenliness while still exuding an offbeat kind of sex appeal. Genre genisa But the stroke of genius in this film is not its recreation of a genre, but the genres that feed into it to make the Clin entirely unique. Par ker, who was working from a novel called "Fallen Angel" by William Hjortsberg, pours the supernatural, religio-kitsch and, hold onto your seats, metaphysics into the mix. which maturity wrought in their lives and attitudes in the years since leaving college. They are gathered for a reunion at the old Talley farmhouse in Lebanon, Mo. the author's birthplace and with their reminiscences come the - t , .V. t mystic field of sonic vibration that drives every tired and musty thought out of your reality-addled brain except Mickey The effect is virtually seamless, a complex and gorgeous film that makes you forget that underneath the maze is a cliche, a labyrinth you've wandered so many times before that you're ashamed you didn't recognize the scenery. The performances are superior right dcr.vn the credit list, from Lisa Eonet's controversial movie debut to the local Louisiana actors who play redneck ccps in the New Orleans scenes to blues great Brownie Mc Ghee as guitarist Toots Sweet. The monochromatic look of the film, achieved by eliminating all of revelations of lost dreams and shat tered hopes. At once poignant and marvelously funny, "Fifth of July" is a compassionate portrait of a generation "Fifth of July" was the first of three plays written by Lanford Wilson about the Tailey family. It opened at the Cir v.- J , 4 ' Brave Combo "I need to dance, I need to dance," leaving you purged, exhausted and clean polkatharsis, indeed. i jam n i Rourke as Harry Angel in "Angel the primary colors in the frame, is startling. The sun never shines, a storm is always on the horizon, and the world is populated by more shadows than fcsimsn beings. And throagSisst there is the pre sence cf evil in the form of street senseless murders, in nightmares and in the form cf the devil himself. Si Parker's "Angel Heart" is a grisly entertainment that probably loses its mass audience in the first hour. The couple behind me in the theater took to discussing whether or not cle Repertory Theatre in New York City in 1978, to be followed in 1979 by 'Tal- ley's Folly" and in 1981 by 'Tale Told." After opening on March 12th, "Fifth of July" will continue March 13th, 14th, and 16th through 2 1st at 8 p.m. Tickets A Courtesy of The Zoo Bar The show starts at 9 p.m. Cover is $3, Beg the band to do its (as yet un recorded) assaultcover of "La Bamba." Heart Courtesy of Tri Star Pictures Heart. Lisa Bonet could still do the "Cosby Show" after a blistering exhibition , like this one.- : Come to think of it,, how mill, Denise ever be able to show her face' around the HuxtaMe house again? 4 For the non-squeamish who can handle a path this dark, the Elm has cinematic rewards well beyond the ; Hollywood status (p3. fcr thcsai who are still ptting ever the kJ!l:p of Bambi's mother, I'd recommend safer seats. "Ansel Ilesrt" is now ghow ir.3 ct tie Cir.e::;a Twin. are on sale in the Temole Box Office. located on the first floor of Temple Building, 12th and R Streets. Phone (402) 472-2073. Box office hours are from noon to 5 p.m. weekdays. During performance nights, the box office is also open from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.