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Feb, 26 7 PM Union Ballroom
Dinner Tickets: $5.75 for students
$6.75 for non-students
General Admission Tickets without meal:
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$2.00 for non-students
Tickets on sale at Gty Union front desk today thru Tues. Feb. 23
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From Chicago
Eddie Shaw
And The
Wolfgang
(Formerly the Howlin Wolf
Blues Band)
Hot Blues From Chicago
Friday, Feb. 19, 9 pm - lam
$3.00
Swamp-Rock
From Austin, Texas
The
Tail Gators
This hot trio features former
Thunderbuds bass player,
Keith Ferguson and guitartist
Don Leady, formerly with
the LeRoi Bros. *
| One Night Only!
Sat., Feb. 20, 9 pm* 1 am j
$4.00 at the Door I
Courtesy of Columbia Pictures
Peter O’Toole and a cast of thousands in Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Last Emperor.”
‘Last Emperor’ a regal film
By John P. Coffey
Staff Reviewer
Imagine yourself the ruler of
more than half the people in the
world. Your home has 9,999 rooms,
hundreds of women for your own
pleasure, countless servants at your
disposal. Your titles include “Lord
of 10,000 Years” and “Son of
Heaven.”
Too good to be true? Perhaps. In
the case of Pu Yi, it was. He gre w up
probably the loneliest boy in the
world.
Pu was “The Last Emperor” of
China. His life story, now a movie,
is a saga seemingly so unreal that no
storybook would touch it. But it
really happened, and in the 20lh
i century.
In 1908, Pu Yi was 3 years old
and already the emperor of China’s
Ching Dynasty. Four years later,
China becamca republic, and 3,000
years of imperial rule came to an
end.
But the boy emperor did not
know this. Shielded from reality by
his advisers, Pu was not allowed to
roam beyond the castle walls of the
Forbidden City. Even though the
city was a life of luxury (the man
sion had 9,999 rooms; the Chinese
believed only Heaven had 10,(KX)),
it was also a life of loneliness.
While the rest of China pro
gressed toa republic, the emperor’s
world remained trapped in the past.
He was the only boy in China w ith
out the frecdorn to walk out his front
door. Like many with great power
and demands, Pu’s advisers con
trolled his personal affairs.
Even though he had, within the
palace, all the power one could
want, he had no freedom, no friends
— he knew no one his age. They say
it’s lonely at the top.
In 1924, Pu Yi married two
wives and reality came knocking at
the palace door. Reality was a war
lord who took over the Forbidden
City. The emperor finally realized
he had no power. He was given one
hour to leave the only four walls
he’d ever known. His tutor and
perhaps only friend, Reginald
Johnston, arranged for Pu and his
wives to leave in safety.
After a few years of life in the
fast lane, Pu received the opportu
nity to regain some of the power
he’d been denied as a child. Or so he
thought. The Japanese controlled
the land of his ancestors, Manchuria
(renamed Manchukuo). They of
fered him the job of emperor. But
like his childhood reign, he wasn’t
really in charge; he was nothing
more than a puppet emperor. Once
again the truth was concealed from
him.
World War II saw the defeat of
the Japanese. Manchukuo fells to
the Soviets. Four years later, com
munist troops under Mao Tsc-Tung
took control of China, and Pu Yi,
the former emperor, became a pris
oner in Mao’s rc-cducalion prison.
The movie ends with Pu’s pardon
and his last few years, spent as a
simple gardener.
Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The
Last Emperor” tells one man’s
search for freedom. Pu’s life is an
inverted pyramid from the norm.
Instead of starting out with all the
freedom in the world and then
struggling for power, Pu begins life
with all the power in the world: He
just wants to be free.
He finds that it is not the riches
and power of this world that set a
person free. Freedom is found being
a gardener and nursing the earth.
Power is a secondary theme,
prevalent in Pu’s struggles to regain
it during his puppet reign as
Manchukuo’s emperor. The power
struggles during the scenes docu
menting Mao’s re-education arc
fascinating.
This epic film’s enormous
undertaking is most impressive.
The negotiations with the Chinese
government paving the way to
shoot this true story took two years
alone. According to press release
information from Columbia Pic
tures, the Chinese government gave
the production crew total freedom
in shooting on location. In return,
the government asked for Chinese
distribution rights.
Reportedly the only intervention
by the Chinese government in this
not-so-flattcring account of
China’s Mao-era atrocities was
script approval and correction of
factual inaccuracies.
Four actors play Pu Yi at various
stages of his life. John Lone, an
actor from Hong Kong now living
in the United States, stars as the
adult Pu. Also in the film, Joan
Chen, as one of his wives, and Peter
O’Toole, as his tutor, do a wonder
ful job.
“The Last Emperor,” nominated
for nine Academy Awards, is now
showing at the Douglas 3 Theaters
at 5:20 and 8:30 p.m.
Blonde Waltz is to the beat of a heart
REVIEW BOARD from Page 6
Blonde Waltz, “The Perfect Dark”
(Chrome Angel Records)
Blonde Waltz creates all the feel
ings associated with love — ranging
from the joy and excitement of a
soaring heart to the pain and despair
love also can bring — on their first
album, “The Perfect Dark.”
Blonde Waltz takes its name from
“Subterranean Homesick Blues &
the Blonde Waltz,” a chapter from
“Tarantula” by Bob Dylan. The Lin
coln trio consists of Terri II Clements,
bass; Bobby Hciscr, drums; and
Richard Sullivan, guitar and vocals.
The band grew out of a ’60s garage
pop band, The Gears.
Blonde Waltz’s music is a synthe
sis of the pop sounds of the ’60s and
the psycho-social “Zeitgeist” of the
'80s, a style that characterizes popu
lar music of today. And Blonde
Waltz brings a fresh approach to this
genre that is slowly decaying into
something potentially so bland, the
likes of which we haven’t seen since
the mid- to late-1970s.
The music on this album is full of
interesting contrasts. That may be
what sets this band’s sound apart.
Guitar work as clear as clarion bells
is set against Sullivan’s haunting
voice. Melodies floating on the wind
arc set againstadriving, fundamental
rhythm section. And on some songs,
heart-wrenching lyrics arc accompa
nied by spiritually uplifting music.
The album is passionate.
“This is an emotionally honest
record with sensual and danccable
music,” Sullivan said. “I don’t want
this to be throwaway music, back
ground music, wallpaper music. I
want it to last—to have meaning and
substance beyond today.”
The nine songs on the album arc a
tribute to those goals. They are soul
ful expressions of the dilemmas
faced by lovers that inspire the listen
ers to dance — or, if they’re shy, to at
least tap their toes.
That is what rock and roll is all
about.
“Everything Tonight,” a darkly
sensual song about the freedom in
surrender, opens side one of “The
Perfect Dark.”
“I Love a Russian,” a dance tunc
with political tones, is probably the
only song in history that combines
Chevys, Bob Dylan, Leon Trotsky,
Ivan Turgenev, Fidel Castro, Che
Guevara, Fyodor Dostoevsky and
Josef Stalin.
A lead guitar reminiscent of Dire
Straits, a reggae-style rhythm and
rough vocals make “Gettin’ Used to
It” a song that drips with emotion.
‘‘Young Hearts” is a light, bounc
ing pop tune that provides a sharp
contrast to “That’s When Love
Hurts,” the rawest song on the album.
“They Call it Love,” in which a
searing solo guitar characterizes the
pain, sacrifice and inherent loneli
ness in love, opens side two.
“Wild Boys,” a song inspired by
William Burroughs’ book of the
same name, is a glimpse into a dark
urban world of the future — a world
of burgeoning nco-violcncc in which
no love can exist.
— Mick Dyer
