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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 7, 1988)
THE NEBRAKA UNION, EAST UNION AND COMMONPLACE ARE NOW ACCEPTING OFFICE SPACE APPLICATIONS FOR THE ACADEMIC YEAR 1988-1989 Applications are available in Suite 220 City Union and the CAP office in the East Union. All recognized student organizations are welcome to apply for space. The applications must be returned to Suite 220, City Union, by 5:00 p.m. Fri., April 8,1988 for your organization to be given priority consideration. Late applications usually end up with no office. Call Frank Kuhn at 472-2181 if you have questions or come to Room 220. There’s more to wearing contact lenses than meets the eye. I Contact lenses aren't enough You professional advice, fast service, con need glasses for times you can't wear vientent location, and competitive contacts. prices. Let us fit you with contacts and get 20".. Call us today It's time to put your off a pair of glasses of your choice front contacts in and take 20*1.0(7 your glass our latest fashions You also get our es. $20.00/mo. Credit Cards Budget Plan fffi. ^OniOCl l£HS Accepted MALBAR VISION CENTERS 3200 “O” St. 475 1030 FREE CONTACT LENS CONSULTATIONS AVAILABLE / Nebraska n 34 NEBRASKA UNION 1400 R ST. LINCOLN, NE 68588 This could be you! ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE (402) 472-2589 ■ ■■■<■ . ' ■ .. ' — ■" f!l—T V:—--I The Daily Nebraskan is currently accepting applications for summer and fall Account Executives. The position requires approximately 25 hours per week. If you are comfortable with a selling situation, can motivate yourself and are Interested in applying your academic background in advertising sales, we have an opening for you. Pay is based on a commission structure and applicants must be UNL students. Pick up an application at the Daily Nebraskan, Room 34, Nebraska Union. Applications must ; be turned in by Friday, April 8, at 3:00 p.m. Dally Nebraskan Room 34 Nebraska Union UNL does not discriminate in its academic, admissions or employment programs and abides by all Federal regulations pertaining to same ‘Big City’ filled with cheap cliches, had acting and poor cinematography By Scott Harrah Staff Reviewer_ The tepid novels of hyped, bubble-gum literary heroes Jay Mclnerncy and Bret Easton Ellis sure make interesting film fare. Everybody gels to look morose, hang out in discos, snort cocaine, wear fabulous fashions and whine about the shallow injustice of it all. Last fall, Hollywood turned Ellis’ hip-cool-trendy “Less Than Zero” into an unintentionally laughable polemic about the evils of doing too much coke with cold souled Beverly Hills debutantes. “Less Than Zero” grows up, does more diow ana goes to tne office in Mclnemey’s film adapta tion of “Bright Lights, Big City.” Michael J. Fox is featured in the m iscast role of the decade as Jamie, a would-be writer who works in the factual verification department of a venerable New York magazine. Audiences are supposed to believe that teen dream Fox is a romantic bohemian who drowns his mis guided literary sorrows in “Boliv ian marching powder,” chic all night discos and sensationalized I New York Post headlines to escape his dull 9-lo-5 job. Jamie is always late for work because he stays out all night in clubland with cocaine sidekick Tad (Kiefer Sutherland). He’s so strung out that he can ’l concentrate on the articles he’s supposed to edit, much to the tyrannical disgust of his shrewish boss. To make matters worse, his fashion-model wife Amanda (Phoebe Cates) left him to pursue her careor in Paris. Now she’s back in Manhattan to haunt him. Cates’ acting, like Fox’s, is marvelously awful. When her assistant covers her face with a latex facial glue to make a mold for a mannequin, she displays grueling pain. So Fox holds her hand to help her make it through the nightmarish facial. More bummers abound for the down-and-out dude. He loses his job because he ineptly edited an article and left glaring factual er rors. But poor Jamie had an excuse: He was all coked up and wanted to go out clubbing with Tad. Blame it on la dolcc vita. So we’re forced to sit through numerous scenes of Fox wearing his cool shades, trying to hide all the anguish and broken dreams. Oh, such arc the vagaries of the fast lane. jam te nas prooicms wimc anui i ing, tcx). “Bright Lights” borrows every cheap cliche about drug abuse and tosses them into the name-dropping maelstrom. In one scene, Jamie drops his new vial of snow into the toilet. In another, the toilet stall he wants to secretly snort in is occupied by two chic, smooching lesbians. Woven in between all these neurotic exploits arc pseudo-sur real flashbacks about his dead mother (Dianne Wiest). There’s actually a scene in which Jamie holds his cancer-ridden mother’s hand anddiscusscs the women he’s slept with. Swoozic Kurtz, a usually tex tured actress, is forced to stoop to thespian lows as his sympathetic co-worker. When she invites him over for dinner to discuss his down fall, she tries to comfort him by stroking his head and cooing, “Oh, poor baby.” But Jamie just wants to get in her pants. All Jamie can concentrate on is a sappy saga in the Post about “Coma Baby.” When he finally meets up again with ex-wife Amanda at a posh party, she merely says,“How’s itgoing,” so he freaks out and seeks solace in more coke. But the fast lane catches up with him, and he just gets a nasty nose bleed and unwanted sexual mes sages from a statuesque drag queen. And the ending has something to do with Jamie exchanging his Ray-Ban shades for a loaf of bread that will bring new meaning to his tortured existence. Fox tries to bring some dimen sion to his character, but he’s completely unconvincing as a strung-out writer. Perhaps Griffin Dunne or Mickey Rourkc could have given Jamie some plausible texture, but Michael J. Fox? He winds up looking like a high schooler portraying a drunk in the all-school play. I nc mm oocs lime 10 uepici me energy of New York. There are few depictions of old-fashioned Man hattan decadence,except for a bald female bartender and the token transvestite. At least gorgeous cinematography attempted to save “Less Than Zero.” This film’s cinematography docs nothing to capture the mctaphorical/visual elements of the title “Bright Lights, Big City.” Perhaps Hollywood’s interpre tations of Ellis’ and Mclncmcy’s novels arc proof that there’s noth ing underneath all the publicity of the literary brat pack’s klieg Lights. Their books 'were based on the “stream of consciousness” prin ciple — an abstract, thematically surreal technique that cannot be transferred to the screen with main stream gloss. Until the big Holly wood studios realize they’ll never effectively copy the European school of art cinema, this dis jointed trash will continue toannoy audiences. “Bright Lights, Big City” is playing at the Stuart Theater. iLifruX^ MORE BOUVIANX MARCHING POWDER) AND I'LL BE BACK) TO THE FUTURE/ IN NO TIMEj/ nr
