Arts & Entertainment
| Seagal fresh, makes standard flick work
!iohn Payne
Reporter
rst, Bruce Willis was “Die
.’’ Now, Steven Seagal is “ Hard
ill,” and although this film’s
t is hard to believe, it is also kind
rd to dislike.
ty all you want about underde
ied characters or predictable story
, but there’s no getting around
fact: Seagal is really cool. He
like Mickey Rourke, squints like
Eastwood and looks like a real
tss.
iagal plays Los Angeles cop
>n Storm, investigating an assas
lon plot as the story opens in
. Detective Storm stakes out a
-t ■% •
nighttime meeting between organized
crime members and a young senato
rial hopeful. They discuss political
favors in exchange for the “acciden
tal” death of a California senator.
Storm videotapes the conversation,
as any good cop would, and when the
bad guys discover his presence, car
chase number one ensues. He gets
away, but not for long.
The thugs find out where he lives,
and in a bloody shootout, kill his wife
and leave Seagal for dead.
But, as you should know by now,
he is hard to kill.
Storm lies in a coma for seven
years, and all the while the incrimi
nating video tapes are hidden away.
He awakes in 1990, and the crooked
/>•
politician (Bill Sadler) is now a big
senator.
And of course, after scvcr> years of
comatose. Storm is thin and pale and
covered with bed sores, right?
As a matter of fact, no.
Even his suntan is hard to kill.
He quickly recuperates with the
help of a kind nurse. Is she an over
weight, toothless old hag? As a mat
ter of fact, no. She is luscious super
model Kelly LeBrock, who raised
body temperatures in “The Woman
in Red” and “Weird Science.”
And so, after a little weight lifting,
a lot of self- administered acupunc
ture, and some, shall we say, physical
therapy from LeBrock, our man is
ready to avenge the death of his wife
and pul away the crooked senator.
Storm has a gun. It’s a really neat
gun and all, but he keeps it holstercd
most of the time, preferring to crack
fibulas and fracture spines. He does
this a lot, and most of the bone break
ing is filmed in slow motion, with the
actual “snap” sound isolated and
turned way up.
It goes without saying that “Hard
to Kill” is a standard formula movie,
complete with car chases and blood.
But Seagal, unlike say, Stallone, still
is fresh enough to make the tired old
. - ■ ..
formula work.
Things are slowctj a bit when Storm
is reunited with his son, whom he
thought was killed in the original
shoot-out. But luckily, Seagal pauses
just long enough to pat the lad on his
head, and then resumes snapping the
bad guy’s limbs like toothpicks.
The senator’s men even try to kill
the little boy but discover that he’s
nearly as hard to kill as his old man.
Maybe American cinema is ready
for another Clint Eastwood. Seagal
may very well be the man. He has an
undeniable screen presence that many
better actors lack, and that is enough
to make a routine picture such as
“Hard to Kill” a lot of fun.
... 1
f^ompemng, tirst-rate pertormance
t fitting baptism for Lied Center
SStankus
orter
’’s performance of “Madama
proved to be a more than
te baptism for the Lied Center
rming Arts.
lama Butterfly,’ ’ an opera in
by Giacomo Puccini, is a
tragedy of exploitation,
id boundless devotion,
lotline is concise,
lerican Navy Lieutenant, B.F.
1 (Richard Drews) arranges
;e’ ’ through a broker to a 14
'eisha girl in Nagasaki, Japan,
io San, (Elizabeth Hynes),
» Madama Butterfly for her
:tributes, is this geisha-tumed
IAmerican-wife, whose entire exis
tence centers on Pinkerton and main
taining his happiness.
As the story continues, we find
that Pinkerton has no plan to continue
this contrived relationship with But
terfly and is merely milking the tradi
tional norm of Japan and its expenda
bility of the marriage vows.
As is the norm of romantic trage
dies, the theme of love and irrational
devotion is the driving force for But
terfly. This dedication compels her to
denounce her family, culture and re
ligion for a so-called “American way
of life.”
theatre
This dedication also leads her to
wait three years in faithful hope that
Pinkerton will return to claim his
Japanese bride and the son that he has
no knowledge of. She continues this
vigil until he returns to claim his
recently revealed legacy. Butterfly,
feeling stripped of any worldly claims,
is reduced to suicide.
Through the performance of the
Omaha Symphony Chamber Orches
tra, directed by Bruce Hangcn, we are
ushered through this story of misdi
rected faithfulness by a consistent
flow of melodic presence. The com
A
pany is to be applauded on their dy
namic contrast. Even through the most
dominant levels of orchestration, the
vocals were audible and maintained
the mood of the scenes.
The performances of the charac
ters also were commendable. Indi
vidual quality melded with the com
posing mastery of Puccini to make for
a captivating combination.
Haynes portrayed her role of the
desperate Butterfly with an artistic
agility. Her dramatic performance was
believable and her vocal renditions
were flawless.
The simplicity of scenery and
costuming was a combination of ele
gant simplicity and contributed to the
overall theme of the cultural beauty
of Japan.
In spite of past allegations that
‘‘Madama Butterfly” is an unrealis
tic portrayal of cultural acceptances
in Japan, this performance of the simple
and compelling drama was first-rate
and did justice to Puccini and his
efforts.
. , . Courtesy of Sire Records
inistry
|Legendary harmonica player whips up
I blues, excitement in Bourbon Street
EMatt Burton
wor Reporter_
A packed crowd received a brush
th greatness Saturday night at
urbon Street, 200 N. 70th St., when
end James Colton played the blues.
The crowd seemed relatively square
irst. Yuppies lined the bar wall-to
ll, with no clear excitement among
audience. ButonceColtonandhis
band whipped into such blues stan
dards as ‘ ‘Sweet Home Chicago’ ’ and
‘‘Got My Mojo Working,” the audi
ence would not be the same. One by
one more people started to dance and
endless hoots and hollers were ex
changed with pure blues aggression.
Cotton and his band snowed a
uniq ue ability to make the songs come
alive, bringing each number to a cli
max via the two guitarists’ incredible
intensity.
Cotton’s harmonica was very clean
COQfPi't
sounding, despite some obvious dis
satisfaction he expressed toward the
soundman. Cotton would bring the
harmonica to his lips, as if kissing his
instrument, creating some amazing
noises.
The band was tight -- Ray “Kil
ler” Allison on drums kept perfect
lime and added a few well-placed
“Yeahs” lo Cotton’s singing.
A class harmonica player, Colton
showed why he has achieved all the
acclaim. Cotton guided his band
through blistering numbers, working
up an incredible sweat in the process.
A pleasant surprise for the evening
was the opening act, the C Street
Gypsies. Mostly, the Gypsies played
Jimi Hendrix covers - but they played
them well. The band also played some
free-form jazz improvisation, prov
ing themselves to be bordering on
musical virtuosity. Despite the band’s
solid performance, the crowd was very
sedate, not giving the C Street Gyp
sies the recognition they clearly de
served.
Duo Ministry to bring
sonic fury to Omaha
. ..Mil... . ' ' IN.-.. ' I I. ' II
but the band has added an element
to boost its live production.
Core members Alain Jourgensen
and Paul Barker have assembled a
virtual army of alternative musi
cians to enhance the live perform
ance, including members from
Skinny Puppy, Public Image Lim
ited, Rigor Mortis mud Killing Joke.
Strong on sampling, sequenc
ing and pummeling distorted in
struments, Ministry attacks its fans
with a provocative, sonic fury. This
tour’s stage show includes a 12
foot chain link fence surrounding
S^MlWSTRYonlO
k Vidiots’ spending more on mechanized habit
By Matt Burton
Senior Reporter
Video games have come a long
way since the days of Pong and Space
Invaders.
It seems that these eternal money
wasters are experiencing a resurgence
in popularity. The concepts of games
haven’t changed much, though. It’s
still your basic dodge-and-shoot, drive
around the race track, etc., but it’s the
new technological advances that are
making video games the thing to do.
Despite the recent popularity,
* ‘ vidiots’’ still do not have very many
options for places to play them.
“It doesn’t seem to be real com
petitive,’’ said Brian Butler, head
manager at Joyce’s Subs & Pizza,
1320 Q St. “There aren’t many video
game places. There’s quite a few games
on campus, but other than that, there
are maybe two video houses in Lin
coln.”
Two video arcades in Lincoln are
Joyce’s and Sluggo’s, which is lo
cated at East Park Plaza. Recently,
The Loft was forced to close its doors.
The Loft had two games for a quarter
on all pinball machines and many
video games.
Inflation is starting to hit the video
game industry elsewhere. For instance,
pinball machines are starting to cost
50 cents, according to Rich Smith,
employee at Joyce’s and student at
the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Smith said he foresees a day when
players only will get three tokens for
4 ‘What’s weird is how games have
evolved,” he said. “It’s like now the
games that make money, you have to
keep feeding tokens to continue. It
used to be like ‘Mario Brothers,’ you’d
try to win the game on one token.
Now it’s like ‘Teen-age Mutant Ninja
Turtles,’ you die really quick and
you have to spend a ton of money to
get close to winning.”
Despite the rise in prices and the
increasing popularity of the Nintendo
Entertainment System, people are
playing in growing numbers.
Butler said, ‘‘They say that (Nin
tendo has hurt business) in the indus
try journals, bull haven’t noticed any
change. In fact, game revenue is sig
nificantly better than it was a year
and-a-half ago.”
One game experiencing a large
degree of popularity at Joyce’s is “All
American Football” and its counter
See VIDEO on 10