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\Funny About Love’ not at all humorous
I By Jim Hanna
Staff Reporter
It’s easy to review a bad movie.
Just pull out a thesaurus, find a few
synonyms for bad (like nefarious,
peccant and rotten) and string them
together with a few linking verbs.
ITlOvif*
Following the same process makes
reviewing an excellent movie just as
easy.
The trouble comes when review
ing a movie like “Funny About Love,’’
which is neither exceptional nor egre
gious. It is simply mediocre (average,
adequate, par).
“Funny About Love” stars Gene
Wilder as Duffy Bergman, a success
ful political cartoonist in New York
City. He meets and falls in love with
a woman we only know by a first
name, Meg, played by Christine Lahti.
After a quick, underdeveloped
courtship, they move in together, get
married and try to have a baby. This
effort to conceive is the center of the
movie.
Initially, Meg wants desperately
to have a baby while Duffy is reluc
tant. After several failed attempts at
conception, including artificial insemi
nation, they decide to put off their
baby-making efforts for a while.
Soon Meg, a chef by profession,
lands a cushy job at a pretentious
restaurant and throws herself into her
work.
Duffy, however, is now ready to
try for a baby again. Pregnancy would
conflict with Meg’s new job, so ten
sion grows. They negotiate, they fight,
they separate.
To stave off the pain, Duffy flies to
California, where he gives a speech to
a convention of Delta Gammas at
some sunny West Coast university.
There he meets Daphne, a peppy,
fertilecollege studentplayed by Mary
Stuart Masterson.
From here, this remarkably innocu
ous movie winds inoffensively to its
slightly predictable ending and the
audience goes home, none the worse,
or better, for the experience.
Director Leonard Nimoy has cre
ated a movie that is watchablc, but in
no way earth-shattering. The movie
is nothing more than asliceof life that
doesn’t pretend to make any grand
statements about the world.
The acting by Masterson and Lahti
is good, with Masterson making an
empty pointless role almost seem
important. Her brief presence in the
See FUNNY on 10
Duffy Bergman (Gene Wilder), a New York cartoonist and playwright, autographs his book for
Daphne Delillo (Mary Stuart Masterson) at a Delta Gamma sorority reunion in “Funny About Love.
Cyberpunk, British Inter zone join Fifth Column
By Bryan Peterson
Staff Reporter
All right, here we are for the eighth
semester of Fifth Column, a stroll
through radical/subversive materials
of all manner.
We usually look at a couple of
obscure little political punk bands
that no one else has ever heard of;
bands that have really revolutionary
things to say, such as “Smash The
State” or “Stop War.”
But I am a senior now. Again. I am
maturing and branching out, so we'll
be broadening our horizons. This time
it will be a magazine. I will, however,
be able to slip in the p-word as the
latter half of cyberpunk, a cheap move,
but one most gratifying.
Cyberpunk will be my buzzword
for the semester, maybe for the whole
year. It sounds pretty neat all by it
self. As a newly emerged subcurrent
in the field, it has renewed my interest
in science fiction.
Thus we come to Interzone. After
finding its name praised in text after
text, I had imagined it to be a cy
berpunk bible in monthly installments.
1 found it to be different than what I
had expected, but still exciting.
Interzone is a British science fic
lion magazine with an eight-year
history of publishing works by writ
ers established and new; a history
dotted with science fiction awards
from all over.
As the editor points out in issue 37
(July), this may soon change since the
magazine’s press run now tops 10,000,
placing it in the ranks of “profes
sional” magazines, according to award
committees.
Regardless of the press run, Inter
zone is one sharp mag, full of short
stories, reviews, mind-bending art and
author interviews.
I started looking for Inter/one when
the name kept appearing in reference
to cyberpunk works with their jack
hammer prose, renegade characters
and bleak visions of futures filled
with crumbling landscapes and siz
zling conspiracies (or were those siz
zling landscapes and crumbling con
spiracies?).
Like any new undergroundish
movement, cyberpunk hits hard and
fast. No one seems to know how to
define it or, all too often, where to
find it
Such was my case. There was this
magazine called Interzone. It carried
everything that was cyberpunk. I
wanted it.
No one had ever heard of it. I tried
every book, magazine and record shop
in Lincoln. I wrote letters. I marched
with signs. I asked Governor Orr. She
gave me a funny look and asked why
I wasn’t working on one of my classes.
Then I found this place in Bellevue
called Ground Zero Hobby. They had
heard of it. They even had two copies
on someone’s desk.
The next week, they came in the
mail.
I had been expecting pure and sheer
cyberpunk, literary blasts with the
power to rock my world. What I found
was a pro mag in the ranks of Analog
or F&SF but with more punch and
flair.
There is some CP content, notably
columns by cyberpunk messiah and
longtime William Gibson collabora
tor, Bruce S tcrl ing, and the short story
“Yellow Snow’’ by Charles Stross.
The strength of Interzone is that it
does not confine itself to CP works,
burning itself out in a faddish field,
already rife with clichdd characters
and structures.
The entire field of science fiction
is well represented in each issue, al
though British names and publishers
prevail. There are film reviews by
indie British musician Nick Lowe,
TV reviews, book reviews, review
reviews -- the whole range.
And there is fiction, lots of it.
Did you hear that multi-novelist
Greg Bear is the lead-off writer in a
new line of “Legend Novellas?” Here
in Interzone are parts one and two of
the very same, spread across issues 37
and 38.
Did you know that British science
fiction stalwart Brian Aldiss turned
65 last month? Here is a special Ald
iss issue of Interzone with his own art,
autobiography, biography, fiction and
pamphlet insert from the Space Op
era mogul.
Remember those endless 85-min
ute lectures in Philosophy 314 on the
Identity Problem? Here it is in much
finer format, a science fiction presen
tation by Australian Greg Egan in
Interzone 37.
Long stories, short stories, updates
on old Harlan Ellison stories (read his
“Shattcrday” after buzzing through
Brian Stableford’s “Minimoments”
in IZ 38): all these and more are to be
found in Interzonc.
It is that “more” which interests
me. We now return to that glorious
buzzword, “cyberpunk.” Try thison
for size, a sample from Stress’ “Yel
low Snow:”
“You’ve no idea how bad things
have got up there,” she added softly.
“You were a good student, on that
exchange programme. Try not to get
shot before we’re ready, right?”
“Sure, professor,” I said, waving
for the waiter.
“That’s, like, one of my life’s
ambitions.”
She unwound a bit. “What’s the
other?”
I grinned widely. “To f-- Ronald
Reagan.”
All right, maybe it is not so im
pressive here. The point is to get hold
of Interzone and read the complete
stories, complete with British spell
ing.
column
album review
‘Twin Peaks’ soundtrack offers
eerie, surrealistic instrumentals
By Jeffrey Frey
Staff Reporter
Soundtrack From “Twin Peaks”
Angelo Badalmenti
Warner Bros. Records
Imagine being thrust headlong into
a Salvador Dali landscape, then trying
to comprehend all that is taking place
around you. If you can, then you
understand a little bit of what filmmaker
David Lynch’s brainchild “Twin
Peaks” is about.
Imagine the music that might ac
company this scene - haunting and
surreal melodies as detached as the
landscape.
This is the type of music that Angelo
Badalamenti has devised for Lynch’s
prime-time weirdness.
“Twin Peaks” is about the dark
and evil qualities of people and of this
world. It is simple, yet it has surreal
attributes that keep it teetering on the
edge of bizarre. The music that frames
the lives of the people in “Twin Peaks’’
is original and powerful, and con
stantly preys upon the listener’s inter
nal and external sensations.
However, it is important to note
that the music is not inherently evil
and harrowing. “Twin Peaks’* is as
much about the dark side of people as
it is about the beatific qualities among
us. And the music falls somewhere in
between these two conditions.
This soundtrack is comprised of
delicate and soothing melodics which
at times create a somber and relaxing
mood, while at others a more de
lachcd and resonant sound that not
only sways and soothes, but encour
ages an acentric drcam-iike state.
Songs like, “Audrey’s Dance” and
“Dance Of The Dream Man” arc
ecne and melodious instrumentals with
incessant snap-beats and aching,
whining horns. In these two, as well
as many of the compositions, layers
of soft and menacing synthesizers blend
into and over one another and often
climb from soft, delicate drones into
crashing short-lived bursts.
More subdued instrumentals such
as the “Twin Peaks Theme” and
“Freshly Squeezed” have the same
synthesizer qualities backed by pound
ing base-lines and steady, rattling
snares and symbols. The music often
dips down to barely discernible drones,
only to clamber back up into power
ful and swaying melodies.
‘ ‘The Bookhouse Boys’ ’ is a clam
See PEAKS on 10