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Arts & Entertainment
Creativity in ‘Scissorhands’ breaks rules
Jeffrey Frey
Reporter
Edward Scissorhands” is full of
the dangerous creativity that
Tim Burton conceived for
like “Beetlejuice”and
Yet “Edward Scissorhands” is a
talc, and lacks the absurd and
QVIP
morbid comedy of “Bectlejuice,”
tempting only remotely the dark,
feeling of “Batman.”
Edward Scissorhands (Johnny
) is created by an inventor
Price) in a mansion high
a suburban town. The inventor
Edward a heart, a brain, a cov
of skin — everything needed to
a full life, except for one thing,
s untimely death leaves
with sharp shears of metal
his fingers should be.
remains high above the
alone in the mansion, where he
hurt no one and no one can hurt
then one day, the Avon Lady
calling.
becomes intrigued with and
about Edward, and decides to
the role of the good Samaritan.
She tells Edward that perhaps he should
just come home with her.
Once Edward is taken away from
the mansion to go and live with Peg
— the Avon Lady — and her family,
he is exposed to an ordinary suburbia
where bored housewives run ram
pant, gossiping for entertainment.
Edward becomes the gossipmong
ers’ latest point of interest, and is
readily ingested by the housewives
who view him as a sort of toy, tempt
ing him into shedding his earnest
nature.
Throughout all of this, Peg (Di
anne Wicsl) tries desperately to take
care of Edward. She exposes him to a
world that iack‘ the understanding
and kindness that Edward once knew,
yet she proves to be his most compas
sionate guardian.
The town where Edward has been
taken is conventional: the houses and
people look the same, do the same
thing, drive similar cars. They walk
their dogs, water their lawns and trim
their hedges in a methodical fashion.
At a barbecue that has been planned
by the housewives, Edward is put on
display, along with one of his most
noticeable talents: he uses his sharp
appendages to create topiary hedges.
Soon, everyone has their hedges trans
formed into dolphins, bears, or dino
See SCISSOR on 14
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Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox
Avon Lady Peg Boggs (Dianne Wiest) discovers the beauty of the topiary garden at the
inventor’s mansion where Edward Scissorhands lives.
I Glitzy Christmas boxed sets
[ abundant for holiday shoppers
ir John A. Skretta
iff Reporter
Just when you thought nothing
is easier—or hardly less expen
e — than giving the gift of music,
menacing figure dawns on the
p parade. It’s big. It’s cardboard,
s wrapped in cellophane and it’s
orbitantly expensive. It’s the
xed set.
Boxed sets featuring specific
ists have been around a number
years now, with Bob Dylan’s
iograph” and Bruce Springsteen’s
e set among the first, but this
ar has seen a staggering influx of
sorts of anthologies from a vast
ray of artists.
“Previously, there has never even
en 25 percent” of the number of
boxed sets available this year, said
John McCallum, owner of Twist
ers Music & Gifts. Indeed, the days
when you could scrimpon aChrist
mas gift for your favorite sibling
by snatching up a $ 1.79 single have
all but vanished.
The price market for boxed
compact disc sets ranges from a
low of $20 for a double CD Robert
Johnson package to a high of al
most $70 for the Frank Sinatra
Reprise collection. Of course, in
the battle of the boxed sets, equal
cardboard does not necessarily mean
equal quality. As Shakespeare didn’t
say, the music’s the thing, and no
matter how many glossy photo
graphs and patronizing reviews are
included, some sets stand over the
general crop.
McCallum says the top-selling
set this season by a landslide per
centage is Led Zeppelin’s offer
ing. For a mere $55, listeners can
engage the mighty Zeppelin’s vi
sions of hedonistic paradise for
almost four hours of digitally re
mastered sound.
“The set has a very wide ap
peal,” McCallum said of Zeppe
lin’s box. “It’s crossing down into
the early teens and up into the ’40s
for a listening audience.”
The surge in boxed set offerings
can be traced back to the success of
Eric Clapton’s “Crossroads” an
thology, McCallum said. Clapton
won a Best Historical Album
Grammy award for the collection.
See BOXED on 16
Parking, not new theater,
among students’ concerns
By Shannon Uehiing
Staff Reporter
Variety, they say, is the spice of
life. But does Lincoln really need the
choice of 14 first-run movie screens
in the downtown area?
According to demographic stud
ies, an area the size of Lincoln should
have 12-15 movie screens. With the
opening of Lincoln’s newest theater,
the Lincoln Theatre, Lincoln will be
on the edge of this range.
But students polled said other is
sues need to be addressed. While no
one objected to the variety that the
new theater would provide, many
students thought that there were other,
more important, concerns.
Trudy Tompkin, senior undeclared
major, said she is concerned about the
parking problem downtown.
Studies done by Douglas Theatre
Company show that the parking
downtown is not used on most week
end nights.
On most weekend evenings, the
parkinggarages in the down town area
arc only one-fourth full, said David
Livingston, president of Douglas
Theatre Co.
Tompkin, who works downtown,
said that there is still a problem on
weekdays.
Many students say they arc hesi
tant to use the parking garages be
cause they think they shouldn’t have
to pay for their parking spaces. If
more theaters offered parking dis
counts to their patrons, this problem
would be eliminated, said senior biol
ogy major Margarita Perez.
The new theater is a triplex on the
comer of 12th and P streets. It is
owned by the Douglas Theatre Com
pany and opened Dec. 14 with just
See LINCOLN on 15
Pale Saints establish identity with new record
By Michael Stock
Staff Reporter
The Pale Saints
“Half-Life”
4AD
The Pale Saints’ four-song EP
entitled “Half-Life” is one of the best
music rclcascsof the year, alternative
or otherwise.
The EP, which is only available in
the United States as an import, is the
band’s best effort to date.
While the vocals tend to call up
memories of Lincoln’s own For
Against, the EP finds The Pale Saints
establishing their own identity through
strong, descriptive vocals and a rich
sound.
The meticulously crafted sounds
will appeal to fansof pop music. Each
song carves its own individual exis
tence while delivering its lyrical and
musical messages.
The four songs, as a complete work,
show that The Pale Saints are about to
become one of pop music’s most
important bands.
The first and last songs on the
four-song EP were remixed by John
Fryer, who is noted for his successful
work with other 4AD bands such as
This Mortal Coil, and more recently,
The songs “Half-Life, Remem
bered” id “Revelation” arc high
lighted with striking, clear percus
sion. The percussion becomes heavy
at times, which serves to drive the
songs forward, while the delicate click
ing of a light snare snaps out a steady
rhythm.
“Half-Life, Remembered” seems
to whisper itself into existence with
the gentle hum of a guitar fading in
and out, while cymbals and chime
seem to serve as some grand forerun
ner for sonic majestic soundstage to
be opened.
A heavy snare introduces a driving
speed, and the guitars powerfully
control the gentle direction of the
song, sometimes stopping completely,
allowing the intricate percussion ses
sion of snares, cymbals and bongos to
have their turn.
The vocals of the ihrce-man band
are delivered lightly and carefully,
much like Jeff Runnings’ vocals of
For Against. Vocalist Chris Cooper’s
delivery touches upon each lyric
happily and deliberately.
In “Baby-Maker,” the best and most
powerful song on the EP, the lyrics
themselves ring of “a revelation,” (the
title of the fourth song on the EP) ,
challenging the listener to “lake a
breath — it’s not enough.”
The music itself challenges and
inspires the listener, coupling instances
of feedback with a clear, full vibrato.
The Pale Saints’ first EP, “Barging
Into the Presence of God,” was re
leased in late 1989 at about the same
lime as Lush’s first EP, “Scar.” They
followed up the EP with an entire
album (CD) of new material, com
posing 4AD’s first release of 1990,
“The Comforts of Madness.”
Both the EP and album rated a
considerable amount of hopeful re
views from the British Music Press.
The British music magazine Melody
Maker said The Pale Saints created
“a noise to immerse yourself in.” Their
turbulent guitars have a sickly pallor
that infests even the brightest of
melodies.
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Courtesy of 4A0