Daily
Nebraskan
Tuesday, October 12, 1993
ArtswEntertainment
LAPD Sgt. John Spartan (Sylvester Stallone) and Diabolical killer Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes) in Warner Bros ' futuristic
action-tnriller “Demolition Man.”
No brain required for futuristic flick
“Demolition Man”
There’s a couple of signs that
should warn viewers that “Dcmoi i
t ion Man” is the type of action fl ick
where you need to turn your brain
off.
First is the way the film is adver
tised. The previews don’t hype it as
an cdge-of-your-seat action mov
ie. It pumps the importance of its
two main stars, which in this case
are Sylvester Stallone as — sur
prise—the hero, and Wesley Snipes
as the maniac that gets the good
lines.
The other “subtle” hint is the
fast food tie-in. Remember those
stupid “Last Action Hero” cups
that Burger King put out over the
summer? The cups were dumb, and
so was the movie.
In this ease, however, Taco Bell
is the franchise in question, and
they even play a role in the film. In
the future, after the “franchise
wars,” Taco Bell is the only restau
rant left, so all restaurants become
Taco Bells.
Anyway, in 1996, Los Angeles
Police Department Sgt. John Spar
tan (Stallone) is sent to capture
Simon Phoenix (Snipes), who has
taken a busload of people hostage
and hides them in a heavily armed
warehouse.
“Send a maniac to catch a mani
ac,” Spartan says, before he bungee
jumps out of a helicopter.
He catches Phoenix during the
daring rescue attempt, but in the
process destroys the entire ware
house in an incredible explosion
that shows C-4, gasoline, and fire
just don’t mix.
However, investigators find the
incinerated bodies of the hostages
in the basement. Phoenix swears
Spartan killed the hostages, and the
police, for some reason, take the
word of a homicidal maniac over
that of a police officer.
They’re morons, but it’s cine
matically required.
Spartan, convicted of involun
tary manslaughter, is sentenced to
a 70-year term in the California
CryoPenitentary. Phoenix receives
life imprisonment, in the same jail,
for his crimes.
The audience is then treated to
the spectacle of Stallone writhing
about nude in a cylindrical aquari
um, while they freeze it into a
human-filled hockey puck.
Oh joy.
The movie jumps to 2032, and
we have become a kinder, gentler
society, mostly through the work
and ideas of Mayor/Governor
Raymond Cocteau (Nigel
Hawthorne). Everything that isn’t
good for you — caffeine, meat,
swearing, etc. — has been abol
ished. Even bodily contact isn’t
allowed, and violence and crime
have become things of the past.
Phoenix has been thawed out for
a parole hearing. He escapes and is
even more brutal and sadistic than
when he went in. He has a field day
in a world filled with graduates
from the Mister Rogers School of
Discipline.
One resourceful police officer,
Lenina Huxley (Sandra Bullock,
“The Vanishing,”) docs some re
search and finds it was Spartan who
captured Phoenix the first time.
They need him to do it again.
Spartan is thawed out, and he
suffers from, shall we say, a “soci
ety clash” while trying to catch
Phoenix.
Stallone plays the same gung
ho schmuck he usually plays, but
he still does it well — better than
“Cobra,” anyway. Snipes’ first big
role was as the villain in “New Jack
City,”and he’sback in high form as
Simon Phoenix.
Also watch for Denis Leary as
an underground revolutionary, and
Jesse Ventura as one of Phoenix’s
cronies later in the film.
It’s a definite must-see for the
action film junkie, and even the
most quintessential Wesley Snipes
fans might find themselves enjoy
ing the movie.
— Gerry Beltz
Lincoln’s
Zoo keeps
blues alive
By Jill O’Brien
Staff Reporter
Last Friday night at an awards
ceremony in Helena, Ark., the Blues
Foundation presented Larry
Bochmer’s Zoo Bar of Lincoln the
1993 “Club of the Year” award for
“Keeping the Blues Alive.”
“It was the only award uncontest
ed,” Boehiner said as he inhaled on a
stubby Marlboro.
There were two nominations —
one for the Zoo Bar and one for House
of Blues, a high-tech blues chain, he
said.
When record producer and blues
historian Dick Waterman, asked the
blues board who should receive the
W.C. Handy“Clubofthe Year” award,
Boehmcr said members unanimously
agreed on his bar.
The president of the Las Vegas
Blues Society presented the award.
Boehmcr said.
“He told me that when the founder
of the (Las Vegas) society was a mi
nor, he got his start listening to the
blues from the alley behind the Zoo.
“This place is the longest running
blues club in the same location in the
country,” he said.
Boehmer got his start at the “piace,”
a green brick building with gold aw
nings at 136 N. 14th St., twenty years
ago.
“In the summerof’73,1 brought in
the first band — the Cotton Blues
Band from Fort Collins, Colorado,”
he said.
Boehmer has had several opportu
nities to leave Lincoln, but the music,
time after time, has made him stay.
“All I wanted to do was hear blues.
It was as simple as that.”
Inside the bar, a dark foreboding
atmosphere pervades the 1800-squarc -
foot breeding ground for blues. Black
and white posters of Zoo Bar enter
tainers plaster the walls, including
fliers advertising the Zoo Bar house
band, Boehmer’s own three-piece
electric blues group. Not All There.
Sheila Reiter, a writing teacher at
Doane College, lives one building
over and above the Zoo Bar.
“I get live blues music six nights a
week and still pay to go downstairs.
See ZOO on 10
Redford’s million-dollar offer leads trio of releases
DeVito, Sciorra films
also hit small screen
“Indecent Proposal” sells Demi Moore to
Robert Rcdford for a million dollars while
Woody Harrelson looks on.
Demi and Woody arc a young married cou
ple in financial straits. They scrape together
some savings and take it to Vegas in the hopes
of doubling or tripling their dough. Without it,
they’ll lose their land and the dream house
they’ve been building.
Of course, they lose it all.
But enter sexy billionaire Robert Rcdford.
He offers the couple a million bucks if Demi
will spend one night with him—nothing kinky,
just sex.
The movie gained a great deal of notoriety
this summer, but more for the questions it raised
than for its content. The movie is OK — the
performances are solid and everybody looks
great. But the story lacks believability.
It’s worth seeing if only to provoke conver
sation. However, selling women in movies is
getting more than a little tired. Come on Holly
wood — let’s create some parts for women that
don’t involve selling themselves for sex.
“Jack the Bear,” set in the ’70s, stars Danny
DeVito as a widower trying to keep his family
together after his wife is killed in an automobile
accident. He dotes on his children, but relies on
them too, especially young Jack.
Jack watches out for his little brother, helps
him get ready for preschool and tries to keep his
father off the sauce.
When the family has a negative encounter
with the Nazi across the street, Jack must watch
after his little brother even more carefully.
However, the pressures of trying to deal with
adolescence and grown-up duties wears on him
and he breaks.
There are some really nice performances in
this little movie that was mostly overlooked at
the theaters. It’s worth seeing.
“The Night We Never Met” never played
Lincoln, although it did have a brief stint in
Omaha this summer.
Billed as a romantic comedy, it stars Mat
thew Broderick, Kevin Anderson and Annabclla
Sciorra as three New Yorkers who time-share
an apartment. Sciorra apparently gets the men tell,
contused — especially since they never meet
—but somehow falls in love with one o^them.
James Mehsling/pN
It doesn’t sound too interesting, but time will
—Anne Steyer