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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 12, 1986)
Movie Review ‘The Fly’ gets stuck in its own ointment If there was an Academy Award in the “Best Slime and Ooze" category, David Cronen berg’s “The Fly” would easily walk away with an Oscar. The movie is filled with body parts decaying, fly barf, fly barf dis solving body parts, fly baby abortions and exploding fly body parts. Cronenberg has always gone for flashy and gory effects. His films “Scanners” and “Video drome” were filled with blood, gore, guts, sadism and explod ing bodies, making the viewer spend most of his time turning away from the screen instead of trying to follow the story line. Cronenberg redeemed himself, however, by toning down the blood and guts for “The Dead Zone,” probably the best filmed version of a Stephen King novel since Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.” In the original version of “The Fly,” made in 1958 with David Hedison and Vincent Price, a scientist (Hedison) in vents a machine that can tele port a man from one place to another. During his first trip through the machine, the scien tist fails to notice that a fly has entered the teleport chamber with him. When the scientist comes out of the other end, he has the fly’s head and one fly arm, and the fly has his head and one human arm. It was not a great day for science. In the new movie, scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) makes the same mistake Hedi son did 28 years earlier. Only this time, Brundle and the fly don’t exchange heads and arms —instead, their DNA is spliced together. At first, Brundle no tices no changes except an in crease in strength and an insa tiable appetite for sugar and sex. He enjoys his new abilities, but there are some problems. His back begins to sprout weird, fly-like hairs. Then his face be gins to break out with one of the worst cases of acne in history. His fingernails fall out. Then his ear falls off. Before long Brun dle has filled his medicine chest with the body parts that have fallen off. The movie becomes nothing more than a disgusting display from the special effects department as Seth Brundle be comes “Brundlefly. ” Jeff Goldblum, whose pre vious credits include “Into the Night,” “The Big Chill,” “The Right Stuff,” “Silverado” and the 1979 re-make of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” gives a fine performance as the eccen tric scientist Brundle. Some of his wry comments about his transformation provide a little comic relief in the face of the horror. The only problem is that Goldblum is so covered with makeup, it’s hard for his talents to shine through. Genna Davis, who starred on television’s “Buffalo Bill” and “Sara,” plays Veronica Quaife, a reporter who is sent to get the story of Brundle’s new inven tion and ends up falling in love with him. Davis handles her role with all the range and emotion of a Barbie doll. As a special effects movie, “The Fly” is marvelous. But as a movie about people, “The Fly” is a failure. Cronenberg has decided that gore is more popular than an intelligent story about people caught up in a horrible situation and has con centrated on the gore to bring in the bucks. —Review by Karl Pallmeyer Album Reviews “So” Peter Gabriel Geffen Records ★★★★★ (five out of five) It has taken 11 years and five albums for Peter Gabriel to achieve the commercial respect he deserves. Gabriel Genesis helped start back in the late 60s. His bizarre lyrics, unique stage prescence and powerful voice were the fo cal point of the band until his surprise departure in 1975. Genesis, under the leadership of Phil Collins, went on to be come extremely successful, but Gabriel’s solo career wasn’t as bright. “So,” Gabriel’s fifth album of original music, marks a high point in his solo career. Al though “So” is less experimen tal than most of his recent work, he still uses the various themes and rhythms he has borrwed from African tribal music. This time, however, he has toned down the sounds to make them more accessible to the pop mu sic world. “Sledgehammer” has done fantastically well on the charts for the past couple of months. “Sledgehammer” is an irresisti ble dance track with lyrics filled with sexual innuendoes. Some how Gabriel is able to sing about sledgehammers, bummper cars, honey bees and steam trains without turning the song into a tasteless exercise in male chauvinism. The mood becomes quieter for “Don’t Give Up,” a gentle ballad that features a duet with Gabriel and Kate Bush. “That Voice Again,” co-written with producer David Rhodes is made to sound eerie by L. Shankar’s violin. So far, “So” has been Ga briel’s most popular album. He has also been getting massive play on the radio and MTV. Ga briel’s tour is bound to sell out almost anywhere he goes. Will success go to his head? I don’t think so. “Big Time” is a satrical song about someone who makes it big and starts to do all the “star” things. I doubt if Ga briel will allow himself to be come like the character in his song. —Review by Karl Pallmeyer “Invisible Touch” Genesis Atlantic Records *V2 (one and a half out of five) Genesis has produced some good music since its inception in the late 60s, but what the band is doing now is too boring to mention. “Invisible Touch” is an uninspired album that hardly even hints at the enormous tal ent the band has to offer. The title track is a nice little song that is already a huge hit. It’s one of those songs that you like the first 200 times you hear it but then starts to get old. “To night, Tonight, Tonight,” with its techno-pop video game syn thesizer beat, is destined to be the next hit. It’s nice that they put these songs back to back so that you don’t have to listen to all of the album to hear the hits. The music for “Land of Con fusion” sounds almost like a rap song but Collins doesn’t rap. It would probably be embarassing if he did. “Anything She Does” is a syntho-pap dance song with a chorus that sounds suspi ciously like “Invisible Touch,” “Throwing It All Away” is yet another Collins’ moan about losing his wife while “The Bra zilian,” an instrumental, shows that the band can still play to gether if they want to. Genesis has become a lot more popular with the general public now that they are more accessible but some of us prefer the old style. —Review by Karl Pallmeyer ' 3