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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 11, 1995)
er the he ad L ded S ' c ' ler 0 , on at you ln & v alual)| ’ said, 1, senior igement t y or P. in rm , a under: ind wi]| s i with the ence a 40. u corpu ell said, h whethe •ntemshii opportunib 1 'oi ig ¥o&**/■«./r,#, l/eak plot development and a lackluster performance by Swayze deflate an original idea Amy Uptmor Battalion movie that begins with Ru- ""Mil as “Rachel Tensions,” the ;g queen of the universe, ssed in a sequined confederate jand descending into a ball- mfull of fellow queens, would re to be bold, racy and ready to iak down barriers. If only that sthe case with To Wong Foo, anks for Every 1 thing!Julie New- ir. To Wong Foo, starring Patrick Swayze, Wes ley Snipes and John Leguizamo as drag queens who get stranded in a middle- American small town, is a safe at tempt at in troducing the mainstream to the drag lifestyle. But in being safe, the movie loses a lot of the flair and flam- | Movie To Wong Foo, Everything, Jutie Starring Wesley Snipes, Swayze, John Leguizamo Directed by Beeban Kidron Rated PG-13 Playing at Hollywood 16 ★★ 1/2 boyancy of the drag scene. What is missed most by playing it safe, though, is a plot. To Wong Foo is like Son In Law with drag queens in the place of Pauly Shore as the token freaks on parade. The movie makes light of every stereotype associ ated with the gay culture rather than trying to move the audience past those stereotypes. What is equally sad is that a movie centered around such a taboo subject could actually last over one-and-a-half hours and not butt heads with a single is sue. Certain subjects are cer tainly mentioned — a family coming to terms with their cross-dressing son, police hos tility towards gays and cross dressers and, as a side issue, spouse abuse. But none of the ^leguizamo, Wesley Snipes, and Patrick Swayze play three drag queens en route to Hollywood in To Wong Foo. Queens Chi Noxeema, and Vida find themselves stranded in a small midwestern town. Chi, issues receive more than 10 minutes of screen time. Of course, this movie is a comedy and is not necessarily under orders to attack any is sues. It is just a shame that a ground-breaking movie with such a large potential-audience barely attempted to actually break any ground. The casting is equally disap pointing. Swayze as Vida Bo- heme, the oldest and wisest of the three queens, succeeds in this role about as well as Kevin Costner did when he tried to play someone British. Swayze never looks or acts like more than a big, beefy man dressed up as a woman. This is ironic, given that his character serves as a mentor to Chi Chi Rodriguez (Leguizamo), an as piring drag queen who Boheme — or she, however the viewer wants to see it — accuses of be ing nothing more than a “boy in a dress.” The ordering of this mentor- pupil setup is also ironic, given that Leguizamo’s performance is the saving grace of this movie. Chi Chi is all that is drag — sassy, loud and full of attitude. His one-liners give the movie a kick-start every time it seems to be on the verge of death. Snipes’ performance also de serves applause. Snipes’ charac ter, Noxeema Jackson, rivals Leguizamo in the attitude de partment and is almost solely re sponsible for transforming the small town’s residents into flam boyant, sassy dressers and (al most) thinkers. But To Wong Foo”s fails mis erably in comparison to Adven tures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, a witty, honest portray al of drag queens. If such an ex- Leguizamo cellent movie on the subject had not already been released, To Wong Foo could at least score points for being the first movie of its kind. Unfortunately, To Wong Foo lacks the substance and acting to score points for much of anything. Tight suspense and action make up for unlikely scenario Helen Clancy Ihe Battalion se, eat- •ourself t size, ons for e. Also ths as tions. fear of g over to re- dy ac- i, stu- O VIE Adoption can be a dangerous thing. *arents never know what kind of wild lildor nutcase they could end up with. Butin The Tie That Binds, the child n’tthe problem. In fact, everything wild have turned out great if the kid’s dless, murdering biological parents ad not come back into the picture. From the producers of The Hand that kks the Cradle, this film portrays an ing parent’s worst nightmare. &en a picture-perfect couple shows up iadopt Janie, an angelic six-year old ody for irl, they have no idea that her parents rearmed criminals out to track down aeir daughter. Although the movie is full of action The W$, Starring Dar^SI Hanna!), ! Carratiine Directed by Wesley Strick Rated R Playing at Schulman 6 (out of five) th Ed- id suspense, it constantly leaves the eutel )ITOR R swer confused. Much of the dialogue awkwardly out of character, and little no background is given to identify }ie characters. The Tie That Binds icks depth and offers no logical expia tions or foreshadowing for several ivotal events. The opening scene shows Janie (Julia Devin) waiting in her parents’ car while they are robbing a nearby house. A sus picious neighbor calls the cops, and an officer takes Janie just as her parents start to make their getaway. Oddly, the two patrol cars and armed officers are no match for Janie’s parents, who are armed with a bag of food and a Polaroid camera. The couple incredibly manages to escape on foot, leaving their daughter behind in police custody. The next implausible element is the negligence of the Social Services. For some reason, the social workers ignore the criminal background of the case and allow the well-meaning Cliftons to adopt Janie. It never occurs to them that strip ping a child from her murderous parents and giving her to a defenseless yuppie couple might be a bad situation. Although Keith Carradine’s perfor mance as the deranged biological fa ther is overacted and hard to swallow, Daryl Hannah’s powerful performance makes up for his comical “insanity.” Hannah plays the distraught biologi cal mother, Leann Netherwood. Her performance is believable and almost reminiscent of her role as a mental pa tient in Crazy People. Hannah convinces the audience that beneath her criminal brutality and lu nacy, she is still just a mother who wants her child back. Devin offers an excellent perfor mance as the young Janie. Her inno cence allows the viewer to identify with her feelings of trauma and fear. While Devin’s portrayal manages to keep the viewer intent, several oddities constantly detract from her perfor mance. The unmentioned family history of Janie’s parents leaves the viewer wondering how they became such hard ened criminals. Also, it is never ex plained why these criminals would go to so much trouble to find their daughter. Other questions arise concerning why the police force is so inept that they Daryl Hannah plays criminal Leann Netherwood, who attempts to make contact with her estranged daughter Janie (Julia Devin) in The Tie That Binds. can’t find Janie’s parents. These and other abnormalities constantly weaken the movie’s plot. The Tie That Binds might not be an intellectual thriller, but it does offer unrelenting suspense and action. Tal ented performances by Hannah and Devin keep the movie going and give the questionable plot development a touch of credibility. iberry offers fluid jazz with improvisation Erin Hill IE BATTALION People wandering around in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village can hear strains of music, liey descend a particularly dark and steep stair- Sse that seems to be going nowhere, only to find ^harming jazz club tucked inside. The club is Small’s, and on any given tight, people can find jazz in all of its forms ’eing performed there, usually by unknown talented artists who perform because of heir love of music. Siberry Jane Siberry’s latest album Maria feels like it was recorded at a club just like Small’s. Despite her past success in non-jazz music genres, Siberry wanted to tamper with it and try something new. She recruited a drummer and bassist who had played with jazz prodigy Joshua Redman and got Tim Ray on keyboards, who per formed with both Lyle Lovett and the j azz en semble Blue Then Orange. After recruiting Ray’s talent, Siberry said, “I thought these were the two best pianists I’d ever seen — until I realized they were the same man.” In addition, she has David Travers-Smith on trumpet, and he lends a clean brassy sound to the already tasty mix. The sound is certainly, as one press release puts it, “loose, fluid and electric with improvisa tion.” It provides a wonderful frame for the inter esting pictures Siberry paints with her music. The painted pictures on this record are divid ed into two rather distinct sections — the first nine songs and the last song, “Oh, My My,” which is 20 minutes long and is separated from the other tracks by a two-minute space. It is just like Siberry, who bent convention memorably in her previous albums, especially on the intriguing When I Was A Boy, to play with not only content and format, but production tech niques as well. Her album Bound By the Beauty, in fact, was recorded in the middle of an apple orchard. It comes as no surprise that she put Maria together her way, which was to record it all in a three-day session and then play around with the tracks in her living room for the next three months. As always, Siberry’s record is full of motifs and recurring thoughts. In the case of When I Was A Boy, those motifs were spiritual in na ture — candles, prayers, priests and all things Catholic. On Maria, an album with a decidedly connota- tive name, the motifs are a bit different — lulla bies, children, lambs, sacrifices and people who are lost and found. She plays with the listeners by borrowing well-known and beloved words and images and putting them in the most surprising spots in her own music. In her off-beat love song “Lovin’ Cup,” she sings, “Cup of wonder, cup of light / Cup of royal beauty bright.” In “Oh, My My,” she is joined by a children’s choir singing “Puff the Magic Drag on” as she sings, “Mary had a little lamb ... its fleece was ...oh.” Siberry plays by her own rules and never sells out. This makes Maria hard to believe and de lightful to listen to. Jones shows range of musical talent in new album Naked Songs By Erin Hill THE BATTALION Rickie Lee Jones changes musical em phasis almost as of ten as Madonna, just without showing so much skin. Speaking of states of undress, Naked Songs, Jones’ lat est album, is a real treat, stripped down to just Jones, her guitar and her piano. If Joni Mitchell is the queen of singer and songwriters, then Rickie Lee Jones is surely the princess next in line for the throne. Jones has established herself as a true royal during her career, which includes the critically ac claimed albums Rickie Lee Jones, Pirates, Flying Cowboys and Pop, Pop. Fans might recognize her from the Sleep less in Seattle soundtrack. That voice. Is it beautiful or just baffling? Perhaps both. At times her voice sounds like a string instrument, a violin, but sometimes she sounds like a saxophone or something else entirely, not always human. The most impressive thing about Jones and her music is her spontaneity and the easy-going way she performs and plays. Throughout Naked Songs, which is a live ret rospective, Jones sounds relaxed and comfortable. She jokes a little with the audience but doesn’t talk too much, spending most of her time singing such Rickie classics as “Last Chance Texaco,” “Chuck E’s in Love” and “Weasel.” See Jones, Page 4