Austin American-Statesman from Austin, Texas • 55

Austin American-Statesman E5 This section is recyclable Friday, September 23, 1994 I The Rest Itnlian Experience Fine Italian Dining At Zeram' provides few, cheap thrills I Food are at JKoma ii I American-Statesman Italian Cuisine CmiSt Lisbt Dinim Romantic Atoosrjktrt Buy 1 Entree Receive mm mm MM MM mmm mm mm mm The 2nd Entree for $1.99 Not Valid on Spaghetti Night Special 1 Coupon Per Table Limit 2 Entrees M-l I l-ltr 11-11 SM 4-11 MM N. IH 35 Lincoln Vitiate by HighM Mai Hone 45.J- "3 Come Out i5ffi in Town hv it i i 1 4 I Complimentary Entree Buy one entree and two beverages and receive the second entree of equal or lesser values FREE. Valid after 5 p.m. Not valid with other offers. One coupon per table.

Expires 10294. Cucinallaliana 2201 College Ave. -r 444-1333 Cloted Sundays lMj jj CAFE AND Cafe Serranos is now offering a Back to School Special. When accompanied by an adult. Kids Eat Free till Sept.

30th! (Come by any of our locations for details.) Two alien bounty hunters chase a near-invincible cybersoldier, one of a series designed to be the ultimate weapons for interstellar combat, in Zeram. By Russell Smith Special to the American-Statesman Zeram opens unforgettably with an incendiary stream of images which might have boiled up from a killer cyborg's dreams. In a shadowy grotto, we see space-suited men battling to the death against a hulking, faceless creature that resembles a monstrously buffed-up Kurosawa samurai This brilliant black-and-white sequence jolts your imagination with its blend of raw carnage and avant garde lighting and composition. You grip your seat cushion, completely hooked and panting for more of the same. It never comes.

After this eye-popping first scene, all you get is 90 minutes of enjoyable but unspectacular Japanese science fiction with a fair amount of wit and funky charm, but few real thrills. Thirty-five-year-old director screenwriter Keita Amemiya tells the story of two alien bounty hunters chasing a near-invincible cybersoldier called Zeram, one of a series designed to be the ultimate weapons for interstellar combat. Though banned now, these deadly brutes are running amok all over the galaxy, wreaking mayhem of the kind we witnessed in the opening scene. Next target for Zeram's wrath: 20th century Earth The bounty hunters trying to stop him are a beautiful human-oid woman named Ilya (Yuko Moriyama) and a talking computer called Bob. Their dryly amusing banter creates a dynamic like some futuristic version of the old Avengers TV show with Bob as John Steed and Ilya as Emma Peel.

After setting up shop in an as villain in nation to avoid such outward theatrics. And just as Spielberg did his best work in a film that required a more somber tone, it's also no coincidence that Red-ford's best film remains Ordinary People, a movie that demanded in the scene of resolution between Timothy Hutton and Judd Hirsch a moment of demonstrative climax. It released everything that had been bottled up in the two hours before. There is no comparable moment of emotional release in Quiz Show, but it's a different sort of film. And if Redford's tone occasionally seems detached, it's met HOT LINE 255-9622 Friday CAJUN FEST FRIDAY JODY JENKINS Saturday RAY PRICE $13 Gen.

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IH 35 323-2555 Film review Zeram Stars: Yuko Moriyama, Yukihiro Ho-Jtaru, Kunihiko Ida Director Keita Amemiya MPAA rating: Unrated Theater. Dobie Critic's rating: abandoned building in Tokyo, they create a force field-ringed "Zone" designed to look like an unpopulated city. In this Zone they hope to confine, then capture Zeram. That task is complicated by the presence of two city utility work-' ers who accidentally wind up in the Zone with Ilya and Zeram. Generic as these anable Everydude characters are (in a domestic movie they might be played by Jim Varney and Judge Reinhold), their broad comic moments do help take up the frequent slack in a meandering, low-suspense storyline.

More amusing, though, is the ultra low-budget look of the production design, costumes and special effects. The effects, especially Zeram's polymorphic Alien-like transformations, are often very imaginative, but man, do they look cheap. And even allowing for the fact that a certain degree of tackiness is intrinsic to the traditional Japanese sci-fi aesthetic, one still wonders if it mightn't have been possible to make Dya's battle garb look a bit less like a set of hockey pads. In the end, the pleasures of Zeram are small ones we've experienced before. And after the incredible opening, that can't help but feel disappointing.

'Quiz Show' worthwhile to remember just how garish much of cinema's treatment of television has been. You can buy or not buy Redforcl's larger argument, but his execution of the specifics in the Van Doren case is astute and, at times, dazzling. ice nougc Tonight JULIE BURRELL 9:30 6th Lamar 472-5400 Tonight I PEDESTRIAN CROSSING 9:30 38th Med. Pkwy 451-5245 Art by Amado Pena A f- if AUSTIN CITY COLISEUM SEPTEMBER 24 25 Ft, CANTINAI 3010 West Anderson Ln. 454-7333 12636 Research 250-9555 -H Vk GUNP KNIFE ASSOCIATION INC mm LIVE ENTERTAINMENT 3 i njnom inhabits the character of Goodwin, a cocky, bantamweight intellectual who evokes a younger, sexier Elliott Gould.

Handsomely photographed by Michael Ballhaus, Quiz Show possesses the understated beauty of Barry Levinson's richly appointed Baltimore films (Diner and Tin Men) that were set in the same time frame. In a way, though, it might be too understated. As in A River Runs Through It, Redford plays many of the film's crucial emotions in a minor key. When it does arrive, the climax is so muted as to be almost an anticlimax. As a director, Redford has the opposite problem of Steven Spielberg.

While Spielberg's natural inclination is to play up the emotionalism of every scene he directs, it's Redford's natural incli ADMISSION with this Ad! Outdoor Bar Grand Opening Gala! Tonight: HOTCAKES wMeaghan uyrne! 611 Wort 6h Abovo 472-9849 SATURDAY NIGHT JAY ERIC SUNDAY SHAKE RUSSELL JACK SAUNDERS Oct. 1 -Advance Tickets Bo Diddley 210-606-1281 OPEN SATURDAY 9 A.F1. TU r.PI. 9 A.F1. IV3 r.Pl.

"Early-Bird Special" 2 Adults foi the first hour toi the price of 1 Exhibitors Contact: Don Hill 126 Cedar Knoll, Kerrville, TX 78028 (210) 2S7-S844 Continued from El not, overrun by it. The scandal is broken open, in the movie if not actuality, by Richard Goodwin, a congressional investigator who went on to become a speechwriter for JFK (and whose book Remembering America Voice From the Sixties contains a chapter on the scandals on which Paul Attanasio's screenplay is based). In the film, Goodwin is a composite of several characters who unearthed the scandal over a longer period of time. He's given real life in a spirited performance by Rob Morrow. I'd only seen Morrow in a couple of bits of Northern Exposure episodes in the past, and hadn't been very impressed.

But he's remarkable here the stubble arid the attitude from the television series is gone. Instead, he fairly ROUND ROCK SPJST Tonight LONESOME DOVE Coming Saturday Benny McArthur wChad Hudson Starlight 255-1554 Ballroom Round Rock 1609 FM 1460 THURS-SAT at SUNDAY AT EH ETA HE Si 1 ii IBIBWS) MAGAZINES I i Awesome Selection NEWSPAPERS Special Orders Welcome Tf ADULT VIDEOS MA From 93CNight wi ADULT CD-ROMS WT COMICS AND ViL ANIMATION I t-J 2053 S. Lamar 440-8626 15316 N.IH35 990-2144 11657 Research 343-1195 yThe Pier (2 Tonight 6-10 IQ Blue Pepper Silly Chili ft Sat.i Snake Boy Johnson Daddiot Come Play Volleyball. v. Open 7 Days IM jl for Lunch Dinner 1703 Rlvwhlll Bd.

327-4562 mMlmS rnk BROKEN SPOKE 3201 SOUTH LAMAR THE BEST IN LIVE COUNTRY BAND MUSIC 4 CHICKEN FRIED STEAK IN TOWN- I JUDY ANDRA IN CONCERT! Dueling Divas! The First Ladies of BEEHIVE Hit the Stage In An All New Octane Powered Musical Concert! ZACH'S KLEBERG STAGE RIVERSIDE DR. AT S.lAMARy- "') -r- I i-m iiiiii.iii.iiii-n. i.im.nihr.iiir-i -irai-i-r-i ARTS CRAFTS FOOD CHILDREN'S ACTIVfTIES September 24 and 25, 1 994 Ride Ccpltal Metro to The Pecan Street Festival from the State Parking lot at 1 4th San Jacinto or City Coliseum. Shuttle 11 :00 am to 8:30 pm. Round Trip Fares: Ages 1 3 up SI Ages 6-1 2 Children 5 under FREE.

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