The Daily Tar Heel Thursday, February 4, 19883
V
Beware the terrifying
cultural zone of geeks
By JOE BOB BRIGGS
Last week I was in New York City
again, doing research on geek liberals,
and I went down to 42nd Street and
Times Square to check for slime and
found out there's a full-scale Com
munist Assault going on. with TH REE
of the finest exploitation movie
houses in America about to be
condemned, closed up, rebuilt by guys
that wear goat beards and wire-rim
glasses, and given to gay symphony
organizations to make 300 bad PBS
Specials a year. The lead Communist
is Tony Randall, who came up with
this plan where the city of New York
is TAKING AWAY THE THEATERS
FROM THEIR RIGHTFUL OWNERS,
including the one that's been showin
"Three Giant Kung Fu Hits" for the
last 10 years. The city says they're
CONDEMNED, but they don't tear
'em down. They give 'em to lesbian
ballet companies to put on shows
called "Asphalt: A Retrospective."
This kinda thing couldn't have
happened in the golden days of The
Deuce. On the day that "Make Them
Die Slowly" premiered, they had to
bring in mounted police to control
the line that went around the block.
If you'd walked up to those people
and said. "Hey. Mayor Koch says you
shouldn't be watchin' this stuff. You
need to be attending plays about
Vietnam veterans that yell at their
mothers all the time and then
commit suicide" if you'd told those
people that. I'll TELL you what would
of happened. You would have had
some Bemhard Goetz Treatment on
every wheelchair-basketball theater
company in New York.
But they have been having these
about the cultural zone he s gonna
create where the great 42nd Street
theaters used to be. and where Mary
Tyler Moore comes and talks about
how she just LOVES Times Square
and how she'd like to go on taking
people's money forever for the
Broadway shows she puts on about
middle-aged women whining at one
another, and usually the New York
subscribers to the Joe Bob Briggs
newsletter show up and sit on the
back row and try to get the chairman
of the committee to listen to their
statistical comparisons of (A) how
many people go to those theaters to
see "Slave Girl From Beyond Infinity,"
and (B) how many people WOULD go
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to those theaters to see an Italian
acrobatic troupe perform the love
theme from "Das Boot." You see, the
numbers are on our side.
Anyhow, the owners of all the great
theaters on The Deuce have found a
way to fox Tony and his tutti-frutti
friends. Since all the old Times Square
theaters were built by George M.
Cohen and Flo Ziegfeld, the owners
have been applying for "historic
building" status. This means that,
from now on. the city can't mess with
'em. Koch did get three of 'em
already, though, which means we're
gonna have the "cultural zone" side-by-side
right next to the drive-in zone
and so we'll have a chance to see just
exactly which form of entertainment
the American public really wants. We
got the movies waitin'. Bring on your
best North Korean hand-puppet
street mime midget music We'll win.
Speaking of zombies on Broadway,
"Return of the Living Dead Part II"
came out a few days back and had
James Karen and Thorn Matthews
robbing a cemetery in one of the first
scenes even though they ALREADY
got turned into brain-eating zombies
in Part One. You know, it's this kind
of stuff that makes you not trust the
movies anymore, like they hired the
guys and then said. "Whoops! You
know what? The story didn't make
SENSE!" but then decided, "Oh, well,
nobody'll notice." We NOTICED.
These guys can't get zombified. They
already GOT zombified. It's like
casting John Wayne and Liberace in
a 1 S88 movie. It wouldn't be a pretty
sight would it?
Anyhow, what happened is that
evidently three or four cans of the
ne, and now some Bozo Army truck
drivers bounce a can of it into a suburb
where some little kids open it up and
watch it seep into the cemetery,
where the zombies claw their way up
through the dirt and start demanding
brain salads. The only people that can
stop the world from being taken over
are a 12-year-old, his aerobic-leotard
sister, and. of course, a cable TV
installer. Their plan lure the
zombies to an electric power plant
by leaving a trail of cow brains, then
hose 'em down, hit the juice, and
barbecue 'em from the gizzards out.
The question you got to ask
yourself in any good zombie movie,
though, is. "What kills the zombies?"
"Carolina Kamakazis"
Don't forget..
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on Tuesdays
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'Will
1
Ken Wiederhom, the
In "Night of the Living Dead." the
got to have total dismemberment
arms, legs, head, everything. And I
only got one thing to say about these
latest zombies total dismember
ment doesn't work. You ever try to
kill a snake with a hatchet? That's
what it's like.
Zombierama. No breasts. (New
disturbing trend in horror flicks.) 16
dead bodies. 27 undead bodies. 143
living dead bodies. Head-hacking.
Heads roll. Hands roll. Fingers roll.
Zombie aerobics. Multiple brain
eating. Spike through zombie heart
Shotgun to the zombie face. First
recorded instance of someone's face
being punched out literally. Gra
tuitous aerobics. Gratuitous pet-
MOVDES ATTTDiE OJNnON
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FRIDAY. FEB. 5
7:00, 9:30,12:00
$1 50 (from Union Desk)
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director of "Return of the Living
tion for Suzane Snyder, for excellent
whining, right up until the moment
her brains are chewed up by her
boyfriend, and for saying, "Joey, I'm
NOT into dead guys": Philip Bruns.
as Doc Mandel. for diagnosing two
zombies as having "chronic intracta
ble rigor mortis"; Thor Van Lingen,
as Billy the child zombie, for saying
"You told, you told, now you die like
me"; and Marsha Dietlein. as the
Jamie Lee Curtis survivor, for saying,
"They're ugly and they're dirty and
they're dumb and I don't even care
if they ARE dead, they're not touching
ME."
Three stars. Joe Bob says check it
out.
, j . 4 . ;L,j i n f, if'
jitnatown;
9:30
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Dead," is on the left
Performing Arts
Series
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Tuesday, Feb. 9
8:00 p.m.
Memorial Hail, UNC
Tickets: J1 5 All Seats
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Carolina Union Box Office
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UXC Students Onlyi
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