fashion
WHAT'S HOT DOWN UNDER
Is underwear becoming high fashion? Madonna, Marky Mark and some KU
every
wet
wild
wool
students say 'yes.'
Photo illustration by Heather Lofflin / KANSAN
By Kevin Hoffmann Kansan staff writer
The trend had been set. What used to be worn to bed is now worn on the street as top fashion designers are turning underwear into evening wear.
Although underwear as high fashion has yet to catch on in Lawrence, many people said they accepted that underwear was now more than just covering for the private parts.
Ten years ago, Tom Cruise gave tightie-whites a new image when he lip-synched in his Jockey shorts in the film "Risky Business." Madonna made underwear haute couture when she performed on-stage wearing only lingerie.
Linda Bost, salesperson at Undercover, 21 W. 9th St., said many styles worn by women today were little more than lingerie. Especially during the summer, women can be seen wearing tops inspired by the brassiere, she said.
"If you look at a braille, it's not much different than a top you would see some women wear on a summer day," Bost said. "And it's less expensive than those kinds of tops."
Linda Randall, co-owner of Undercover, said sports also may have influenced the trend. Randall pointed out that many women now wore athletic bras for occasions other than exercising.
Randall said that one reason for underwear's debut into everyday fashion may be the fact that society is becoming more accepting of lingerie and underwear in general.
"It's what you get used to seeing," she said.
Another underwear trend for women is wearing men's boxer shorts. Jan Dolezal, Hays senior, said she found no problems with this.
"I don't think there's anything wrong with it," she said. "They're pretty much like regular shorts."
But underwear still retains its conventional use, as illustrated by pop music's bad boy Marky Mark. Mark recently posed for Calvin Klein ads wearing only briefs.
When it comes to underwear, everyone seems to have a preference.
"I like to wear cotton briefs for women because they're simple, conservative but sexy," said Sara Stillson, Worning, Del. senior.
interviewed, said she thought men looked better in boxer shorts than in bikini briefs or Jockey shorts.
Stillson, like most female students
"I like boxers because they're loose," she said. "Tight is disgusting."
Dolezal said she liked boxers for a different reason.
"I like boxers because they leave more for the imagination," she said. "It's not like they're trying to say 'Hey, look at my body.' They're more modest."
Dan Phillipps, Wilmette, Ill., junior,
has his own opinion when it comes to
underwear for the opposite sex.
"I tend to like the thong type of panties because they're a little more revealing and sexy," he said.
But Dolezal said she thought underwear fashion ultimately took a back-seat to practicality.
"I think the trend is going more toward what's comfortable," she said.
review
'Gilbert Grape's' apathy eats away at reveiwers
It begins in a small town in Iowa. It stays in a small town in Iowa. It ends in a small town in Iowa. The setting of "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" and the film's centerpiece, Gilbert (Johnny Depp), have the same problem: neither can seem to get out of this small town in Iowa.
Gilbert, the third of Depp's recent film eccentricics, which include "Edward Scissorhands" and Sam of "Benny and Joon," is trapped. He is forced to take care of his widowed mother (Darlene Cates), who, because of her 500-pound frame, refuses to leave the house, and his mentally disabled 17-year-old brother Arnie (Leonardo DiCaprio, in an Oscar-nominated performance) who repeatedly climbs to the top of the local water tower. His sisters harp on him for being irresponsible. His only friends are the son of a local mortician (Crispin Glover), who drives around in a hearse looking for potential customers, and a small-town clod (John C. Reilly), who dreams of managing the new Burger Barn.
Gilbert may be searching for love, but all he has is a sticky affair with the married woman to whom he delivers groceries (Mary Steenburgen), the only excitement of which has to do with the inclusion of the dairy products he brings with him. His life in the family's ramshackle farmhouse is downright suffocating, and his friends are short-sighted goofs, even though Gilbert is no rocket scientist himself. "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" begins to gnaw at you in a very unsettling way. Wouldn't you agree, Sludge?
"You're darn right! It was driving me batty. That house was depressing, and that town just plain sucked. I just wanted to click my heels and get the heck outta Dodge."
Actually, Sludge, it was Endora, Iowa. But we get the picture.
In spite of Gilbert's maddening predicament, we're never really sure that any of it bothers him. For the most part, he just sits and stares halfheartedly into the distance, projecting nothing but sheer ambivalence. In one scene, Gilbert waits to watch the sun set with town newcomer Becky (Juliette Lewis), to whom he is, we think, drawn and who seems to be the only one who has strayed farther than the city limits. He leaves briefly, returning to his house to take
"I should hope so."
care of his brother, then comes back to the meadow to hear Becky say, "Oh, you missed it, it was beautiful." To which his only reply is: "Oh, well." This is Gilbert Grape in a nutshell.
"Grape nuts? What? Matt, try to stay on the subject."
Sorry. I'll get back on track.
"That's okay."
Though the first half of the film gets under your skin, it does so with a subtly human touch. Through the unintrusive direction of Lasse Hallstrom, the warm, soft photography of Swen Nykvist and Peter Hedges' purposely tense scripting (adapted from Hedges' novel of the same title), you're completely unaware of the sympathy for the characters that slowly edges its way into your heart until it's too late to stop it, or to want to. We want everyone to somehow find what it is they're looking for.
"What they're looking for is a one-way ticket out of that rat hole."
Maybe, but what begins as a seemingly random string of unnerving events, of which the only connection seems to be the coincidental geography, Endora gradually shapes itself into a charming caricature of Small Town, U.S.A. "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" plods along reluctantly but finishes smoothly enough to make up for its early lack of direction.
"At first I thought it was just a bunch of crap they filmed, cut up, threw on the floor then used blindfolds to Scotch Tape it back together again. But then it turned out all right. I wasn't mad or anything."
That's a very insightful, articulate way to sum it up, Sludge.
"Thanks. But you always get the last word."
No, I don't.
oscars
Best picture nominees address serious topics, make decisions tough
LOS ANGELES — The unmistakable groundswell for "Schindler's List" is overshadowing the fact that the Academy Award race for best picture contains five impressive films with serious themes.
Consider the subject matter of the nominees — the Holocaust, a miscarriage of British justice, subjugation of women in an earlier time, a servant's blind devotion to an unworthy master and vengeful pursuit of an innocent man.
Transforming the hit 1660s television series into a big-budget movie may have appeared a routine Hollywood rip-off. But producer Arnold Kopelson ("Platoon") had been a fan of the show and saw the audience appeal of sympathy for the doctor falsely accused of his wife's murder and anger with the police detective's unrelenting pursuit.
A look at the films in contention for best picture of 1993:
"I look for things I like and have an emotional relationship to, something that moves me. I think then I'm prepared to help move the audience. I look for something that has ambition, has a degree of originality and that is challenging to me as an actor."
"I can't say I ever saw an episode of 'The Fugitive' all the way through," Ford said. "Of course, I'm familiar with it like anyone else.
"The Fugitive":
Akey to the old show's success: the actor who has starred in half of the dozen biggest box-office winners, Harrison Ford, saw the potential of the film and his role as Richard Kimble.
"In the Name of the Father":
In 1975, Irish drifter Gerry Conlon, his father and other relatives and friends were convicted of an Irish Republican Army bombing with which they had no connection. It took 15 years before a tenacious lawyer exposed police corruption and the prisoners were released.
The miscarriage of justice resulted in Conlon's autobiography, which
New Zealand-born Jane Campion won nominations for writing and directing this film. One other woman has been a directoral nominee (Lina Wertmuller for "Seven Beauties" in 1978), but no woman ever had been nominated for director of a film that also was nominated as best picture.
In "The Piano," Holly Hunter stars as a Scottish woman who comes to colonial New Zealand for an arranged marriage. What is unusual, Miss Campion says, is that she didn't need such stars as Hunter, Sam Neill and Harvey Keitel in order to finance the film.
"The money came from a French company, CIBY2009, which operates on a kind of Medici principle," she said. "They were supporting without any approvals — the approvals were all with the filmmaker. The only limitation was the budget, which was about $7 million ... At the time, it was not thought to be a big audience film."
Irish filmmaker Jim Sheridan saw as movie material. He had been looking for a story about a son and a good father, observing there are very few good fathers in Irish literature.
"It's not a political film in the usual sense of the word." Sheridan said. "One thing it's definitely not is anti-British. I love the English and think they're great people — you can't touch them for loyalty or independence of spirit.
"I hope one of the points of the film is obvious to English viewers — namely that one of the great tragedies of the Irish Republican Army bombings is that the English have allowed themselves to inflict such terrible damage on their legal system. And I don't think it's anti-English of me to point that out."
"The Piano":
Rave reviews, critics' awards and the Cannes Film Festival prize helped make "The Plano" a box-office winner, grossing more than $32 million so far in a limited U.S. release.
"The Remains of the Day":
See OSCARS, Page 10.
PAGE 9
MARCH 10.1994
calendar
People and places at the University of Kansas.
NIGHTLIFE
Benchwarmers Sports Bar and Grill
1601 W.23rd St.
The Hard Soul Poets, 10 tonight, $4 (18 and over)
Lie Awake, 10 p.m. Saturday, $3 (18 and over)
Pilgrimage, 10 p.m. March 17, $4 (18 and over)
The Lonesome Hounddogs, 10 p.m. tomorrow,
$3 (18 and over)
737 New Hampshire St.
The Bottleneck
Blue Dixie, 10 tonight, $4
Pleasure, 10 p.m. tomorrow, $5 (18 and over)
Rev. Horton Heat with Flat Duo Jets, 10 p.m.
Saturday, $8 (18 and over)
Rev. Horton Heat, 10 p.m. Sunday, $8 (18 and over)
Tiny Lights, 10 p.m. Tuesday, $3
Spinanes, 10 p.m. Wednesday, $5 (18 and over)
Tripping Dousy with Eve's Plum, 10 p.m.
March 17, $5 (18 and over)
Techno Night, 10 tonight, cover charge Karaoke, 10 p.m. Wednesday, cover charge
815 New Hampshire St.
Dos Hombres
Granada Theater
1020 Massachusetts St.
Turquoise Sol, 10 tonight, $3 (21 and over),
$4 (under 21)
Kansas vs. K-State basketball game, 8:30
p.m. tomorrow, free
L.A. Ramblers, after basketball game, $4 (21 and
over). $5 (under 21)
Love Squad with The Bubble Boys, 10 p.m.
Saturday, $4 (21 and over), $5 (under 21)
Big Eight Basketball Finals, 12 p.m. Sunday,
$2
Tom Dahill with Talisman, 8 p.m. Sunday, $5
Hiphop and Rap, 9:30 p.m. Monday, $3
Mondo Disco with DJ Ray, 9:30 p.m. Tuesday,
$3
The Hideaway
'80s Night, 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, $3
See NIGHTLIFE,Page 10.