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PAGE 26. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 1998.
For Teens, By Teens
'Brother' gerbils surprise animal lover
By Erin Roulston
I'm an animal lover. With a cat,
dog, guinea pig and previously
more cats, fish and birds, it was
only logical that when my friend's
gerbils began breeding out of
control I should take a couple.
My two black gerbil brothers I
named Sigmund and Freud because
they looked the same right down
the white tuft of fur beneath their
chins. The only way to tell them
apart was by their behaviour.
Sigmund's the scared one while
Freud is brave. When I approach
the cage Sigmund hides under the
exercise wheel and Freud will be
climbing the bars of the cage in the
hopes that I will feed him.
When I brought Sigmund and
Freud home my mother heaved a
great big exasperated sigh. She said
they looked like rats and I'd better
be planning on taking them with
me when I leave for university.
Although Mom let on she hated my
"rats" I've often caught her feeding
THE TRUMAN SHOW:
STARRING JIM CARREY
Rating****
By Ashley Gropp
If fate exists and dictates every
move we are about to make and
every circumstances we are in was
decided by a higher power, would
we change our paths and break free
of this 'mapped out' life if we
could? That is the. basic premise of
The Truman Show.
There is a definite statement this
film is trying to get across, by
asking implied questions: "Is our
society becoming too thirsty for
personal information?" and "How
far will we go before society finally
decides that enough is enough?"
For all of the people who wanted
to watch Jim Caney play a role
different from the character of Ace
Ventura which was the first to put
him into the spotlight, this is the
first time that he didn't have to
contort his body and face into
various positions just to get laughs.
This time Carrey relies on the
humour and satire in the writing
and plot and it works well for him.
This change is welcome and
refreshing.
The Truman Show is the story of
a man who was born and raised on
a television set, not realizing until
later on in life that his entire
environment is manufactured. His
'higher power' is merely a creator
and director of a 24-hour television
series called 'The Truman Show'.
When he is in his 30s, Truman
begins to notice unusual things
happening all over the place. For
example, they are looking
somewhere else, and talking about
the product, smiling.
Then while listening to the radio
one day it cuts out and a voice
starts saying exactly what Truman
was doing at that exact moment.
There were many camera angles
required to follow Truman around.
There is never a moment of a day
when Truman is not in view of one
of the cameras, no matter where he
goes on the man-made island he
lives on. The result is incredible.
The music in this film all
accented the TV show appeal of the
aciiia I I rumen Show with soap-'
them sunflower seeds through the
bars of the cage and laughing at
their antics.
And there is lots to laugh about.
They will fight over the seeds we
give them. The shy one is always
finding himself seedless when his
brother takes him by surprise.
Sometimes when Sigmund is
hiding under the exercise wheel his
brother will go for a run and a tiny
squeal will fill the room as
Sigmund's tail gets caught in the
bars and he is thrown across the
cage.
He seems to be okay after these
incidents. He just shakes himself
off, then searches for somewhere
else to hide.
It is not always Sigmund who
gets into trouble. One day as I
watched Freud running on the
wheel at top speed he lost his
balance and was carried upside-
down by the wheel's momentum
before landing on his head in the
cage bedding.
opera style love songs. When
Truman and his wife engage in love
scenes, the stereotypical cheesy
music is playing in the background.
All in all The Truman Show is a
worthwhile movie that people of all
ages will enjoy — as long as they
aren't under the impression that it is
the same style as all of Jim Carrey's
other movies.
THE BIG HIT: STARRING
MARK WALBERG, ANTONIO
SABATO JR.
(Wingham youth Josh Peace
also has a role)
Rating***
The Big Hit is big laughs. It's just
too bad that this is probably
supposed to be as funny as it is.
The movie is generally quite good,
in a dark comedy sort of way,
except for the odd faux-pas.
The movie has a fast and steady
pace, possibly to keep you from
noticing the errors. I had most of
them pointed out to me since I
didn't catch them myself. These
were tiny little flaws that easily
could have been changed, had the
director noticed them, but because
of their presence an audience can
become distracted. One of the most
major of these was that a spot that
was a parking lot in one scene, was
conveniently a cliff in the next.
Mark Walberg played a
convincing hero, demonstrating
two very different sides to his
We keep our gerbils on top of a
dresser in the bathroom. This is the
place where we find they get the
most attention. Every time anybody
goes for a bathroom break they will '
go over and feed the gerbils a
couple of seeds. Not too long ago I
went into the bathroom and had
quite a surprise: the cage was open
and there were no gerbils. First I
kicked myself for leaving the door
open, then I got to work finding
them.
Gerbils communicate by
thumping their hind legs on the
floor. It is a sign of fear, a warning,
or excitement. My boyfriend and
myself then tiptoed around the
house tapping our fingers in
imitation of their thumps. When the
gerbil thumped back we would
move around all the furniture to try
and get to it.
We found Freud behind a
bookshelf in my father's office and
Sigmund, the hardest to catch as
always, under a recliner. They were
character. He showed the nice guy
in the killer, the opposite of, but not
unlike his lead role in Fear. In that
movie, he played a guy who
seemed nice, but turned out to be
insanely jealous and cruel to those
in his way.
The acting was good for the most
part, and Wingham boy Josh Peace
played his snotty, rude and arrogant.
character quite well.
Walberg plays a hit-man in this
movie. He is a really nice guy,
especially considering his job and
how good he is at it. He gets
trampled on by his co-workers,
fiance, and his girlfriend (I know
that makes him seem like a jerk,
but he actually IS a nice guy).
One of his co-workers, whom he
considers a friend, gets a call for a
job for a group of them. It is a
kidnapping, as opposed to a hit, but
they take it anyway. The problem
is, as they later find out, that the
girl they were hired to kidnap is the
boss's goddaughter.
Peace plays the girl's ill-fated
boyfriend.
This film, like most dark
comedies, is not suitable family
viewing, but for those who can
handle the sight of a little gore, it's
definitely better than most aimed at
young adult audiences.
It is worth a look, but it may be
better to save some money or wait
to rent the video.
tired from their big adventure I
think because they immediately
curled up in their little bed of wood
shavings and shredded newspaper
and went to sleep.
Three weeks ago Sigmund and
Freud gave me the biggest surprise
ever. They had babies. Before
going to bed I peeked into the cage
and found four tiny little pink
gerbils. They were blind, deaf,
hairless and toothless, and evidence
that Sigmund was actually a girl.
Only two babies survived. They
now can hear and both are black
just like their parents. Their eyes
are opening and they are eating oats
and trying to eat sunflower seeds.
Freud is living in a different cage
on the floor of the bathroom. It has
three floors and cute little ladders
and he sleeps in a coffee mug box
with a little hole cut in the side.
But to my mother's dismay I
don't think we separated him from
his wife soon enough because she's
looking a little fat. I'm expecting
her second litter will arrive this
weekend at which point her other
children will go to live with her
father.
Their names are Dunstan and
Paul. Paul is a runt and, likely as a
result of the fact that his mom and
dad are brother and sister, has a
deformed leg. They will live with
their dad until they are eight weeks
old at which point I'll need to find
another cage to prevent more
inbreeding in the event that either
Dunstan or Paul should be a girl.
And I need to find homes for
them, which makes me yery sad
because they are so cure. Dunstan
is learning how to eat real food so
he will crawl with great difficulty
into the food dish and sit on his
tiny haunches and hold the food in
his little hands and eat with his tiny
mouth. Because of his deformed
leg, Paul can't climb the wires of
the cage like his brother but he'll
make do; by standing on his
mother's head if he has to. Their
eyes are just part way open but
already they will run as fast as they
can across the cage to the food or
their mother or the nest.
I love animals but if there is
anything I love more it is their
babies. I tried to talk my parents
into letting me breed my guinea pig
a few years ago but they wouldn't
go for that idea.
Lucky for me my gerbils did it by
accident.
But I can't keep them, especially
if Sigmund is pregnant again so,
hey — anybody want a gerbil?
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