KiiviJim Reviews
Friday, December 4,1998
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Portland hip-hop scene
Hip-hop group Outkast
headlined a recent concert
at Portland’s Roseland
Theater/PAGE 8
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Mi
Blue review for Little
Little Charlie and the Nightcats'
album ‘Shadow of the Blues'
lacks flare/ PAGE 10
Volume 100, Issue 67
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‘DeadPool’ is thefirstyearly guide tothe
growing trend of placing bets on death
By Michael Burnham
Oregon Daily Emerald
As the old adage goes: the only two
sure bets in life are death and taxes.
But in this age of fantasy football
and horse racing — where you can bet on
the fact that you can bet on just about any
thing — some wagerers are literally placing
bets on death.
Veteran Midwestern journalists Mike
“Stretch” Gelfand and Mike “Wilk” Wilkin
son have brought the underground tradition
of celebrity death wagering to life with the
print edition of “Dead Pool: Stretch and
Wilk’s Official Annual Guide,” the first offi
cial book on wagering on the demise of the
rich and famous.
The guide details the rules of a contest the
pair created in which participants can pick
12 celebrities whom they believe will meet
their maker in 1999.
In addition to the rules of Wilkinson and
Gelfand's tongue-in-cheek “Dead Pool,” the
pamphlet contains the finer points of pick
BOB
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potential stiffs. ~ i
Both Wilkinson and Gelfand are }
veterans of the ghoulish game that
started about 20 years ago in small and
informal betting circles. According to
Wilkinson, the game's popularity increased
in the 1990s with its arrival on the Internet.
The increase may also have been because
of “The Dead Pool,’’ a 1988 Clint Eastwood
movie named after the game.
A quick Internet search of dead pools will
reveal 20 to 30 Web sites dedicated to the
1
game.
Variations on dead pools can range from
the informal and formal wagering on the
deaths of a broad range of celebrities to wa
gering on the deaths of only baseball play
ers or rock musicians.
Giovanni Salimena/Emerald
But
Wilkinson said his game's brand of “frivo
lous fun" has a precise science to it.
Contestants in Wilkinson and Gelfand’s
dead pool must send in their 12 choices by
December 31,1098. The game is scored on
points for correct picks. Players are awarded
on a point scale ranging from a low score of
one to a high score of three.
The points are awarded based on the
celebrity’s age. If the celebrity dies and is
over 65, the player wins one point. Two
Turn to DEAD POOL, Page 6
Under the microscope:‘A Bug’s Life’
Dazzling
visual
displays
and little,
loveable
characters
make A
Bug’s Life ’ a
movie worth
seeing
By Amy Boytz
Oregon Daily Emerald
Think bugs are icky, gross and dis
gusting? Think again. “A Bug’s Life,”
the latest computer-animation film
from Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar
Animation Studios, is anything but
gross. It brings out the cute and inno
cent side of these garden pests, mak
ing them lovable by all.
lne story is Dasea loosely on Ae
sop’s fable “The Ant and the Grasshopper” in
which a grasshopper begs an ant family for food.
However, in “A Bug’s Life” this story is taken a
few steps further.
Hopper (whose voice is sounded by Kevin
Spacey) is a grotesque and dictatorial grasshop
per. He leads a gang of hoodlum ‘hopper accom
plices to annually demand a season’s worth of
food from a modest ant colony. The ants, shaken
with fear of the grasshoppers, grudgingly comply
each vear
‘A Bug’s Life’
DIRECTED BY:
John Lasseter
TYPE:
Computer Animation
RATING:
Flik (voiced by Dave Foley) is an
off-kilter member of the colony who
is always trying to invent new tools.
When one of his inventions goes
wrong, he inadvertently spills the
pile of food collected for the menac
ing grasshoppers. He is banished
from his colony, but he goes in search
" " or warrior Dugs wno couia neip tne
—-— ants fight the grasshoppers. Flik trav
els off Ant Island for the first time and
finds a second-rate flea circus that he coerces to
help the ants.
The story is captivating, but it is the impressive
animation that makes this film spectacular. “A
Bug’s Life” is the second film from the same folks
who created 1995’s “Toy Story.” In “Toy Story,”
the two main characters, Buzz and Woody, were
the most advanced characters in the film. For “A
Bug’s Life,” the creators boosted the reality of
Turn to BUGS Paae7
Courtesy photo
A rag-tag team of bugs helps hero-ant, Flick (far right), save his home
from a group of psychotic grasshoppers.