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8/23/2000
EAR PLUGS
Dottie's has a familiar face for us regulars doing their booking now
- Rick Dang. He's joined up with Jack Cowart to form "Pink Torpedo
Productions" and book shows and such for Dottie's. He says "listen
to us live at http://dotties.abl.comhttp://dotties.abl.com"
Speaking of, there has been a request by some of the old Dottie's
regulars to get the weekly pool playing Degenerate Press meetings
going again on Mondays. Demotivation set in a while back and we
stopped going but we could probably be badgered into taking up the
habit again when we get back from Spain mid-September.
FILM FLAM
Here's a report from degenerate SW:
We hit the drive in last night for "The Cell", not to be mistaken
for "The Sell", "The Sail", or "The Sale."
It's my standard practice to avoid reading reviews of a movie I
genuinely want to see before actually seeing it. I might devour all
the production, casting, and development articles I can stomach, but
I tend to wait until after screening a film to read critical
reviews. So when it came time to see "The Cell" at the Starlight
Drive-In, I didn't know anything about it except a general story
outline, what the trailer offered, and that it was #1 at the Box
Office it's opening weekend. I didn't expect much aside from visual
effects eye candy and a good time salivating over the beautiful
cast; but I had been warned that it was "the worst movie ever made."
Hard to miss that!
Let me say that it is far from the worst movie ever made. In fact,
it's not even the worst movie I've seen this month (that honor goes
to "Bless The Child"). It does suffer from gaping plot holes, lazy
acting, and typical thriller-movie stereotypes ("We need a
black character!"). And I use the term "thriller" lightly. Rather
than keep the audience in suspense, director Tarsem Singh keeps his
cast suspended by way of wires, hooks, chains, submersed in water,
whatever. Singh also uses his music video background to create a
pallet of disturbingly beautiful images that pepper the
mind-is-the-final-frontier plot. Rather than supplement the story
of a psychotherapist who literally goes into the mind of a serial
killer, these segments are relentlessly underexplained and serve no
real narrative purpose. It's as if you're watching MTV and instead
of commercials between videos, there's a movie playing. But who
goes to see "The Cell" to have the psychosis of schizophrenia
explained? This is a summer movie the way summer movies were intended:
entertaining, pretty, and enjoyable without having to think. This
is truly a no-brainer flick. Watch it to see how many videos you
recognize. We spotted art design from Nine Inch Nails, Tool, REM's
"Losing My Religion" (directed by Singh), and Nirvana's
"Heart-Shaped Box" to name a few. You'll also be treated to
imaginative costumes and Jennifer Lopez close-ups; that alone is
worthy of admission.
In other movie news, Emory is having a Japanese film fest starting
mid-September, and it's free. Check out
http://www.emory.edu/COLLEGE/FILM/calendar.html
for details.
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