0 Page 8-The Michigan Daily- Tuesday, November 19, 1991 Cliche South dulls Moon The Man in the Moon dir..Robert Mulligan by Gabriel Feldberg The Man in the Moon is a tired first kiss tale set in a banal American Southland. The film has little to say that hasn't been said be- fore; it appears to have been conceived by numbers. The plot rarely deviates from the standard end of innocence/end of summer formula. Dani (newcomer Reese Witherspoon) is 14 and some- thing of a tomboy. When the 17- year-old Court (Jason London) moves into the farm next door,Dani discovers love for the first time, and Court hardly discourages her from doing so. Court grows much colder, however, when he and Dani's older sister fall in love. Romance, as it is rendered in the film, is very conventional. The dia- logue, which includes such thread- bare lines as, "I think love should be sojbeautiful" and "What's it like to kiss a boy?", is trite and stale. It's hard to believe that director Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird, Summer of 42) would be suddenly so uninspired as to shoot young lovers running toward each other from across a field in slow motion. Syrupy violins and maudlin harps play on in the background all the while. The South of The Man in the Moon is just like the South of so many other Hollywood movies: it's all front porches and iced tea. The film's got such a Northern take on the area that no one bothered to make sure all the actors were speak- ing with the same regional accent. That the cars in the movie have Lousiana plates doesn't matter - the characters in The Man in the The South of The Man in the Moon is just like the South of so many other movies: it's all front porches and iced tea Moon are so generically Southern that they could have blended in just as easily on the set of Driving Miss Daisy or Crimes of the Heart or even Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Although it's from an original script, The Man in the Moon feels as much like a stage play as all three aforementioned adaptations. The characters talk with exaggeration. Many of the actors act at one time or another, but Witherspoon over- does each love-struck pout from start to finish. It seems no one told her that facial expressions don't have to be as big on camera as they do on stage. The Man in the Moon is not a bad movie per se. A slightly unex- pected twist toward the film's end dissolves the halcyon mood and gives it the teeth it was lacking for the first hour and a half. Sam Waterson does an excellent job in the role of Dani's father, despite the lines he's given. Unfortunately, these good points still aren't enough to salvage the picture. What makes the film so bland is that watching it feels vaguely like sitting through dozens of other movies just like it, all in a row. There's simply nothing new under the languid summer movie sun. It's not that stories of first loves are worn out - only this old version of those stories is. Even genre pictures, after all, should probably have something to distin- guish them from lemonade commer- cials and After School Specials. THE MAN IN THE MOON is playing at Showcase. CHANNELZ Did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone? And are today's investigators of John F. Kennedy's assassination as cute as Kevin Costner? Find out tonight on PBS's Nova (8 p.m., Channel 56 Detroit, 30 Toledo), which promises to explore the con- troversy via photo enhancement and 3-D computer modeling. Or if that's too serious for you, try some sweetness and light from big Chuck Bronson. "He's a Cop, She's a Thief, Together they're run- ning for their lives." Yup, it's Murphy's Law (8 p.m., Channel 50). NOTES Continued from page 5 exciting parts of American culture are derived vicariously from your struggle, at times just for survival. My introductory column said 0 that true change begins at the bottom, that the Underground is where it all starts happening. But culturally, this has more to do with the ugliest, strangest battle Ame- rica has ever fought and continues to fight - against all Americans - the one for a comfortable, if exclusive, self-identity. 'X DRUGS "Are you talking to me? Are YUU talking to MT?' Un, wait, wrong psycho. Sorry. "Come out, come out, wherever you are..." FEAR Continued from page 5 like Kathy Bates' great performance in last year's similarly-flawed Misery, DeNiro's real, gripping Max Cady is undercut as he becomes a demonized comic book villain. And for these same reasons, Cape Fear is good, but not great, even as just a thriller. To Scorsese's credit, he did manage to balance sev- eral tritely predictable mur- ders/beatings with some truly dis- turbing scenes of violence. The cam- era lingers on the gore, cancelling out any glorification or cheapness that comes with most big screen killings. Like Scorsese's best work - Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, the "Life Lessons" segment of New York Stories, and Goodfellas - Cape Fear is vivid, excessive and well- acted. But imagine Travis Bickle be- ing brought to justice by a SWAT team at the end of Taxi Driver. Or Jake LaMotta coming out of retire- ment and going the distance one more time at the end of Raging Bull, with "Eye of the Tiger" blaring in the background. Or paranoid coke- head Henry Hill being gunned down by a rival gang at the end of Goodfellas. As a great artist, Scor- sese is a great innovator, and coming from a great innovator, Cape Fear is a great disappointment. CAPE FEAR is playing at Fox Village and Showcase. L~~'I ~i mi a i aJ I Continued from page 5 whereas, granted, I do incredibly embarrassing and sexist characters on stage ... It's embarrassing for men. They don't want to admit do- ing it, and they don't want to be go- ing down that path, but I think it's worth looking at. It's the way men look at life. Men look at life in terms of accu- mulating power, and once they have enough of it, they don't need to do anything else. ... I think there's other things going on that to rye they are more interesting, where it all comes from in the first place. Fear, and trying to pull out power. Fear, it seems to me to be one of the - I mean, it's like a spiritual ; sickness. You get afraid enough and you will start moving toward things that are not really the best things for you and for other people. The things that happened in Iraq, it seems to me, are symptoms of fear that Americans have in general about their lives. I couldn't go down to the parades because they scared the shit out of me, because it was like, you know, I looked around and I thought, 'Now I know how Hitler, whatever he did, came to power. This is how it happened.' I mean, Adolf Hitler looked like Dan Quayle to most people in 1929 or '30, when he started getting serious. He was just some goob. MICHIGAN DAILY tEp ix1 Xl ieVJn ~1 i SPRING TERM IN r it ano- and your host Jeff Goad NEW HAMPSHIRE - I~IhIMI - U for more information call 763-1 107 and student comedians Toli Shabashov Eric Kurit The University of Michigan 's Office of Minority Affairs & IN HIGHER EDUCATION presents IN HIGHER EDUCATION: CAN WE MEET THE CHALLENGE? 01 Order of Omega The returning members of Epsilon Lambda Chapter NEW ENGLAND LIEITATRE PROGRAM Earn credit as you study Thoreau, Emerson, Frost, Hawthorne. in their native habitat. - MASS MEETING & SLIDE SHOW- Thursday, November 21 st 8:00p.m. Aud. C Angell Hall FOR FURTHER INFORMATION. CALL 761-9579 VIDEOCONFEREN CE Wednesday, November 20th, 1991 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. Location: Kellogg Auditorium Dental School, Rm G005 Ann Arbor Campus This live, interactive videocor B R nference will Chad Costley Jeff Ehrlich Jordan Herzberg Alex Koff Derek Maroto Christopher Neff Joseph Regan Mark Sims Sunil Trivedi Wendi Adams Jill Alpert Susan Fox Lauren Goldstein Tracy Goode Shira Goodman Laura Hollister Melissa Kaufman Katy Kendell Barbara Klein Julie Klugman Deborah Knitt Laura Linn Alicia Lowery Jamie Moser Brigid Palmer Geula Ravich Michele Randolph Amy Reider Lindsey Selan Tanya Skorina Erika Soby Julie Younglove examine and clarify the issues that divide, and will deliver concrete strategies for resolving th . VIA Satellite!! :hese conflicts. Admission is free r Would like to welcome its new members, 1991-1992 Juniors Maria Anagnos Tanya Benenson Rachel Blum LaShawn Boyce Cheryl Cains Andrea Chomakos Holly Dalman Melissa Deutsch W. Edward Elwood Melissa Emery Orlando Evans Kristine Foss Michael Fox Carrie Friedman Melissa Furman Michael Gershowitz Christine Harbaugh Lara Hays Rhonda Hohlfeld Robert Hutchman Jim Hutton Locher Dana Jacobson Brad Jaros Kristen Jennings Julie Kemp Rebecca Lash Marni Levine Jocelyn Lupert Joleen Minneman Jennifer Miriani Djenba Mitchell C. Lynette Morgan Melissa Nickles Kevin Nowan Nicole Ortsman Elizabeth Palmer Matt Prevast Elisa Rodriguez Stuart Rosenberg Daniel Rudolph Deborah Schneider Elizabeth Sieber Jared Silverman Ranuit Singh Lisa Tafuri R. Polk Wagner Eryn Weber ' I - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --I 'S *1 'x P v I, t I .1 I ;1 .1 1I' 1 1 '1 Seniors Sanjeev Acharya Amy Ames Nichol Bakalar Scott Bergman Heidi Betz Amy Bingaman Charles Bletsas Nancy Bloch John Bowen Allison Buck Matt Commers Jennifer Corney Amy Hagen Manda Hakimi Lisa Harrell Franz Herbert Kay C. Hope Mark Kalinowski Debbie Kleban Matthew Kleiman Lisa Kroon Kate LaPorte Kevin Livingston Daniel Mathisson Michael Rice Brendon Riley Craig Robison Kristin Rohrbach Jim Round Monik Sanghvi Jeff Sarafa Kimberly Schlaff Adhir Shroff Steven Simoncic Emily Singer George Snow THIS SUMMER, YOU CAN... " Choose fron over 1,000 courses. " Study with a distinguished faculty. " Live in Greenwich Village for as little as $100 per six-week session. / r r > - 7 !~'~ - Make the NYU Summer rNew York University part of your year- '25 West Fourth Street S a I-- y -11.year- Room 63 -- I