RTS Save 'Woman' for late night TV Curve, supporting their latest album, "Cuckoo," play St. Andrew's tonight. 'urvIin' UpWaward By CAMILO FONTECILLA It seems as if "A Dangerous Woman," despite its threatening title is condemned to be the tamest movie Hollywood has churned out since the be- ginning of the decade. Naomi Foner's script ap- proaches a potentially fascinating character - a slow-minded, clumsy but fiery-tempered woman - and then proceeds to drown her in a plot so A Dangerous Woman Directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal; written by Naomi Foner; with Debra Winger, Barbara Hershey and Gabriel Byrne. muddy and inconsequential that not even the star talent boasted here can save the film from com- plete collapse. Martha (Debra Winger) is this woman. She lives under the custody of her aunt Frances (Bar- bara Hershey), a secretary to a local political figure who she's also having an affair with. The film opens with the tempestuous arrival of the politician's wife, who drives right into Frances' porch in a bout of drunken jealousy, armed with a gun and ready to kill her unfaithful spouse. All this leads to almost nothing except for the fact that Frances' porch is completely wrecked. Along comes Mackey (Gabriel Byrne), a smooth- talking handyman who takes the job of repairing the porch despite being turned away by Frances not once but twice. It is through Martha that he obtains the job, softening her with vacuous com- I1~..1 v pliments and thus beginning a really eerie seduc- tion. Martha, having never before been adulated in such a way, is taken completely in. Unfortunately, the audience is not. Why Mackey seduces Martha is a complete mystery to the viewer's mind. Foner tries her best to justify it by showing us that a) he's drunk and b) he's fascinated by the fact that she remains untouched by other men. Byrne's vain struggle to make Mackey's eloquence interesting simply gives the scene a patheticism that's unfortunately more laughable than touching. It's not his fault. "A Dangerous Woman" spends three quarters of its running time establishing three things: that Martha is shunned by the rest of society, that Frances is a total bitch and that Mackey is a completely undefined character. But Foner's inscrutably dull text brings us around and around in circles that are too slow to even make us dizzy. The film becomes so sidetracked that it almost forgets to climax, and when it does it's just so silly, that despite the bloodshed, it gets grins instead of gasps. Somewhere along the line, Foner decides to make Mackey have sex with Frances. This time she's so drunk that she slips to the ground, bring- ing down a set of dishes. Among the smashed pieces of ceramic, she and Mackey consummate with bloody hands an unexplored relationship, as Martha overhears from above. Despite this scene having no bearing whatsoever on the develop- ment of the plot, or on Martha's attitude toward her ward and her lover, it is still quite haunting. This scene, however, is not enough to salvage the film. Debra Winger tries her darndest to make Martha's eccentricities credible. But she's trying so hard that one can see right through them. Winger's constant experimentation with new form makes Martha as wavering as her story, but she does have her moments of brilliance. Namely when she's not being forced to speak Foner's words. Barbara Hershey is restricted to frowning and bossing people around, so she comes across as interesting as week-old pizza (which she also manages to look like). Gabriel Byrne gets cheated into the worst dialogue of the film, and it really doesn't appear that he's trying too hard to make it acquire life. Of course, resurrection is too much to demand even of the best actors. During his drunk scenes,he falls down more often than comic repetition should allow; one can almost sense that he is actually dropping out of boredom. And Foner, near the end, has the gall to demand sympathy for his character, after having refused for two hours to fet him say anything interesting. This movie tries to tackle ten different issues and gets nothing but flattened by them. Director Stephen Gyllenhaal makes no effort to thread together all the loose ends in Foner's script and seems to delight in bringing almost each and every one of her scenes to a standstill. This is the sort of movie that should have passed through the the- aters without collecting a dime and gone straight to our TV screens. On a very, very late night showing. A DANGEROUS WOMAN is playing at Showcase Cinemas. By TOM ERLEWINE With their swirling mass of guitars, dance beats and enchanting vocals, Curve first appears to fall into any number of categories - shoe-gazing, club music and straight, noisy rock & roll. Yet, Curve belongs to no particular genre, preferring to combine different elements from all sorts of modern rock, producing a galvanizing rush of sound that is distinctly their own. At the core of Curve are vocalist Toni Halliday and Dean Garcia, who plays a multitude of instruments. Halliday had been singing in bands since she was the age of 11. On a television program, she caught the attention of Dave Stewart, who was currently in the Tourists and gestating the Eurythmics. Through Stewart, she met Garcia, who was a session bassist at the time. The two recorded a few singles under Halliday's name and formed a band, State of Play, that went nowhere. After some prodding from Halliday, Garcia decided to give it another try and the duo recorded their debut EP, "Blindfold," which garnered enormous atteition from the British press. Since then, "it's been a bit of ~a blur, actually," says Garcia. After the initial release of "Blindfold" in 1991, Curve has been remarkably prolific, recording three EPs and an album, "Doppelganger" in the course of one year (the EPs have been released in America as the "Pubic Fruit" compilation). "Doppelganger" was dark, claustrophobic, guitar-dominated album; Halliday's beautiful, entrancing vocals should have provided some relief, but instead intensified the power of the music. Because it was released at the tail-end of the shoe-gazing craze in England, Curve was lumped into that scene, but in reality, their ambitions have been much higher, as their new album, "Cuckoo" proves. "We tried to get away from'Doppelganger' as much as possible-just take the good elements of it," explained Garcia. "We like it very much, but it was like a closing of a chapter. We had done three EPs and'Doppelganger' and that was like the first chapter. We wanted to close it off and just take certain elements which are bound to be there anyway, butjust expand it and try to write better songs." On all accounts, "Cuckoo" fulfills Curve's ambitions. It is simultaneously more forceful and atmospheric, and their sound hangs on some well-crafted songs, particularly "Left of Mother," "Missing Link" and "Tur- key Crossing." "Cuckoo" was more carefully crafted than its predecessors. "We spent more time in the studio, our own studio, than on the last one," said Garcia. All of the extra time has resulted in some fascinating sonic treats, like the 20 overdubbed acoustic guitars on "Left of Mother" or the sheer force of the rhythm section throughout the album. "When we wanted to record drums, we went to the church and recorded them in the kitchen and in the lift, and things like that," said Garcia. "I'm not interested in poxy old drum sounds, really. I like something that's got a good character to it. Even if it's only one mic and it sounds like a piece of shit, at least it's got character." Currently supporting "Cuckoo" with a tour of the United States, Curve hits St. Andrew's in Detroit tonight. "We played there once before, actually," said Garcia. "It was the first gig of that tour, it was the first time we ever came into America. That was the first show we ever did here and everybody was quite nervous. We didn't play well." This time, Curve arrives in Detroit mid-way through their tour, well-prepared and ready to take Detroit by storm. Curve will play St. Andrew 's tonight, with special guests, Engines of Aggression. Doors open at 8 p.m., tickets are $8.50 in advance. And, of course, it's an 18 & over show. WHO HATWH ERE WHEN Holiday Choral Festival If you're looking for some music to get you in the spirit of the season, we've got just the solution for you. The Men's Glee Club, the Women's Glee Club and the Arts Chorale come together for the first time in history; in an evening of holiday music. Featured will be Benjamin Britten's "Ceremony of Carols" and the premiere of "Sicilian Muses," a work by University Professor/Director of Choirs Theodore Morrison. Each choir will perform its own set of songs, and then as a special treat, the three choirs will come together to sing John Rutter's exuberant "Gloria," conducted by Men's Glee Club director Jerry Blackstone. Theodore Morrison conducts Women's Glee, and Jonathan Hirsh conducts Arts Chorale. It's not every- day that three choirs of this caliber come together, and there's no telling; when it will happen next. So you won't want to miss this choral music; extravaganza. And since it's free, you have no excuse. The excitement starts at 8 p.m. at Hill on Thursday. Back to their Roots Ann Arbor's industrial/psychedelic artists Morsel are the latest in a long line of local bands to be snapped up by the big-time. After months of touring and rave reviews all across the country, they've returned to play a show for their fans back in their hometown. Catch this rare treat at the Performance Network tonight at 9 p.m. Tickets are just $5 in advance. Call 994-0525 for more information. Ice Cube Lethal Injection Priority Records Snoop Doggy Dogg Doggystyle Deathrow/lnterscope Records Forget Public Enemy, the most influential group in hip-hop is N.W.A. After the epochal "Straight Outta Compton" in 1988, the group stumbled into self-parody, but with that album, they set the style and image for gangsta rap, a style they both epitomized and unintentionally parodied. Other forms of rap may gain some media attention, but it is gangsta rap that continues to sell by the millions. Instead of everyone lis- tening to Arrested Development clones or the emergin jazz-hip-hop fusion, everyone continued to buy gangsta rap. Even marginal artists like Scarface have shot to the top of the charts. The reason why is Dr. Dre. Dr. Dre' s "The Chronic" is the most influential hip-hop album of this young decade. "The Chronic" marked hard-core rap's evolution from the harsh, jarring sonic collages of N.W.A., Boogie Down Productions and Public Enemy to a slow, grooving P-Funk-inspired beats yet the stories never changed. In the context of the lazy funk, the gangsta boast fall some- what flat, although the music itself is quite great. Still, gangsta rap's lyrics have grown static -- every song has the same thrust, none of them offers any new insights. Once, gangsta rap was a danger- ous, innovative force in pop culture but its message has ceased to be po- litical, choosing to emphasize the car- toonist aspect of the violent postur- ing. Although the music on "The Chronic" marked a change in gangsta rap, nothing in its message had changed. More so than at any other point in its history, the quality of a hip-hop record is now judged on the strength of the music and the rapper's verbal skills, not what they say. And "The Chronic" also marked an important change on this point. On the album, Dr. Dre introduced Snoop Doggy Dogg, the only artist to ever become a super-star without an al- bum to his name. "The Chronic" was Snoop's album as much as it was Dre - he wrote and rapped on nearly 70 percent of it. For all intents and pur- poses, "Doggystyle" is the sequel to "The Chronic," and "Doggystyle," for all intents and purposes, is the same album as "The Chronic." On both albums, Dr. Dre's production is the star; he can make anything sound good, no matter who is rapping. And a lot of different people rap. For much of the album Snoop is on the sidelines - much like Dre himself on "The Chronic." Dre's lack of a presence didn't hurt his album because Snoop is a markedly better rapper than Dre - his lazy, stoned drawl can save the weakest track. Unfortunately, Snoop needed to make a larger presence than he does on "Doggystyle" in order to distin- guish it from "The Chronic." At its best, the album floats by on its copped George Clinton beats and effortless hooks. Even so, "Doggystyle" feels like a retread. Apart from the halluci- natory "Murder Was the Case (Death After Visualizing Eternity)," the al- bum says nothing, preferring to stick to near-parodic lists of boasts and disses; it is literally, "Nuthin' But A G Thang." "The Chronic"'s influence was so strong that Dre's old N.W.A. cohort, Ice Cube, has taken many of its stron- gest points to heart on his new album, "Lethal Injection." Where 1991's "Death Certificate" was a noisy, bru- tal call to arms, "Lethal Injection" continues the slow decline of one of hip-hop's strongest poets that began with last year's "The Predator." Like "The Predator," "Lethal Injection" sounds great on the surface but when you dig a little deeper, there's not much there. "What Can I Do?" and "Down for Whatever" prove that Cube hasn't lost his gift for incisive, realis- tic narratives and portraits but too much of the album is weighted down by disturbingly misogynist and sim- plistic, race-baiting lyrics. Occasionally, Ice Cube cops Cy- press HIll's stoned groove but most of "Lethal Injection" pays homage to Clinton's P-Funk by way of Dr. Dre - "Bop Gun," Cube's rewrite of Funkadelic's "One Nation Under A Groove" is closer to "Let Me Ride" than the original version. Instead of moving forward as he did with his first two solo albums, Cube is in re- treat, following instead of leading. Taken together, "Doggystyle" and "Lethal Injection" mark gangstarap's state-of-the-art. While both albums pack some undeniable visceral plea- sures, in the end both rappers are talking loud and saying nothing. And that's a damn shame. - Tom Erlewine Erick Sermon No Pressure Def Jam/Ral/Chaos/Columbia If Erick Sermon hadn't been on EPMD's first two albums ("Strictly Business" and "Unfinished Busi- ness") this album would be a nice solo attempt. The beats are solid, the bass lines scary and E's little goofy rhyme style is still nice. But when Erick starts off his al- bum with "P:ayback II" a sequel to the 1989 classic, you realize that the elements of the past which made EPMD good - slow-flow melodic samples and perfectly executed scratches from K La Boss or DJ Scratch - are all gone. How can I diss the album? It's OK, it's got a few gems like "Imma Gitz Mine", "The Ill Shit" (with Kam and Ice Cube) and "All In the Mind" (although the chanting is tired) but I gotta say things have changed, it just ain't the same. Here's hoping P's solo attempt will get back to what EPMD was before their business went out like the nice weather. -- Dustin Howes 13 I Tuesday Live Jazz 10:00pm-12:00pm tE a Foster's Pitchers only $5.25 9:00pm-Close Make Ashley's Your Spot On State! 338 S. State 996-9191 7- 7-.7 - j Interested in Bilotechnology? The Cellular Biotechnology Training Program will offer Cellular Biotechnology 504 in the Winter '94 term. opics covered include cellular communication, cellular energetics, bioremeditation, production of bioactive molecules, biosensors, and engineering reactor design. P rerequisites: Introductory course in Biology and Biochemistry Read ~E~mW uidLmwe " l/LowMec t'~m mf.rtra " r tr AI erft c I I i