The Michigan Daily - Wue4c, e. - Thursday, March 28, 1996- 3B Despite blood and gore, 'Seven' a polished horror classic DEAN BAKOPOULOS Sound and Fury J'omrAtler. Space to rezt This weekend I turned on the TV. First istake. Then I sat down on the couch. nd mistake. I was sucked in, stuck there in front the old picture box, my basest intellectual capacities and my lowest senses all stimulated in a fury of orgiastic fluffiness. And when you spend tan entire Saturday with friend TV, you're going to come away insulted. My problem was with a commercial I saw for Mercedes Benz automobiles. It had the niftiest little ditty to it, a little jingle #at went something like this: "O Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz? My friends all drive Porsches I must make amends. Worked hard all my life, no help from my friends, So, O Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz." Now unless you have completely blocked out the fact that there ever was a decade called the 1960s (read: unless ou're a Republican) you recognize this 7whittle tune as part of the late, great Janis Joplin's repertoire. I don't think Joplin ever owned a Mercedes, though she did own a Porsche, and she may have vomited in one at some point, but that's irrelevant. I'm just not sure she would exactly be pleased with the way her stepsister sold over the rights to the song. The song "Mercedes Benz" is a wry, sarcastic look at the materialistic world of akmerican business culture, the people who measure success in terms of cars owned, vacations taken, etc. Worst of all, it is a send-up of people who judge each other's value based on monetary success. Basically, it is a send up of the people who would never give two bits about what Joplin did for her career, or for what any artist did for a career for that matter. Joplin was a queen of the anti- establishment culture in the late '60s. oud, raucous and under the influence, she paid no attention to social norms or aexpectations. Yes, her behavior and " addictions ended up killing her; hers was not a lifestyle for emulation. But her message in "Mercedes Benz" was loud and clear: Money doesn't buy happiness. Still the dipshits at Mercedes Benz and Madison Avenue don't get the point, apparently, because they plugged the song into their TV ad. That's like using a song alled "Let's Kill Dolphins" for Starkist Tuna or a "Fruit Chews suck"jingle for Starbursts Candy. What the folks who designed the ad want you to believe is the antithesis to Joplin's song. They want you to believe that a Mercedes Benz is a reward for all your hard work. But what they really mean is the following: A Mercedes Benz is a sign that says, "Look at you. Look at me. Look at my car Look at your car. Look at my car, ain. Ha ha sucker, that's what you get for getting a stupid liberal arts degree." A Mercedes Benz is a sign that you've kissed enough ass, lost enough friends and stabbed enough backs to make six figures a year. Well, congratulations. Somewhere a poor stiff in an Armani suit, who once heard a Janis Joplin LP at a frat party while sipping a rich pseudo-beer like Sam Adams, is singing to himself: "O, Lord won't you send me a sucker for Benz? My quotas are rising, I must make amends. Thought of money all my life, now I have no friends, O Lord, help me sell, this Mercedes Benz." The grotesque distortion of an artist's work to sell a product is nothing new. The Beatles' "Revolution" was used to sell Nikes. (Hey, the University bought into *t.) The Mick Jagger/Keith Richards track "Wild Horses" is being used to peddle Busch beer. But what's most annoying about the use of Joplin's song is the fact that she is dead, and the integrity of her art is all that she has left. Joplin didn't really want to help sell a damn Mercedes. But the commercial underscores a bigger social phenomenon. There's a distinct dichotomy of thought at work ere. There's a business culture and an artist culture at work in America, and they don't like each other and they don't fit together. When their paths cross it comes off as vulgar, disrespectful. Someday, I imagine I'll be watching TV with my kids, and we'll hear Kurt Cobain's gravelly angsty voice By Christopher Corbett Daily Arts Writer Remember when you went to see "Seven?" During the ride there, you probably thought of one of the seven deadly sins that your friend (who already saw the film) told you was cool. You thought, "Yeah, so? It'll be just like 'Silence of the Lambs."' And then when you actually saw the fat man in the film, you believed your friend who told you that it turned her popcorn into cream-of-popcorn. The serial killer in "Seven" kept the fat man chained to a table, forced his face into a bowl full of mush. Naked, the victim looked more like a doughy hot-air balloon than he did a man. You could practically smell the foul, sour stench of his apartment with him rotting in there. You could practically see the cockroaches scrambling all over the slop and the vomit he choked on. After nearly hurling at seeing the fat man, we went and told other people to go see the film - so they could feel as pukey as we did. The word-of-mouth about the outrageous film became the main reason for its success. The film didn't explode in the first week and a half and then fizzle like most blockbusters. Instead, it chilled and kicked back at the No. I spot for five weeks last fall, helping push it to the $100 million mark. Yes, we were surprised (and maybe relieved) that Brad Pitt didn't have any butt-shots in the film. But we enjoyed it even more because it relished in its own ghoulishness. Think of the drug dealer, who chewed off his own tongue, whose brain was mush and who resembled a skeleton; he leaped up from his bed after being imprisoned there for a year because he committed the sin of sloth. Because we and our friends thought he was dead, we jumped and felt like hurling, yet again. Director David Fincher ("Alien 3") proved he could make more people gag than Six Flags. He pushes us into the gloom of "Seven" and holds us there until a monstrous moment comes running up to take a chomp out of us. In a perverse way, we bought the tickets to see "Seven" because we wanted. to feel scared. We looked forward to seeing the dementedly imaginative way Fincher was going to kill off the other victims; we wanted to see how the person guilty of pride, or lust, would die, just as we would look at a carwreck on the highway. Fincher stirred our curiosity and then satisfied it ... big time. "Seven" was one of the few films last year that gave us our money's worth. We could see that the filmmakers were not pasting some formulaic fluff together, but were as creative and imaginative as'possible. To be sure, "Seven" is not as scary as an "Exorcist," but it packs more of a punch than a "Silence of the Lambs," thanks to a faceless killer who darts down dark apartment hallways and rain- mare. The characters, tiny black smudges on the screen, are knee-deep in rust-colored prairie grass that seems ready to drown them. We then see a truck speeding down the dirt road at a maniacal speed, dust pluming behind it, the horrible fate of one of the main characters rampaging toward us like that truck. We haven't seen sequences like these anywhere before. The model, guilty of pride, lays on her bed with the telephone glued to one hand and a bottle of pills in the other--hernose missing. Later, the man strapped to the bed, wearing the dildo of death, cries, having killed the prostitute who was guilty of lust. The film becomes a euphoric, polished house-of-horrors. "Seven," in all its loathsome splendor, shapes up as perhaps the best film of last year. This movie is about those moments that you'll never forget. Or, as someone said, "You gotta see 'Seven' - and remember, the fat man. Uhhhh ..." Also on video: "Crumb" - The documentary about the genius who created "Fritz the Cat." Many critics chose "Crumb" as last year's best film, but a few have recently pointed out that "Crumb" is a tad thin on exploring Robert Crumb's artistic abilities and muse. Life is meaningless now. "Mallrats" - Two words are going to make you curl your hands into fists and bare your teeth: Shannon Doherty. Boo! Hiss! Death to the Skeezer! "Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" - Insanely jealous of Balto, who has wormed his way into the hearts of many young kids, Winnie has hog-tied and gagged his archrival in hopes of reclaiming some of his lost popularity. "Theremin" - Another documentary, it tells the story of a man named Leon Theremin who created a device in the shape of a box that helped bring sound effects to several films. One at a time, in an orderly fashion! There are enough copies to go around! No bloodshed! No chaotic riff-raff, please! Coming next week to video: My name is Brad Pitt. You killed my father. Prepare to die. drenched alleys like a demon. "Seven" did what so few movies do today - it delivered. Fincher, who at one time was directing videos (like Madonna's "Vogue"), painted a terrifyingly beautiful picture of the Armageddon- like world of "Seven." We see filthy, black-as-night apartments with glowing red crosses on dressers, litter-strewn alleys and grainy, claus- trophobic police offices, hospitals and restaurants. We see a slick, run- down world that threatens to smother its characters. The climactic scene in "Seven" seems to have.been shot in a night- Balto Devil In a Blue Dress Home for the Holidays Persuasion Strange A fl,4 Stone: Making it in T seltown By Ryan Posly Daily Arts Writer Making a name for yourself in Hol- lywood has never been easy. It takes dedication, looks, a little bit of talent and a whole lot of luck. Oh ... and taking your panties off can't hurt ei- ther. Sharon Stone will' forever be re- membered for uncrossing her legs in front of Michael Douglas and his po- lice cronies in "Basic Instinct," bar- ing all to them - and us. Up until late last year, it seemed like Stone would never be able to shake the image of herself as the bisexual, ice pick-wield- ing, seductive Catherine Tramell. Though she tried, audiences were not interested in seeing her play against type, and her thin performances couldn't change their minds. That all changed with "Casino." A generally overwrought and unoriginal film, its greatest redeeming quality is Stone's portrayal of a former Vegas prostitute who becomes the wife of Robert DeNiro's Mafia-controlled ca- sino manager. This was no easy feat: She had to stand out against DeNiro and Joe Pesci, who were working with their Godfather, Martin Scorsese. Stone man- aged to create the most shaded, three- dimensional performance of her career. Ginger McKenna is a woman so ob- sessed with money that she marries DeNiro's Ace Rothstein, despite the fact that she is incapable of ever loving him. After their marriage, she slips deeper and deeper into the abyss of drug addiction and depression. Her quiet moments are just as dramatic and fasci- nating as her tirades and tantrums, and she is always precariously balancing on the line between sympathetic heroine and irritating bitch. It is a marvelous performance. And for the first time, Stone, 38, is getting real recognition. Though her name was not called when the envelope was opened Monday night, her Acad- emy Award nomination was the cherry on top of her recent critical success, a back-patting that included winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Dra- matic Actress in January. Afteryears of limiting herself to poorly written roles in mediocre films, Stone was finally given a chance with "Casino" to prove that she can be much more than a one- note femme fatale. The amazing thing about Stone's ca- reer is that she has remained a huge star, despite the fact that she has only helmed one true blockbuster. Born in Meadville, Penn., she studied creative writing and fine arts at Edinboro College and has been described by many colleagues as one of the most intelligent stars in Hol- lywood. After winning several local beauty pageants, Stone moved to New York to begin a modeling career, hawking such products as Diet Coke and Ford cars. She got her film debut in 1980 from Woody Allen in his "Stardust Memo- ries." Though she was on screen for less than 10 seconds, blowing a kiss to Woody from a train, she had already cemented her status as male fantasy. For the next 10 years, Stone plodded her way through numerous television movies and low-budget films that you've probably never heard of. The highlight of this phase was her deft comic turn in "Irreconcilable Differ- ences," but she also stooped as low as "Police Academy 4" and "Action Jack- son." Her first role to gain public attention came in 1990, as Arnold Schwarzenegger's dangerously asser- tive wife in "Total Recall." The charac- ter was complete camp, and Stone man- aged it well enough: Now sexy, now deadly, now funny, now dead at the hands of a "divorce" - Arnold style. "Total Recall"'s director, Dutch-boy Paul Verhoeven, gave Stone her star- making role two years later in "Basic Instinct." Her portrayal of Catherine Tramell was a stroke of feminist ge- nius, getting men so hot and horny that they didn't realize they were being used and overpowered. She was every man's fantasy turned into their worst night- mare - a sort of black widow spider. Except she didn't wait until after sex to kill her mate, she'd whip out the ice pick in mid-coitus and reciprocate his penetration in her own way. But despite the fact that this was essentially a strong female role, women began despising Stone because of her unabashed sexuality, seeing her as "the slut from that soft-porn." True, "Basic Instinct" was an explicit movie, and the interrogation scene, no matter how hard Stone insists that she was manipulated into it by Verhoeven, will force her to forever live in pantiless infamy. But the weight of Stone's perfor- mance should not be discounted. She upstaged Michael Douglas, turning him into a walking pile of Jell-O in her presence. She even upstaged the camera itself with her frighteningly seductive performance, one that was generally overlooked - other than a Golden Globe nomination and the prestigious "Most Desirable Female" MTV Movie Award. Stone's next role did nothing to decrease that image. "Basic Instinct"'s screenwriter, the overrated and un- dersexed Joe Eszterhas, seems to have created the lead in "Sliver" just for her. This time, Stone got to mastur- bate in a bathtub and hand her panties over (in a restaurant) to William Baldwin. But there's nothing inter- esting for her to do here; she is no longer the temptress, but the hapless victim, the same sort of problem she encountered in subsequent films. In "Intersection," Stone played the Sharon Stone takes a role in the hay with Robert DeNiro in "Casino" betrayed wife of Richard Gere instead of, more appropriately, his mistress. In "The Specialist," she is forced to "act" alongside Sylvester Stal lone, as ifthat's possible. And in "The Quick and the Dead," which she co-produced, Stone plays it sad while Sam Raimi's quick- witted satire is going on all around her. This recent string of failures makes one wonder how Sharon Stone main- tains her star status at all. And it makes her turn in "Casino" all the more pleasantly surprising. It was clear that Stone had talent, but her audience was beginning to wonder whether she would ever be given an opportunity to show it again. With "Casino," she has seemingly launched a whole new career for herself, that o a serious, versatile actress. In herlat est film, "Diabolique," she revamp: her dangerously sexy persona, but shl goes for broke in Bruce Beresford'. upcoming "Last Dance," in which sh plays an inmate on death row, replet with Southern accent. After earning only $300,000 for "Ba sic Instinct," Sharon Stone now com *mands a $6 million salary and owns he own production company, Chaos. SI has gone from bit player for her looks', Oscar nominee for her talent. It seen like she can finally shake off the ba, gage of her femme fatale image and g down to some serious acting. An frankly, it's about time. U Please return by April 4th to the Daily at 420 Maynard, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. Results will be printed on! April 18th in the Best of Ann Arbor issue of Weekend. 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