10 - The Michigan Daily -- Friday, November 22, 1996 Streisand flaunts her dii By Ryan Pouty For the Daily Barbra Streisand once referred to herself as "can actress who sings." Given her outstanding career as one of the biggest actresses and singers in show business, this comment may be the understatement of her life. Unfortunately for her, it is exactly Streisand's superstar- dom that has caused a backlash against her by many people. Her most recent concert tour, R E for instance, in which she Th charged exorbitant sums for Th4 nosebleed seats, lost Streisand many of the fans who perhaps At B were not in her core base of upper-middle class devotees. Her new film, "The Mirror Has Two Faces," continues to focus on the elites of society, but it should do much to lighten Streisand's image and plant her firmly in the role of "a filmmaker who also acts and sings." The film pairs Streisand with the highly likable Jeff Bridges in the most unconventional of love stories - up until the end, anyway. She is an English professor at Columbia University; he is a math professor there. She suffers from a major self-esteem problem, caused by her lack of stunning beauty and a mother constant- ly reminding her of it; he suffers from an inextin- guishable libido and a desire for something more intellectually stimulating out of a woman. Together they form the most bizarre relationship - one that is based, at least for him, on a complete lack of physical attraction. Of course. we know that this changes by the end of the film, but the W ay in which it does so marks a sig- nificant - and problematic -- break from the attitude of the rest of the film. We hope to see the film main- tain the idea that Gregory (Bridges) could be physi- cally attracted to Rose (Streisand) based on his emo- tional and intellectual attraction VIEW e Mirror Has Two Faces Briarwood and Showcase that he is in love to her and despite her (sup- posed) physical flaws. Instead, Rose undergoes a physical transformation a la a ridiculous "Rocky"-like train- ing montage. Only after Rose becomes more traditionally beautiful does Gregory realize with her. Fortunately, while the audi- ecting ace the perfect man except for his refusal to become phys. ically intimate with Rose. H is performance is loud and stanimering, which might annoy som people, but it is also greatly endearing. Outstan ding support is provided by a talented cast relegated to minuscule roles. Lauren Bacall is scathing as Rose's mother, an aging diva herself who knew how it felt to be beautiful but never experienced true love like her daughter. The pseudo-reconciliation scene between Bacall and Streisand is one of the film's highlights. Mimi Rogers and Pierce Brosnan, as Rose's sister and brother-in-law / dream man, respec tively, make the most of their flat characters, and George Segal supplies the most laughs in his tiny rol as Gregory's friend. But the real star here is Streisand the director, who shows an incredibly deft hand for comedy in addition to her already proven filmmaking craftsmanship. As in "The Prince of Tides," she uses all the elements of filn - especially editing and composition - to invoke aw emotional impact without seeming to show off or break any conventions of Hollywood cinema. This places her neatly in the Sydney Pollack school of filmmaking, which is to say that Streisand can finally rest assured that she has gained the respect as a director that she deserved five years ago with "The Prince of Tides." Despite any rumors of Streisand's dictatorial approach to direction, "The Mirror Has Two Faces' is an enjoyable, engaging and highly entertaining lool R academic love through the eyes of "an actress who sings." it ence may be rolling their eyes at this silly turn of events, it is actually underplayed and soon forgotten in light of the wonderful finale. Despite being too long and overextended by turns such as this, Streisand and screenwriter Richard LaGravenese ("The Bridges of Madison County") have fashioned an extremely enjoyable story about love, beauty and all forms of attraction. Perhaps the most surprising thing about the film is that it is, in fact, a comedy - albeit a romantic one. It turns out that Barbra is a terrific comedienne, handling physical comedy like a pro and allowing her diva image to be marred by the frumpy character of Rose. Bridges has created a charmingly academic character, seemingly Barbra Streisand takes another shot at directing in "The Mirror Has Two Faces." i CURTIS Continued from Page 8 or sometimes just reading a book or newspaper - something that touches you personally. You know, we have our experiences and our imagination, and in the realm of all that comes an endless play of songs. Still, my relationship to my songs change as my life experiences do." From her debut album, songs like "Hole in the Bucket," which Curtis wrote "because of the frustrations of working in social. services" give her feelings about the way society wrongly treats its members et times. But her music can also have personal leanings. "Grandmother's Name," the tale of an elderly woman dying with Alzheimer's disease, exemplifies this. "My grandmother died a couple of years ago with Altzheimer's, but I wrote this song before then," Curtis said. "I thought I could get through the funeral because I'd sung this song so many times. But I was crying, and everyone else was crying. It was awful." Curtis, whose latest album, "Truth from Lies" - is also her first release under EMI records, looks forward to how this new partnership will change the way in which future songs are writ- ten and performed. "I think that in the next record we'll step back from simplistic music and allow other kinds of instrumental ization to happen' she said. "But I think I can still make my music intimate. My songs will remain lyric oriented. I'm not going to let my soul get buried in this whole alternative thing, but I do feel there is room for experimentation." Curtis plans to perform songs from both her prior albums, as well as new music she's putting together for her next album. by HUNTER S. THOMPSON Commemorating the 25th anniversary of the release with a unique dramatic adaptation that defined a generation. Soul Coughing exhales in Detroit' I r. j ''.... t rw. By Anders Smith-LIndall For the Daily Since the release of its 1995 debut album, "Ruby Vroom," and continuing through and beyond last spring's release of the follow-up "Irresistible Bliss," Soul Coughing has toured relentlessly. Tonight, the band's almost non-stop barnstorm- ing brings it to the Majestic in Detroit. To attempt to explain Soul Coughing in a nutshell is an unenviable task. The New York quartet's sound is nearly impossible to encapsulate. In a recent interview with The Michigan Daily, drummer Yuval Gabay, when pressed toP define his band, laughed, "I'll leave that and let you struggle. It makes for a $ more interesting write-up" True: The group splatters the influences of hip- o'clock at hop, jazz, rock, pop, dance and spoken- word across its songs like Jackson Pollock did colors on a canvas. Frontman M. Doughty's lyrics range from cinematic narra- tive to beat poetry to alliterative nonsense. Gabay lays down snappy, complex rhythms supplemented by Sebastian Steinberg's pulsating upright bass (according to Gabay, Steinberg's biggest influence is the New York City subway - he wants to sound like a train). Sprinkled liberally within it all are Mark De Gli Antoni's samples: Song snippets from jazz to Tori Amos and sounds from seagulls to subways are likely to pop up anywhere and everywhere. Together, the four create a groove-laden, streetwise and remarkably cohesive combo platter that is equal parts impressionism, musical channel-surfing and organized aural chaos. Moods range from the laid-back, ultracool tones of "Lazybones" and "Sugar Free Jazz" to the frenetic "Bus to Beelzebub" and "Super Bon Bon," and everywhere in between. Sometimes different moods exist within the same song, as in the jaw-dropping debut single from "Ruby Vroom," "True Dreams of Wichita." Gabay likened the band's sound to Lucky Charms cereal: "Because of the sweetness and the variety of colors, not to mention the sugar rush!" Critical acclaim and a hip national following have come rather quickly to the group, which was formed more than four years ago in a small New York club called the Knitting Factory. Doughty worked as a doorman there and the others played regularly with other bands. "Doughty was doing his guitar, singy-songy thing at the time. He managed to book a gig for, like, Tuesday at 3 in the morning," Gabay recalled. E Wit 9t tit Doughty, who had heard and met Steinberg and Gabay when they played the club, asked the two to back him. He also invited De Gli Antoni because he "knew he had a sam- pIer," Gabay said. "I said, 'Hmm, why not?' Doesn't seem like I had anything better to do on Tuesday at three in the morning." And thus Soul Coughing came together for the first time. The group gigged sporadically for six months befor* deciding to officially band together. It took its name "from' a friend who used that term for throwing up one day," Gabay said. "Doughty VI EW actually wrote a poem about that that nobody liked - except the title" ui Coughing In those early days, the band began h Failure. Tonight at 9 to develop a reputation as an energetic he Majestic in Detroit. and adventurous live act, a trait that is been the foundation of much of its cur- rent popularity. "We played in a lot of small venues in New York when we were starting out, and i was more based on, you know, like having a party," Gaba said. "I think we have tried to maintain that vibe as much as we can. Even though we play in much, much bigger rooms now, (we) still try to make that same kind of a fun, paty' atmosphere. It just really makes everybody feel that they't- on the inside; you know, audience and band. And that's important for us to keep it that way. "We're really working at the grassroots level," he contin- ued. "We go to every town and we play, and we go to anoth- er town and we play. And (we) come back to that (first) town and we got a few more people. We're really building it fron the bottom up." Everywhere the band has travelled, it has found people longing for something new and unique. Gabay explained that, contrary to what radio programmers and other tastemakers would have us believe, music fans "are open enough to take anything. The general audience is so much more open and ready for new stuff and in fact, more appreciative of new stufT than any radio people or any fuckin' marketing people." And that's fine with Gabay and his bandmates. Looking to what appears to be a rosy future, the group plans to continue to build its fan base through touring, then they hope to recor& a new album next summer. Their collective goal, GabaW laughed, is to "make the youngsters happy, as we are happy. And smiley. And sad!" So get out to the Majestic tonight and get happy. And per-, haps you should take some of Gabay's advice beforehand, "Eat Lucky Charms!" starring HARRY DEAN STANTON JIM JARMUSCH MAURY CHAYKIN JIMMY BUFFETT GEORGE SEGAL and more... "We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls.." 1.A2 Know of news. ".0 . .. t i ". I ., 1 5 1 1 t . 2 " C t thouand/f t etsto tketheM Aadmn aeb cetedt - durngthe ircd mc tenr, n a xcle t " evie1program. I