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UMS Ticket Sale
Don't miss the University Musical Society's half-price ticket sale. The
amazing discount prices will only be available Saturday from 10 a.m.
to 1 p.m. at the Burton Tower box office. A limited number of tickets
will be available, so get there as early as possible. For more informa-
tion, call 764-2538.

Friday
January 17, 1997

Students warm up 5.°;vv
to cheap concertsvr

By.Ily Lambert
Daily Arts Writer
Wie, the weather outside is frightful.
And though a fire is most delightful,
fireplaces in student housing are few
and far between. But luckily for music
loersthere are plenty of ways to beat
the January chill - on even the tightest
stuerg budget.
f tpmorrow morning's cold doesn't
daunt you, set your alarm clock early to
catch the University Musical Society's
second student ticket sale of the school
year. The rescheduled sale will take
place at the Burton Tower box office
from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. For more infor-
mation, call 764-2538.
A limited number of tickets to many
upcoming concerts will be sold at half-
price. You can buy New York City
Opera Company tickets at less -than
New York prices, or tickets to see Ann
Arbor's favorite piano man, Garrick
Ohlsson. January's performers include
the Sounds of Blackness (Jan. 20) and
the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (Jan.
26).
Half-price tickets aren't available for
every UMS show, though. If you want
to seeWynton Marsalis jazz it up at the
Michigan Theater, you'll have to pay
full prce.
But some of the best things in life,
and music, are free. Check out the
Martin Luther King Jr. Day Concert,
2:30 p.m. Monday at Rackham
Auditorium. The performance features
School of Music students and faculty.
There's no admission price for the
annual Mozart Birthday Concert. This
celebration of Mozart's 241 st year
begins at 8 p.m. in Hill Auditorium on
Jan. 27. The University Symphony

Orchestra and Symphony Band Wind
Ensemble team up for this ever-popular
event, which will include the "Jupiter"
Symphony No. 41.
For those with an ear for the inti-
mate, the School of Music recital sea-
son is off and running faster than the
fastest space heater. Student, faculty
and guest recitals are free and notori-
ously good.
So go cello crazy this month: Cellist
Erling Bldndal Bengsson plays
Hindemith on Jan. 24 and members of
the cello studio give a joint recital on
Jan. 28.
Next Sunday, Prof. Elwood Derr's
"Six Songs of Sundry Sorts" will
receive its Ann Arbor premiere by the
Michigan Chamber Players. The 4 p.m.
concert will be held in the School of
Music Recital Hall.
To hear a complete and updated list
of events on the School of Music calen-
dar, call the 24-hour hotline at 763-
4726.
For something different, try the
Super Bowl Alternative Concert on Jan.
25. This program of music by
acclaimed composer William Bolcom
includes "The Graceful Ghost Rag" and
other favorites.
Other free musical treats include
harpsichordist Mark Jannelo improvis-
ing in Baroque style - tomorrow night
at Schoolkids Classical. You can learn
about other Schoolkids events by call-
ing 995-5051. And tonight a woodwind
trio entertains patrons of Cafe Zola
from 9 to 11 p.m.
January may not be your cup of tea,
and a cup of tea may not keep you from
those winter blues. But there's plenty of
music in town to warm your bones.

The Sounds of Blackness will perform Monday at Hill Auditorium.

Sounds of Blackness hits Hill on Monday

By Eugene Bowen
Daily Arts Writer
Few gospel groups have gained as much national
acclaim as the Grammy-award winning Sounds of
Blackness, and in closing the 1995 Martin Luther

place Monday night at Hill Auditorium, and if the '95
performance was any indication, it will be a night of
unforgettable song, sound and spirit.
"Sounds of Blackness is celebrating its 25th
anniversary" director Gary Hines said in a telephone
interview with The Michigan Daily. "And with the kind
of active response we received the last time we per-

King Jr. Day celebrations, they showed why
debut album, "Evolution of Gospel," and their

their
most

recent "Africa to America:
Journey of the Drum" are most
necessary additions to any true
music collection.
And to the utter delight of Ann
Arbor fans, Sounds of Blackness
is returning to close the blizzard
of presentations, speeches and

PREVIEW
Sounds of
- Blackness
Monday, Jan. 20, 1997 at 8 p.m.
At Hill Auditorium, Tickets $12- $26 from UMS

formed in Ann Arbor, I can think of
no better place to celebrate our
anniversary than the University of
Michigan."
"Music for Martin" will high-
light a number of songs from the
group's previous album, as well as
a special selection simply titled,

mance of songs from our soon-to-be-released album.
We're very excited about that,' Hines said.
"Time for Healing" is set for release on March L
The first single, "Spirit," featuring rapper Craig Ma
drops Feb. 17.
"Sounds of Blackness is just that;' Hines said. "Our
music features a wide variety of genres: jazz, rap,
R&B, blues, ragtime, reggae, spirituals, gospel, work
songs. These are the sounds of blackness, and they are
sounds which must be heard. We perform them to
keep them alive."
Alive and well. With the type of hand-clapping,
foot-stomping, soul-soaring singing and dancing that
Sounds of Blackness is known for instigating, it wo '
be no exaggeration to proclaim that the dead willf'
awakened and everyone and everything from a single
leaf to an inanimate stone will strain to feel even a
slither of the joy that will rock Hill Auditorium on
Monday night.

volunteer services held in celebration of the birthday of "Martin Luther King." Also, Sounds of Blackness will
the slain civil rights legend. Co-presented by the perform songs from their upcoming album, "Time for
University Musical Society and the Office of Academic Healing" (Perspective/A&M).
Multicultural Initiatives, "Music for Martin" will take "'Music for Martin' will feature our debut perfor-

'Relic' turns out to be a piece of trash

By Julia Shih
Daily Arts Writer
Remember how back in grade
school, there was always that kid on the
playground who was so moronic that
nobody paid any attention to him? This
same disregard
should be given to
"The Relic," the R
village idiot of I
motion pictures.
We should have
expected that At
something was
wrong with the film when its release
date was pushed back by months. But
as the opening date grew near, and the
chaotic trailers promised an exciting
new heart-pounding sci-fi thriller, no
one really realized just how bad it
would be.
Right off the bat, the filmmakers get
themselves in trouble by confusing the
hell out of the audience. The movie
opens up with an erratically-shot pagan
ceremony in Brazil. Somehow, this
leads to scenes of a frantic man search-
ing for a crate on a cargo boat, and then
finally the camera settles on the Natural
Museum of History in Chicago. There
are no segues between these shots,
causing us to become completely lost

Sho

less than five minutes into the movie.
The plot is basically this: Something
that was in one of those crates is killing
people at the museum. The police, led
by Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta (Tom
Sizemore), think that they are searching
_ _ _ for a serial killer
who happens to
V I E WI have the amazing
The Relic ability to tear the
heads off of bod-
ies. Meanwhile,
>wcase and Briarwood museum researcher
Margo Green
(Penelope Ann Miller) is making dis-
coveries on her own as to what the thing
is that is slaughtering people. Soon, the
two are trapped in the museum with the
beast, and are forced to fight for sur-
vival.
As if the plot weren't thin enough,
director Peter Hyams stretches what
could easily have been a decent half-
hour "Tales From the Crypt" episode
into a two-hour-long feature film. He
does this by adding extra scenes of the
monster jumping out at people and
weak plot twists that only succeed in
making this movie more ridiculous.
Even the title of the movie is irrele-
vant to the story. The supposedly impor-
tant relic is merely an object that was

found in another crate. It has nothing
whatsoever to do with the plot, except
that it is thought to look like the beast
(which it doesn't). A more fitting title
for this flick would have been some-
thing like, "The Museum,' or "Museum
Predator." Or better yet, "Don't Watch
This Movie Because It Sucks."
Some questions raised by this film
are: Why would policemen who are rou-
tinely searching a building the day after
a murder do it with their guns drawn?
Why doesn't a brain-eating creature
hunt during the daytime when the muse-
um is filled with hundreds of cerebrum-
carrying visitors? And what made the
creators of this film think that they
could insult our intelligence like this?
The world may never know or care.
The film reaches a level of absolute
absurdity when the creature begins to
tear apart victims in cartoon-ish fash-
ion. The carnage no longer seems horri-
fying (if it ever did to begin with) but
more comical. This is just another way
"The Relic" cries out to not be taken
seriously.
Penelope Ann Miller, who received
top billing for.this film, is non-existent
for much of the movie, except when she
makes a silly final appearance near the
end as MacGyver.

The gem of this film by far is
Detroit-native Tom Sizemore, one of
the most under-rated actors in
Hollywood. In his first leading tole
after solid supporting performances in
"Heat" and "Devil in a Blue Dress;'
Sizemore is convincing as the tough,
hard-nosed cop, D'Agosta. Though his
character's almost irrational supersti-
tious behavior is trivial and unnecc7
sary, it doesn't detract from the fact tI'
Sizemore has proven his immense tal-
ent once again. Next time he should
choose his roles a little better.
The long-awaited presentation of the
third star of the film, the beast, is anti-
climactic. So much time and effort is
spent on keeping its appearance hidden.
But when its Ripped-Off-From-
"Predator" face is finally revealed,
many creature-feature fans may choose
this time to leave the theater in disc
pointment, if they haven't done -s
already.
Those who decide to stay will have
the satisfaction of knowing the movie
does eventually end. But that's the only
satisfaction they're going to get.
If the people who made this film had
any sense, they would have buried "The
Relic" instead of releasing it to the pub-
lic.

Tom Sizemore and Penelope Ann Miller search for a scary monster In "The Relic."


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