Lift every voice and sing! The University Gospel Chorale will be
putting on its annual spring concert tomorrow at Hill Auditorium. This
free show begins at 5 p.m. and lasts until the Spirit says otherwise.
ApiL E Friday
w . April 18, 997
'Murder at 1600'
dies on-screen
', y
By Julia Shib
Daily Arts Writer
For the past few weeks, heart-pound-
ing and explosive trailers for "Murder
At 1600" have burst onto movie screens
and television sets everywhere. These
awesome previews promise a smorgas-
bord of thrilling action, incredible
stunts and an armful of beautiful babes.
It's just too bad the trailers were more
fun to watch than the movie.
"Murder At 1600" stars Wesley
Snipes as Harlan Regis, a hard-nosed,
smart-mouthed, Washington, D.C.
homicide cop who's just stumbled upon
the biggest crime of his career: A
woman has been brutally murdered at
the White House. But for some reason,
the government is extremely unwilling
to let him carry out an investigation.
Aided by reluctant Secret Service
Agent Nina Chance (Diane Lane),
Regis plows through hostile Secret
Service agents and evidence that myste-
riously surfaces or disappears, to discov-
er a massive conspiracy plot which will
affect the fate of the entire nation.
When the world violently cringed
after seeing Charlie Sheen in the dumb
"The Shadow Conspiracy" filmmakers
thought that they would make almost the
same movie, this time with Wesley
Snipes as the prospective winning factor.
Granted, Snipes
is a lot more enter-
taining than a guy R
who can't show his
face without mak- Mu
ing people think of
Heidi's "Lil' Black AtE
Book 0' Names,"
but the plot of "Murder" is much too
shallow and much too limp to be any fun.
The film's erratic pace is chunkier
than year-old milk. As the underlying
conspiracy behind the murder slowly
Fountains' Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood will play In Detroit on Sunday.
T-N-"
lountains of Wae
spurt pop into Detroit
Dennis Miller, Diane Lane and Wesley Snipes star in "Murder at 1600."
emerges and the President is in dire risk
of being implicated, the movie is fairly
suspenseful
Unfortunately, the
EVIEW
rder at 1600
*
3rnarwood and Showcase
By Use Harwin
Daily Music Editor
Move over Ted Nugent - Adam
Schlesinger, bassist of Fountains of
Wayne, is the new Motor City
adman. Of course, this is all accord-
ing to Schlesinger's partner in crime
and lead vocalist _ _ _ _
<C h r i s
Collingwood, the
"rman who also
makes the fatal
error of consider-
ing New York the At St. A
new Motor City.
What Collingwood doesn't realize is
at in Michigan, The Nuge is a type of
d - one who even has his own radio
show. "The fact that Ted Nugent is even
entitled to a political opinion is just
ridiculous," Collingwood said, clearly
disturbed. "The man wrote a song
called 'Wang Dang Sweet Poontang.'
No one should pay attention to what he
says about anything."
Talk of Motor City madmen aside,
people are starting to pay attention to
huntains of Wayne, the dynamic song-
riting duo of Schlesinger and
Collingwood (along with drummer
Brian Young and guitarist Jody Porter)
who have reinvented the witty pop song
with ditties like "Radiation Vibe" and
"Sink to the Bottom." On his own,
A
Schlesinger crafted the title track for
Tom Hanks' recent directorial debut
"That Thing You Do," a '60s style rock
'n' roll tune that landed him an Oscar
nomination for Best Original Song. For
the band, the sudden acclaim was some-
what of a mixed blessing. "It was a pos-
itive and a negative
t h i n g,"
E V I E W Collingwood said.
Fountains "Obviously, we got
of Wayne a lot more attention
Sunday at 7:30 p.m. for the band as a
ndrew's Hall with Sloan result of our asso-
ciation with that,
but unfortunately, it also made every-
one think that Adam was the leader of
this band and that he wrote all the songs
on our record. We were offered to play
the song at the Oscars, but I said no."
Instead, as any Fountains of Wayne
fan would note, the song was per-
formed not by the band, not by the
actors from the movie, but by, well, as
Collingwood himself said, "Who the
hell knows who performed it! They
were lip-synching. They were imitating
the people in the movie and the voice
wasn't even Mike (Viola, the actor who
sang 'That Thing You Do' in the
movie). They got somebody to imper-
sonate him. Everyone's reaction has
been like, 'This is the strangest thing.'
See WAYNE, Page 8
and engaging.
suspense is diluted
with boring, slug-
gish scenes of the
White House at
work that seem to
belong to an entire-
ly different movie,
one titled, "What
C o r r u p t
1600," as it had the potential to be so
much more.
Snipes is excellent in this movie as an
intelligent and resilient action-hero. He
possesses the mega-masculinity needed
for this role, but shows more brain
power than the usual Arnold or Jean-
Claude characters.
Diane Lane is occasionally amusing
as the Secret Service agent and former
Olympic sharpshooter. She tends to be
melodramatic and has her femininity
taken advantage of by the filmmakers
(one scene has her jumping off a fire
escape ladder, which causes her hair-
band to loosen, allowing her hair to
blow freely in the wind as she runs like
Government Officials Do When They're
Trying To Pretend They're Not Pricks."
But after the film's predictable finale
and the actors finish overacting, you
can't help but feel sorry for "Murder At
a supermodel at a photo shoot.)
But the scenes in which Nina asserts
herself as a strong female are great. One
of the best scenes in the movie-has
Chance skillfully shooting out the lights
of a hovering helicopter.
"Murder At 1600" also stars Alan
Alda and Dennis Miller, two solid
actors who do a fine job in this film:',
The acting in "Murder At 1600' is
quite good overall, but not enoug4 to
keep this movie from dying. If you arc
a conspiracy-movie aficionado, you
may be able to find a bit of amusentlw
in this film. But for the rest of the
world, don't push your luck. You'll be
much happier just watching the trailers
Powerful writing makes mystery -thriller 'Gun' a hit
By Anna Kovalszki
Daily Arts Writer
A loud bang resounds somewhere in
the background, followed by three shells
dropping to a wooden floor. The shells
spell "Gun," the new anthology series
from producers Robert Altman ("The
Player") and Jim Sadwith ("Sinatra").
The premise of the show is that a pearl-
handled semi-automatic gun circulates
from one person to the next, each time
involving new mysteries, characters and
situations. This setup deviates from the
norm, and because so many stars are
scheduled to appear in the episodes (i.e.
Kathy Ireland, Rosanna Arquette,
Martin Sheen, Daniel Stern, and Sean
Young), the new series possesses great
potential for success.
This Saturday's episode features
Martin Sheen as a soon-to-retire detec-
tive in need of a last juicy case. After
the murder of a wealthy Japanese busi-
nessman, he gets his wish. The usual
type of suspects
abound: the young R
American wife
(Nancy Travis),
who is a power-
and-money-hungry
personage with a
lover; the lover
himself (Chris McDonald), who is also
the Japanese businessman's attorney
and conducts an operation to win the
California State Lottery. The episode is
filled with the usual allusions to their
guilt, their obsession with wealth as
E
well as their hunger for each other. The
show emphasizes their guilt so much
that it leaves no room for the viewer to
even remotely suspect anyone else. But
we know that the writers can't allow
them to be the
E Wkillers, for that
would create a dull
Gun and predictable
episode. Therefore,
A BC they rely on an
Saturdays at 10 p.m. illogical alternative
for the finish of the
story.
"Gun" follows many traditions in
mystery-thriller series, like "Twilight
Zone'""Mystery" on PBS, and "Murder,
She Wrote." Unfortunately, the series
lacks the cohesiveness, the true mystery,
and the successful aura of these previous
shows. The reason for this outcome i:
that the creators try too hard to comp ju
with something different, thereby inclui
ing such awkward endings in their dli
ferent episodes that although they taki
the viewer by surprise, they do not wor
well with the substance of the rest of th
respective episodes.
If you are in the mood for a murder
mystery, and you like non-tradition'
circumstances, (but are not looking fo
anything nearly as interesting as "Pul:
Fiction," for example), watc
Saturday's episode of "Gun." Perlhjp
you will find a certain depth in th
show and potentially enjoy the strapge
ness for which the writers undoubtodl
strive and definitely achieve.
I
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