June Spence reads at Shaman Drum. The novelist will read tonight from her collection of stories, "Missing Women and Others," at that quaint little bookshop so famous for the presentation of high literature. 315 S. State Street. 8 p.m. Free. Ufi td jiim aThg I.T Tomorrow in Daily Arts: Breaking Records returns with reviews of new releases by Faith No More and the film soundtracks to "You've Got Mail" and "Prince of Egypt." Monday December 7, 1998 Shot for shot, 'Psycho' makes stab in the dark- By Matthew Barrett Daily Arts Writer Bad Gus Van Sant. Blame Wes Craven. Blame Ben Affleck. Blame Kevin Williamson. Blame Will Hunting. They all contributed to the horror that is the new "Psycho." Because, without the success of "Scream" and "Good Will Hunting," this movie would never have been made. Some unknown force possessed director Gus Van Sant to do the unthinkable, remake "Psycho." Psycho At Showcase Alfred Hitchcock's master- piece that made taking baths seem a bit more attractive than showers and is still the standard against which all horror movies are measured. Hitchcock's black and white original is one of the best movies of all time, but for some reason Van Sant was compelled to grab some Crayolas and get busy. For the shot-by-shot remake, set in 1998, Van Sant made two significant he's just discovered it (witness Marion Crane's (Anne Heche) wide variety of neon undergar- ments and apparel). Also, the gore was sufficient in the first version, simply adding stab wounds or cuts to the victims does nothing for the movie. * The movie starts with Marion, a secretary torn about making things work with her boyfriend. Money is a problem for the two as he has to pay off debts and alimony to his ex-wife and doesn't want to get married until that situation is settled. The perfect opportunity arises for Marion when, on a Friday afternoon, her boss gives her $400,000 to drop off before the weekend. Marion pockets the cash and hightails it out of town. Eventually, things lead to a rainy night stop at the ill-fated Bates Motel. Trouble ensues for Marion and the movie takes off from there. A big misstep for the movie was the casting of Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates. Known best for his performance in "Swingers," Vaughn puts too goofy a spin on the character and ends up making a ridiculous Bates. Every so often he gives a funny gesture or expression, but for the most part he is off the mark with the role. Another downside to the portrayal of Norman is his behavior as he spies on Marion undressing. In the original, when the seemingly good-natured Bates looks in on Marion, it comes off as a per- verted peak. In the new version, Norman is heard masturbating as he watches Marion change, and it ruins the innocence that the audience should feel as her boyfriend. "Psycho" does get some memorable acting out of Julianne Moore and William H. Macy. Moorc plays Lila, Marion's sister, and her performance is once again top-of-the-line. Lila is far more aggres- sive in the recreation as she leads the search ffr her missing sister. In her scenes where she chewqvout Mortensen, Moore blows the actor off of the screen. Macy is equally spectacular as Arbogast, the pn- vate investigator hired to search for Marion and the $400,000 that she is believed to have stolen from her employer. Macy is one of Hollywood's most consistent and greatest actors. Walking around in suits and a goofy hat, the private eye could have become a cliche Sherlock-type investigator, but, to his to credit, Macy makes things work. Van Sant tackled a mammoth task in deciding to remake "Psycho" shot for shot and basicall word for word. The director's ambition is to b admired, but the final product is not. There aren't any real surprises for anyone who's seen the first version, which makes the film a little dull, to watch. The director would have been much better off to veer from the known story at some point in the film. Even ifjust for a few moments, it could have energized the film with some much needed verve. The final credit in the film is "In Memory of Alfred Hitchcock." Thank you for remembering him, Gus. He's rolling in his grave.1, Courtesy of Universal Pictures Anne Heche doesn't even come close to Janet Leigh in Gus Van Sant's updated "Psycho." changes from the original. One: His version is in color, and two: He trumped up the violence. Neither of these changes were necessary. For this type of film, black and white is a more powerful medium, and Van Sant uses color as if for the character. Here again, Van Sant is upping the stakes without positive results. Heche reprises the role of Marion Crane that Janet Leigh made famous. Heche does a satisfac- tory job in her role, but compared to Leigh, she just doesn't cut it. When audiences have seen parts played to perfection, it's a bit of a letdown to see anything else on screen. In the end, Heche comes up short, although in her defense, she has to play off some bad acting and dopey dialogue in many of her scenes. Heche has scenes with an atrocious Vaughn, a bubbly Rita Wilson as her co-worker, and Viggo Mortensen, complete with a bad Southern accent, Volpone shows high comedy By Jeff Druchniak Daily Arts Writer 'Just a few minutes before opening night, the Power Center stage seemed to suggest no word so much as "culture." The impression made by the marbled, rich-looking stage floor was echoed by the enormous, skillfully rendered, Italian Renaissance-style murals that covered the two-level set. Then, as the theatre darkened, a luxurious curtained fourposter bed slowly entered through huge double doors. Meanwhile, the arresting opening a 2notes of "Carmina Burana" filled the house. The impression: that the spectator Volpone was about to experience an evening of high culture. Nothing could be further from the Power Center truth. The theatre department production e of Ben Jonson's classic comedy Dec. 3, 1998 "Volpone" owed much more this week- end to the "Carmina's" lewd lyrics, than to the pretensions with which network TV producers use those same notes for a football game's opening montage. It comes very close to representing com- plete theatrical anarchy, and here's to it. Indeed, after that grandiose setup, the curtains of thebed were drawn back and the play began with a look at the central character, Volpone, relieving himself in a chamber pot. That was about par for the course for this pro- duction, which was mounting a play all about every kind of grossness that exists behind drawn curtains and closed doors. Director John-Neville Andrews should be commended, howev- er, for eschewing any concessions to realism and letting mad- ness rule. The play, which deals with a rich but depraved Venetian nobleman's attempt to scam half the town by feigning his deathbed and playing on their greed for his fortune, requires a huge central presence as Volpone, and it got one in Music senior Joshua Parrott. Unleashed like the rest of the cast to test the limits of rational stage behavior, Parrott was the best kind of over-the-top. In the original text of the play, most of the main characters are written as allusions to particular animals, to represent the range of bestial behavior. In this production, however, absolute- ly every character directly represented an animal. Parrott's Volpone, as an old fox, was thus a marvelously hideous sight with pointed ears, orange tufts of hair flecking his bald head and a large furry sex organ standing semi-erect out of his fly, for the entire show. The animal motif was strengthened by Erika Furey's wildly inventive costumes, and Malcolm Tulip's ambitious movement coaching, which asked each actor to assume the physicality of his or her animal to comic effect, with varying degrees of success. The shameless Parrott was especially adept at this, but he was given a run for his money by Matt Oberg as the doddering raven Corbaccio, and Angela Lewis as the screeching and foul- breathed parrot Lady Politic Would-Be. Both were a riot, par- ticularly Lewis, who livened up a plodding moment in Jonson's second act with her first entrance. With her gravity-defying cleavage, nervous tics, and demented haute couture, Lewis was an energetically outrageous parrot, both physically and metaphorically. The best thing about Neville-Andrews' to-the-hilt animal scheme was that every actor was freed from behaving out- wardly like a human being and received at least a moment to courtesy of University Productioni Angela Lewis and Joshua Parrott "ham" It up in Ben Jonson's "Volpone," an animal satire on human ways. strut their stuff. It was thus not only coherent but welcome when scenes were stolen by smaller parts such as Volpone's ubiquitous coterie of servant-mice, Tony von Halle's addled badger-slash-court-stenographer, and C. Ryan Metzger's inde- scribable Androgyno the giraffe. When I say that Metzger, playing possibly the theatre's first and last 10-foot-tall Renaissance drag queen, chewed up the stage, it is a fear as much as a compliment. UNIVERSITY SECRETS: YOUR GUIDE TO SURVIVING A COLLEGE EDUCATION Author: Robert D. Honigman You'll invest thousands of dollars and years of your life in a college education. But your education won't be complete unless you learn how dorm overcrowding, bad off-cam pus housing, and grade competition help the U exploit students. Also learn why "father knows best" authority is ruining your education. Full text available at http://universitysecrets.com. Also sold at Borders and Shaman Drum. Newest Zelda becomes its The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Nintendo Nintendo 64 When "The Legend of Zelda" first came out, people of all ages were transfixed in front of their television screens, playing the game for days. They could be told their house was on fire, and they would merely respond, "Just a minute. I'm about to beat this dungeon." Well, it's that time again, because Link returns in "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time." Once again, you play Link in the game. Princess Zelda needs your help. Gannon, or Gannondorf rather, is once more the evil guy causing all the trouble. Everyone, including Link's friends and allies, seems to have a secret or riddle that has to be solved. Finally, the key to all of this again is the Tri-force. But familiarity does not mean conventionality. Hyrule in this latest Zelda adventure is a com- plete 3-D interactive world (well, maybe small country). Traveling around in it is like going to see Star Wars for the first time; the player is placed into a new universe of fantasy, sight and sound. Yes, sound. There are 12 songs (that I know of) that Link learns throughout the game which can bring the sun up or down, summon rain or clear skies or perform more specific functions. Those who have a Rumble Pak also have their sense of touch indulged. If you find the Stone of Agony, your controller will rumble (if you have this accessory) when you are near treasure chests or hidden items. Familiarity can be a joy as well though. While Zelda 64 offers much more in originality then the Star Wars re-releases did, something of the same enjoyment was there of seeing upgraded special effects. All the old enemies from the first Zelda have been remade, as well as many of the boards from the dungeons, but going from 2-D to 3-D has literally opened up a whole new dimension. What you see in Zelda 64 is what we all had to sort-of imagine happening in the first and second Zelda. Of course, anyone who has kept up with video games is familiar with the incredible graphics they now offer, and they're probably sick of hear- ing about how great the remakes of all the old classics are - or they soon will be with the new "Asteroids," "Centipede" and "Castlevania" com- ing out. The real question is what is Zelda 64's playability, it's fun factor if you will. Well, forget about it. Besides the fun of fighting and explor- ing, some of the other actions you'll have to do to beat the game are incredibly entertaining. You can take a high dive off a water fall, riding a horse across Hyrule (once you have shown you can ride it well enough), hiding from guards as you sneak neath all the lunacy was a satirical bitterness about inity. Neville-Andrews called his production "animal$ g on a spoof of humans:" When recollected in tranquil high esteem in which the lower-than-low Volpone ishel > his social status, and the consistent poverty of each char; s morals whenever they pretend to behave most honor= stick with the spectator longer than the memory of any gag; own legendK into a castle or even the simple joy of fishing. Because of how much Link is asked to do, it 4 difficult somewhat to familiarize yourself with the player controls. The first part of the adventure is really just an instructional course on how to mov4, look around and attack. The third person camer shot from which the player usually views link takp a little getting used to, and using the Z button op the controller to bring the camera back directly behind will become a habit. This difficulty is not a real flaw in the game, but it is a frustrating obstL cle for those who first pick it up. Also, the should be a way to speed up how fast the te appears on screen when the other characters spea to you, as well as some way of keeping your fairl friend Navi from repeating the same thing over and over again. She can be ignored, at least. Otherwise, the game lives up to all the hyped, and none of those rumors that it's outdated or Mario 64 clone. "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" is not a giant step in game evolution either, as many video game magazines have said. But the lifelike controls, the sheer fluidity graphics, the detail and thought put into ever setting and, frankly, the amount of time that was put into the game makes Zelda 64 not a new stan- dard for emulation. Rather; as with all great works, it's a creative height worthy of aspiration Go buy it. - Michael Galloway I ____________________________________-1 Ann Arbor #386 Test I Sat. Jan 9 Class 1 Class 2 Sun.Jani1Q Tues. Jan 12 9.1 6-I0pm 6-10pm Get An Edge. 0 Expert Instructors 40 Guaranteed RenuIt Sometimes love just n ' It -