Hear the women roar *len Barry speaks about the female prisoner experience as part of the Michigan Prisoner Art Exhibition. Rackham Amphitheater. 7 p.m. Free. A ftAd##=Guft ism '-r S R-- MONDAY FEBRUARY 21, 2000 michigandaily.com /arts 'V movie can't quite hold it '2Ge+her' By Jennifer Fogel For the Daily The question that we have been asking since New Kids on the Block first broke out onto the scene has finally been answered. We shall no longer suffer the dis- *lief that the Backstreet Boys are actually popular. Forget about argu- ing over which N'SYNC members can sing. Stop the 2Ge+her Grade: C- MTV Tonight at 8 insanity of bicker- ing about which LFO member is going out with Jennifer Love Hewitt. The boy band phenome- non can be explained. And what better way to do it than in a satirical look at the boys we have grown to either despise or become fascinat- ed with? MTV's finally found, it's on to Jacksonville, Fla. for an opening act spot for Whoa! But these boys are not ready for stage just yet - they don't even have a song to be presented. Have no fear, Bob is here. This is Bob's show and damn it if he isn't prepared. (So that's who writes all the songs. I guess we have the managers to blame.) After their initial fumbling choreography and horrifying harmo- ny, the boys finally become one and find themselves the picture-perfect boys of 2Ge+her. Needless to say, eventually there will be a standoff between Whoa! and 2Ge+her, who can easily be mis- taken for The Backstreet Boys Vs. N'SYNC. The movie itself leaves a lot to be desired. Sure, it's fun to watch this film constantly poke fun at the phenomenon, but eventually like every pop sensation, this movie gets old. After a while, 2Ge+her's annoying songs will become so mes- merizing that you WILL catch your- self singing "I know my Calculus/ You + Me = Us" and you will hate yourself for it. The fact that the characters talk to the camera, which has been overused this entire season, is distracting. Though the film implies boy bands are talentless eye candy who lip sync to songs they did not write, the attractive actors in this film actually did sing. Even though the music is decent pop, the lack of complexity in the characters diminishes the film as a whole. Leave it to MTV to expose the boy band sensation for what it really is. What's next: a Behind the Music expose on pop teen queens and their beauty secrets? Photo Courtesy of Columbia Pictures Maddy (Lisa Kudrow), Eve (Meg Ryan) and Georgia (Diane Keaton) act like sisters in the latest film penned by Nora Ephron, "Hanging up." Hanging Up' a dead connection Courtesy of TVT Records 2Ge+her is the subject of an MTV TV movie about the fictional boy band. first full length TV movie, 2Ge+her," exposes the boy hand nsation for what it really is: A for- ulaic and misguided attempt to sell sex to pubescent girls. The movie begins with aging music manager Bob Buss (Alan Blumenfeld) working with the ulti- mate boy band Whoa!, which could be an inbred cousin of the Backstreet Boys. Deemed as too controlling, the boys fire Bob, sending him on a downward spiral into the boy band *yss. While trying to prove himself cool enough for Gen-Xers, Bob hap- pens upon IT boy Jeremy O'Keefe (Evan Farmer). Determined to make Jeremy a star, Bob turns to his music executive mentor only to find that solo acts just are not cutting it in today's day and age (big surprise). Therefore, in hopes of defeating Whoa! at their own game, Bob decides to put together his own boy band. Of course this is easy as pie seeing as how there is a specific for- mula for making a successful boy band. There are five key ingredients essential to any boy band: the heart- throb, the rebel, the cutie, the shy one and the older brother type. If you ever feel like wasting a few brain cells, you might want to test out this theory on your favorite boy band (LFO not included). What ensues is a frantic search in the oddest of places for the four boys who can back up "the heartthrob" Jeremy. Bob finds "shy" Chad Linus (Noah Bastian) and his "older" brother Doug (Kevin Farley) at a New York male beauty pageant. While looking for his "rebel," Bob happens upon Mickey Parke (Alex Solowitz) when he prevents Mickey from beating up the cotton candy man. Stopping off at a karaoke bar, the gang hears the voice of an angel - the terminally ill, "cutie" Jason 'QT' McKnight (Michael Cuccione). Each boy can't wait to live out their dreams of being famous and getting all the girls they want. See, in the end it all comes down to sex! When these "interesting" guys are By Matthew Barrett Daily Film Editor Sisterhood conquers all. At least that's what "Hanging Up" spends 90 minutes trying to pound into our heads. Here the story revolves around three sisters and the different ways that they deal with the impend- ing death of their alcoholic father, Lou (Walter Matthau). There's Hanging Up Grade: D At Quality 16 and Showcase Georgia (Diane Keaton), a mag- azine publisher; Eve (Meg Ryan), a party planner; and Maddy (Lisa Kudrow), a soap opera actress. The gals spend the majority of the movie bick- ering before coming to the realization that they really do Wilson's new style not fascinating 'Business' By Amy Hayes For the Daily *Valerie Wilson Wesley has decided to break out of her usual genre of mys- tery writing (the Tamara Hayle series, "When Death Comes Stealing," "Devil's Gonna Get Him," "Where Evil Sleeps," "No Hiding Place") to explore the possibilities of the modern novel. Her qualifications seem stellar. Besides receiving Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do Grade: C- Valerie Wilson Wesley Avon Books the 1993 Griot Award from the New York Chapter of the N a t i o n a l Association of B l a c k Journalists, Wesley has had her work printed in "Essence," "Ms.," and "The New York Times." One would think that she had her fin- dipped her pen into the rancid inkwell reserved for pulp romance novelists, pulled out a book's worth of stock characters, slapped a coat of paint on their skins so the "black market" could relate, and gone to bed early. Despite her book's title - which is, notably, the only black vernacular contained in the novel - Wesley's completely bor- ing bevy of characters react to com- pletely normal situations with com- pletely predictable emotions. Even Wesley's plot proves common- place, surprising for a mystery writer. The story revolves around Eva, a mid- dle-aged librarian and uninspired artist whose husband Hutch leaves her in the opening pages of the novel. Hutch gives pathetic, overused reasons for leaving, telling Eva that he's "tired," "sick of how empty [he] feels," that there's "no joy." We automatically see that Hutch is entering his upwardly mobile mid-life crisis, but Eva doesn't get it. Instead, she feels guilty that she "can't work up a good cry" after ten years of marriage and ponders the gray streak in her hair - smart and sophis- ticated, or just plain old? But it gets worse. Eva and Hutch have worked together raising two chil- dren from other couplings - Charley and Steven. Charley, who has just completed law school at her mother's urging, flitters throughout the novel with the attention span and sensibility of a 12-year-old. All we really know about her is that she likes to upset her mother and, although she somehow managed to earn a degree in law, does- n't seem intelligent enough to explain her erratic behavior. Steven, Hutch's son with his first wife, is a little more exciting. As the story progresses, we find out that- gasp! - the boy is gay. In one of the novel's few memorable scenes, Steven "comes out" to Hutch in a predictably new age setting -- a vegan cafd --and Hutch reacts with homophobic dis- gust. Instead of delving into the issue, however, Wesley has Steven rather comfortably decide to completely cut his father out of his life. Hutch, of course, comes around and forces him- self to "accept" his son's "lifestyle" just in time to spend Christmas with him. Underlying the entire story are Hutch and Eva's mid-life crises. Wesley is painfully predictable in her depiction of their emotional progress. Eva takes on a younger lover, throws a couple more college classes onto her resume, quits smoking, becomes inspired and begins to draw again. Hutch sleeps with his best friend's wife, rents a little bachelor pad, throws himself into his work and tries to cook for himself. Eva and Hutch both do a bit of redecorating, become jealous of each other and fixate on their relation- ships with the gender-appropriate dead parent. In the end, they get back together. After all, there are only so many places cardboard people can go. To her credit, Wesley does attempt to add intrigue to some of her minor char- acters. Steven is not only gay, but is involved in an interracial relationship. Eva's young lover, Isiah, is a jazz musi- cian who used to date Charley. Eva's co- workers, although treated marginally in the book, are almost fascinating in their freakish desires to hold on to their "real" work: The novel one has been working on for over a decade, the thesis topic the graduate student changes every few weeks, the art that is talked about and never produced. Had Wesley given her major characters such interesting idio- svncrasies, her novel would not have fallen so flat. Although "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do" is hampered by lifeless characters and a lackluster plot, Wesley's prose is well constructed and engaging. She keeps her tone from becoming overly moralistic and does seem to want to examine modern life. "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do" will end up where it belongs -- on the back of the toilet for bathtub reading - but Wesley's sparks of talent may end up catching fire in her future efforts. without a care in the world. For some reason the Ephron sisters decided that including phones ringing and characters hanging up on each other throughout the story would spice up the action and get a few laughs. Nope. The acting is awful across the board with both Matthau and Keaton playing their usual types with little flair. Keaton also directed the movie and does nothing to indicate that she belongs behind the camera. Ryan is at her worst, playing the same annoy- ing, spunky character that she's made a living off of for years. Because Eve laughs and cries, the part would fall to the more serious side of Ryan's acting cannon. Ryan goes for the same lame jokes as always - silly faces, physical comedy and overreacting to just about anything. Perhaps the worst scene in the film comes when Eve tries to jam a pill into the mouth of some gigantic dog that's about twice her size. She puts it in. He spits it out. She puts it in again. He spits it out again. And this is supposed to be funny? The scene really captures every- thing that is wrong with Ryan. How can any actor worth their beans think that this is amusing? Meg Ryan screwing something up and dogs are the two easiest laughs to get in movies today and from here on out should no longer be allowed to appear onscreen together. There's really nothing positive to say about this film. The sisters don't seem to care about each other for the majority of the movie, so the "let's be friends, we really need each other" ending seems fake and a little hard to swallow. At one point, a char- acter offers Eve the advice that "sometimes it's necessary to discon- nect," upon which she unplugs all of the phones in her house. We only wish that the projectionist would have followed suit and spared us the misery. need each other, followed by a nice, warm group hug. The film lacks focus and for the most part we feel as if it's just killing time until the inevitable sob scene at Daddy's bedside. The narrative bounces back and forth between the present and the past, shedding light on a family history which is neither interesting nor that unusual. The cul- mination of these flashbacks comes when a drunk Lou smacks a pinata onto his grandson's birthday cake and then wonders what all the fuss is about. As you can tell, the story never builds a drop of sympathy for Lou, who is portrayed as an ugly, uncaring pervert of a father. And as a result, we feel little emotion or attachment as Lou's health deterio- rates. The script, written by Nora and Delia Ephron, is weak and not funny. None of the characters are very engaging or interesting and as a result, we drift through the film ger on our culture's collective pulse. Unfortunately, with "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do," Wesley proves that she is missing the beat. Ernest Hemingway once said that a good writer always knows his charac- ters: Their life histories, their subcon- scious fears, where they have their hair t, which toenails are ingrown. Little this information makes it on the page, of course, but the writer should. know it nonetheless. After reading "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do" we become achingly aware that Wesley not only doesn't know her characters, she probably hasn't even stood behind. them in line at the bank. 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