8 Publisher and author Harold Evans discusses his book. The photo-ifled text features an overview of American history from 1889 to the present. Borders, 612 E. Liberty. Free. 668- 7652. LOE Weekend, etc. returns with a Best of '99 issue in terms of cinema, music, television, books and performing arts. Wednesday January 12, 2000 5 I Ice Cube melts Hart visits diverse 'Territory' at the Ark in Next Fday By Matthew Barrett Daily Film Editor *heck vourself before you wreck yourself. Ice Cube is pretty hard to fig- ure. He takes a role and delivers big time in "Three Kings," one of the past years best films; and then follows it up with "Next Friday," a dismal sequel to "Friday." Cube co-wrote, produced and stars in the sequel, which pales in com- parison to the not-that-funny original. "Next Frid y" starts off with Craig Cube) taking cover in his uncle's hTse in the suburbs because word on the street is that Debo (Tommy "Tiny" Lister, Jr.), the - neighborhood menace from the w om first film, has Next escaped from Friday prison (the possi- bility for a funny NoStars b r e a k o u t At Briarwood. Quality 16 sequence is & Showcase squashed when he simply hops over the wall). Craig gave Debo a pret- ty good whipping before he headed off to the clink, so the escaped con is hot on Craig's trail. Sadly, Craig's best bud from the original Smokey (Chris Tucker) is off in rehab and unable to tag along for the fun. It cues as no surprise that trouble arises for our hero once he arrives in the sub- urbs. "Next Friday" fails in just about every possible area. The film's plot is muddled and never very funny. The whole mov- ing-to-the-suburbs business boils down to Craig feuding with the whack neigh- bors across the street while trying to get it on with their cute sister. There's also an unnecessary subplot of a jilted girl- friend seeking revenge by destroying her boyfriend's car. Debo never confronts Craig until the film's end, and when he does it's quite a letdown. Because he's little more than a bully, once Debo finds Craig there's all of one possibility of what could happen - a fight. Exciting. In addition, the character of Debo isn't scary or that intimidating, unless of course growling and speaking in low tones puts fear into your heart. "Next Friday" relies on the fact that viewers will find weed jokes and other bathroom humor hilarious and entertain- ing. An example of the film's comedy comes early on when we see a dog let loose a pile of stinking turd on the front lawn. Seconds later, Craig's father comes outside. Would you believe he slips on that turd and even lands in it? He does The joke continues when he gets bank up, only to find his back pasted in feces. Also, putting a few people in a room and just having them yuck it up while they share a joint isn't anything new and it isn't funny. Another highpoint is the slip something special to the pet scee, a staple among most pot-humor movies. Towards its end, the film stoops even lower, by including a lame sub- plot about Craig trying to right the By John Uhl Daily Music Editor The picture inside the cover of Alvin Youngblood Hart's latest recording "Territory" is of a gruff-looking man wearing a thick beard, dreadlocks and a rough flannel shirt. Yet the album's first tune, "Tallacatcha, croons softly with the good-old-boy charm of vintage Texas swing. I sit and ponder these two seemingly contradictory pieces of information, my mind searches for lists to properly describe the numerous influences that play a role in Hart's development as an artist. First, there's the sprawling catalogue of stylistic influences found within the music of Hart: blues, jazz, rock, reggae, ska, country, western swing, stride, early 20th century pop, classical and a myriad of folk variations. By the time I reach the sixth song on "Territory," "Ice Rose," I have just Courtesy of New Line Cinema ice Cube displays the warm, fuzzy smile that made him "the cute one" in NWA. Alvin Youngblood Hart The Ark Tonight at 8 wrongs he feels responsible for dur- ing his time at his uncle's house. There's no reason for the makers to include a lesson about doing the right thing, yet they get a little preachy in an attempt to make Craig seem like a really great guy. "Next Friday" is an abysmal film. Those behind the movie should have been clued in by the fact that neither Chris Tucker nor F. Gary Gray, the original film's director, returned for a second go at it. If you really enjoyed "Friday," you might get some pleasure from revisiting a few of its characters but other than that the film is a dud. Ice Cube should know better than to make a film that stinks this bad. begin to apprcci- ate the diversity of the musical palette from which Hart draws. Still, I was not quite pre- pared for the authenticity of this Captain Beefheart cover from a supposed- ly folky "blues" artist. An instru- mental, this ren- dition's layering of Zappa and, particularly, its reitera- tion through the overwrought exaltation of early Metallica (am I the only one who has ever heard shades of Zappa in "Master of Puppets?). To continue listing Hart's influences, now in terms of musicians, one must cite Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Leadbelly, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix, Skip James, Roy Rogers, Rudy Vallee, James P Johnson, the Carter Family, Charlie Patton, Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. I've finished listening to "Territory" now, astonished that Hart has success- fully manipulated a sphere of musical styles more expansive than the geo- graphic distribution of children illegiti- mately sired by professional basketball players. And his resources are not sim- ply musical; Hart is obviously steeped in a rich oral tradition. Songs like "Countrycide," a half-spoken/half-sung tale of racial unrest and gun slinging in a small, old western town that is ren- dered over a drone of eerie electric gui- tars, suggests that Hart is as talented a musical storyteller to come along since Tom Waits. Hart also lists extra-musical inspira- tions of spoken word tradition, espe- cially westerns and Native American lore, riverboats, rare and vintage guitar collecting and family. The wide breadth of Hart's invento- ry of influences alone shouldn't be quite enough to provoke more than some raised eyebrows. After all, this kind of hodgepodge could easily result in the sort of over-intellectual- ization that left most progressive rock stale. But "Territory" is no moldy academic exercise and I suppose readers will just have to take my word on the fact that, should I compose the longest list in the world, it still would- n't account for the fact that this guy is simply an original. So, when Hart comes to the Ark on Friday, know that, to keep up with him, you might have to make a list or two yourself. 'Huricane' Carter still preachi g truths The Washington Post speaks not in sentences or paragraphs but in high- l olished sermons delivered with the rhythmic cadences of a gospel preacher Although he has sight in only one eye, his gaze is piercing. And while his man- telpiece displays a belt attesting to his honorary title of middleweight boxing champion of the world, the fight- er once known as "Hurricane" because of his punishing left hook now concedes that he finds the sport barbaric. His new passion: gardening. What's most striking, however, is this: Despite spend- ing 19 years in prison for a triple murder he never com- rrd, Rubin Carter considers himself blessed: "I would not change one thing in my life, not one single thing," he says as he sits in his tidy brick house on Toronto's west side. "Remember, everything that went before has made me what I am today. And today I am deeply and seriously in love with myself I don't want to be anyone but who I am. I am perfect." His story is movingly portrayed by Denzel Washington in the film "The Hurricane," which is opening to a full-buzz of Academy Award expectations. His Association in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted has helped spring high-profile prisoners from Canadian jausing volunteer lawyers and gumshoes and DNA evidence. Yet Carter, 63, is estranged from much of his family, his country and even those who worked hardest to win his release. The essential story begins in Paterson the night of June 16, 1966. Two black men entered the Lafayette Grill and opened fire with a shotgun and a pistol, killing the owner and two patrons before fleeing in a white sedan. Within hours, Paterson police pulled over a white C lac driven by 19-year-old John Artis with Carter, th r's owner, in the front seat. Carter was known to Paterson police. As a child, he was sent to reform school; as an adult, he served prison terms for beatings and purse snatchings. Once his career took off, the brash middleweight talked openly of blacks using guns if necessary to protect themselves from bigoted white cops and judges. But witnesses, irluding a victim who was still con- scious, declined to identify Carter and Artis as the shooters. Carter arnd Artis were supported by lie detec- tor tests. The guns were never found. Several months later, police claimed two petty thieves saw Carter and Artis flee the bar. Their testimo- ny won them immunity on burglary charges. An all- white jury convidted Carter and Artis. Both received life sentences. Carter refused to wear prison clothes, eat prison food or take a prison job; winning long stays in solitary con- finement. He read law books and wrote an eloquent and angry biography, "The Sixteenth Round;" that helped make him a hero to the radical chic. He insisted guards and inmates call him Mr. Carter. Finally, after Alfred Bello, one of the. two thieves, recanted his story in an interview with the New York Times, Carter and Artis were granted a new trial in March 1976. But police pressured Bello to recant his recantation. Carter and Artis were convicted a second time. Then, in 19$0, Carter opened one of the letters he'd let pile up. It was from a black 17-year-old, Lesra Martin, who had fbund "The Sixteenth Round" at a library sale. Martin had been adopted, in effect, by some lefty University ofToronto graduates who were as impressed wilh the Brooklyn teen as they were appalled by the ghetto conditions in which he lived. He moved into their group house in Toronto and received tutoring. "The Sixteenth Round" was the first book he had read and his lett* to Carter the first he had written. "I threw that book out over the prison wall hoping that somebody would see its message bobbing on the ocean of life, pick it up and come rescue me," Carter recalls. "And Lesra Martin did just that." There was correspondence, then visits - from Martin, Gus Sinclair, Lisa Peters, Terry Swinton, and Sam Chaiton. Carter's plight appealed to their leftist politics, anti-American bias and determination to stamp out racism and injustice. "We were dubious at first," recalls Myron Beldock, Carter's lead attorney. "We had a hard enough job as it was, with no resources, and when these bunch of amateurs showed up one day at our office, we thought it would be a waste of time." The Canadians turned out to be terrific at organizing the mass of material, tracking down leads and turning up new evidence and witnesses. While the movie version of "Hurricane" ends with Carter drinking in the sunshine on the courthouse steps after a judge's decision freed him, the real-life story was more complicated. He joined the Canadian group home, but came to view their rules as a new prison. He began to resent that much of their income came from selling his story. His relationship with Peters, always tempestuous, turned more so almost immediately after they decided to marry. In 1991, Vancouver television producer John Ketchum optioned rights to "Lazarus and the Hurricane" for S 100,000. The script went through 27 drafts. "I wouldn't allow my image to be portrayed in an undignified manner," Carter says. "So I threat- ened to close it down four or five times." Later, Carter spent time with Washington. "I remember after one particularly intense conversa- tion, we went around the corner for lunch," recalls Carter. "After the meal ... I found Denzel in the foyer just staring at himself in the mirror. ... When he came back to the table, he looked different to me somehow, although I couldn't put my finger on it. And the more we talked, the more I began to like him. It was a real emotional surge. I liked the way he moved, his vocabulary. I like his tenacity. I like his stridency. I loved his laughter. ... And then it hit me like a double left hook to the jaw: When I had seen him at the mir- ror, he was clearing his canvas, so to speak. From that moment on, he was giving me back to me - and I was loving what I saw." electric, lap steel and synth guitars stew themselves into a quirky electric melee that actually bears a somewhat stronger similarity to (Beefheart's friend and collaborator) Frank Zappa's sound scope than to Beefheart's usual conflict between noodling instrumentation and his own bearish vocals. Especially near the stately middle section of the song, as a single guitar proudly sails over the marching beat of its accompaniment, "Ice Rose" recalls the symphonic pomp 3 ' 4 , '__ . : ;. "X : a, :;3,. Courtesy of Ryko Alvin Youngblood Hart's music encompasses elements of everything but boy pop. U 1/3 lb. Cheeseburger T Fries only $3.49 11:30-3:O pm One third of a pound of lean ground chuck served on a kaiser roll with lettuce, tomato, and American cheese. HUMP DAY HAPPY HOUR BUFFET Complimentary hors S. State Street d'oeuvres 4-6pm 996-9191 Happy Hour 3-6 pm /www.Ashleys.com Mon.-Fri. $1.00 off Pints of Beer and Mixed Drinks 338 http:/ WANT TO REVIEW THE NEW ROMANTIC COMEDY STARRING HEATHER GRAHAM BEERNIGHT LATE NIGHT FOOD JECIAl