A New Dance Groove Check out Daily Arts' coverag.e of- the Sharmila Mukerice lecture on the hasics of classic Odissi dlance, straig.ht out of India. Go online and enjoy... R TSichg~a I michigandaily.com /arts MONDAY 8A DECEMBER 11, 2000 8A Dungeons & Dragons' a derivvativedisaster - i-. 4 By Lyle Henretty Daily Arts Writer Maybe I should be precluded from passing judgmrent on "Dungeons & Dragons" ("D & D" as it's known to fans) because_ I do rnot fit into either demographic for which the film was intended. I am not a young child, and as much as I tried to let go -°-- and enjoy the action/advOnture on / a more innocent level, it was just ll so inept and unenjoyable that I Dungeons yearned for the simpler films of & Dragons my youth. Whatever happened to .Q fun movies like "Tron" and Grade: D "Cloak and~ Dagger" that came up at showcase with interesting ways of market- and Qualty 26 ing to kids without resorting to mindless violence and cheesy one-liners? I also have never % played the roll-playing game on which the film is based but am ________________ aware of its cult following and the intense vigor with which people partake in playing it. An intimate knowledge of the game may have increased my enjoyment of the film, but all things considered, this is still ai very bad movie. Okay, so here's the story, as far as I could gather Empress Savina (Thiora Birch of "American Beauty") wants to eliminate class struggle in the magical land of Izmer. The'upper class, the magic-using Mages, and the common Commoners don't actually seem to be at war, they just kind of dislike each other. The Council of Mages (like your Senate!) is tricked, by evil magic- MageiPrefion (Jeremy Irons), into ruling to take away the Empress' scepter, which just happens to control the golden dragons of lzmer. Why exactly they want the scepter is somewhat of a mystery as is hlow Savitia got to be such an unpopular Empress, with her after-school-special quality mes- sage. Of course, none of this matters, for this is just the back story. setting uip the action with "stock young attractive people who hate each other but have great sexual tension" (JTustin Whalin and Zoe McLellan) and everybody's favorite "stock buddy who cracks wise until he is killed" (Marlon Wayans). Whalin and Wayans play a couple of Commoner thieves who decide to steal some magic-stuff from Mcl-ellan's boss, only to run into the murderous Damodar (Bruce Payne) who is trying to steal a map that shows where another scepter is that controls red _If dragons (which are, apparently, harder to control). McLellan runs off with the thieves to find a dragon's eye stone held by a master thief (Richard O'Brien). Oh, and did I mention a dwarf (who hates those damn gnomes!) is along for the ride, and that Damodar has a two-headed snake in his head and there's a cute mercenary with Spock ears also after the scepter that controls the red dragon, and a talk- ig skeleton, and oh, you get the idea. Basically, the film is a mess. O'Brien, of "The Rocky H-orror Picture Show" fame understands this, and gives the movie a few funny moments in his own campy way. Payne overacts amusingly, though he doesn't over do it, as the much put-upon Dramodar. Birch is embarrassed the most, for she's a pronmising actress who is forced to say things like "Nothing is more important than the freedom of my people!" I also got the feeling someone told Irons that he would be playing King Lear in a middle school rewrite. fie is so bad it had to be on purpose. And the biggest sin the file commits is putting in a handful of realistic, brutal murders. If not for this I could almost forgive the filmi and write it off as fluff for the wce youths. As it stands, I hope they keep director Courtney Solomon's damn hands off the red scepter Courtesy 0f University Productions Jem (BenJamin Klein) and Scout (Taryn Fixel) in a scene from "To Kill a Mockingbird." 'Mockingbird' proves to- be heartwarming Classic By Rachel Bachrach narrating apid guidiing the play from For the Wl be-innig to en~d. _-- While Ouellett guided thie,-play, "To Kill a Mockingbird" is one of' Atticus Finch~ (Anthony von Halle) America's most read and studied nov- kept the plaiy oliive. Von Hlalle was els of the 20th Century. To say one extremely convincing and could not hasn't read it is to say one isn't an have been east any better. His relation- American. But, for those of you who ship with Scout (TIaryn Fixel) and lenm have not studied it in-high school or (Benjamin Klein) was. so real istic that read it for pleasure, seeing the play :'at the end of the play, von Hall had comes as close~ some audience members in tears. Fixel as you can get was fun and cute as the rambunctious r to experiencing and curious Scout.~ FixeR portrayal of Harper Lee's Scouti4 innocent wasi well ,done, and To Kill a cfnotional and hard4 to do since She isonly supposed Mockingbird h'artwarm i n to'be six years. old. It can be a hard task Power Center noelto portray a child without becoming this p ast- o foolsh, buta )tieidid wedl with Dec. 8, 2000 Wclcd, the- good direction. 0 i.' School Music put on Lee's only novel and did so with, pas- sion. With a Courtesy of New Line Cinema Justin Whalen flies into the midst of tumultuous danger in "Dungeons and Dragons." Food For Thought The Legacy VACol. Bui Tin accept~ed the surrender of' South Vietnam. In 1')') 1 he a rote in The Wash- ington Post, "The tragic irony of this situation and conditions leading to the emod us of the boait people' is that the Comnwnrist' ha~ve finkihd whabu Aitc tin Ilt Urv machi}lne on1[IV party d ditiW ~~fthe wxvL"Ihev have c rushed Vietnam ..." Ad sponsored by: Gary Lillie & Associates, Realtors www .garylillie.com LOWEST PRICES! S HIGHEST QUALITY! FASTEST SER VICE! * 1002 PONTIAC TR. 0 994-1367 and good direction, the timeless "To Kill a Mockingbird" came to life just as well as the acclaimed 1962 movie starring Gregory Peck. Each actor brought his/her character to life with the help of the script, which retained more of' the original prose than the movie. Another significant ditference between the play and movie was the narration of Scout as an adult. In the novel, we get Jean Louise speaking to the reader as she tells us her stoiy about Boo Radley, Dill and the crazy. summers of 1935 in Maycomnb, Alabama. Yet, in the movie, this is lost. Thankfully, the play recap- tures this storytelling aspect with Alexa Ouellett playing the adult Jean Louise. She does an excellent job of I T"he chatacter of Jemh often gets lost in the play because he is too old to ask questions like the inquisitive Scout, yet too young to really get involved, with a major plot. Jem is the archetype: for the older brother and Klein did a, good job of keeping Jem a major role throughout the play. The rest of the cast did a good job with their characters. Eachff seemed to really know who their, character was and how- exactly to portray them. This can be attributed to director Kathryn Long: She knew the central themes of the play and knew how to block each char- acter to make these themes evident.. The set was also very realistic, with the ever-famnous Radley tree and knothole for, Scout's -enjoyment. The_ housgs, were apel f ctly plain and farm-like which established the time period well. The props were kept to a minimum, which helped to keep focus on the charac- ters - the main point of the play. 10 10 'MICHIGAN UNION BOOKSTORE Artcarved Representative Suzette Mitchell will be at the store 12/11 - 12/21 from 11 -4PM 0 E -* -- -- - '' ".'" - -'' ~ "~ *'' """~ T' '~< ~ " r ,.,, ,.&N N, N.- ~ H'N> N N 'N's' ~UNIVERSITY 4'N~~" A ~" N ' K~ K 'NLIBRARY - SPORTS ' I- i . '.t.. ~'., -",; N ' ' E ,( ,N" rtw'~ " \- r / .' y { i \ '..r f Y N'2 t : .r . ' ' 1L ., rr rh o , ?) : ....-".-...d" 4 r ,k. r r-' ~ F V \ " \ r ! KN N N / N , ~ T~ L~V A1 N.,, N.N ( "INN - N .., v'- , r..#1( .- I4 rr .,.' 'N N" ~' ~ -.-------- ,~ ADMfS ION~ N~-"N 7' - I N ~"" FINAN. LAID ' \. .ir e d " ( '1i, I'I~. ~ ~ N<7- ' N'iEGISTRAri jAN, ~N>~ I' ~qFI CE "' ',rS .\CAMPUS f nr ~~,~. 4. C\. K l\1. ~ \ , N> BOOKSTORE Al' N. 4 >N N z lh;,", "N . N"" 'N ' ""~x '"'MT -~ 'N a~4 ".r.':. / , ",/ 4 /..J / ;1 j 1 /t iz~ . : . ./' .: r . . ; -