Delbanco reads ... Writer Nicolas Delbanco reads from his "The Countess of Stanlein Restored" and "What Remains" at Shaman Drum. 8 p.m. Free. michigandaily. com /arts ARTS TUESDAY JANUARY 22, 2002 Globes less than Golden on NBC 'Black Hawk Down' avoids trite Hollywood subplots By Jordan Stein For the Daily r By Jeff Dicker Daily Arts Editor It's not the not even the E 59th Annu Golden Glok Awar4 N January 20, 8 p / sion. rson viewed winners during the ceremony _________________ with his usual "American Bandstand" charm. Academy Awards. It's Tragedy struck in the opening min- Emmys. It's the Golden utes of Sunday evening's 59th annual Globes, the Hol- Golden Globe awards. NBC rolled lywood Foreign out the red carpet with an appalling Press Associa- rendition of J. Lo's hit single "Waiting tion's self- 'for Tonight," rewritten with kinder- al d e s e r i b e d garten lyrics describing the stars as be "biggest Holly- the paraded into the decked out pavil- ds wood party of lion. the year." The Ron Howard's "A Beautiful Mind" media extrava- was the big winner of Sunday night's Bc ganza is more 59th annual Golden Globes, taking iM. about seeing the home four awards including Best i n d u s t r y 's Motion Picture Drama and Best Actor biggest and in a Drama for Russell Crowe. brightest stars In the Musical/Comedy film cate- having a few gory, "Moulin Rouge" garnered drinks rather awards for Best Picture and 'Best than celebrating Actress for leading lady Nicole Kid- the year's best in man. Wes Anderson's "The Royal film and televi- Tenenbaums" was overlooked, but Gene Hackman managed to win the y Hills Hilton was the Best Actor award. th annual Box office behemoth "Lord of the ,ony, Rings" failed to win any awards, stars as did David Lynch's "Mulhol- small land Dr." and the Coen Broth- Dick ers film noir "The Man Who his Wasn't There." -old The most surprising ted } moments of the telecast came in the TV drama categories. HBO's "Six Feet Under" won over fellow network juggernaut "The Sopranos" and NBC's "The West Wing." Jennifer Garner won for her role on the spy action-drama "Alias," beating the odds on favorites Edie Falco and Lorraine Bracco of "The Sopranos." In the male depart- ment, Kiefer Sutherland took home the best actor award for his role on the critically acclaimed FOX drama "24." NBC easily won the all- important Nielsen ratings Sun- day night with the Golden Globes, besting the CBS made for TV Chuck Norris vehicle "The President's Men," and ABC with "Alias, ourtesy o re mageguest starring Quentin Kidman scores one for the Aussies. Tarantino. GOLDEN GLOBES WINNERS CIRCLE Best Motion Picture (Drama) A BEAUTIFUL MIND a Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy) MoULIN RoUGE Best Television Series (Drama) SiX FEET UNDER Best Televison Series (Musical or Comedy) SEX AND THE CITY 0 Best Actor in a Motion Picture (Drama) RUSSELL CROWE ("A BEAUTIFUL MIND") Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama) SisSY SPACEK ("IN THE BEDROOM") 0 Best Actor in a Motion picture (Musical or Comedy) GENE HACKMAN ("THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS") S Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy) NIcOLE l IDMAN ("MOULIN Rowel) Best Director (Drama) RON HOWARD ("A BEAU- TIFUL MIND") Best Director (Comedy or Musical) ROBERT ALTMAN ("Gos- FORD PARK") Black Hawk Down Grade: B+ At Showcase and Quality 16 It's like watching a man drown, then watching the man trying to save him drown. Another man comes along, and soon all three have drowned. That's how things went in Mogadishu. A group of 19 U.S. troops, close to 1 ,000 Somali troops and citizens and two Black Hawk heli- copters were lost in the noto- rious, 1993 U.S. Special Forces raid on the Somali capital and its warlord- g e n e r a l, Mohammed Farah Aidid. Through detailed interviews and research, Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Mark Bowden turned the 15 hour blunder into a blow by blow account of aston- ishing precision in a book called "Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War." Blockbuster warlord- general Jerry Bruckheimer picked it up. The "wow the blood, wow the guts" repetition of "Black Hawk Down" is sometimes like a bad allit- eration: The words and images have something to do with each other, but add up to a showiness that is counter- productive to its original and intend- ed meaning. Perhaps this is how some would compartmentalize the 'two hours plus of the film. But perhaps it shouldn't be boxed and stored as such. Yes, this is a war movie. And yes, this is a Jerry Bruckheimer production. And, oh yes, Ridley Scott made not only "Gladiator" but also "G.1. Jane" and "White Squall." "Black Hawk Down," however, is not any kind of glamour stage or love story, camou- flaged or not. It treats no other subject than what historically happened. Hollywood blemishes are minimal. War is every- thing: There is little talk of Washing- ton and minimal (and perfectly excusable) "tell my wife I love her" jargon, not to mention an intentional lack of character development. Visually stunning, the color distor- tions of hot Somali street scenes (filmed in Morocco) evoke both a warm and entirely foreign aesthetic as the dust swirls and falls like rain, constantly surrounding the cast of bewildered soldiers. The red of blood and orange of fire are even distract- ing in their luster. In a move that some might find risqud, the distortion also makes the seemingly endless universe of Somali extras loom an even darker, faceless mass. The necessary, but somewhat ridiculous, beginning follows various cinematic pawns hawking 20 minutes of "Aidid is a bad warlord, let's take him out" discussion. The fact that there aren't any overwhelmingly famous stars in the film makes this more neutral and passable. The con- science of the viewer is established in the form of Sergeant Matt Evers- mann (Josh Hartnett), who 'is checked by his humanitarian aware- ness and concern that 300,000 have either been killed or starved in Soma- lia under Aidid. The troops jog and board the ready choppers to the Stevie Ray Vaughn cover of the Hendrix classic "Voodoo Child." The psychedelic soundtrack to the '60s,' and moreover, Vietnam, is revisited and recast. However, Eversmann brings this historical reenactment a sense of purpose in national unity. By the time the credits roll, there is certainly the sunken feeling of futility and failure, but there is no tremendous exclamation point that usually surrounds Vietnam. The film was originally slated for a summer 2002 release date and was pushed up post Sept. I1. The mes- sage that we're doing the right thing in a foreign land and at a potentially, great cost, comes through a little jaded, but honest. The repetition is instrumental to the film's integrity. The gunshots and explosions get old then new again. Endless missing limbs, back- up units and bandages do not deny this story a moral, although it ulti- mately comes through in words, not images, at the end of the film. The two soliloquies involving honest heroics don't exactly clou'd eyes,' but do succeed in getting across a less- than-sappy idea of what this film is about. The appreciation for the visceral nature of "Black Hawk Down" should not be lost on the viewer. The film projects a sense of urgency by sustaining such brutality in the face of an industry and audience that feeds on steamy sub-plots and intense protagonist identification even in historical reenactments., What "Black Hawk Down' does well is the opposite of glorification, which should neither be overlooked nor undermined ... if you can take the drowning. Thomas Guiry decides not to open up the door with all of the bullets coming through. 'The BoundedSelf Exhibition' explores broad social bounderies By Christine Lasek Daily Arts Writer "The BoundedSelf Exhibition," a study on the fluidity and the fixity of The BoundedSelf Exhibition Media Union Thru Sun. human identity, is being held at the Media Union Gallery until this Sun- day. The exhibit consists of five separate stations set up in a labyrinthine structure, with each station exploring a different aspect of societies' ideas on and the boundaries of "self." The five members of the Bound- edSelf group all participated in an interdisciplinary seminar this past summer called the Rackham Sum- mer Interdisciplinary Institute (RSII), which brings together grad- uate students, post-doctoral students and professors at the university to share ideas and methods of inquiry across disciplinary divides while discussing a particular theme. With genetic engineering and body-manipulation. Based on their answers, which are then compared with the answers of other respondents, participants are given the opportu- nity to discover their "Fluidity-Fixity Index Score," illus- trating how the participant feels about the increasingly modifiable human body and the instability of human forms. Another interesting station, "Dispensing Identities: Physical Appearance and the Self," created by Laura Cit- rin, offers a glance at the paradoxical language of choice, freedom and individuality. The station examines ways in which societal forces such as racism, classism and ageism have shaped cultural notions of attractiveness. Participants are able to see how a language of uniqueness is utilized, through a sample of advertisements collected throughout the 20th century. This sample was actually aimed at convincing the consumer that there is a correct or most beautiful way to look. Also, because the sample of advertisements spans an entire century, participants are able to see how advertisers manipulated language in order to appeal to the times, yet still sell the same prod- ucts as before. It seems possible that every participant who walks through the BoundedSelf labyrinth could have a different experience. The exhibit is altogether disturbing, joyful, bewildering, melancholy and dark. It also seems possible that some participants will walk away from "The Bound- edSelf Exhibition" without a full understanding of what they just experienced. Citrin, however, believes that this reaction is acceptable. "We didn't want every part of the exhibition to be opaque. We didn't want to spoon feed, or worse, force-feed, these ideas on anyone. We wanted to leave some work to the viewer to come to his or her own conclusions." In this goal, the BoundedSelf team suc- ceeded. their varied backgrounds in natural science, social sci- ence and the humanities, the members of BoundedSelf explored the idea of "the boundaries of the individual," from which grew this elaborate exhibit to display their ideas. The first station of "BoundedSelf" is the "Bounded- ness Computer Kiosk," created by Christopher DeFay. Participants take an anonymous online survey game, which is a series of questions pertaining to self-defini- tion through gender, sexuality and race. The survey then goes beyond these standard forms of identity, raising questions on species-identity, as well as opinions about a Bizarre'Chair'hardly compelling By Rohith Thumati Daily Arts Writer This show does not even deserve the title of "show." Shows are sup- target before they answer questions, or else they lose money from their total for every second over that tar- get. Making it even more interesting (supposedly) are random surprises called "heart stoppers" designed to boost the contestant's heart rate over make "You may not answer the ques- tion" the next "Is that your final answer?" just make it even more grating. To make this even worse is the fact that FOX has its own show called "The Chamber" airing Fridays R E~E W posed to be entertaining. This one is not. I a