.1 Ann Arbor Film Festival ... See the final shows of the festival this weekend at the Michigan Theater. ATTS FRIDAY MARCH 15, 2002 michigandaily.comn/arts 3'vx Twenty-first century pl o . e e rs punk e zz n xiy{.'Ztco<' ads " R VV ., By Tony Ding For the Daily "You know people always say: 'Oh, I've never heard of your band.' I say that's 'cus you're not 18 with a skateboard," stokes the affable bassist Jay Bentley. His band, first wave L.A. punks Bad Religion, lit its flame of defiance two decades ago, to the heat-baked, smog-infest- ed dystopia of mini-malls and suf- focating boredom, known as The Valley. Thereafter, the disaffected teenagers loudly challenged their inhospitable environment with statements in music. Today, Bad Religion is still on the road, this time with veteran ska troupe Less Than Jake, and fresh punk cohorts. Hot Water Music. The tour marks a new beginning for the pioneers of thesaurus rock, as BR guitarist and band co-founder Brett Gurewitz returns to the stage - after a six-year leave to jump- start the band's label, Epitaph, which Gurewitz owns. "Personally, I feel more complete with Brett back in the band," Bentley affirms, "because we spent 15 years together in the beginning doing all this, and that's just something that's part of what you do." The new album, once again, has been produced by BR's original songwriters, Gurewitz and vocalist Greg Graffin. The band returns to making innovative and influential music, back from when their groundbreaking furious beats and harmonious cho- rus inspired future punk superstars such > as Green Dayk and Blink 182. To the younger generation that didn't grow up Record with BR, Bentley describes their current shows as being around 30 songs for about an hour and 20 minutes. "We don't have a big show with a BAD R lot of fire and smoke," At The St he explains. "It's all in DE about the music, and it's all about the band Sunday a and the fans." The down-to-earth Cali- UniversityM fornian expressed dis- tain for critics that categorize the band as "Political old-school punk," touting: "Categories are for vegeta- bles in the store. We're just a band -- geeks, fuck- ing nerds with attitude!" Bent- ley doesn't think much of the punk scene either, despite the devout fans that honor the band for its accomplishments. Punk lovers are just "a group of people that have- independe nt thought," Bentley . observes. He explains mat- ter-of-factly that if you "start pigeon-holing people because of what they like, you might as well be mad at them for what they eat, and before you know it you're a militant, vegan, skinhead guy beating people up for a ELIGION ate Theater etroit t 7:30 p.m. M1.75 qusical Society music speaks for itself," chimes Bentley. "If you get something out of it, that's great." An explanation as to why BR holds such values and standpoints may rest on the fact that the band is uncannily intellectual. Vocalist Greg Graffin not only holds two graduate degrees, one in Biology and one in Geology, but is also working towards a Ph.D. at Cornell. This acknowledgement of academics has led the band to offer a unique research grant for the past 4 years, called the Bad Religion Research Fund. "The laboratories get tons of money." Jay Bentley explains. "The people out there digging for fossils, or doing social studies; they're not really getting any money." Thus with the Fund, which receives some 200 submissions per year, the band awards one young researcher, and hopes to eventually increase the Fund to five annual awards. In 1998, Lena Sharon Nicolai of the Michigan Depart- ment of Biology was one such recipient of the Bad Religion Research Fund, helping her with a study thesis titled: "Dispersal of mycorrhizal fungal spores by rodents and consequent effects on tree seedling establishment and forest regeneration." With a career history as compla- cent as Bad Religion's, it's not dif- ficult to understand what's been driving these guys on for the past 20 years. For bassist Bentley, life's outlook can be summed up as wak- ing up every morning, thinking: "Wow! I'm the luckiest human being on the planet!" The man's optimism transcends the band's fiercely independent spirit and influential trek through punk music's infancy. Their own label, founded by BR's Brett Gurewitz, has also grown from a mere logo and a PO Box, to a fortis industry player. As Bad Religion return to challenge the status quo and them- selves, 18-year-old skateboarders,' for sure, will know their name. courtesy orABC Michael J. Anderson (last dwarf on the right) stars in this crap. New 'Snow White' worst of them all By Melissa Gollob Daily Arts Writer The Brothers Grimm's classic tale of Snow White comes to life, revealing more than ever before. "Snow White: The Fairest of them All" expands on all the .4 Her henchman fails and she plots to kill Snow White herself. In the end, Snow White and the prince live happily ever after and the queen gets what she deserves in the end. The most notable difference from any other version of Snow White is that the hamburger." However, says Bentley, "the state of music today is in a lot better shape than it was 10 years ago. That there is something out there for everybody is great!" Bentley laid down frank criticism as well on the influence of teen punk icons such as Blink 182, who toured with BR in 2000. "Blink fucks with (little kids) too much because they know who's listening to their records. They know that there's 12-year-old kids buying their records, and so they put some shit on their records that I don't really agree with." In BR's newly released album, The Process of Belief, the social- conscience punk rockers continue to challenge "the tacit, dogmatic struc, ture of our society." Track titles like "Materialist," or "Kyoto Now!" make a loud statement of the band's up-to-date political advocacy. "The characters and answers questions about the char- acters' motives for behav- ing as they do. The movie incorporates more from the original tale than most other versions. The story begins with the birth of Snow White (Kristen Kreuk, "Small- ville") and her mother's sudden death. Her father SNOw WHITE: THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL Sunday at 7 p.m. ABC * seven dwarves are named for the days of the week and have their own color of the rainbow. The rainbow is important for the integra- tion of the dwarves into the plot but unnecessary for the overall quality of the story. They attempt to provide comic relief but the grumpy dwarf Wednesday fails to deliver an emotional per- journeys through a winter storm in order to find food for his baby. He meets a crea- ture that grants him three wishes for sav- ing his life. Suddenly, Snow White's father finds himself the king in charge of a king- dom. The creature recruits an ugly woman to be queen to fulfil( his obligations to Snow White's father. Because she is pow- erful, the woman decorates her enormous garden with and a dwarf named Sunday (Michael J. Anderson, "Twin Peaks") and gnomes she froze to be her friends. She takes these to the kingdom and Snow White befriends them. To gain favor in his heart, she rains pieces of the magic mirror down on the king and one sliver falls in his eye. The sliver blinds him from seeing her true nature. Then time fast-forwards 16 years when a prince arrives to court the princess Snow White. The queen (Miran- da Richardson, "The Crying Game") increasingly becomes more jealous of her. She decides to take the prince for herself and attempts to-kill Snow White. formance typical of the character. His sar- casm is over the top and abrupt, which interferes with the flow of dialogue. The movie tries too hard to develop the characters enough so that they each learn their lesson. With a limited time frame, this is impossible, and the plot suffers. The story moves so that Snow White's father learns to open his eyes, Snow White becomes a woman and the queen realizes the true meaning of beauty. Each moment is lackluster because of the lack of development in the rush to reach the end. A positive aspect of "Snow White" is the special effects. The elaborate mirror room created by the queen shows who is the fairest of them all. The fairest one -pops out of the mirrors in the room ands announces that she is the fairest. The handheld magic mirror also allows the queen to alter her appearance by stepping in and out of it. The queen's change is flawless and creates the only dramatic scene in the movie. Courtesy of Epitaph Records Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. RC Players address race with Shange' s 'Colored' y***** Shepard Str'dismal By Autumn Brown Daily Arts Writer The RC Players, a student theater group known for presenting themes and messages not commonly addressed by mainstream theater, proudly presents its latest work, "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf," a choreo-poem by Ntozake Shange. "I am happy to bring 'Colored Girls' to the community," said Anna Vitale, the director of "Col- ored Girls." Vitale, a junior con- centrating in Women's Studies, has previously directed her own scene for the RC's " Evening of the FOR Co GIRLS WH CONSID SUIC East Quad A Tonight and at 8 p.m. teacher who introduced the idea for the produc- tion to me. Before I read the play, I had no idea that stories were being told about having atti- tude, standing up for yourself and not being ashamed." Jordan Reed, a Theater & Drama senior co- directs "Colored Girls" with Vitale. Reed incorporated an Irish directorial method named "devis- LORED ing" into the production. Accord- 1O HAVE ing to Reed, "Devising is allowing ERED normally directorial decisions like IDE set design, costumes, blocking and music to be made by the cast." auditorium Reed also credits social context Tomorrow as being influential in her deci- $3-$5 sion. "A lot of community and growth was happening during the eras of social change with women' s theater and the play came out of a new sense of sisterhood and women feeling like they had power in their lives," she said. "I still feel like these stories are pertinent." Hence, Reed and Vitale do not consider them- selves directors, in the true sense of the word; rather they prefer to be known as organizers of the production. "It's so wonderful to work with people who have not done this before, and are really honest about what they say," Vitale said. "They have made the story their own. The inter- pretations come from the women themselves." Courtesy of Scribner Author Ntozake Shange. Scenes" and was the assistant director for "Electra." "There are not a lot of plays on campus about African-Americans and Latinos. Hopefully this play will inspire other people to do similar things, such as perform plays by less known playwrights," Vitale said. Vitale believes that her experience of growing up in a diverse environment helped make social issues a priority in her life. "It means something that I am the only white person in the produc- tion, but I'm from Detroit and so I grew up around black women," she said. "It was a The playwright, Ntozake Shange, scripted music for her production, including Willie Colon, Martha and the Vandellas and the Dells, but for the RC's production of the Broadway hit, music by Tori Amos was utilized. While the music is alarge part of the per- formances, the costumes are kept simple and are meant to convey a deeper meaning. "In the play, every lady is a color and together they make up the colors of the rainbow," Reed said. Vitale added, "The group's solidarity is what keeps the ladies from committing suicide and the solidarity is represented in a rainbow, because a rainbow can only happen when the colors are all together." By Jennifer Fogel Daily Arts Writer It is both difficult to watch, as well as review, television programming that is supposed to remind you of a life so influ- ential to the world that you dare not forget it. Lately, heart-wrenching bio-pics have suddenly become commercialized instead of the normal processed and overdramatic antics we've been accustomed to. Case in point, the actualization of Matthew Shep- ard's life into a made-for-TV pseudo-doc- umentary has become a race between two competing networks bank- ing' on sizable ratings , instead of reiterating the truth. , Last Saturday, HBO premiered "The Laramie THE M Project" exactly one week SHEPAR before this Saturday's "The Matthew Shepard Saturday Story" on NBC. Neither N movie chooses to focus on Matt as the central figure, but rather explores the lives of those on the periph- ery of his shocking death. Whether or not this shift in attention will be more accept- able to audiences is unclear, but in watch- ing both movies it is clear that we will never know exactly why such a senseless crime occurred. "The Matthew Shepard Story" begins with the gruesome act committed against 21-year-old Matt (Shane Meier) by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson in an expansive field in Laramie, Wyo. in 1998. A year later, Dennis (Sam Waterston, "Law and Order") and Judy (Stockard Channing, "The West Wing") Shepard are agonizing over an official statement they are to give to the jury condemning McK- inney to death after he is found guilty of Matt's murder. (Henderson pled guilty and was given a life sentence.) The Shep- ards have been apart for some time as Dennis lives TTHEW in Saudi Arabia, while STORY Judy travels around the country speaking about her t 9 p.m. son. The marriage is defi- C nitely strained, yet there is no evidence that the audi- 4, 40 I A D y a BC od Su Camp Michigania Alumni Association of the University of Michigan Working at the University of Michigan alumni camp is a rewarding and exciting opportunity. Since 1961, Camp Michigania has been a treasured experience for thousands of UM alumni and their families. Those who serve as staff members have countless opportunities for personal and pro- fessional growth. ence should be worried about an immi- nent divorce. Flashbacks fill the screen as each parent remembers a portion of Matt's life during the time he struggled to come to terms with his sexuality and find some acceptance in the world. In the end, the Shepards agree to ask the judge to grant McKinney consecutive life sentences, deciding not to combat hate with hate. Although the subject matter is particu- larly compelling, the movie is not. It refuses to acknowledge any real heartache, only filling us with visually stimulating vignettes that are extremely out of place. Executive producer Goldie Hawn has said that she hopes the movie will open hearts, but the only understand- ing in the film is for the complications Matt's life made on his parents. Focusing solely on the parents' perspective makes any effort to sympathize with Matt's lone- ly journey through life difficult. "Project" also asks us to understand Matt's life through others, this time through the observations of the people of Laramie. In an amazing feat, the movie I Organizations, place an ad for your graduating seniors! Students, place an ad Make lifelong friendships. Develop leadership skills. C ,. II im