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February 17, 2003 - Image 5

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Publication:
The Michigan Daily, 2003-02-17

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Monday
February 17, 2 3
michigandaily.com
mae@michigandaily.com

RTS

5A

I

Damn it's hot. Good thing they built in these leather nipples or this suit would be totally unbearable.

Courtesy of 20th Century Fox

RED LEATHER DOESN'T MAKE A SUPERHERO

Take a deep breath, now let it out.

Cal 's Finch evolves into
headliners on new tour

By Luke Smith
Daily Arts Writer

By Jonathon Triest
Daily Arts Writer

As Drive-Thru Records dishes
out carbon copy pop-punk bands,
Temecula, Calif. natives Finch
uphold the label's initial reputation
by providing fans with fine show-
manship and great noise. In their
first U.S. tour as headliners, Finch
and openers The Used played last
Tuesday to a sold-out crowd at
Detroit's Saint Andrews Hall.
Before the concert, Finch guitarist
Alex Linares spoke with The Michi-
gan Daily about the band's current
tour and rising popularity.
The Michigan Daily: You played
the Warped Tour last summer. How
was that?
Alex Linares: It was like
"Groundhog Day." Have you seen
the movie?-
TMD: Yeah. The same thing
everyday?
AL: Yeah, for like two months.
TMiD: Is this tour different?
AL: It's much more chill. You
don't have to wake up to a dust
bowl everyday. You wake up at the
Warped Tour and you fall asleep at
the Warped Tour. It's very hard to
get away from it. The majority of
the time it's in the middle of
nowhere, so to go anywhere was
like a $30 cab ride both ways.
You're stuck there all day.
TMD: Do you think you gained a
lot of new listeners from the Warped
Tour?
AL: Fuck yeah. That tour and the
New Found Glory tour helped us
the most out of anything. New
Found Glory are like our big broth-
ers. Those guys are the shit. We
know we are not anywhere near
each other musically, but we are
such good friends. Jordan, the
singer, has a Finch tattoo. I'm

gonna get a New Found tattoo.
TMD: So, how would you catego-
rize your sound?
AL: I would say like a heavy
rock, almost like a fusion-type band.
We choose all different styles.
TMD: And what would some of
those styles be? Emo?
AL: Fuck no. I would say like
maybe hardcore, rock and maybe a
little bit of punk too. No, punk is
emo.
TMD: We saw the setlist online
and "Stay with Me" is not listed.
Will that be played tonight?
AL: No. That song sucks, man. It's
one of those songs we wish we did-
n't play. It's one of those songs we
wish we could have sold to one of
the cheap pop-punk bands. We
should have sold it to Simple Plan
when we had the chance.
TMD: It looks like you are doing
quite well-rightnoW W t'snext?
AL: The studio. Put down a new
record.
TMD: Will the new record be on
Drive-Thru?
AL: Uh, yeah. We have a huge
contract with them. Huge as in like
"many records." We owe them
"many records." We decided we are
going to take a couple months off
to write it, tour - probably the
Warped Tour - and then come
back and record it.
TMD: So what does it feel like?
Did you always expect to get to this
level?
AL: Yeah. It's fuckin' really
exciting. It's even more exciting
like the days when we get to play
for huge crowds. We played a show
recently to 2000 people. I remem-
ber a year ago playing Fireside
Bowl in Chicago for like 200 peo-
ple and it was like, "Fuck, man -
200 people." Even just a year and a
half ago, if 100 people pay to get
in, we'd be so fuckin' stoked.

Despite the good intentions of Daredevil-
worshipping director Mark Steven Johnson, the
adaptation of the Marvel comic hero prefers to
remind viewers of last summer's "Spider-Man"
(another red-clad hero in New York) rather
than set its own path.
As Matt Murdock, Ben Affleck's broad shoul-
ders are squeezed into the deep red of Daredevil's
costume, but, like in life, the clothes
do not make the man. Square-jawed
throughout, the humorless Affleck
possesses none of the self-depreca-
tion or self-discovery of Tobey DARE
McGuire's Spider-Man. The result-
ing superhero is a dense, unfeeling At Shov
character, a pursuer of justice Qual
through esoteric means. 20th Ce
The film begins with a flashback,
where we see young Matt Murdock (Scott Terra) as
the subject of ridicule by school bullies (led by
"Sopranos"-progeny Robert Iler) and meet his
Heineken-loving boxer father (David Keith). Jack
"the Devil" Murdock demands young Matt avoid
fighting and become something respectable "like a
doctor or lawyer." Matt catches his father in the act
as hired muscle for the mob, and while fleeing the
scene'getssplashed-vrrhefe-witriranonymuus
bio-toxin. He loses his sight, but his other senses

w
lI

are augmented by the chemical waste.
His father is murdered when he refuses to throw
a boxing match and a red rose is left on his body
- the killer's calling card. The young Murdock
swears revenge, and a superhero (sort of) is born.
Instead of using the original story of Matt Mur-
dock's transformation into Daredevil, where he
loses his sight saving a man from an oncoming
car, the script turns Murdock into a victimized
vigilante, establishing an internal conflict for
Murdock to rise above. Murdock's intrinsic
changes feel forced as a result.
As an adult, Murdock is an attor-
ney, who, upon losing cases, takes
judicial matters into his own court
:DEVIL - after hours - as Daredevil.
Instead of using Murdock's gifts for
icase and cunning in the courtroom, screen-
ity 16 writer Mark Steven Johnson elects
ntu-y Fox a violent outpouring for Murdock's
blessing in disguise. This violence
is covered carefully by New York Post reporter
Ben Urich (Joe Pantoliano) who coins the epithet
"the man without fear" for the crime fighter.
Serving as a one-man army against crime, Mur-
dock eventually crosses paths with the Kingpin,
Wilson Fisk (Michael Clarke Duncan, "The Green
Mile"). The Kingpin hired Irish assassin Bullseye
(Colin Farrell, "The Recruit") to off his billionaire
-'business partner Nikolas Natchios (Erik Avari).
Coincidentally, the daughter of said business part-

ner, Elektra (Jennifer Garner, TV's "Alias"), is Matt
Murdock's love interest. The plot entangles the two
in an obvious case of whodunit regarding Elektra's
father. Daredevil, in her eyes, is the chief suspect.
Styled.similarly to Tim Burton's two "Batman"
pictures, "Daredevil" takes place almost exclu-
sively at night. The characters bounce around in
battles in some amalgamate of the unfettering
agility of Spider-Man and the leaping and bounc-
ing of martial arts flicks. It is a combination that
ultimately doesn't work.
The action sequences between the twitchy
Bullseye and Elektra, and Elektra and Murdock
(their playground scene has the fight choreog-
raphy of a student film) are an overly-stylized,
terribly unrealistic festival of floating and levi-
tation. A superhero like Spider-Man is given
reprieve from these criticisms because he is a
man-spider, but Matt Murdock is simply a
blind guy aided by sonar - this gives no cause
for his physically unrealistic talents.
This over-the-top display of the ridiculous
drives "Daredevil" away from the amazing control
of "Spider-Man," and "Daredevil" becomes a neg-
ative hyperbole of a superhero film. While the
screenwriters could've made a hero intelligent and
forthright, they instead dumb him down, plague
him with his own victimization and ultimately tor-
ment the filmgoers with recycled pap. It is a for-
mula that evenwithin the expanded reality of the
superhero film genre, is tried, tired, retread.

Glitzy fourth 'Sim' a boring retread of original

By Brian Stephens
Daily Arts Writer
Here we go again: Traffic jams,
rogue robot invasions and nuclear dis-
asters are all out to shake up your

utopian society.
"SimCity 4" looks
prettier, takes over three
times more hard drive
space than its predeces-
sor and requires state-
of-the-art video drivers
to make use of its
incredible graphics, but
Electronic Arts and
Maxis Entertainment

interface of "SimCity 4" has been
completely upgraded from simple
point-and-click buttons to an intricate
maze of buttons, dials and rigs that
must be used to build your city. Even
after your metropolis is built, there is
little you can control;
gamers simply sit back
and watch pedestrians
walk back and forth
TY 4 across the streets.
"SimCity 4"'s big
change would be its
rts / Maxis focus on regional play-
rmnent ing, where gamers build

opportunity to doze off while building
thirty more. While "SimCity 4" still
has the addictive flair of the original
"SimCity" released in 1989, it has
become apparent that EA and Maxis
have run out of ideas to make the
series an ever evolving one.
The music, however, is surprisingly
good including some beautiful mixes
of both techno and classical and a few

opera-like vocals. The background
music is so well done that EA and
Maxis could have definitely released
it as an audio CD.
In the end, is "SimCity 4" worth
the buy? If you're looking to play
another "SimCity" title that looks
pretty, then go for it, but if you're
"Simmed out" for the time being,
save your money for another title.

SIMCI
PC
Electronic A
Entertai

Camp Counselors & Instructors Needed
Camp Walden in Cheboygen, MI, a coed summer camp. Needs
male and female staff for arts & crafts - tennis - gymnastics
- sailing - riding -'performing arts - archery instructors
- secretaries - bus driver, trip leaders &
INFIRMARY ASSISTANTS (work with
doctors in a camp clinic).

have put so

much glitz on it that they've unfortu-
nately transformed the game's genre
itself from simulation to strategy. The

'U' Prof. Gregerson talks poetry

By Julia Goldstein
For the Daily

University Prof., poet and recent
Guggenheim fellow Linda Gregerson
will be reading from her work tonight
at 5 p.m. in Davidson Hall. She has
published several books
including her most
recent book of poems
"Waterborne," pub- LIT
lished in 2002. Her GREG
poems and essays have A
appeared in countless At Dav
periodicals including Today
* The Atlantic Monthly,
Poetry, and The Best American Poet-
ry. Gregerson recently took the time
to talk about her poetry with The
Michigan Daily.
The Michigan
Daily: How did you
first start writing,
poetry specifically?
Linda Gregerson:
I started writing after
I graduated from col-
lege, thanks to the
intervention of a

N
E
-ids
at

Jorie Graham, John Ashbery, Louise
Gluck, Carl Phillips.
TMD: What do you think is one of
the biggest misconceptions about
poetry?
LG: That's it's only suited to
address certain kinds of subject in an
already aesthetic genre
... that only some feel-
ings are appropriate.
DA TMD: Do you have
RSON any advice for aspiring
writers?
son Hall LG: Write lots. Read
5 p.m. lots. Do other things in
the world that compel
you deeply. Anything with a lot of
discipline and texture in it whether
it's entomology, car repair, public
officesor nuclear
physics, because
submitting yourself
to the shape of
inquiry is good for
poetry and allows
you to return to lan-
guage fresh.
TMD: How has
your style of writing
changed through the

lar speaker ... it's a much more
mixed diction.
TMD: What's next for you?
LG: A new book of poems. Right
now I am writing a poem for a British
anthology to celebrate the 40th
anniversary of Rachel Carson's
"Silent Spring." It has to do with cel-
lular and molecular biology - very
different and interesting for me.

entire maps of cities,
and each individual city can economi-
cally interact with one another. In other
words, instead of yawning through the
building of one city, players have the
A look at the
underside of U of M
www.universitysecrets.com

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