4 Friday September , 2002 michigandaily.com/arts mae@michigandaily.com ARTS 8 4 An all around bad effort ruins 'Swinfan' By Ryan Blay Daily TV/New Media Editor The best part about seeing John Polson's disastrous "Swimfan" at the theater was the appearance of radio personalities from local sta- tion Q95.5. After they finished giv- ing away free CDs and T-shirts, however, the movie started. After that, the fun stopped. Madison Bell is troubled. The cousin of a local dweeb, Madison (Erika Christensen, "Traffic") uses music to escape from her troubles. The cello is like a drug to her (a sly reference to her crack abusing char- acter in "Traffic," perhaps? No, just a week attempt to flesh out her character). If this concept is too hard to understand, you best not go see this film. The actual cause of her disturbances, to be fair, is explained later. However, the expla- nation is far from believable or nec- essary, except, of course, to the lame ending. Madison stumbles upon star swimmer Ben Cronin (Jesse Brad- ford, "Romeo + Juliet"), perhaps accidentally. OK, not accidentally. It was all planned. This is pretty obvious. Golden boy Ben works at the local hospital with his mother and uses swimming as his release. Apparently, he used to be involved in drugs until swimming helped turn his life around in juvenile detention. Gee, hope that doesn't haunt him later on in the movie. You can pretty much guess what happens. They meet, he nearly runs her over, drives her home. She sub- tly hints she wants din- ner. They go, and rather than take her home, she manipulates his sorry ass into going for a swim. By swim, I SWIM mean sex at the 9 ft. deep marking in the At Show pool. This one-night stand 20th Cen turns dangerous. Ben can't let anything distract him from preparing for the big swim meet, where his future dream of going to Stanford will be in the balance. Furthermore, he already has a per- fectly wonderful waitress girlfriend, Amy, the girl around whom he's planning his future. Fortunately, he A rc 4, it doesn't mention her to Madison so she gets angry and attacks Amy ... oops, he did that too. Two things make this film sink like a drowning Madison at the end of the film: The first is the acting. Erika Christensen's eyes convey her confusion and anger, but Chris- tensen herself is emotionally flat. And Ben, man he is bad. Bradford is nearly a dead ringer for Freddie Prinze Jr. and is clearly evoking his doppelganger's fine performance in "Sum- mer Catch." I wish I could say something about Shiri Appleby's [FAN Amy, but her character is so depraved of sub- case and stance that you end up y 16 feeling bad for Apple- tury Fox by more than her cuck- olded character. Ben's friends are no more than weak cari- catures of high school kids. Appar- ently two of the. friends are fighting since they used to date, but this is never examined. Neither is Ben's past , history of delinquencies; stealing to fund a drug habit prior to turning his life around. The director has instead chosen to use his hour and a half to focus on a stoned-looking Madison paging Ben and leaving her panties in his care on purpose. Even outstanding character actor Dan Hedaya ("Commando") is left with a stereotype of a character in Ben's demanding swimming coach. The second is the script. If you thought the roses in "American Beauty" or the feather in "Forrest Gump" was heavy-handed, wait until you see how Polson uses such items as a hairpin. The purpose of writing a script is not to bring back subtle items from the beginning of the film and work them into the conclusion. If anybody was unable to gather the majority of the plot from trailers, then shame on them. Also, is the audience supposed to giggle when Cronin and his girls are having passionate, tense conver- sations? It says something if even the most accepting audiences can't buy the drama of Ben's attempts to distance himself from the psychotic Madison and protect his friends, girlfriend and family from her. Of course, the person who recog- nizes Madison as a threat is ignored like a modern day Cassandra. Everyone else is blind to her threat, including Ben's mom, who unex- pectedly receives flowers and a visit from Madison on her birthday. Yet the mother is too stupid to wonder what this strange girl is doing in her house looking at Ben's baby pic- tures. Furthermore, nobody recog- nizes her stealing into the boy's locker room or impersonating a doctor in a hospital. But then again, in a film partially set at a school where nobody actually attends a class, where a kid can look at nude pictures of a teenaged girl on a school library's computer, implausi- bility is just the norm. The music contributes to the mood of corniness and lame teenage angst. Combining emotion- al female singers, whiny, bland punk-pop and other genres that belong in "American Pie 2,", the song choices only enforce the belief that this film is a closet comedy, rather than the thriller "Fatal Attrac- tion"-in-a-high-school look its attempting to pull off. ESPN.com's Page Two recently released its list of the top 20 sports movies. Suffice it to say that "Swimfan" won't be making the list any time soon. With any luck, it will fall along with "Caddyshack 2," "The Air Up There" and "Karate Kid 3" as among the worst in recent history. It may not strike you until after you walk out of the theater, but what you've just seen is a really poor film. Just all-around, top-to- bottom drivel. Bradford, Chris- tensen, prepare your Razzies speeches now. Courtesy of USA Films Using the ID, buying the drugs. A slightly kinder Christensen. Christensen rises up fro-m McDonald's ad By Luke Smith Daily Arts Editor Launched into the national spot-, light playing a desperate drug-lov- ing Caroline Wakefield in Steven Soderbergh's wildly acclaimed 2000 film, "Traffic" starlet Erika Christensen is a busy women in Hollywood now. After turning just 20 last August, Christensen opens her first film this weekend with the sultry-suspense flick "Swimfan." The new 20-something has known she wanted to be an actress since she was just 12, growing up on the outskirts of Los Angeles, California, Christensen saw her first role in a McDonald's commer- cial. Landing a role in the national advertising campaign for Mickey- Ds was quite a jump-start for the young Christensen. She expanded on her commercial career by jump- ing on with another giant cooperate machine Disney. Christensen landed a part in the 1997 Disney-flick "Leave it to Beaver," playing the part of Karen. Though the movie wasn't much of a success, Christensen earned high marks critically. Erika deftly parlayed the "Leave it to Beaver" role into a slew of guest- starring roles on televisions shows, most notably "Fraiser," "The Prac- tice" and "3rd Rock From the Sun." From here it was only a matter of time until she landed her role in "Traffic" and propelled herself into the national eye. In the wake of "Traffic" Chris- tensen's portrayal of Caroline earned her very strong reviews and she was able to add some brass to her award shelf. Christensen took home an MTV popcorn for Female Break- through Performance as well as shar- ing in the Outstanding Performance by a Cast or Ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild awards. Now, Erika has moved from play- ing the drug addicted daughter of Michael Douglas to the psychotic Madison Bell in "Swimfan." Chris- tensen's character falls madly for swim team star Jesse Bradford (Ben Cronin). The plot twists and turns and without ruining any surprises, many people end up dead. Christensen's next project is a com- plete departure from the mentally- deranged Madison Bell. She will play the daughter of Susan Sarandon in the upcoming "Banger Sisters." The film stars Goldie Hawn and Sarandon as a couple of middle-aged ex-groupies trying to recapture their youth. Members of the 'Swimfan' meat market. _ _ _ _ _ a n* iext to * * pinball pate's 1220 south u . 222-9013 ru, Space Available Now! ICC STUDENT HOUSING CO-OPS Our 19 houses have from 12-53 students. What we all have in common is a desire to work together to create an affordable community where we can live, work, eat and play. /' I I IT'S MORE THAN JOINING JUST DAILY ARTs. JOIN TH.E MICHIGAN DAly. MASS MEETINGS SEPT.17 AND 19 AT8PM, bubble tea. smoothies . mochi ice cream. thai tea A