ARTS The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 9 Not only the good guys lose in this 'Alamo' By John Hartman For the Daily MOVIE REVIEW * Just in case you had forgotten, America is awe- some. And in case you need further proof, "The Alamo" is here. Unfortunately, "The Alamo," the story of an extremely deadly battle, is not all that awe-inspiring. Instead, it's rather boring, and despite the fact that it is both authentic-looking and sounding, it feels utterly artificial. The trouble starts where there should not be any trouble The Alamo - the beginning. Here, we have gratuitous shots of dead t Quality 16, Showcase and bodies from the battle, and a Madstone shot of the stern Gen. Sam Touchstone Houston (Dennis Quaid) star- ing at a candle. This is as deep as it gets. From there, the film flashes backwards one year to the beginning of the Texas revolution (1835-1836) and meets an odd assortment of cliche characters. There is Jim Bowie (Jason Patric), who fought a bear and the legendary Davy Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton), who can leap the Mississippi River. One keeps hoping that these characters will live up to their legendary status, but they just do not ful- fill. Even the great Thornton has very little to do except set himself up for one-liners, which aren't all that good anyway. The characters turn into cari- catures too quickly for anyone to care about them. The biggest caricature of all is the villainous leader of the Mexican Army, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (Emilio Echevarria). He is a textbook example of a "villain," trying so hard to be evil that he ends up just looking silly. One half expects him to whirl around in an arm- chair while stroking a cat. Regardless of the characters, the pacing is all CuUrtesy of Midway The basketball won't come off, man! Midway's Ballers' rules the streets Curtesy of uchstoneU!I I already told you, I can't stand it when you guys start humming the "William Tell Overture." wrong. The movie drags on for what seems like hours, tugging at the audience's patience. The act- ing is fairly wooden, but the real problem is with the script. While watching this movie, every line and every speech a character gives feels strikingly familiar, as if the editors cut and pasted from other movie scripts. A nice touch during some of the lengthier speeches given would have been to add tumbleweeds blowing by. And yet, the actors on screen look surprisingly riveted by the events playing out. The battle scenes themselves are not especially exciting either, although they are big, booming and patriotic. That goes for the whole movie too. Undoubtedly, the creators of this film have good intentions, but the result is a melodramatic mess, not even reaching the popcorn entertainment stan- dards of mediocre historical fare like "Pearl Har- bor." In the end, "The Alamo" is like that history teacher you had in high school who, despite all his mincing around in front of the class, could not make history fun. By Charles Paradis Daily Arts Writer VIE Move over "NBA Street," there is a new king of the cage, and it goes by the name of "NBA Ballers." Mid- way's latest release features jaw- dropping, ankle-breaking fake-outs that would make any bailer proud, all spectacularly animated within rich environments. What matters most in "Ballers" is style. Games are typically played to 11, and you have to win two out of three matches to advance. Players can win without _........... pulling many NBA Ballers tricks, but the character's over- PS2 and Xbox all ranking will Midway suffer. The more tricks pulled, the more credits will be earned, which the player can use to buy special skills or items to out- fit his crib. "Ballers" brings the NBA fantasy to the consoles. Gainers start as lowly street ballers and play through the ranks of the NBA's finest, rang- ing from T-Mac to KG and even Darko. Along the way, all of the accouterments that go with stardom are acquired, including a posse, rides and even a mansion. Perhaps more amazing than the engrossing gameplay is the character models for the more than 80 current NBA players and legendary greats. The familiar faces of NBA favorites explode on the screen with lifelike accuracy. Combine these realistic Destroyer's Blues a masterful work of emotion By Alexandra Jones Daily Arts Writer MUSIC REVIEW Who knew that a member of the ultra-poppy, sweet and sassy, Canadi- an supergroup The New Pornogra- phers could make an album that's as musically sophisticated as it is intensely emotional? Dan Bejar, song- smith extraordinaire and mastermind behind Destroyer models with the mind-blowing ani- mations, and "Ballers" is one of the best-looking sports games available. Not only are the visuals superb, but a lot of thought was put into the sound of the game as well. The in- game effects are humorous, and the announcing by M.C. Supernatural adds a little flavor to the game, as do the jeers from the sidelines. As good as the announcing is, if there is one complaint to level against the game it is that Midway shamelessly references its other games in the process. After a foul, commentary such as "That's a move that belongs in Mortal Kombat" or "We're not playing Blitz" is likely to be heard. Overlooking the annoying cross promotion, "NBA Ballers" is a must have for any sports games fan. and one of the D primary New Pornos songwrit- YO ers, holds listen- ers rapt with his latest release Your Blues. 'estroyer our Blues Merge utterly arresting. "An Actor's Revenge" provides momentum to the album with driv- ing percussion and soaring back- ground vocals, as well as one great lyrical hook: "Boys demanding sat- isfaction from girls - oh, you'd hate to be a girl!" Your Blues winds down with the song-like "What Roads" and "Certain Things You Ought to Know." But one of the album's most dramatic tracks is its opener. Bejar begins the one-man emotion- al extravaganza that -is Your Blues with "Notorious Lightning," an alter- nately sensitive and bombastic explo- sion of different moods and musical timbres. He delivers lyrics with inten- sity and hope: "Oh, notorious light- ning! Yes, I had to ride you and trash the crystal jets they kept in storage inside you!" Low strings and synthe- sizer swirl and jerk underneath poetry that's part confession and part accusa- tion and accented perfectly with tim- pani hits. The song culminates with Bejar, in his best David Bowie impression, repeatedly calling out "And someone's got to fall before someone goes free!" Destroyer has taken us on one hell of a journey - and that's only the first track. Bejar delivers his sometimes dreamy, sometimes matter-of-fact lyrics with the precision and flexibil- ity of a true storyteller. Something about the particular combination of his words and his voice makes his ideas all the more believable. With lines like "Tomorrow's another day / But it's also another mess" and "Warm yourself by the fiery stage / Fiery cause I lit it," Bejar is both highly personal and universal, appealing to listeners as individuals Courtesy ofMerge It's taupe. and as members of a group. Synthesizers abound on Your Blues, both as beams of unreal key- board sound and as close imitations of brass instruments. Bejar's skillful orchestration shows as he blends and accents vocal lines with instrumen- tals. The flute solo in "It's Gonna Take an Airplane" lilts sadly against a background of acoustic strumming while Bejar almost whispers, "It's gonna take an airplane to get me off the ground / I don't blame anyone who isn't sticking around." It's as though he's found the perfect figure to accompany his poetry. Bejar expresses the same emotional idea simultaneously with words and music. When he creates moments like this one, the combination is Rap duo doesn't quite make the grade with latest Namco's latest for Xbox a pedestrian shooter By Hussain Rahim Daily Arts Writer On paper, it all seems like it should work. Scribble Jam winner MC Eyedea and DMC champion DJ Abilities are underground superstars and have all the trophies to prove it. Firmly entrenched in Eyedea E&A Epitaph between a coherent double time flow and a casual delivery is at least extremely impressive. Abilities's scratching and production show moments of skill, but are consistent- ly underwhelming. Throughout the album, Abilities attempts to splice in related movie dialogue samples that match the song topic. Sometimes it works, but mostly it comes off as annoying and distracting. A song about relation- ships uses a sample from Kevin Smith's "Chasing Amy." Yawn. Eyedea moves away from the cerebral focus that wins a Scribble Jam competition, and shifts direc- tions toward a more bombastic focus that is as unattractive as when Jay-Z begs for accolades in the mainstream. The tracks that don't strain to pat themselves on the back the computer game that some would consider the original first- person shooter - an indisputably By Forest Casey Daily Arts Writer VIDEOGAME REVIEW Namco's latest release, "Break- down," most resembles not "Halo," not "Half-Life" and not even "Golden- eye 007," but rather "Wolfenstein 3D," Breakdown Xbox Namco - inexcusable in a modern shooter) and, unfortunately, the same bland, identical corridors. Fortunately, the sense of elation and surprise that "Wolfenstein 3D" so famously pre- sented is here as well. The highly touted feature of "Break- down" is its mandatory use of unarmed combat. While it is refreshing to see a sorely underdeveloped feature of gam- ing finally stepping to the forefront, the presentation of the entire game in what Namco calls "Total Immersion," is the truly revolutionary feature of "Break- down." The idea of seeing the main character rummage through a guard's dead body to find ammo, vomit into a toilet and pay money for a soda to replenish health is intriguing. The fact that the game never breaks away from the first-person perspective for cut scenes - which makes the jarring rev- elations in the story all the more per- sonal -is entirely unique. Unfortunately, revolutions are not always perfect, and the "Total Immersion" system shows that the realism so frequently sought after by game companies is frequently mun- dane and flawed. The time taken to buy the can of soda is frustrating when it is repeated throughout the entire game. The fact that a game so bent on realism doesn't have a dual pistols feature is just silly, and the sci-fi story that Namco was so secre- tive about - the discovery of a secret alien weapon underground - is pedestrian enough not to evoke wonder. Financially successful video games like "Halo" are not popular because of realism; this goal of total immersion is like the answer to a question that nobody asked. At brief and sporadic intervals in "Breakdown," gamers can sense the same type of creative breakthrough that made "Wolfenstein 3D" so exciting. That is, if you can ignore the vomiting of the pedestrian. their emit eous role, they the right- under- move into the mundane regions of stoner/slacker anthems that detail how jobs stifle creativity and are evil. If only we could all quit work and become full-time rappers. Like Sage Francis or Aesop Rock, Eyedea and Abilities would do themselves a favor to embrace their natural leaning toward the intellec- tual. On E & A they dumb down their potential with B-boy rantings and lacking production. ground ethos that would be expected from a pair so decorated on their latest, E & A. Eyedea is undeniably a talented writer/lyricist and his ability (no pun intended) to instantly switch revolutionary game despite its numer- ous flaws. Many of the aesthetic aspects of "Breakdown" are eerily similar to the 10-year-old "Wolfenstein 3D." It shares the same method of eating pieces of food to restore health, the same deep sense of claustrophobia, the same blocky, pixelated graphics, the same number of weapons (four 5/ie 9erafo[ J.6ori