Wednesday
April 14, 2004
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Baseball
THE HOTTEST PICKS INELNTERTAiNMETf-
FROM A DAILY ARTS WRITER
Yankees-Red Sox - The best match-up in professional sports just
got better with off-season acquisitions like Curt Schilling and A-Rod.
Too bad Don Zimmer is with the Devil Rays now. Pedro-Zimm II
would have been quite the battle.
660 - The most dramatic moment of the young baseball season
occurred Monday afternoon when Barry Bonds hit his 660th home run,
tying him with his godfather, Willie Mays, for third on the all-time list.
The lamest moment of the young baseball season occurred shortly there-
after when Mays literally handed Barry a torch
as his godson crossed home plate.
Heroes In
a half-shell
... TURTLE
POWER!
Co.urtes±y 0f [hrill Jock'ey
3
Fantasy Baseball - Easily the best way to
waste time on a lazy spring or summer
afternoon. Never have I cared so
much about Mike Mussina's
WHIP ratio or been so happy
when Barry Bonds went deep.
WINNING THE RACE
ART-ROCK BAND TORTOISE CREEPS THROUGH DETROIT
The Detroit Tigers - Cer-
tainly no one expected the
Tigers to start out the
2004 campaign with
wins in five of their
first seven games. If
this keeps up, the uni-
verse may implode.
Steroids - Thank
you for injecting
some much-needed
offense into the sagging game of j
baseball: Finally 160-pound sec-
ond basemen can hit 400-foot
home runs. It really makes you
wonder: What if Babe Ruth had
been on steroids instead of a steady
beer-and-cheeseburger diet?
By Laurence J. Freedman
Daily Arts Writer
CONCERT PREVIEW
Ten years ago, Chicago collective Tor-
toise released their first self-titled record,
which incorporated electronic sounds and
textures with traditional rock instrumentation.
They fascinatingly took the
hard edge off rock music,
replacing it instead with a Tortoise
cerebral ambience more asso- Tonight at 8 p.m.
ciated with dub and modern At the Majestic
jazz. With its release, they
efficiently pioneered a new musical genre
called post-rock.
In 1996, Tortoise continued their sonic explo-
ration with their album Millions Now Living
Will Never Die. The record included the 21-
minute opener "Djed," a song that successfully
merged subdued indie rock with mellow elec-
tronica. While other bands were also experi-
menting with diverse sounds at the time,
Tortoise's work is undoubtedly unique and
rewarding. Each second of music offers some-
thing interesting and each note is impeccably
manipulated by inventive instrumentation and
mastery of the studio.
Despite achieving critical and modest popular
success early in their career, Tortoise have
worked slowly and meticulously before releas-
ing any more music. Their live shows have been
few and far between. Anticipation has been
building for years for the tour in support of
their new Thrill Jockey release It's All Around
You. Their first show is tonight in Detroit.
It 's All Around You is a dreamy album, but
multi-instrumentalist John Herndon said the
band didn't necessarily intend for it to feel that
way. "There was no preconceived notion going
into it. We don't really talk about what kind of
direction the music is going to go. It just sort of
happens intuitively." Tortoise's collective intu-
ition is undoubtedly informed by the various
other musical projects the band members are
involved in. John McEntire - one of three per-
cussionists in Tortoise, joining Herndon and
Dan Bitney - is also a founding member of the
art-pop band The Sea and Cake and guitarist
Jeff Parker has been working on solo avant-
garde jazz records. Even Herndon himself has
been working on his own under the name A
Grape Dope.
Once in the studio, each band member can
bring forward the ideas that they've had for Tor-
toise while working on other projects. Herndon
explained Tortoise's writing process, which is
usually done in the studio: "People would come
in with different ideas, little kernels of a tune,
maybe just one riff. One of the three of us will
be drumming and that gives the others the
opportunity to experiment by picking up a guitar
or a vibraphone or a marimba. One of us might
have one idea, and the music flows from there."
While It's All Around You is a magnificently
subdued affair, Tortoise's live show is a loud
exercise in rock-based experimentation. Even
though Herndon said that Tortoise do not openly
improvise like a jam band, their intense live
show is certainly why Herndon has noticed
"some dreadlocked hippie dancers at the gigs. I
think people have this idea that we're overly
serious about what we do, but we bring humor
as well. I think we could rock a party."
AP PHOTO
I
SHORT
TAKE S
Martin's newest DVD a dime a 'Dozen'
GANGLAND
PC
WHIPTAIL INTERACTIVE
Mafia-themed games have it
tough.
With the "Grand Theft Auto"
series dominating the genre, it takes
a huge creative stride to be noticed.
"Gangland" attempts to take a dif-
ferent approach to the common
"shoot 'em up" style. Trying to cre-
ate a fusion of simulation, action
and role-playing, "Gangland" sim-
ply tries too hard to be too much.
Controlling the main character or
groups of characters becomes very
awkward, and gameplay is frustrat-
ingly difficult. Going from place to
place often gets the player killed
(either by enemies or pedestrians)
before they even have time to react.
The developers did take an interest-
ing approach to the game, however,
presenting it through a top-down
perspective similar to the original
"GTA" series. They paid close
attention to details such as reflec-
tions, smoke and debris, bringing
the 1920s underworld to life.
Though the graphics and visual
effects - such as the lifelike
By Hussain Rahim
Daily Arts Writer
DVD REVIEW
Children-friendly and Disney-
centric in its appeal, "Cheaper by
the Dozen" has made its way to
DVD in time to keep lonely copies
of "Parenthood" and "The Lizzie
McGuire Moive"
company. Steve
Martin and Bon-
nie Hunt play
Tom and Kate
Baker, two small-
town parents who
Cheaper by
the Dozen
20th Century Fox
live a simple life
themselves what success and happi-
ness really are.
Unintentionally, the film serves as
a discourse on the working mother
and the father's role in a family. As
the father, Tom displays utter inepti-
tude, being completely unfit to raise
his children once Kate leaves on a
book tour. While this is clearly the
type of opportunity a comedy needs
to inject its brand of slapstick
humor, it leaves an undeniable mes-
sage. Tom has no idea of what he's
doing, putting the guilt squarely on
the mother's shoulders. She
becomes some sort of villain for
leaving her family behind to pursue.
a career.
The 12 Baker children all fight
each other for attention and screen
time. Lorraine (Hilary Duff) begs
for notice with her cliche version of
the fashion-obsessed teen while
Charlie (Tom Welling) comes off as
dark, portraying the oldest son who
is still trapped at home. His intensi-
ty gives the film enough weight to
prevent it from being a complete
piece of cotton candy.
"Cheaper by the Dozen" - like
many other family comedies on
DVD - skimped out on the special
features. It has two audio commen-
taries: one by director Shawn Levy,
which is manic and strange, and one
with the 12 Baker kids, which has
more of a juvenile tone. A feature
interview with Levy and several
unnecesary deleted scenes don't
make the extras any more special.
Still, when all is said and done,
the film is occasionally funny and
captures the energy of a large
household.
Film: **
Sound/Picutre: ***
Features: **
day/night cycle - are quite impres-
sive, the audio that one would
expect to see with the "Godfather"-
esque atmosphere is reduced to
repetitive sound bites after a while.
If this hybrid of a game spent
more time in development and
had its kinks ironed out, it could
be a promising endeavor. In the
meantime, however, gangster-hun-
gry gamers should stick with
"GTA." *
-Jason Roberts
until Tom is lured by a prominent
Division I school to coach in an evil
big city.
Despite promising their kids that
things will be better, the city life
doesn't turn out to be quite as good
as the parents once thought. The 12
kids are uncomfortable with the lack
of attention they are receiving as a
result of their parents' busy sched-
ules, and the family begins to unrav-
el. As things spin further out of
control, Tom and Kate must ask
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