4 Monday November 1, 2004 arts. michigandaily.com artspage@michigandaily.com ARTS 8A . . ................ . . . . . ...... . .... Courtesy of Universal "No matter what happens, I'll always be the guy from 'Booty Call.'" Foxx views 'Ray' as chance to break out Hey, it's the guy from the Pepsi commercials. HRAY'ON M MIND CHARLES BLO-PIC FEATURES STAR-MAKING PERFORMANCE FROM Foxx By Andy Kula Daily Arts Writer Four months after his untimely death from liver failure, the life of legendary musician Ray Charles is finally chronicled the silver screen in the form of the new film, "Ray." Focusing on his rise to stardom in the '50s and '60s, the film highlights the profes- sional triumphs and personal tragedies that defined Charles as a performer. The film opens with Jamie Foxx playing a young, strug- gling Charles as he crosses Ray At Showcase and Quality 16 Universal While several scenes of the star battling per- sonal demons border on cliche, the film has many redeeming values. First and foremost, Jamie Foxx is astounding. Throughout the film, it is difficult to remember that the man on screen is not actu- ally Charles, but the actor who played a character named Bunz in "Booty Call." The supporting cast also works nicely to rec- reate the people who influenced Charles's life. Regina King ("Jerry McGuire") delivers an impressive performance as Charles's back-up singer and mistress, Margie Hendricks. Through the solid directing of Taylor Hackford, the performance scenes take on a life of their own. Clever sound work splices actual recordings into scenes with Jamie Foxx's voice and other dialogue. A particularly interesting touch comes from the explanations of different songs' origins. "What'd I Say" is born as an improvisation in a strong concert scene, and "Hit the Road, Jack" develops out of a bitter lovers' quarrel. Unfortunately, some scenes seem extraneous and forced. Repeated flashbacks to Charles's childhood occur as he uses more and more heroin throughout the film. Though a funeral scene is very powerful, the device of flashbacks is sloppi- ly administered and a bit too simplistic. Charles's problems seem to be conveniently derived from the pain caused by his brother's death and sepa- ration from his mother. That kind of formulaic style does injustice to Charles and the psycho- logical factors that put that mysterious smile on his face. At one point, Charles decides not to play a con- cert to a segregated crowd in '60s Georgia. The scene is not particularly well-emphasized, and seems to be hastily added out of necessity, yet this resolution is later described as "the proudest moment" of Charles's life. A bit more consider- ation would have helped here. If racial injustice had been stressed more heavily, it may not have seemed like such a leap. Ultimately, the film benefits from its subtle wit, its fantastic music and its adequate storytelling. If nothing else, it is worth the ticket price to see Foxx churn out a mind-blowing performance. By Zac Peskowitz Daily Film Editor Jamie Foxx, the Texas native who first came to fame in the early '90s with his performances on "in Living Color," has gone on to give acclaimed performances in Oliver Stone's "Any Given Sunday" and Michael Mann's "Ali" and "Collater- al." In his most impressive performance to date, Foxx gives a stunning portrayal of Ray Charles in Taylor Hackford's "Ray." Between his ferocious doodling, constant wisecracks and dead-on impersonations, Foxx discussed the challenge of perfect- ing Ray Charles, the evolution of his act- ing career and a forthcoming single with rapper Kanye West. Wasting no time, Foxx was glad to hear that "Ray" was well received by the audience at a press screening the previ- ous evening. "That's great. How great is that for Ray Charles? He was alive and he got a chance to view the movie before he passed. He worked with Taylor Hack- ford for 15 years to get this story told and I'm glad they waited on me to get my life together and get a chance to do the film." Foxx's musical training - he began playing the piano at age three and attended music school in San Diego - was essen- tial in preparing for the role. Charles and I "sat down on dual pianos. We started playing Thelonious Monk. 'Now why the hell would you do that? Why would you do that? The note is right underneath your fingers."' Foxx's uncanny ability to channel Charles's mannerisms stands out as the most impressive aspect of "Ray," and the actor had a distinctive method for getting the character down pat. "I filmed him while he was just doing regular things: how he ordered his food, how he talked to his kids, how he did his business. So in the movie you're watching the nuance of him as opposed to the impersonation because you want to channel him in a sense." Throughout the filming Foxx had pros- thetics placed on his eyes. "They were glued shut for 14 hours a day. I hyper- ventilated for the first month because you feel trapped. It's like someone holding your head under water and, of course, when you feel like you're running out of air you're going to panic' a little bit. And once you get past the panic you started to enjoy the darkness of it." While Foxx is happy to be focusing on his film career he still jumps at the chance to dabble in music with his friend, rapper/producer Kanye West. "I've got a song that I'm going to release pretty soon called 'You've Still Got It' It's about a young couple. The girl says, 'Do I look fat to you?' She is fat, but she's having a baby. She goes in the bathroom crying." Breaking into a pitch-perfect falsetto, Foxx gently sings "I'm still in love with your figure / I'm still amazed by your smile / Girl, I'm so proud you're my lady, havin' my baby and you're still drivin' me crazy, and girl you still got it / You're my world ..." Foxx continues "so we'll roll it up a little bit, combine it with hip-hop. Get Kanye West on that and we'll change the game a little bit." the country in search of musical opportunities. The next two-and-a-half hours follows Charles as he tours on the road, attains musical celebrity, builds a family, engages in extramarital affairs and develops a heroin addiction that threatens to destroy his life. Liz Janes delivers asexual album with newest release 'Poison' By Michael Martin Daily Arts Writer MUsiCREVIEW Rock'n'roll is a boy's game. Although female musicians exist, there is little crossover, inter-gender appeal. This isn't because rock'n'roll is inherently sex- ist; rather, most men simply can't Liz Janes relate to the con- Poison & Snakes cepts preached Asthmatic Kitty by mainstream female artists - like Sarah MacLachlan - in the same way that most females have little in common with Robert Plant. Sufjan Stevens protdge Liz Janes has created an album that manages to sound musically asexual while still expressing femininity through its lyrics. Many of the album's tracks are con- cerned with being in and out of love. Songs like "Wonderkiller" express broken hope after a failed relation- ship, while others, like the title track, praise -found love. Like labelmate and sometimes cohort Stevens, many of her lyrics also have religious under- tones. Poison & Snakes contains several affirmations of faith, such as "His promise is not dependent on my belief / but on His word only." Janes' lyrics are inoffensive, taking on a merely average character, but are admirable in how well they stick to themes. The song "Ocean" is about just that and nothing more - five and a half minutes of cliched water meta- phors ("Will the current take me on / to bottom or to shore?"). Similarly, "Deep Sea Diver" does an adequate job of depicting its main character, but suffers from the G.I. Joe action figure image conjured by its title. The music on the album is, like the lyrics, typically bland. "Won- derkiller" and "Go Between" make use of vibraphones, lending a kitschy 1950s feel. Most others feature gen- tly strummed acoustic guitars, while, in another Sufjan Stevens similar- ity, banjos appear on several tracks. 'N 'yk ~ y ~Vii, When the soft instrumentation occa- sionally reaches a breaking point, the transition between Janes's quiet and loud dynamics is startling. Heavily distorted electric guitars play in both speakers while calculated cymbal use underscores the few attempts at "rocking." The problem, however, is that there are only "soft," "soft/hard" and "soft with vibraphone" songs on the album, and they are all played at slow tempos. The lack of variety among the 10 tracks makes it hard to actively listen to the album in one sit- ting. Poison & Snakes does little to erase the gender lines in rock music today. The lack of innovation in its music and lyrics results in an album that is unremarkable, but inoffensive; there is little in Janes's work that is notice- ably (or notably) bad, but, unfortu- nately, little deserving of praise. As Americans continue to die in combat the question comes up of how to memorialize the dead and the battlegrounds they fought on. By Rachel Berry Daily Arts Writer The University's Museum of Art is housed in Alumni Memorial Hall, a facility built to commemorate the 1,500 alumni who died in the Civil War. In light of the current engage- ment in Iraq, Sept. 11 and the Museum's history, Sean Ulmer, curator of Modern and Changing landscapes on display with Civil War photographs Killing Ground: Photographs of the Civil War and the Changing American Landscape Today through Sunday Free At the University of Michigan Museum of Art In this exhibit Huddleston pairs historical images of the conflict with his own color-photographed modern counterparts. Ulmer notes Huddleston's ability to place "a per- sonal face on war." The museum procured a piece from Huddleston to show Ann Arbor's involvement in the Civil War. Huddleston paired an image of Ann Arborite John Noll with one of the battlefields that he fought on at Wilderness, Va. This site remains a place of death, as a modern-day farmer sprays pesticide in the field in Huddleston's contemporary photograph. This acquisition will remain in the museum when the other 42 images travel. Huddleston offers a comprehen- sive look at the conflict. He covers all geographical regions, and sol- diers are listed as "American," not as "Union" or "Confederate." This collection includes some of his sig- nature photographs that appear in his book. A particularly poignant pairing shows a Kmart where a bomb shelter once stood. Another pairing places dead from the battle of Gettysburg with a football field complete with equipment. Ulmer says this exhibit is meant to make visitors question "how we treat our charged sites." Visitors should start at the panel with the explanation of the exhibit and the new acquisition. After the Noll acquisition, the images are hung chronologically so that the viewer can see how the war unfold- ed. While it is nice to gain perspec- tive on the chronology of the war, this format doesn't highlight the key images particularly well: Half of the exhibit resides in prime viewing space, but the sec- ond half, due to space constraints, is tucked away in the lower level of the museum in the Works on Paper Gallery. The exhibit, while interesting, feels flat because all of the images are mounted in the same size frame and are hung side by side at the same level. The images succeed in drawing visitors in, but the captions do not offer sufficient detail that visitors craze. Visitors will leave the exhibit wanting more informa- tion on the images and the experi- ence of the Civil War. 4 Contemporary Art, jumped at the opportunity to show John Hud- dleston's project that photographs contemporary sites touched by the Civil War. 4 meet LFnDOn Prom MTV's The Real World Philadelphia! Headaches? Michigan Head+Pain & Neurological Institute is conducting an in-clinic research study evaluating an investigational medication for migraine. Participants must be 18 to 75 years old and suffer no more than 2-8 headaches per month. A total of three clinic visits are required. Visit 2 is a three to four hour treatment visit while having an acute headache. Participants must be available to come to the clinic during normal business hour (R s am to 5 n m k 4 BIG TEN BURRITO NOW AVAILABLE: MAPD'TT ('A 1MrDTTC A