ARTS
The Michigan Daily - Monday, September 12, 2005 - 9A
--I
Courtesy of Sony
"I just drank pee. How's it going with you?"
'Home Movies' finds
new home on DVD
Courtesy of
Screen Gems
"Your moth-
er sucks
cocks in
hell!" Oh,
wait, that
was from a
good movie.
By Alexandra Jones
Daily Arts Editor
CONVOLUTED POSSESSION TALE GOES FOR EASY THRILLS
By Christopher Lechner
Daily Arts Writer
"Based on a true story."
So opens "The Exorcism of Emily Rose," a
demonic-possession knock off in the tradition of
"The Exorcist." But unlike ______________
that legendary horror classic, The Exorcism
these five words are probably of Emily Rose
scarier than the movie itself.
In a time when Hollywood At the Showcase
will slap this label on just and Quality 16
about any film to boost its Screen Gems
reality-age appeal (regard-
less of whether it's true or not), it's clear that
"Rose" needed all the help it could get.
The film opens during the trial of Catholic
priest Father Moore (Tom Wilkinson, "Batman
Begins") who is accused of killing Emily Rose
(Jennifer Carpenter, "White Chicks"). Her story
is told through a series of flashbacks, beginning
when the 19-year-old college freshman is alone
in her dorm room and believes a demonic spirit
has possessed her.
After contemporary Western medicine fails to
help her "condition," her family seeks the help
of Moore, their parish's priest. At the request of
Emily herself, he performs on her an exorcism
which fails. But then Emily, dies, and Moore is
blamed. Assigned to defend him is the excep-
tionally ambitious, but hard-drinking attorney
Erin Bruner (Laura Linney, "Love Actual'").
This already flimsy material is stretched a bit
too thin and the film has one too many sluggish
digressions. But the acting ensemble, led by
Academy Award-nominees Linney and Wilkin-
son, does an admirable job with what little they
had to go on. In particular, Linney's projection
of a steely lawyer with a chip on her shoulder is
smarter and more convincing than the film war-
rants; her performance carries the movie.
"Rose" never tries to convince us that demons
exist or that Rose was actually possessed;
instead, the film tiptoes around these issues,
going for an aura of ambiguity that leaves it
both disjointed and muddled. The subject of
the film is honorable - it documents one of th'
only possessions officially recognized by the
Catholic Church in contemporary history - but
since the movie makes no attempt to convince
us of the validity of Rose's possession, it ends
up as little more than a standard horror yarn we
have seen time and time again.
What's more, the film is grossly indecisive
and uneven as it vacillates between courtroom
drama and classic horror; it's a scattered, over-
long, convoluted mess. The courtroom drama
packs no real punch because the characters are
never fully developed, and the horror isn't real-
ly scary because of the restrictive PG-13 rat-
ing. Instead, the film settles for shots of Emily
running around her college campus and imag-
ining that the face of every person she passes
is somehow demonically distorted (the slip-
shod FIX shots often make these scenes more
comical than scary). If this summer's smash hit
"Wedding Crashers" is any indication, it's often
better to take a risk on the harsher rating than
timidly avoid a studio's worst nightmare: an R-
rated film.
Instead of going for all-out thrills, "Rose"
tries, rather unsuccessfully, to endow itself with
genuine thematic significance as it attempts to
discredit Western medicine and lawyers. The
film does sometimes evoke an eerie sense of
relevance, especially in the courtroom scenes,
but this is lost as soon as it cuts to yet another
flashback of Rose frantically running around
and shrieking in the rain. These scenes will no
doubt assuage the target audience (tweens look-
ing for a cheap thrill), but until studios will
permit a psychological horror movie without all
the "Gotcha!"-type silliness, we'll be stuck with
movies like "Emily Rose": soft horror with an
identity crisis.
Not every animated primetime series
can be as lucky as "Family Guy." Well-
written, hilarious shows like "Futurama"
and "The Critic" - just about every
primetime cartoon
but "The Simp- .M
sons" and "South Home Moves
Park" - have met 3eaSO 2
untimely ends. 3-Disc Set
High DVD sales Sony Music Video
put "Family Guy"
back on the' air, but some cartoons end
up on store shelves, where they can be
enjoyed at leisure by the fans who kept
them going.
"Home Movies" is one of these under-
appreciated animated gems: This quirky
cartoon-for-grownups, featuring eight-
year-old Brendon (creator and writer
Brendon Small) who makes short films
with his friends Melissa (Melissa Galsky)
and Jason (H. Jon Benjamin), was origi-
nally picked up by UPN in 1999. Only six
episodes aired in the show's first run, but
Cartoon Network picked it up for Sunday
night animation block Adult Swim in 2001.
"Home Movies" lasted two more seasons
- but ceased production in 2004.
Season 2 features some of the series'
most memorable episodes. In "Identify-
ing a Body," Brendon accompanies his
oft-hungover soccer coach-cum-mentor
Coach McGuirk on a trip to the morgue;
in "Hiatus," he falls for his first crush, a
choreographer for the band Scib, which
scores many of his films; and Brendon
confronts his feelings about his father's
new girlfriend in "Therapy" and "The
Wedding." The films produced by Bren-
don, Melissa and Jason are some of the
show's best as well: "History" is based
around a film starring Annie Oakley,
Picasso and George Washington as an evil
triumvirate bent on destroying the human
race; the inaccuracies in the film reflect
Brendon's failing grade in the class. The
superb "Star Boy and the Captain of Outer
Space" is the backdrop for Brendon's
romance with his crush, Cynthia.
The show's first season was animated
in Squigglevision, the technique original-
ly used in Comedy Central's "Dr. Katz:
Professional Therapist"; seasons two and
three use Flash animation. Guest stars
include many comedians who voiced
characters on "Dr. Katz." One of the spe-
cial features is a series of interviews with
guest stars like comedians Andy Kindler,
David Cross, Eugene Mirman ("You
fucked up, Cartoon Network! You fucked
up!"), Emo Phillips and Jonathan Katz.
Cast members like Janine Ditullio (Paula,
Brendon's mother), writer Bill Braudis
(who also voiced Brendon's teacher, Mr.
Lynch) and other sometime voices speak
up as well. Also included are a segment by
Small on how to play the "Home Movies"
theme song, animatics of three episodes
and commentaries and interviews with
Small, Galsky and co-creator/co-writer
Loren Bouchard.
It's easy to see that the show's cre-
ators and cast love "Home Movies," and
the DVD treatment - easy availability,'
interviews and special features for fans
- is a fitting end to a project that should
have lasted longer.
Buddy comedy makes
joke ofJackson, Levy
Show: ****I
Picture/Sound: ****
Features: ****
By Imran Syed
Daily Arts Writer
The asinine insistence of filmmak-
ers to stick with tried-and-tired formu-
las is becoming harder to comprehend.
No one is asking you to completely
overhaul the mov-
iemaking process,
guys, but it wouldn't
kill you to throw in
at least some cre-
ativity once in a
while. In this vein is
The Man
At the Showcase
and Quality 16
New Line
the buddy-action comedy "The Man,"
set in Detroit and starring Samuel L.
Jackson and Eugene Levy ("American
Wedding"). Though the film is good
for a few (awkward) laughs, it provides
very little in the way of substance. And
no matter which way you spin it, this is
a movie we have all seen before.
Imagine this groundbreaking prem-
ise: You're in a big city full of bad
guys intent upon stealing confiscated
guns from the police and putting them
back on the streets. They're the Robin
Hoods of the criminal underworld, if
you will. A dirty cop helps them but
then he gets shot. His partner, Derrick
Vann (Jackson), comes under suspicion
for the murder, so he decides to take
the law into his own hands and catch
DA LY ARTS.
OUR DAD?
TOTALLY OWNS A
}D 'EALERSHIP. HE
CNTOTALLY HOOK
'. YUP. DUDE
the bad guys. But there's a problem: He
meets the unsuspecting average Joe,
Andy Fidler (Levy), and adventure and
hilarity supposedly ensue.
Jackson's presence alone adds
credibility to the film that it doesn't
deserve, but his character is dry and
held back by an impossibly childish
script. Vann is built so by-the-book
that audiences will swear that just saw
Chris Tucker or Eddie Murphy in the
same film a few years ago. His aloof-
ness, introversion and lack of friends
are traits borrowed from any one of
the five to six films that resemble "The
Man" right down to the usual worka-
holic dad nonsense.
The movie's villains are imbecilic to
the extent that if real-world criminals
were this stupid, we'd never have to
worry about them at all. Why, for exam-
ple, would you meet for an exchange on
major-city intersections and not in one
of the city's many abandoned areas?
Why again would you come all the way
from Britain to steal some handguns in
Detroit? As Jackson's character puts it,
the villains have all the intellect and
cunning of male Spice Girls.
In a film that has so many draw-
backs, it's probably accidental that
some insightful content found its way
into the muddled screenplay. But where
the movie could have gone for easy fish-
out-of-water sight gags, it digs deeper.
Levy's character, a middle-class den-
tal-supply salesman from suburban
Wisconsin, adds a level of apt social
commentary. Though he is frightened
by the harshness of the inner city, he
never judges Jackson's character or
his family and continuously remains
faithful and kind to them. Those from
the inner city who feel that rich subur-
banites look down on them would be
wise to note that the situation between
the two is, in actuality, very much like
the one in this film. The movie makes
the wise observation that perhaps the
divide between the inner city and the
suburbs could be reconciled if each of
the two sides simply took the time to
understand the other.
But even with its unexpected insights,
"The Man" never really goes anywhere
with them, leaving us little more than
83 minutes of two very talented actors
dropping to the level of fart jokes and
profanity-laced punch lines. The monu-
mental waste of time and effort that
results will make you scream out as the
clean-cut Fidler character often does
while trying to temper his language,
"Oh fuc-rying out loud!"
This is much better than the 50 Cent movie. Uh-huh.
SPEND A SEMESTER OVERSEAS
(and stay in the U.S.)
Learn in the vibrant, multi-cultural community of Honolulu. Enjoy a
university experience like no other. Be far away, but at home with the
language and customs. It all adds up to a semester you'll never forget.
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