8A - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, October 19, 2005
ARTS
Everything clicks in Wood's latest film
Courtesy of ABC
"Tell me my career isn't over!"
Prinze founders in
stereotypical sitcom
By Imran Syed
Daily Arts Writer
TV REVIEW
If the last TV season taught view-
ers anything, it's
that shows with
first names for Freddie
titles just don't Wednesdays
fly. As if "Joey" at 8:30 p.m.
and "Rodney" ABC
weren't enough to
prove this theory,
ABC breaks out "Freddie," starring
perhaps one of the most over exposed
yet under-achieved stars today, Fred-
die Prinze Jr. The highly unoriginal
and altogether mundane show all but
guarantee a quick, painful death.
The sitcom's premise has the main
character, Freddie, a big-shot head-
chef at a popular Chicago restaurant,
living in an up-scale condo in the
most complicated of situations. His
two sisters, grandmother and, inex-
plicably, the wife of his dead broth-
er, all live with him - together they
attempt to make up the Puerto Rican
equivalent of the Greek household in
"My Big Fat Greek Wedding." As if
there weren't enough women around
already, Freddie and his best friend
Chris (Brian Austin Green, "Beverly
Hills: 90210") spend every waking
moment in pursuit of dates - and
the result is a supposedly uproari-
ous, ethnically witty comedy.
Unfortunately the set-up is too
phony to be taken'seriously, even
for a second. The barrage of sup-
posedly ethnic flavor seems forced
and unreal. Though the cast breaks
into Spanish dialogue every now and
then and some characters even have
an accent, the presence of quintes-
sential pretty-boy Prinze gets in
the way of an authentic feel. In its
attempt to portray the life of Puerto
Rican-Americans, the show ends up
portraying overdone, mainstream
American themes acted out by His-
panic people.
Any time now, the glorious day
will come when the writers of medio-
cre sitcoms realize that there is more
male characters could be doing other
than just chasing women. "Freddie"
is not so enlightened, and the two
male leads continually hatch out one
lame scheme after another to land
various women. You'd think that
as the head chef at some big-time
restaurant, Freddie would actually
have to go in and work some nights.
But no, he just sits around the house
playing Pictionary with his relatives
and, of course, his prospective girl-
friend.
Setting the table for one of Amer-
ica's favorite shows, "Lost," "Fred-
die" garnered a far wider audience
in its premiere than it deserved. Its
largely unfunny and unimpressive
themes, forced acting and annoying
laugh track make it a show audiences
should make a point to ignore.
If this truly were Prinze's last shot
at legitimacy, then off he goes to the
celebrity-reject land of other failed
film stars who couldn't salvage their
careers on TV.
What do you get when you cross a hobbit with Harry Potter?
Debut album shows
innovation and insight
By Caitlin Cowan
Daily Arts Writer
According to an old adage, imita-
tion is the sincerest form of flattery.
From the first hard percussive slap of
Apologies to the Queen Mary, Wolf
Parade's new
album sounds
more than a little Wolf Parade
like Funeral, the Apologies to the
year-old album Queen Mary
from The Arcade Sub Pop
Fire. But to say
that the Canadian
alt-rockers are merely imitating The
Arcade Fire's distinctive, multi-
instrumental cacophony would be
unfair. The two bands have shared
quite a bit - stages, a tour and their
hometown of Montreal, and it would
be easy to pawn Wolf Parade off as
a bunch of wannabes, but the best
thing about them is that they're any-
thing but.
Produced by Modest Mouse front-
man Isaac Brock, Apologies to the
Queen Mary shows distinctive signs
of its origins and influences. But
instead of mimicking the bands that
have surrounded and inspired them,
Wolf Parade makes something that
is completely their own.
Where The Arcade Fire becomes
tiresome, Wolf Parade showcases sur-
prising instrumentation that is rarely
repetitive. Where Brock's voice grates
and scrapes, band member Boeckner's
swaggers and swings through affect-
ing lyrics like "You know our hearts
beat time out very slowly / They're
waiting for something that'll never
Courtesy of Sub Pop
"Yeah, we've got more talent than Freddie Prinze Jr."
arrive," and "God doesn't always have
the best god damn plans does he?"
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On Apologies, it initially seems
as if Wolf Parade has no idea where
they're going musically, and they
don't care. From the high, jumping
vocals of the new-wave-y "Grounds
for Divorce" to the cowbell-splat-
tered silky swirl of "Dinner Bells,"
it sounds like the band is jamming
just for themselves.
But Wolf Parade creates more than
just a jumbled handful of songs with
their debut, and by the last strains of
the strum and beep of "This Heart
is On Fire," it's clear that the band
knows the value of what they've
made.
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