Monday April 3, 2006 arts. michigandaily. com artspage@michigandaily.com c be 1cIid2tinwu tadg RTrS " 8A .. .. .... --------- . . . .... . .. .. ... .. ... .. I 'U' CSO hits Hill 0 01 opportunities where faculty, staff, stu- dents and community members can Courtesy of Michael Chang all audition and take part of some CSO will perform tonight at 8 p.m. thing as equals," Music Director Rob- Courtesy of Columbia "Basic Instinct 3: Medicaid and Rim Jobs." CRUDE 'INSTINCT' STONE TANKS IN UNNECESSARY, UNATTRACTIVE SEQUEL By David R. Eicke Daily Arts Writer In 1992, a movie titled "Basic Instinct" emerged from the sequined fabric of Hollywood and forced half the nation to readjust its collective crotch. The scintil- Basic lating film featured a female Instinct 2 novelist whose stories of sex and murder had a funny way of At the Showcase coming true. The leading role and Quality 16 was played by none other than Columbia the drippingly seductive Sharon Stone, a perfect choice for the role of an erotic ice- pick-wielding writer/temptress. Now, in the spring of 2006, we have the sequel. It's cleverly called "Basic Instinct 2." The movie is about a female novelist whose stories of sex and murder have a funny way of coming true. It features Sharon Stone. Whose idea was this? As any conscious fourth-grader that could tell you, 2006 minus 1992 is 14. Fourteen years. That's enough time to go from gurgling womb fluid to playing competent basketball. It's also enough time, it turns out, for a certain Stone to fossilize. "Basic Instinct 2" follows largely the same plot as its predecessor - except it takes place in London, not San Francisco. Novelist Catherine Tramell (Stone, "Broken Flowers") comes under investigation when she is found to be sexually connected to a recent mur- der victim. Scotland Yard appoints Dr. Michael Glass (David Morissey, "Derailed") to psychoanalyze the crazy bitch. Tramell then systematically seduces him with her constant discourse on her masturba- tory antics and adventurous sexuality. As she does so, people close to Glass keep dying. But despite the deaths, he can't quite keep the reins on his loins and falls into an affair with the ever-dan- gerous, kinky-in-an-awkward-way woman. Note carefully that the preceding adjective series did not contain the word "hot." Tramell is not much of a temptress anymore. Instead, she now resembles infamous Dalmatian-murderer Cruella De Vil - not a good thing when the entire film hinges on the pre- supposition of her sexual appeal. Stone tries to play the same character she did in the original, employing breathy articulations and a proclivity for coy, sidelong glances. Unfortunate- ly, she comes off as a hornball soccer mom with delusions of a lost youth, and one who's had one too many cigarettes at that. And by "one," I mean "thousands." In other words, her boobs are bigger, but they're also, um, lower. As for the rest of the cast, they don't really matter. Dr. Glass is little more than an everyman who works in a building that oddly resembles the NCAA Football National Championship trophy. He has an accent. He fills a role. Along with everyone else, his character suffers from a grapefruit-for-brains one-dimension- ality, which is heartbreaking when you consider his well developed counterpart Nick (Michael Douglas, "The Game") from the first movie. Well, maybe something good could come of this after all. Somebody go ring Sean Connery's door- bell. We need a new Bond. If Stone can draw out a character this fare can't he? ert Boardman said. A doctoral conducting student,1 Boardman has headed the CSO for the past two years. For the School of Music's 125th' anniversary, Boardman and the CSO have a special - as well as free - concert planned for 8 p.m. tonight at Hill Auditorium. The program will include the time-1 less Charles Ives piece "The Unan-1 swered Question" and Johannes Brahms's "Academic Festival Over- ture," exactly 125 years old this year, which will open the show. Essentially based on a collection of traditional drinking songs, it was com- posed for a graduation ceremony for students in Austria. "That will go along well with stu-; dents at the University," Boardman1 quipped. Perhaps the greatest focus during the first half of the program will be Jenni- fer Higdon's "blue cathedral." In 2003, it was the most performed contempo- rary piece by a living composer in thei United States, Boardman said. Tonight will be its University premiere. "For somebody who doesn't know classical music, it's very likable," Boardman said. "It's about the death of her brother ... She played flute, he played clarinet. The piece starts out with a flute solo - she was born first - and then later the clarinet comes in and they do this sort of duet/dance." Also featured tonight is the 2006 Eugene Bossart Concerto Competi- tion winner and third-year Law stu- dent Lindsay Heller. She will perform the first movement of Samuel Barber's "Violin Concerto." "I guess the ('Violin Concerto') is both a romantic and a twentieth- century piece - it's a mixture of the two," Heller said. "It's more of a duet between orchestra and violin, more than most concertos." Soloists play a major role in the afore- mentioned Ives piece, which brings in guest conductor Mark Latham for his first concert with the CSO. The orchestra's arrangement during "The Unanswered Question" is unique. The strings are set up on stage, the woodwind quartet is in the mezzanine and the single trumpet emanates from the balcony. Latham is also conducting Mozart's famed "Sinfonia Concertante in E- flat," with four featured soloists. He compared it to a dialogue of strings and woodwinds, echoing Heller's words on the Barber composition. "It's like a scene at a party ... a group of friends talking to each other, and you've got all the rest of the people and they haven't actually got too much to do, but they comment on each other," Latham said. "Great piece - seems like it's easy, but really quite difficult." Fans and friends of the symphony should join the CSO tonight for the proverbial orchestral party. "(Come) to have a great time," Latham said. -r, a IRifSTARRLIRI An Aveurei n VMIND 49 I1 An Ad venu re in MIND Study Australia, LLC is the premier full-service study abroad program for U.S. students wishing to acquire a unique academic and cultural experience by living and studying "down under." Apply by April 15 for the Fall 2006 or Spring 2007 program and register to win great prizes including: - Free flight to Australia or New Zealand - SCUBA diving shark encounter - Tandem sky diving Visit www.study-australia.com/flyfree for complete rules and to register. I Open to Fall 2006 and Spring 2007 applicants only. 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