The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - 5A

9 Differentiating

pop an
Walkinghome last week, I
saw a junior high school
girl lingering outside
Urban Outfitters. She wasn't just
one of the usual pack of Lolitas that
hangoutside my apartment building
(itself seemingly homing
groond for the ground-
down Dolores Hazes -
you know, the girls that
were a lot cuter before u
Markley soft-serve and
HardTail sweatpants.
Clad in customary
mini-skirt and cropped KIMBE
leggings, she was also CHOU
wearing a T-shirt with
a day-glo Alfons Mucha print and
an oversized canvas totebag from
Loop's Andy Warhol line. I'm pretty
sure she had his Velvet Underground
andNico banana graphic hanging as
a keychain, also.
Her presence was a bastardiza-
tion of art nouveau and pop art
- both forms already pop manipu-
lations - at the same time. And the
outfit didn't even match.
Pop art - along with op art - in
fashionfirst jumpedfromthecanvas
to the cloth in the 1960s. Famously,
the Bonwit Teller department store
in New York used a number of War-
hol paintings in a 1961 window dis-
play. Mucha's art nouveau, on the
other hand, blossomed in the early
20th century. The Czech artist's
lush, romantic illustrations reached
greatest acclaim in advertisements.
Interesting, non? Incredibly.
Go ahead. Borrow all you want.
Splash Edie Sedgwick screen-test
photos over a blank tunic and ape
"Bieres de la Meuse" ads for vari-
ous accessories. But recognize the
inspiration.
What bothers me is that many
people don't know where this art
they're wearing comes from. They
don't recognize that the doe-eyed
beauty on their totebags is a Mucha
muse, what exactly that yellow
banana thing is, or why all these
bright, meticulously dotted graph-
ics are suddenly popular. And this
Lichtenstein dude?
Right now, the image appropria-
tion of the pop culture of fashion is
fascinating because we've reached a
level where we don't come up with
new product, we simply recycle
what has worked in the past. How
can you fail with something that has
already been made famous?
We craft the new popular culture
outoftheold,newcommodity(cloth-
ing, accessories) out of old commer-
cial art (art nouveau advertisements
for biscuits and perfume). We're at
a point that preteens - not usually
the first-feeders in the fashion chain
- are wearing popular culture on
their shirts and sleeves, thanks to
labels like Loop NYC, as well as
Urban Outfitters and Target's house

zd slop
brands. The hipster trend of prints
featuring the defined, neo-classical
figures like Mucha's is noteworthy
because the artist's high art style
was mostly associated, much to
his chagrin, with a low culture art
form: the commercial adver-
tisement.
I first came across Mucha
in animpressive coffee-table
volume on art nouveau.
You've probably seen his
work too, albeit unknow-
ingly - maybe it's the JOB
RLY advertisementinyour friend's
apartment or a print of "Les
Saisons" you saw at a poster
store. His curvy, pre-Raphaelite
women, lavish floral ornamentation
and clean outlines are everywhere.
Mucha's name is little known, but
if you doubt his influence even now,
take a closer look at the layout of
concert posters (especially work by
Hapshash and the Coloured Coat)
next time you're at the record store.
Doesn't this knowledge make
that overpriced "vintage" T-shirt
even more attractive?
With Warhol, the recent prolif-
eration of hot pink bovine prints
and silk-screened flowers is due to
Loop NYC. The company has an
entire collection devoted to Warhol
- approved by his estate - includ-
ing a high-contrast Mao Tse-Tung
sleep mask. But as aforementioned,
this isn't the first time pop art has
Is it art
appreciation or
art appropriation?
made the leap to fashion. During
that era, the contrasting lines and
colors of op art (short for optical art)
also found its way onto mini-dress-
es and shifts, The fashion indus-
try's adoption of Bridget Riley's art
resulted in the artist filing a lawsuit
in the '60s. What I love about pop
art in today's fashion is that design-
ers are marketing the products as
kitsch. They see the kitschiness of
Andy Warhol's soup cans stamped a
dozen times on a messenger bag, or
Roy Lichtenstein's magnified ver-
sion of newspaper images. But these
artists recognized and exploited the
kitsch of everyday images - with
the second go-round of these fash-
ion items, these companies are pro-
ducing kitsch-squared.
I have no problem with kitsch
- I'm a lot more Tereza than Sabina
than I care to admit. But if you're
going to wear pop, know the culture
behind it.
- Chou loves coffee-table art. E-
mail her at kimberch@umich.edu.

"Come on, take your pick. It's either the foies gras or the veal. Regardless, we're going to get smashed on expensive wine and pick a bar fight."
5 10CeVl
A mediocre vintage
CROWE COASTS IN OBVIOUS ROMANTIC FARCE

By CHRISTINA CHOI
DailyArts Writer
Based on the lukewarm novel by Peter Mayle,
its no surprise that "A Good Year" falls short
of becoming a heartfelt
romance. The parts are all
there: the glorious French *
countryside, a romantic A Good Year
vineyard, plenty of warm At the
sunlight and a lost man Showcase and
(Russell Crowe, "Cinder- Quality 16
ella Man") struggling to 20th Century Fox
reconcile his love for his
late uncle. Yet what the
film lacks is exactly what Max Skinner lacks - a
sense of stability and purpose.
Croweplays aruthlessEnglish investorwhose
manipulation of the stock market has earned
him equal amounts of money and infamy. Like
the archetypal Scrooge, he has no regard for
anyone but himself - and the occasional well-
endowed woman. After one of his latest border-
line-illegal swindles, Max is annoyed to find
that his estranged Uncle Henry (Albert Finney,
"Big Fish") has passed away and left him a run-
down chateau and vineyard in France. Fittingly,
instead of feeling any sadness about the death
of the man he loved as a child, he only sees the
potential to make a profit.

Immediately after his arrival into France, the
story digresses into several benign plot lines,
accompanied by a slew of memorable yet incon-
sistent characters. First there's Christie, (Abbie
Cornish, "Candy"), a young American who
arrives at the chateau claimingto be Uncle Hen-
ry's illegitimate daughter. Despite her exper-
tise in the estate's numerous vineyards and her
instantaneous and affectionate referral to her
long-lost father as "Dad", any suspicion about
her heritage are only dismissed with the univer-
sal consensus that she possesses Henry's nose.
Max also inevitably finds himself smitten
with a feisty bistro owner (Marion Cotillard,
"Mary"), a conveniently single woman known
throughout town as a headstrong beauty who
scorns committed relationships.
It's not long, of course, before Max and a
pricey bottle of wine convince her to change her
mind.
Since Max's central emotional conflict is com-
ing to terms with his uncle's death, it's some-
what acceptable that the guy so easily gets the
girl. Yet while there are some touching flash-
backs where he's genuinely mournful about the
loss of his main father figure, even his admission
that he loved him seems late in the making and
only half-heartedly emotional. Fans of Crowe's
strong performance in "The Gladiator" will be
disappointed by Max's inability to show how

WINE AND CINEMA
Hollywood loves a good glass of wine, and isn't
afraid to show it. Here's a few examples:
"Sideways"(2004): Wine expert Miles and his buddy
lack take a California vineyard tour,ltaking Merlot down a
notch and paying honorable tribute to Pinot Noir.
"French Kiss"(1995): French native Luc Teyssier gambles
away his family'sovineyard but wants to make amends,
extending his knowledge of wine and wooing Meg Ryan
along the way.
"Casablanca"(1942): Wine, champagne and cognac - an
inspired classic for generations of drink-lovers.
much he cares about Henry.
His grieving is also hindered by the film's
subtle undertones of his mid-life crisis - Max
ruminates frequently over his cigars, borrows
clothes from his uncle's closet and even has his
household chores interrupted by flashbacks of
playing cricket. It's too hard, however, to com-
municate character development with erratic
behavior alone.
Even though Max predictably discovers a
wonderful life in France, the film's happyending
remains in need of more believability to escape
the feeling of a summertime daydream.

Gellar returns to trash horror

ByKAI QIN
For the Daily
"The Return" may be categorized
as a horror film, but it couldn't mus-
ter up enough
scares to star- Al
tle a geriatric
ward. Livingup The Return
to her uncon- At the
tested scream Showcase and
queen title, Quality 16
Sarah Michelle Paramount Vantage
Gellar ("The
Grudge") once again takes on the
supernatural as a young woman
suddenly hampered by visions in
a movie that's 85 minutes of sheer
boredom.
Gellar is Joanna Mills, the most
attractive traveling agricultural
salesperson on record, who shoul-
ders both a history of self-mutilation
and epileptic-like hallucinations of
a long-haired stalker. "The Return"
follows Joanna as she drives from

town to town in search of the source
of her ghastly episodes. At least
Joanna seems to find her creepy
visions frightening. The audience
never does.
"The Return" has its share of sup-
porting characters, none of which
are necessary or even interesting.
Sam Shepard ("Black Hawk Down")
seems desperately out of place as
the only actor competent enough to
craft a believable character, while
Adam Scott ("The Aviator"), who
plays Joanna's co-worker, gives his
character little motivation for his
attempted rape.
Not onlyis Joanna's questborder-
line random and poorly explained,
it yields no coherent outcomes and
certainly no scares. Joanna sees
strange reflections in her mirrors,
finds a ghostly little girl in the back-
seat of her car and repeatedly hears
echoes of the same song, but none of
these favorite horror-movie devices
ever make you jump.

The f
fear are
bag ofl
bursts of
Gellar's
scene mi
Gellar in
lain slow
One pote

ew moments of contrived much to work with anyway - the
nothing more than a grab- story wouldn't have lost an inch had
hackneyed horror tricks: the movie been cut to a mere hour.
f loud noises, close-ups of Joanna acts with little underlying
doe-eyed face. The only narrative motive, moving randomly
issing is an unsuspecting from situation to situation. When
the shower with the vil- the movie ends, it simply feels like
ly creeping up the stairs. the script ran out.
mtial scare actually ends up She doesn't even solve the mys-
tery behind her whole ordeal,
because the movie inexplicably
Or did solves itself. For the ambitious
viewers who cared enough to follow
she ever the storyline, there's no moment of
revelation; there's no point where
the audience is allowed to glimpse
how some intricate plot was craft-
ily carved out right under its nose.
as - when a ghostly figure Instead, the, film finally congeals
behind Joanna in a dresser on an unsatisfying last clue that
i's a full two seconds before comes straight out of left field. For
ie ineffectually triggers its all its inconsistencies and erratic
ffect. plot progressions, "The Return" is
tor Asif Kapadia ("The War- mind-numbingly predictable. The
imply in way over his head. only twist that could have surprised
Adam Sussman's script is is not having one at all.

humorou
appears:
mirror, it
the movi
"jump" e
Direct
rior") is s
Not that


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