8 - Tuesday, April 10, 2007

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8 - Tuesday, pril 10, 200 Ti Ndirhiass flaii i iiaselal,

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LID 4 'SOMEWHERE IN TIME' (1980) AND 'TRANSFORMERS' (1986)
'80s film nostalgia: Back to the old favorites

A true Michigan romance

An epic tale of robots in disguise!

By JENNA PARKS
Daily Arts Writer
Little did I know that revisit-
ing a favorite film from childhood
could illicit an odd dream involv-
ing Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman,
a leopard-print bikini and a strip-
per pole. The movie in question is
the 1980 classic, "Somewhere in
Time." Skillfully mixing two great
genres - time travel and romance
- playwright Richard Collier
(Christopher Reeve, "Superman")
as he falls in love with a young
woman's portrait (Jane Seymour,
the aforementioned "Dr. Quinn")
and travels 70 years into the past
to find her.
In the midst of both a bout of
writers' block and a break-up, Col-
lier takes some time off to clear his
head and stays at Michigan's own
Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island,
where he falls for Seymour's por-
trait and begins his quest to dis-
cover anything he can about her.
His research uncovers that she
was once a popular stage actress
in the early 20th century before
dropping out of the public eye and
dying a recluse.
Collier's rabid hunt soon turns
to obsession when he begins dis-
cussing the possibility of time
travel with one of his old college
professors. The teacher tells the

former student that once, many
years ago, he thought he had
traveled through time merely by
suggesting to his mind that his
surroundings had changed to the
desired year. Though it was brief,
he has no doubt this powerful sug-
gestion propelled his bodythrough
hundreds of years. Collier must
simply convince himself that the
year is 1912.
Mackinac Island
and Dr. Quinn go
back in time.
After emptying his hotel room
of all modern amenities and dress-
ing in a period suit, Collier sets his
mind to the turn of the century in
hopes of uniting with the woman
of his dreams. Through self-hyp-
nosis he wills himself to 1912 and
into the arms of Seymour's Elise
McKenna. But the only obstacle
that Richard Collier faces isn't just
the constraint of time - there's
also McKenna's manager (Chris-
topher Plummer, "The Sound of
Music").
"Somewhere in Time" may have
been unsuccessful at the box office,

By CHRISTINA CHOI
DailyArts Writer
With a classic good-versus-evil
storyline set among a high-pow-
ered mix of synthesized'80s tunes,
"Transformers: The Movie" is one
of those films that thrusts you back
into a childhood when nothing
was clich6 and toy cars that could
turn into robots were just flat-out
sweet.
Set in the wildly futuristic
world of 2005, "Transformers"
recounts one of the epic adven-
tures in the battle between the
virtuous Autobots, headed by the
revered Optimus Prime, and the
devious Decepticons, spearheaded
by the gravelly voiced Megatron.
These arch-nemeses' alternate
forms consist of a patriotic-colored
semi-truck and a big honkin' gun,
thereby being quite possibly the
ultimate advertisement for Amer-
ica's favorite toys.
While the Autobots are hard at
work trying to stockpile enough
shimmering Energon cubes for
battle, the Decepticons, naturally,
are out to sabotage them. There's
also a higher source of evil, that of
the almighty Unicron, a cannibal-
istic planet - yup, aplanet - that's
bent on destroying everything.
The valiant Autobots must strug-
gle to not only defeat the Decep-

ticons, but also unlock the power
of the Matrix (akin to what the
flux capacitor was for "Back to the
Future") in time to save the world.
Amplifyingthisblack-and-white
good-vs.-evil storyline are the
Transformers themselves, a group
as diverse as it is colorful. These
include Soundwave, a malevolent
tape recorder that shoots out mini-
Decepticons; Grimlock, a dim-wit-
ted dinosaur with brute strength
on his side; and the Constructions,
a band of Transformers/construc-
tion vehicles who combine and
create the ultimate Devastator.
Back to a time
when the robots
were everything.
But more than just a story of
battling robots, "Transformers"
is a coming-of-age account of the
young Hot Rod, a young Autobot
who must develop the maturity
and skills necessary to lead the
Autobots when there is no hope
left. It's also the triumphant story
of Spike Witwicky (to be reprised
by Nickelodeon star Shia LaBeouf
inthis summer'slive-action sequel)

9

but it has since become a cult
classic, even spurring an annual
convention at The Grand Hotel
for die-hard fans. Not unlike the
Rocky Horror phenomenon, fans
can dress like their favorite char-
acters and reenact scenes on the
island they were originally filmed.
Those devotees might have some-
thing else to look forward to - this
brilliant melodrama, the perfect
fodder for a film turned musical,
is finally in talks for a Broadway
treatment.

who must save his dad from plum-
meting to his doom in a bubbling
vat of deadly chemicals.
Never mind that the only female
Autobot is bright pink, rail-thin,
and kind of a floozy. Never mind
that the film itself was an enor-
mous commercial for its own mer-
chandise. What matters is that the
world needs tobe saved and there
is nothing better than 500-foot
robots and the crooning sounds of
Weird Al's "Dare to Be Stupid" to
do just that.


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University of Michigan Waste Management Services
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CONCERT PREVIEW
Local band joins 'Relay' team

01

By KAREN STASEVICH
DailyArts Writer
This year the University's chap-
ter of Relay For Life aims to be the
No. 1 relay in the
annual American
Cancer Society
event. Last year it at Relay
raised $236,000 f
with more than for Life
2,300 registered Saturdayat
participants. To
achieve this goal, 10 a.m. (day-
m hoe an a dozen longevent)
musical and dance At Palmer Field
groups will per-
form, including
the local band Andreyka - win-
ner of this year's Rock Star Taste of
Chaos Tour.
"It was amazing," Andreyka bass-
ist Rob Moran said of the win. "We
were walking around backstage and

running into people from bands that
we looked up to."
Andreyka is an Ann Arbor hard-
core group with three of the four
members enrolled at the University.
The band has played The Blind Pig,
St. Andrew's Hall and venues all
over southeast Michigan over the
past year and a half, but they had
to beat out more than 90 bands for
the honor of playing at Cobo Arena
with TheUsed, 30 Seconds To Mars,
Saosin and Chiodos. On Saturday,
Andreyka willtbe at Palmer Field,
performing in the name of fun and
fighting cancer.
Opening ceremonies will beginat
10 a.m. on Saturday, with the event
coming to a close 24 hours later.
Throughout the Relay sporting tour-
naments, contests and free food will
entertain whenever dance groups or
a cappella groups are off the stage.
The event has its own Myspace

page with more donation and event
information, and participants
will continue to collect donations
through Saturday.
This is Andreyka's second appear-
ance at the Relay, and Moran said
the band is excited to return after a
positive first experience.
"Once we started playing and the
Ann Arbor-based
rockers return to
campus event.
sun set, they lit all the paper bags on
the track and it made all the build-
ings look totally amazing," Moran
said. "We're really looking forward
to doing it this year."

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