the bde The Michigan Daily I michigandaily.com Thursday, October 25,2007 The Daily Arts guide to the best upcoming events - it's everywhere you should be this weekend and why. Emile Hirsh in Sean Penn's "Into the Wild." On the way to himself By JEFFREY BLOOMER ManagingEditor It was an impulse. That's the way Sean Penn describes it. It was 1990, during the era of another Presi- dent Bush, when Chris McCandless finally let himself go. It was just after his gradu- ation from Emory University. Law school seemed to be next, and he had the grades for Harvard. His parents, self-made mil- lionaires, hardly objected. McCandless's path, as it seems always to have been, lay clearly before him. And just like that, with some simple arrange- ments to keep his family from finding him, he donated his $24,000 savings torchar- ity and left the carefully plotted life that awaited him. Two years later, he died of apparent starvation in the Alaskan wilderness. The real-life story of what happened in between and the desires that drove it inspired the book and Penn's new film ver- sion of "Into the Wild," now playing at the State Theater, and Penn said the story's enduring fascination comes from the basic question it poses. The answer to that question, "'Who am I without Mom and Dad, the television, politics and pictures and whatever else it is I'm supposed to define myself by,' " he said in a telephone interview, "becomes a lifelong pursuit." In his two-year travels across North America, Chris (played in the movie by Emile Hirsch, who has popped in and out of Hollywood and independent films since his early teen years) abandoned the iden- tity and responsibility his 20-some years had afforded him by leaving his life as if it had never existed. Penn, a, touchstone of an actor who rotated behind the camera for the fourth time to helm "Into the Wild," suggests Chris's decision was an act of bravery, audacity and, at least in the mind of some, narcissism. But, he said, that's to ignore what the journey reflected of Chris's char- acter. "There are those who think of this as- a spoiled rich kid who ought not to put himself and his family's emotions in such peril," Penn said. "But what I think is real- See PENN, Page 3B ON STAGE Student arts organization F.O.K.U.S. (Fighting Ob- stacles Knowing Ultimate Success) and Arts at Michigan's Culture Bus are sponsoring a trip to see acclaimed hip-hop group Little Brother per- form live in Detroit. The show is at St. Andrews Hall on Wednesday night. To get your $10 tickets, visit arts.umich.edu. The deadline to register is Wednesday at 1 pm. This man is scared. You will be, too t m t 1 not have seen "CAT PEOPLE" (1942) From the infamous Val Lewton wheel house at RKO came this monster hit, which, as did many of its contemporaries, inspired a sequel and remake. But in recent years, it's become little more than a cult product. Irena fears all forms of intimacy because she believes it will turn her into an actual wild animal. The really scary thing is the total lack of budget and director Jacques Tour- neur's ability to frighten us with the dark. "Cat People" proves just how terrifying a panther's growl can be in a pandemonium shadow show. BLAKE GOBLE "RAVENOUS" (1999) If you thought two years after bearing it all in "The Full Monty" a grizzled Robert Carlyle would be chowing down on fellow western pioneers in "Ravenous," you must be pretty sick. So is this movie. Quirky, dark and disturbing comedy bookends this tale of cannibalism in an isolated Manifest Destiny fort. Possibly Guy Pearce's ("Factory Girl") most underrated and under-publicized role despite his convincing and infectious fright. ELIE ZWIEBEL "THE LAST WINTER" (2007) Remember when those self-conscious critics called "An Inconvenient Truth" the scariest movie of last year? They obviously hadn't gotten wind of "The Last Winter." From director Larry Fessenden ("Wendi- go"), the movie depicts a thinly populated Alaskan drilling post whose members lose their minds as the long-frozen tundrabegins to melt because of climate change. What's You've done "The Exorcist" and "Carrie" and "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre." The Daily Arts film staff offers you a few alternative cannibals, voyeurs and a whole lot of Cronen berg. under the ice? The wild, it seems, wants its around him starts getting killed by a bunch revenge. (The movie is still in theaters, but of deranged mutant dwarves. Truly unset- it's available on Comcast OnDemand.) tling social panic. JEFFREYBLOOMER BRANDON CONRADIS "MOTEL HELL" (1980) "ONE HOUR PHOTO" (2002) Just because "Grindhouse"went nowhere When you think of someone who would last April doesn't mean crappy exploitation play a pathological stalker, you probably flicks don't work. With the slogan "It takes don't think of Robin Williams. Proving his all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vin- best work is in drama rather than com- cent's fritters," the word "butcher" takes on edy, Williams's discount warehouse voyeur new meaning as people discover Vincent's lives a fantasy life. He gets to know a fam- secret ingredient: us. Horror-comedy got ily through the pictures it develops at his its foot in the drive-in with this sleeper. A booth, and when pictures aren't enough, remake is in the works, so better to see it his delusions escalate into a finale involving now before everyone wants to rent it. Razor- a hunting knife and a sort of sex tape. Not sharp laughs - ha! - alongside violent bra- what you'd expect from Patch Adams. vura make this a nasty treat. PAUL TASSI BLAKE GOBLE "THE FLY" (1986) "THE BROOD" (1979) In David Cronenberg's 1986 remake of This is a weird one. David Cronenberg "The Fly," Jeff Goldblum portrays an eccen- made arguably one of his scariest and most tric scientist who begins to change into a bizarre horror filmsawith "The Brood," a sort fly after one of his experiments goes awry of horror version of "Kramer vs. Kramer." - actually, it's more of a gruesome morph- Theoalready-troubled relationship between ing that takes place. As scary as it is to see a man (Art Hindle, "Invasion of the Body body parts melting off, the real terror lies in Snatchers") and his lunatic ex-wife becomes the story of a man slowly losing his mind and even more complicated when everyone See SCARE, Page 4B UN IITEI A Senator and democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel will speak on the Diag tomorrow at noon at a rally to "End the War on Drugs." His plan includes "reclassifying marijuana" and "making hard drugs available by prescription." We love old men who want to legalize drugs. See how the crowd differs from the Ron Paul rally - the event is free. ON THE FLOOR University hip-hop dance company Dance 2XS is holding company classes on Sundays from 5 to 6:15 pm. Dancers of all abilities are invited to learn new choreography and train. $10 at the door or $60 for the whole semester. Sundays in the 3725 Dance Room at the CCRB. For more info check out www.myspace. com/2xsumich/ 'Concrete city,' concrete artist New York City-based artist Justin Bua to lecture in Ann Arbor By WHITNEY POW For the Daily Let's set the stage: New York City, 1980s, the Upper West Side. We've got your cement, your balla courts, your breakdancing Justin Bua b-boys, your graffiti tags, and the pain, The Identities the poor, the fla- and Ideologies vor. And from these of Hip-Hop roots we've got Jus- tin Bua. Next Thursday "There's a hard- at16 p.m. ness to urban art. I AtthelBimedical think it really echoes Science Bulding the architecture of New York City, all of the really harsh gates, undulating terra-cotta of New York," he said. "The square, the cement, the projects, the fences, the basketball courts - it's got a very similar rhythm. It's a concrete city." Bua is giving a lecture titled "The Identities and Ideologies of Hip-Hop" at 6 p.m. next Thursday at the Biomedi- cal Science Research Building and will also conduct a painting workshop the next day at the same location. Bua is an artist - a self-described "distorted urban realist." His paint- ings are striking; they mix all aspects of street culture, creating vivid'por- traits of the streets and intimate imag- es of life. His work is visual hip-hop: There's a beat and flow to his paint- ings, as if any second the sub-woofers will kick in and the canvas will shake and rattle to life. Bua is not limited to one medium. He's flourished artistically, over- whelming the public eye and the mass market with his own brand of hip hop. He's a breakdancer, a skateboard designer and a CD cover artist for Sony Music and Atlantic Records. He creat- ed Comedy Central's animated series "Urbania" and designed the music video for Slum Village's "Tainted." He currently teaches classical figure drawing in the Fine Arts department at the University of Southern Califor- nia. But Bua is a New Yorker. He bleeds for the city. Stylistically, Bua's images are indeed "distorted" - his characters are long and lanky, rhythmic and angular, their bodies capturing the swooping rhythms of graffiti. But his vision of street art isn't just graffiti or breakdancing or hip-hop music, it's the thread that holds them all together as a unit. It's how the street affects life, experiences and expression. Most of all, urban art is about the self, about the harshness of living, growing up and finding your identity in a jarring environment. "Street art is a way to pose and gesticulate that you are art, and no matter what is going on around you, you're standing strong," he said. "And you know, even though I'm poor, I'm' proud." Bua grew up in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, a rough patch of city where it wasn't an easy (or safe) task to get to the subway station. Many of his paintings are untraditional portraits; you won't catch any flat, statuesque poses here. His art features people in their element: musicians plucking dou- ble bass strings with spidery fingers, See BUA, Page 3B A H.ILLL Last year's Golden Apple winner, LSA Prof. Andrei Markovits will lecture about racism in soccer at Hillel tonight at 7 p.m. in the second installment of the Shmooze.Golden Apple speaker series. Fas- cinating topictfantastic speaker - don't miss it. The event is free. COURTESY Of E Justin Bua's "The DJ." Bua will come to the University next week.