The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Monday, November 26, 2007 - 5A
From the cellar
to your stereo
By GABRIEL BAKER
Daily Arts Writer
In the'60s and early'70s, nearly
everyone seemed to be saving their
funkiest horn blasts, most penetra-
ble hooks and sweetest croons for
the one 45 that
would hopefully
be a sensation. ****
With one record,
any makeshift, VanOus
small-budget Artists
label could be
lifted from ano- Eccentric Soul:
nymity and jet- Outskirtsof
tisoned to soul Deep City
stardom. That's Numero Group
all it took - one
artist to turn
some mid-sized American city into
the next Motown.
The reality is that most of these
records, whether they were poten-
tial hit-makers or not, were imme-
diately forgotten and stowed away
in some dank basement corner.
In this vein, an unbelievable col-
lection has been found scattered
around in a ragged cardboard box
in a home in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
Numero Group, the record label
ridiculously adept at compiling
lost soul, R&B and funk singles
from times past, is responsible for
resurrecting a wide swath of these
lost gems, and they found a par-
ticularly strong success with this
Numero's Outskirts of Deep
City is a Miami-based imprint
with more than a couple artists
with potential for national suc-
cess. Voices like Betty Wright and
Helene Smith seem to possess all
the right qualities to make it. Deep
City takes a closer look at this cata-
logue as well as some smaller trib-
utary labels, providing more cuts
from Wright and Smith and some
soul-step gems from artists that
never made it out of Miami's sub-
urban sprawl, let alone Florida.
Soul music, at its heart, is for-
mula. "You Send Me" is the same
four-step guitar strum as Sam
Cooke's lesser-known track "I
Need You Now," just with back-
ground cooing and altered lyrics
- but it's no less transcendent.
When Otis Redding pulls out his
devastating "Pain in My Heart,"
it's simply taking Irma Thomas's
original in a different direction.
Sources say that the impetus for
this new compilation was the dis-
covery of the record's first track.
The Rollers' "Knockin' At The
Wrong Door" is a blatant rework-
ing of "I Want You Back," and it's
every bit as energetic, beat-your-
feet worthy and kick-ass as the
Jackson5 original. The melody and
the rhythm are exactly the same,
but instead of Michael's years-
beyond-his-age vocals, you've got
a spunky girl group dishing out
retro adages like, "you're knockin'
on the wrong door, if you can dig
what it is."
On "There Goes My Baby,"
James Knight and the Butlers offer
a counterfeit "Tighten Up," lack-
ing vocal range but offering solid
instrumentation that remains
constant throughout. There's no
dance like with the original, and
the track never veers into the kind
of frenetic chaos found on Billy
Ball and the Upsetters' "Tighten
Up Tighter." But despite this, the
song is wholly enjoyable.
On the track "Do What You're
Doin'," The Rising Sun spins a
lesson on creating texture by
beautifully utilizing silence and
methodical rhythm. The song
could go on for 10 minutes with
the same melody and the same lyr-
Again, Numero
does all the
digging for you.
ics, and it would still be sad to see
it come to an end.
For years now, Numero Group
has been resurrecting lost trea-
sures, salvaging them from obscu-
rity and giving them the audience
they could never quite reach. In
listening to all of their compi-
lations, a staggering amount of
contradictions arise. How could
success prove elusive for artists
this talented and tracks as flat-
out stunning as a lot of the ones
preserved on these records? One
has to hope the country was so
rich in homespun soul talent that
these artists deservedly remain in
obscurity - otherwise,it would be
cruel and unjust.
What makes Outskirts stand out
from the preceding comps is its
noticeable embrace of emulation.
Even though these artists never
reached the same level of commer-
cial success as the songs they set
out to imitate, these tracks prove
it was in no way because of a lack
of resourcefulness or ingenuity.
After all, it wasn't derivation that
catapulted soul in the '60s, but for-
mula.
A fairy tale you can't hate
C ynicism be damned. "Enchanted" is a
wonderful movie.
The target audi-
ence for the film is allegedly **
the young-child-with-par-
ent set, as almost all Dis- Enchanted
ney films are. But here's the At Quality16
thing: This is a family-ori- and Showcase
ented film that everybody
can enjoy, a rare treat that Disney
goes beyond the trappings
of Disney's often contrived
magic to become an ironic, clever and intel-
ligent fantasy.
Giselle (voiced and realized by Amy Adams,
"Junebug") is the fairest lass in all of Andala-
sia and is engaged to the dashing young Prince
Edward (James Marsden, "Hairspray"). They
inhabit ananimated world inwhichtheyknow
they're animated. Giselle, if betrothed, will
usurp the throne of the wicked Queen Narissa
(a devilish Susan Sarandon), and Narissa must
kill her with the usual instruments of poison
apples and bonehead assistants. Sounds Dis-
ney enough, but here's where it gets clever.
To keep Giselle out of the way, the evil
Narissa pushes her into a fountain that's a
gateway to a terrible and far, far away place
Enchanted'
takes on Disney
mythology
By Blake Goble
Daily Arts Writer
that no cartoon sweetheart would ever be pre-
pared to handle: New York City, in real life.
This is where the movie, despite its best
efforts to be super-sap kiddy fare, becomes
a smart and loveable fantasy. By taking the
endearing naivete of hand-drawn animation
and the simpletons inhabiting it and transfer-
ring them into a real-world context - especial-
ly one as complicated and dense as New York
- "Enchanted" becomes something special.
High concept aside, "Enchanted" has a
great sense of humor and a progressive female
lead. Snow White could talk to animals, and
Giselle can, too. But when she's in New York,
she gathers a series of rats, flies, cockroaches
and pigeons to clean for her. Ariel could get
her sea friends together to sing a song about
the ocean, all the whiletapping yourtoes with-
out question. Giselle gets almost all of Central
Park to participate in an absurdly spontaneous
and choreographed event that even the most
curmudgeonly person will love.
You want to hate Walt Disney and all its
happy bullshit, but "Enchanted" isn't bullshit.
It's something weird that we don't get much
these days in movies. We don't scoff - we
laugh with the movie. We believe in true love.
Usually these films aren't for everyone - you
might enter wantingto hate it - but it's unde-
niably fun.
Playing with the notion of being obnoxious-
ly obtuse in a materialistic world, Adams, the
film's heart, does something rare. She makes
you love her. Delightful and sincere, Adams
turns 60 years of sexy prince rescues on their
heads as she dons a sword, loses her glass slip-
pers and rescues her true love. No Disney prin-
cess ever did that. Along the lines of Johnny
Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow or Gene Wild-
er's Willy Wonka, Adams gives an unexpected
rare performance in a movie that should have
been dopey but ends up truly enjoyable.
Hey, you. Keep your tentacles to yourself.
By BRANDON CONRADIS
Daily Arts Writer
There's nothing like a good
horror allegory to get your blood
going.
"Invasion of the Body Snatch-
ers" (1956), "Night of the Liv-
ing Dead" (1968) and "The Fly"
(1986) are touchstones of a genre
that uses its grotesque premises
as the basis for social criticism.
Now Frank Darabont ("The
No Ambrosia bloke can match that beard.
Too hungry
to stay quiet
By ANDREW KAHN
DailyArts Writer
"I'm back without a Just track, / Tried
to reach out and work but he aint chirp
back."
That's how Freeway kicks off "It's
Over," the second song
on his long-awaited
sophomore release
Free at Last. For many
rappers, the "It" refers Freeway
to their careers: put- Free at Last
ting out a worthwhile Roc-A-Fella
album without pro-
ducer Just Blaze's sup-
port, especially after he produced the
bulk of Freeway's debut, would seem
impossible. But Freeway is too talented
and too hungry to let the snub keep him
down. At the same time, though, Blaze's
absence is obvious.
Philadelphia Freeway, the husky,
bearded rapper's 2003 debut, featured a
very raw Free, but nonetheless is consid-
See FREEWAY, Page 8A
Shawshank
Redemption")
seeks to tap into
that vein with
"The Mist,"
another of his
adaptations of
Stephen King
stories. Unfor-
The Mist
At Qualityl6
and Showcase
MGM
tunately, some-
one forgot to tell him that when
you confront a complicated issue,
you have to understand the issue
first.
"The Mist" finds a large
group of townspeople, includ-
ing movie-poster artist David
(Thomas Jane, "The Punisher"),
holing up ina supermarket when
a mysterious mist engulfs the
streets. Hysteria soon breaks
out. An unhinged wannabe
evangelist (Marcia Gay Harden,
"Mystic River") takes advantage
of the situation by preaching her
gospel, while David comes to the
realization that there's some-
thing dangerous lurking in the
mist. The question: Who should
be feared more? The monster or
the religious nut and her cro-
nies?
Darabont's film starts strong,
with quiet scenes of unease that
masterfully ratchet up the ten-
sion while introducing the cen-
tral characters. The noticeable
lack of music, the detached cam-
erawork and the colorful perfor-
mances reel in the audience. All
the elements seem to point to a
memorable payoff, but the film
then suddenly stalls in a succes-
sion of mud puddles.
The film's most readily notice-
able failure is a technical one.
Remember your disappointment
when, while watching "Jaws,"
that monstrous shark you'd been
dreading for the first hour and a
half was revealed as something
more akin to a giant rubber con-
dom with teeth? The effect is
similar here, as the monsters'
slimy, computer-generated ten-
tacles are seen not even a half an
hour into the film and look like
they could barely pass in an old
PlayStation game. If a film puts
its special effects as front and
center as "The Mist" does, they "Daddy,
better be convincing.
But "The Mist" suffers most L
from its skewed and self-righ- L
teous social criticism. In the hoi
film, religious devotion is syn-
onymous with ignorance, fear d
and hysteria. Secularism, on the
other hand, is personified by the
film's strong-willed, noble and ing. Its
heroic protagonists who, natu- contriv
rally, must fend off the fanatical to bet
"believers" as the film progresses beings
toward its downbeat conclusion. and wh
"The Mist" wants desperately some
to be taken seriously as an alle- would
gory, but it fails miserably in try- (probab
atest bite of
rror allegory
)esnt cut it.
vision is too narrow, too
red and, frankly, too naive
taken seriously. Human
are simply not this black
ite, no matter how much
Hollywood filmmakers
like to think they are
bly because it makes their
jobs a lot easier). Religion mani-
fests itself in different ways and
in different kinds of people, yet
"The Mist" refuses to see it that
way; instead, Darabont serves
us a blatantly negative slant
on religion, dressed up with
frustratingly one-dimensional
characters and ear-splitting dia-
logue.
Besides, the potential as a
thriller clear during the film's
first act is scrapped in favor of
overused set pieces and laugh-
ably obvious directorial choices,
evengoingsofar asto cap offwith
one of those generic sequences of
anguished characters walking in
slow motion while ethnic music
wails in the background (what is
it with those?).
The decision to focus on atmo-
sphere and tension instead of
out-and-out carnage is refresh-
ing, but, ultimately, the aggres-
sive nature of the film's message
trumps everything else. And yet
"The Mist" holds little food for
thought: It's as insubstantial as
its title would suggest.
,
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