The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Tuesday, March 11, 2008 - 5
Films with more
heart than stars
"What an ugly baby. Let's fix it up."
ONE DAY AT A TIME
The portrait of two grew Lives for a Day" maintains its
giddiness due to the strengths of its
different women two leading women.
Amy Adams ("Enchanted") con-
and how their lives tinues her winning streak as Dely-
sia Lafosse. Though Ms. Lafosse
intersect may be a social-climber willing to
trade her body for an apartment
and a leading role in the West End,
By SARAH SCHWARTZ Adams never loses her "heart of
Daily Arts Writer gold," infusing Delysia with a quick
wit, biting tongue and a love of life
A frothy mixture of sex-farce and that leaves the audience hoping for
Cinderella story, "Miss Pettigrew the best for her. That best comes in
Lives for a Day" the form of Frances McDormand's
is a throwback to ("Fargo") Guinevere Pettigrew.
old Hollywood Miss Pettigrew, after againbeing
films. It's a light- fired from a governess job, shows
hearted story, SS up at Delysia's apartment thinking
impressively so tigrew Livs she has found another job caring
considering the for a for children. Instead, she becomes
threats of World Day Delysia's "social secretary." Once
War II, air raid At Showcase transformed from matron to poten-
sirens, depression Focus tial player, she must balance Dely-
and hunger hang- sia's hectic social life of parties,
ing so blatantly three rival suitors and more devi-
over its head. ance than Guinevere feels ought to
Despite these downers, "Miss Petti- occur. Guinevere seizes the day, as
the title suggests, and McDormand
plays her part to the hilt, making
Guinevere the moral backbone to
Adam's ever-bending Delysia.
Guinevere's main role is to fend
off the amorous devotion of the
three men in Delysia's life. While
two offer her something she wants
- a lead role, a place to stay - only
Michael (the adorable Lee Pace,
TV's "Pushing Daisies") can offer
her somethingshe needs: true love.
He would give her that and more,
if only she would sail away to New
York with him. But Delysia, torn
between her ambitions and love,
needs Guinevere to push her in
the right direction. Guinevere is
hesitant at first, especially about
the idea of playing with hearts, but
when she meets Joe (Ciiran Hinds,
"Munich") she begins to warm up
to the idea.
The two women are focal con-
trasts in a movie filled with stark
differences. The life of Delysia's
penthouse is a far cry from the soup
lines Guinevere frequents. The mad
world of the nightclub that Delysia
sings at can't be bothered with air
raids, refusing to shut down when
the sirens go off. When planes fly
across the London skies, there is
no fear, only an exclamation of
"weren't they magnificent?" These
disparities are prettied up for the
big screen, and only collide during
the opening scenes and in Guinev-
ere's reactions to the sight of food.
It's scary to think how quickly peo-
ple can forgetthe real world and the
destruction of war when they're too
involved in themselves.
Guinevere can't forget, though,
which is why it's best that the time-
line for the movie is just 24 hours.
Though Guinevere cares for Delysia
and as much as she wants to see her
go off into the sunset with the right
man for the right reasons, she would
have soon tired of Delysia's unsub-
stantial life. The two women make
a lasting impression on each other,
and the film proves that sometimes
the best impressions are made in
the shortest amount of time.
hentI was eight, my
friends and I decided
to make a movie. We
grabbed my dad's camcorder,
threw on a couple of costumes and
filmed our antics in the backyard
for about five minutes. The fin-
ished result - a
masterpiece
to fill even the
most revered
director with
envy - was
titled "Jurassic
Park." Appar-
ently they BRANDON
hadn't taught
us the term
"copyright
infringement" in school yet.
I don't know what happened
to that video. It's probably rotting
away in a box inmy parents' attic or
- even more likely - it was taped
over and eventually found its way
into the garbage. Back then, home
videos were things to be tucked
away guiltily and soon forgotten,
but thanks to the Internet, they can
make you a minor celebrity.
The newfound art of "swed-
ing," one that has become sudden-
ly common in many web circles
in the past couple of months, is
not much different from what my
friends and I did when we set out
to make our backyard cinematic
masterpiece so many years ago.
In fact, it's not new at all, merely
an old fad given a hip new name
for our oh-so-savvy generation.
Coined by filmmaker Michel
Gondry in his recently-released
comedy "Be Kind Rewind," the
term refers to the desperate
measures taken by the film's two
protagonists (played by Jack
Black and Mos Def) to ensure
the patrons of their video rental
store get the movies they want
after their entire catalog is acci-
dentally destroyed. They do this
by "sweding" films, remaking
them on their video camera with
a modicum of the original budget.
"Ghost Busters," "RoboCop" and
"Driving Miss Daisy" all get the
treatment, eliciting demand from
their customers for more home-
made goodness.
In turn, "Be Kind Rewind"
seems to have inspired a new
craze for home movie-making.
Hundreds of videos pop up daily
on the web showcasing average
Joes fulfillingtheir dreams of
becoming filmmakers. I find many
of these videos - sometimes quite
sincere, but more often than not in
on the joke - both hilarious and
oddly poignant. Not only are these
thrift store home movie epics a lot
of fun to watch if you're a fan of
the movies they're spoofing, but
they also showcase filmmaking at
its most energetic and unadulter-
ated. They're odes to the joy, inge-
nuity and sheer passion that come
from making a movie, no matter
how cheap or, let'sface it, how
awful it is.
In this day and age of soulless
Hollywood schlock, when films
like "Meet the Spartans" and
"10,000 BC" make up fifty per-
cent of the cinematic offerings at
your local theater each weekend,
it's always nice to stumble upon
a film or two made with genuine
heart. Granted, it says something
about the quality of contempo-
rary cinema when we must turn
to the Internet and watch cam-
corder-shotcrip offs to find them,
but regardless, I can't help but
admire the affection and dedica-
tion of these home moviemakers.
The website Filmmaking Frenzy
serves as the perfect introduction
to this new movement in ultra-
indie filmmaking, where some
of your favorite films are remade
by no-names for about as much
money as a Hollywood actress'
hairbrush.
Take their version of "Preda-
tor" - the 1987 sci-fi action film
starring Arnold Schwarzeneg-
ger - for example. Yes, thatcgirl
really is talking like "Ahold."
Yes, the murderous alien really is
sportingsweat pants and Keds.
And yes, that "jungle" probably is
someone's backyard. Regardless of
its technical deficiencies, I'd still
watch this over "Aliens vs. Preda-
tor: Requiem."
It's astonishing how much time
and effort was put into making
something so, well, depressingly
entertaining. The website's version
of"Tron" is a perfect example of
thrifty ingenuity on the partcof a
bunch of dudes who seriously had
too much time on their hands. Cos-
tumes made from bicycle helmets
YouTube remakes
are less annoying
than you might
think
and Day-Glo masking tape? Sets
built from cardboard boxes and
filmed in what looks like a high
school AV room? Watching this
movie, the typical questions arise:
How long did it take them to make
this? Did they know the entire
world was goingto be watching it?
Do these guys have jobs?
The array of wildly inconsistent
but almost always entertaining
fan movies on the netserves as
a refreshing contrast to the stale
and often passionless movies
flooding theaters. But you can't
get too sentimental. It'd be nice
to think these ten-cent Spielbergs
could be the ones to pull Holly-
wood out of its depressing slump,
to wonder how much better films
would be today if these filmmak-
ers existed ten years ago - and
then you realize that, yes, they did
exist and, sadly, they're the ones
currently stuck making "Meet the
Spartans 2."
Conradis is sad because his
YouTube movies have never
been favorited. Console him
at brconrad@umich.edu.
Young
men going
west
By DAVID WATNICK
DailyArts Writer
OK, let's just get this out of the way: Old
Growth is a really bad title. Of course, it isn't
fair - nor is it usually relevant - to judge a
book (or album) by its cover
(or title), so tryingto extrap-
olate the implications of a
bad title is a useless endeav-
or. Suffice it to say, though, Dead
that the term "old growth" Meadow
can conjure more horrify-
ing mental images of geriat- Old GroWth
ric dermatologic anomalies Matador
than it does high musical
expectations. So it's unfor-
tunate that Dead Meadow (which isn't the
most inviting moniker to begin with) saddled
their newest disc with such an unattractive
name. It doesn't do the contents justice.
Three years in the making and featuring
one less guitarist (goodbye, Cory Shane), Old
Growth lacks the rich spaciness of its pre-
decessor Feathers (2005), the leaner lineup
opting instead for an altogether more ter-
restrial aesthetic. The drum figures that tow
the majority of the songs move at the lazy clip
of signature Neil Young and go a long way
toward conveying the dirt-stained vibe, but
it's the bluesy guitars and minor keys that
truly summon the earth tones of the Ameri-
can West that boil from the music.
These performances render most of Old
Growth an impressionistic echo of heat dis-
tortion rising above tumbleweed-littered
* landscapes. It's rhythmic, tangible and the
closer you get, the further away it seems to
move. Opener "Ain't Got Nothing (To Go
Wrong)" sets this tone, and Dead Meadow
runs with it - for a while. Vocally, frontman
Jason Simon does nothing to undermine the
When parental
pressure backfires
Dude, there's totally a cat in the ceiling.
carefully constructed sound that his guitar is
so responsible for. His melodies, though pass-
able, take on a necessary pedestrian quality
in the context of the music that allows for
Despite a potentially
disturbing title, Dead
Meadow produces
a solid album
the preservation of the natural balance. Even
when it's spotlighted in the front of the mix,
Simon's voice manages to function as merely
another instrumental constituent among the
song's inseparable whole.
The holistic "Western" approach works,
but it's subject to one serious blunder: over-
use. Despite meandering for seven minutes,
opener "Ain't Got Nothing..." never drags in
the leadoff spot. But by the 1th track, "Hard
People/Hard Times," Dead Meadow requires
an awfully long four minutes to squeeze out
a song nearly indecipherable from the first
track and five others in between. None of the
songs tank, but none are distinguished.
This means the songs that break the trust-
ed mold, either by merit or by contrast, are the
peaks that tower above the endlessly extend-
ing surface scenery. When the acoustic guitars
are finally showcased, Simon is able to flash
his skills with his solos and vocals standing
on their own. Reminiscent of His Bleakness
Elliot Smith, "Down Here," a song carried by
vocals that represents a major break from the
recycled malaise of the prior three tracks, is
a particular standout, along with "Keep On
Walking," a surprisingly compelling major-
key song.
While most old growths are difficult to
ignore, this Old Growth is often asking to be
forgotten, but lying within its occasionally
monotonous lull is a beauty firmly at odds
with the unsightly title. Sequenced together
on one disc, the songs collectively threaten
to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but
each is independently strong enough to keep
the collection above water.
By ANNIE LEVENE
DailyArts Writer
She's a beautiful girl, young
and somewhat talented. Pushed
by her parents into fame, fortune
and notoriety,
only to suffer
a tragic, pub-
lit downfall. The Other
Thinking of Bol Girl
Britney Spears?
Try again. It's At Showcase
a seemingly Columbia
modern story
with names you
haven't heard since ninth grade
European studies. Perhaps it's
true what they say: It's all just
history repeating.
The life paralleling Spears's
is, in this case, Anne Boleyn's
(Natalie Portman, "V for Ven-
detta"). The movie opens with
Papa Boleyn (British actor Mark
Rylance) already putting pressure
on his eldest daughter, declaring
her destined for greater things
than a pre-adolescent betrothalto
a merchant. That honor is instead
passed down to the younger and
"fairer" Boleyn, Mary (Scarlett
Johansson, "The Nanny Diaries").
Apparently Anne is too good for
middle class but well-enough
suited for prostitution. Her future
role entails becoming a mistress
to King Henry VIII (Eric Bana,
"Munich") who has grown tired
of his wife's inability to provide a
male heir. (Now a quick modern
science lesson would place the
genetic blame on Henry's little
swimmers, but that is neither
here nor there). When the King
is dissatisfied, heads roll. Luckily,
Anne and Mary's skeevey uncle
(David Morrissey, "The Water
Horse: Legend of the Deep") is
in the wings ready and willing to
pimp out his nieces - whoever
catches Henry's wandering eye
- for a little bit of upward social
mobility.
The rest is, well, history. While
Anne and Mary are merely pawns
in their uncle and father's plan,
they weren't blameless. First
Mary and then Anne take pride in
becoming mistresses to the king.
Confusingly, Anne's motives
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