The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
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Taking a final bath
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles": corrupting our nation's youth since 1984.
'Kick-Ass' c C ass
Awkward action comedy
can't find its identity,
secret or otherwise
By JENNIFER XU
Daily Arts Writer
"How come nobody's ever tried to be a
superhero?" The answer is never fully pro-
vided in "Kick-Ass," but
when the end rolls around
we don't particularly care,
either. Heralded by crit-
ics as the perfect cross
between gritty realism
and fantasy, "Kick-Ass"
manages to be both and
neither at the same time.
The film opens like a
Kick-Ass
At Quality16
and Showcase
Lionsgate
of awkwardness surpasses the likes of
Michael Cera and Jesse Eisenberg as his
voice cracks and falters in his numerous
voiceovers. He and his friends try hard to
keep the banter going, and sometimes it
works, but once the cast of over-the-top
characters enters the picture, all becomes
lost in the land of dialogue. Henceforth,
the film proceeds to devolve into some
kind of unwieldy mash-up of "Watchmen"
and "Kill Bill."
The biggest problem with "Kick-Ass" is
its inconsistency. It's understandable that
a film modeling itself after a comic book
world should be unrealistic, but the char-
acters are so one-dimensional and hammy,
they border the line of ridiculousness.
Moretz (who was quite possibly the
worst thing about "(500) Days of Summer")
grates as she attempts to mix her tough-
girl attitude with snaggletoothed charm.
Unquestionably, she gets the best lines -
"Contact the mayor's office, he has a special
signal he shines in the sky; it's in the shape
of a giant cock" - but the ways she executes
them are just so uncomfortable you want to
cover your ears. Child actors are given a lot
of flak for just standing there and looking
cute, but Moretz confirms all that can go
wrong when they get to do more.
And as for the mustachioed Cage, the
man loses any shred of good will left over
from his neurotic turn in "Bad Lieuten-
ant" last year, playing his insufferably
caricatured Big Daddy to the T of weird
tics and scenery chewing. Truly, the only
thing more cheesy than Cage is the array
of bizarre Italian mobsters following him,
each equipped with a fake Brooklyn accent
and swagger to match. The mobster king-
pin's nerdy son Chris, played by Christo-
pher Mintz-Plasse ("Superbad"), is the only
character that sticks, managing to provide
some much-needed comic relief in his lim-
ited screen time.
Of course, all becomes forgiven once the
real "ass-kicking" begins. As soon as the
mouths stop moving, "Kick-Ass" features
action scenes full of jaw-dropping kineti-
cisni that rival the best of Japanese kung fu
flicks. There's a delirious, manic bloodlust
to the film, as Moretz's character flips up a
wall and careens 360 degrees over it, show-
ering the killers in a stream of bullets and
butterfly knives. Blood with the consistency
of nail polish streams down their faces, as
they slowly collapse and Joan Jett pounds
out in the background. The girl can't act,
but damn is her body double good.
"Kick-Ass" is undoubtedly a fun movie,
with its fight scenes sparkling in a way
even non-action lovers will be able to get
on board with. But since it doesn't do real-
ism or escapism correctly, it ends up tee-
tering in a limbo zone that pleases no one
and confuses everyone. In the end, the film
becomes too facile to be any kind of com-
mentary on society's increasingly schaden-
freudian mindset, too unidimensional tobe
a typical loser bromance comedy, but too
clunky to be the sort of neorealist escap-
ism inhabited by the likes of "Sin City" and
"Watchmen." It's a film that could have
had so much more to deliver had the story-
line been less ambitious, less awkward and
less full of Nicolas Cage.
T his is my final music column.
And, for this reason, thinking
about writing it has filled me
with a stomach-churning mixture of
exasperation, latent
self-righteousness
and straight-up writ-
er's block. Needless.
to say, this feeling
has not been over-
whelmingly pleasant.
There's just some-
thing so petty about JOSHUA
a final column; like, BAYER
this is my "last grand
musical statement"
- my last chance to inform Ann Arbor,
for the umpteenth time, about how
much better FM radio was in the '90s.
(Seriously, if "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
or "Loser" were to crack the Billboard
Top 20 in this day and age, I think my
disbelief might even rival Miley Cyrus's
inevitable aneurysm).
The point is that, over the course of
my year-and-a-half reign as the Daily's
music columnist, I have not been sav-
ing up. Every half-baked theoretical
notion about the politics, ontology and
evolution of music, every last mor-
sel of intellectual deliberation about
what influences the way in which we
process recorded noises - essentially
every musical thought that has passed
through my mind over the last handful
of months, I have already consolidated
and vomited out onto this page.
Of course, I could have just gone the
noble route and not even mentioned
the fact that this is my last column.
Who cares anyway, other than myself?
I could have just quietly snuck out the
back door with a cute little rant about
how much I love it when a band knows
exactly how and when to use miscel-
laneous percussion. There's something
so simple yet so stomach-tightening
when a tambourine or a shaker bursts
into the mix at just the right moment,
being shaken just the right way.
It's just that, given the fact that I've
already said everything major I could
have possibly ever wanted to say about
music, and that I don't really feel like
writing that column on miscellaneous
percussion, I feel like I'm kind of stuck
between a rock and another rock.
In a nutshell, I didn't want this last
column to be incredibly lame, but I also
didn't want it to be incredibly indul-
gent (although this column is swiftly
becoming both of these things). And,
while I definitely wanted to feel some
sort of personal attachment to it, I also
sort of felt like this was just my ego
being a bit of a dick. After all, the last
time I wrote a column about the role of
music in personal life, someone com-
mented, quite concisely: "No one cares
about your family. Stop writing."
But I'm not going to stop writ-
ing, even thoughI probably should,
since my word count is telling me I've
reached the halfway point and my con-
sciousness is telling me I have accom-
plished absolutely nothing so far. In
fact, I'm probably just going to regress
and talk about why I'm here.
I am here because I used to take
baths with my dad. I would take baths
with my dad and he would blast me glo-
rious noises on his boom box: Nirvana,
Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, Def Leppard,
Led Zeppelin, Stone Temple Pilots,
Alice in Chains, The Offspring, etc.
He would take me to concerts too
- I remember having to leave Metal-
lica early because the stage was alleg-
edly supposed to "blow up" during the
encore, and my parents, both psycholo-
gists, didn't want me tobe trauma-
tized. I remember thinking the smell of
marijuana was the smell of rock music.
But, most of all, I remember thinking
music fans were terrifying: big, husky
men with intimidating moustaches
and leather Harley Davidson jackets;
men who exemplified the term "heavy
metal." And, of course, their chain-
smoking, red-lipsticked girlfriends.
But if my dad had taken me to jazz
shows instead, I would have perceived
music fans as a tender, warm-souled
group of African American head-bob-
bers. And if he'd taken me to indie rock
concerts, I would have perceived music
fans as dressing incredibly ironically
and all having eating disorders (not to
stereotype at all).
Bathing myself in
self-indulgence.
I guess my point that I've kind of
stumbled across as I've been writing
this column is that music is big. Sure,
film is divided into millions of sub-
genres as well, but when it comes down
to it, there's the people who go to regu-
lar theaters and the people who go to
"artsy" theaters. And the people who
go to the "artsy" theaters are all more
or less the same: They all love the Coen
brothers, they all pretend not to love
Quentin Tarantino and they all hate
"Twilight."
Basically, there's the people who go
to the movies to be diverted, and the
people who go to the movies because
they crave artistic expression. But,
with music, there's not such a rigid
divide. Sure, I think Panic! at the Disco
is bourgeoisie scum, but, for whatever
reason, I've been to a Panic! concert
before, and trust me: The atmosphere
there was just one giant ball of prepu-
bescent passion.
At a concert, there's no such thing as
a half-assed music fan - you went out
of your way to buy that ticket, and you
are there to lose yourself in the sound
waves. And, asI sloppily wrap up this
cow pie of a final testament, there's one
thing I need you to know: If you are
reading this column, whether you're a
Schubert aficionado or a metalhead, the
fact is that you love music. And, for that
reason, I love you. See ya later!
Bayer wrote this column while listening
to Miley Cyrus. To point out his hypocrisy,
e-mail him at jrbayer@umich.edu.
second-rate beta-male comedy as three
awkward comic book geeks muse on how
awesome it would be to have a superhero
in today's increasingly look-away society.
Okay, so far so Apatow. Later on, Dave Lize-
wski (Aaron Johnson, "The Illusionist")
resolves to carry out this very plan, patrol-
ling the streets in a green and yellow scuba
suit under the guise of Kick-Ass, attempt-
ing to fight crime. The masked adolescent
becomes an Internet sensation, spawning
a movement of real-life superheroes in the
form of the pre-pubescent Hit Girl (Chloe
Moretz, "(500) Days of Summer") and her
father, the former vigilante cop Big Daddy
(Nicolas Cage, "The Wicker Man").
At the beginning, Johnson's level
Dum Dum a smart choice
.'Dragon Tattoo' is a marked success
By EMILY BOUDREAU
Daily Arts Writer
Lisbeth Salander is not simply a girl with
a dragon tattoo. She's a girl with many tat-
toos and many piercings
and an attitude to match. ***
She's a fascinating char-
acter, but unfortunately The Girl With
"The Girl With the Drag- the Dragon
on Tattoo" isn't solely
dedicated to watching Tattoo
Salander fight crime Atthe Michigan
while roaring around on
her motorcycle. Music Box
Salander (Noomi
Rapace, "Daisy Diamond") gets involved
with Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist,
"Downloading Nancy"), an ordinary jour-
nalist who is swept up into an extraordinary
investigation of an almost-40-year-old mur-
der of a 16-year-old girl. Salander and Blom-
kvist join forces to solve the twisted mystery
that involves uncovering a family's darkest
secrets, a series of grotesque killings, some
Nazis and some sadists.
Needless to say, "The Girl With the Drag-
on Tattoo" is a pretty dark film. For the most
part, it takes place in the bleak but beautiful
Swedish countryside that has been scarred
by the murder. The film's note of haunting
emptiness is offset by an extreme amount of
graphic violence. "The Girl With the Dragon
Tattoo" is based off the bestselling book of
the same title by Stieg Larsson, and the film
stays true to the author's original depictions
of brutality.
The majority of the violence is direct-
ed toward women - there are two rape
scenes and an endless host of female
mutilated bodies. If the film had kept its
official, international title - "Men Who
Hate Women" - then the graphic images
wouldn't be as unexpected. The violence is
incredibly shocking and gets increasingly
difficult to watch, as it's not the imper-
sonal, mainstream gunfight violence that's
found in most movies. The violent scenes
in this film are very real and disturbing,
but the movie provides no commentary on
the acts or on the problems in society that
gave rise to them.
Perhaps director Niels Arden Oplev
("Worlds Apart") chose not to focus on
delivering a message on violence against
women because he was too caught up in his
jumpy storyline. It's hard enough as it is to
keep track of the various suspects, who's
dead and who's not and how each suspect is
related to the others. In addition, Salander
and Blomkvist each have a separate, minor
storyline. But neither of their individual
stories is as intriguing as the main one.
While Oplev is able to keep the combined
narrative engrossing on the screen, the
story is not easy to follow, which makes for
a tangled tale.
The one aspect of the film that encour-
ages the audience to stay on top of the story
is Salander herself. She is an effortlessly
cool and tough heroine with impressive and
Gothic superwoman
saves the movie.
diverse skills - from hacking computers to
having a photographic memory. Unfortu-
nately, she's so engaging that it's hard not
to wish Blomkvist would just disappear or
let her handle everything. Rapace brings
a surprising amount of depth to Salander.
While she is basically a gothic superwom-
an, she's also tortured by a disturbing past
and has difficulty reaching out to the world
around her. At times, she's as hard to figure
out as the case she's trying to crack. Luckily,
sequels are already in production, so there
will be more chances to discover exactly
what Lisbeth Salander is capable of.
By KRISTYN ACHO
DailyArts Writer
It's not easy for today's rock women.
In orderto snagsome crucial buzz, indie
girl bands have tobe willing to play the
part: the copious reverb of Brooklyn's
finest juxtaposed
with an aesthetically *
pleasing vintage per-
sona via Vivian Girls; Dum Dum
Or L.A.-vibing to-fi
garage-grunge riffs Girls
melded with a hazy I Will Be
underground perso- Sub Pop
us a is Pearl Harbor.
Whatever the gim-
mick may be, if indie girl bands plan on
making it big, it seems they better be
willing to conform to a certain precon-
ceived (or at least stereotypical) guise.
If it's any consolation, Dum Dum
Girls - the name being an homage to
The Vaselines's album, Dum-Dum, and
the Iggy Pop track "Dum Dum Boys" -
definitely fits the latter bill. Sure, they
don't fill any conspicuously neglected
void in California's burgeoning fuzz-
pop scene, but their endearingly-serrat-
ed throwback sound has still managed
to make them queens of the L.A. to-fi
culture.
Dum Dum Girls's debut album I Will
Be is 30 minutes of addicting pop haze.
Lead singer Dee Dee (who goes by her
first name only), who describes the
sound as a "blissed-out buzz saw" on
Sub Pop's website, wrote and recorded
lead vocals for each track. The album
is full of high profile collaborations
including Nick Zinner's (Yeah Yeah
Yeahs) brilliantly brooding guitar riffs
on "Yours Alone" as well as Crocodiles's
Brandon Welchez's velvety vocals and
guitar on duet "Blank Girl."
Although Dee Dee first formed Dum
Dum Girls as a solo project - she pro-
duced an impressive self-titled EP and
a slew of shoegazy singles - she quick-
ly decided to form a legitimate band
and recruited three of her friends to
turn her idle-rock hobby into a fervent
career.
Both opener "It Only Takes One
Night" and "Jail LA LA" wax the band's
take onbadass femininity. Behindfuzzy
synths and a gritty bass line, Dee Dee's
vocals become submerged in pounding
reverb on the former. While "Jail LA
LA" is an '80s-vibing nostalgic treat
where the girls cause a not-so-dainty
ruckus - they get thrown in jail, grab
their motorcycles and go on joy rides
behind the coy chorus "Someone tell
my baby / Or else he won't know I need
saving" - Dee Dee plays up her rebel-
lious, cigarette-smoking demeanor.
Like she'd ever really need saving.
But it's not all aboutfilthy guitar riffs.
Concluding track "Baby Don't Go" feels
like the quintessential indie romance,
complete with hints of yearning and
Rocking the indie
girl identity.
soul spilling. Embedded within a slow
acoustic backdrop, Dee Dee confesses,
"I never had a mother / I hardly knew
my dad / I've been in town for18 years /
You're the only boy I've had." Although
corrupted by a sense of desperation,
she whispers her lines with a seductive
voice that yields an undeniable allure.
With I Will Be, Dum Dum Girls
aren't necessarily revolutionizing the
to-fi retro scene. Their sound is similar
to L.A. lo-fi standards Nite Jewel, Best
Coast and plenty of other gals - but
that's OK. Lovey balled "Rest of Our
Lives" succinctly sums up their mis-
sion. "Oh baby let me take you for a ride
for the rest of our lives": These girls are
in it for the long haul.