The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Monday, November 8, 2010 - 7A The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Monday. November 8, 2010 - 7A FILM REVIEW Tyler Perry gets serious The Radio Dept. trip-hops its way into the background 'For Colored Girls' is melodramatic, yet still poignant ByJENNIFER XU DailyArts Writer Rape, abortion, murder, child abuse and incest - the sensitive themes of "For Colored Girls" are all in a day's work for Tyler Perry, For Colored who (shock- ingly) has chosen Girls to make a film At Quality16 chronicling the and Rave troublesof abused an ate women instead of Liogale another cross- dressing Madea family fest. For the past eight years, Perry has churned out film after film about the Brown family with the regularity of a young Woody Allen - films widely panned by critics, yet often celebrated by black audi- ences. So despite the film's largely experimental nature, we shouldn't expect Perry's latest, an adaptation of Ntozake Shange's off-Broadway poem-play "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf," to be any different from his previous works. But it is. It's true that the gim- micky color palette, with each woman embodying a certain shade of the spectrum, is so frustratingly heavyhanded it makes you want to throw something at the screen every time a tear-stained char- acter makes another reference to a rainbow. And it's true that the bizarre metaphysical monologues, adapted from extracts from each of Shange's 20 poems, can be rath- er excruciating, especially as the film whirls to a close. But it's also true that there are moments in "Girls" so poignant - so stagger- ingly sad - that you might actually find a tear unexpectedly slipping out of your eye. But this could just stem from the content itself. Shots of a woman's heartbroken face as her babies per- ilously fall out of her eyesight, or a shivering young girl hesitantly bending her legs open to rid her- self of an unwanted pregnancy resonate with a rawness unseen in much of modern cinema. At times, the emotions on these women's faces ring so genuine, they seem positively Greek in nature, harken- ing back to Sophocles's plays of pas- sive heroines sheddingtears for the deeds for which they were never fully responsible. or maybe the film's success derives from the performances. As the eight women slide in and out of each other's lives - some only By JASMINE ZHU DailyArts Writer Though formed in 1995, Swedish dream-pop band The Radio Dept. has a sound that feels like it has W been around for- ever. There's a Te Radio timeless, genre- transcending Dept. quality to the Never band's sound F that's reflected Follow Suit in its hazy atmo- Lahrador sphere and wist- fully melancholic lyrics. On the new EP Never Follow Suit - a succinct collection of five songs - palpable nostalgia is evident through the album's dreamy lo-fi production and deliberately slow-paced and lei- surely rhythm. The Radio Dept.'s influences are quite diverse, with band members citing Joy Division, Frank Sinatra ard Kraftwerk among the many bands that have contributed to their sound. The merging of those dispa- rate influences gives the band an inherently likeability - or, in other words, the band sounds relatively innocuous. Consequently, The Radio Dept. is very easy to listen to, but by no means does it classify as an "easy- listening" band mistakable for ele- vator music. Still, there are no harsh sounds or disjointed riffs. Lyrics are incomprehensible but easy to guess at. Half-formed murmurs imply vague dissatisfaction and unrequit- ed love. Trip-hop beats and shoe- gaze influences meld seamlessly. The album is cohesive, smooth and mellifluous. The EP clocks in atjust under 20 minutes, and two of the five songs are variations of "Never Follow Suit," a track off their LP Clinging to a Scheme. Sure, it's a pretty good song (fun beat, cool British person rapping, etc.) but probably unde- serving of consisting of almost half of an EP - especially as it's already featured on a previous album. The lack of song diversity in the EP makes Never Follow Suit seem like a lazy endeavor. The last track, a remix of "Never Follow Suit" entitled "Never Swallow Fruit," is a lengthy eight minutes and 14 sec- onds and isn't much different from the original. Although the EP is brimming with promise and poten- tial, it falls short of expectations. Never Follow Suit is perfect for providing beautiful, ambient back- ground noise, which isn't surpris- ing for a band that's already been A pleasing, mellifluous disc. featured on a soundtrack. On the soundtrack to the 2006 film "Marie Antoinette," The Radio Dept. accompanies the young queen's taciturn listlessness and the pic- turesque scenes of Versailles. Consequently, it's no surprise that Never Follow Suit lacks the emo- tional depth that would vault the EP from being a passive backdrop to providing an active listening experience. COURTESY OF LIONSGATE "No, I will not be in 'Sister Act and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.' Go away" playing peripheral roles to other's storylines - they have little time to be memorable. But memorable, they are. Standouts include a feral1 Thandie Newton ("The Pursuit ofI Happyness") ravenously assert- ing her right to sex for pleasure, a richly comedic Loretta Devine, ("Crash") as a condom-doling nurse and a sunken-eyed Kerry Washington ("Ray") asa child ser- vices worker who just wants a baby1 of her own. But really, there's not a misstep from the entire cast, featuring Anna Wintour-like magazine editor Janet Jackson ("Why Did I Get Married?"), bro- ken housewife Kimberly Elise ("Diary of a Mad Black Woman"), cult initiate Whoopi Goldberg ("Ghost"), dance teacher Anika Noni Rose ("The Princess and the Frog") and young hopeful Tessa Thompson ("When a Stranger Calls"). Together, these actresses push past the overdramatic dia- logue in order to portray women truly afflicted with sorrows and happiness. But maybe, just maybe, a large part of the film's effectiveness comes from Perry himself. Say what you want about the man's lack of directorial subtlety, but he manages to avoid many of the pit- falls that could have arisen from such a venture by letting the mate- rial speak for itself. "For Colored Girls" might be soapy or melodra- matic - in fact, it's almost over- whelmingly so - but Perry's vision manages to cohere the unwind- ing narratives. He doesn't hold back from what he has to say, and because of it, he shows his will- ingness to experiment with the medium, to varied - but mostly successful - results. "For Colored Girls" may forever hold the stigma of an "Oprah's Book Club" choice and, of course, the stigma of being a Tyler Perry movie (from which it will never recover, unfortunately). But to classify the work as another sad, racially driven Perry film seems unfair. Effective films are never wholly defined by the director behind the camera or the race of the actresses onscreen, and despite its unapologetic melodrama and occasional disconnect from the modern world, "For Colored Girls" is an effectivefilm. Itmightnotwin an Oscar because of it, but at least it can go to sleep knowing it's better than "The Blind Side." n , ,r/ BE A HOLIDAY. HERO. Get your family whattheyreally need - the best gifts need the best network. SOHONI From Page 6A makes the scene memorable. on a different level, Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" has numerous montages to classic rock songs, including a masterful extended Ray Liotta voiceover montage under the piano exit of "Layla" by Derek and the Domi- nos. The song's lamentful, nos- talgic and yet accepting decline to a romantic affair perfectly reflects its point in the film, as the crime family culture of the first two acts falls in bloody and disastrous fashion, allowing nar- rator and protagonist Henry Hill (Liotta) to walk on (relatively) unscathed but yearning for his younger days. Whenever I hear the piano exit to "Layla," it's not that I see the entire montage from Goodfellas; the importance of the combina- tion is that each form informs and changes the other. For me, just as much as "Layla" is an essential part of "Goodfellas," the film has become an essential part of my experience of the song. The same way that people relive their memories to music, my experience of music often returns me to a film. That said, music in film is more than math- ematical and the combination is far more than the sum of its parts. Music combined with a visual medium can change the way we move, the way we respond to real situations and most importantly, the way we remember. The human memory is enor- mously complex; we can remem- ber songs lyric-for-lyric that we haven't thought of in years, and in the same way, we can always remember the essential combina- tion between aural and visual - whether that comes from our own experience or through wit- nessing another's in film. Sohoni wants to ride in a bus with you, singing "Tik Tok." To accept, e-mail him at asohoni@umich.edu. Yost Ice Arena rff lnr and YOST Ben & Jerry's imrsla-A.'raPresent... 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