The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Monday, November 29, 2010 - 5A What is'Love'smoking? By JENNIFER XU Daily Arts Writer It's official - without the crutch of huge period set pieces or por- tentous, boom- ing war music,, the Oscar-grub- bing, bravado- Love and crushing Edward Zwick ("Deft- Other Dn ance") has abso- At Quality 16 lutely no idea and Rave how to make a 20th Century Fox movie. Case in point: his latest attempt at romantic comedy, the sloppy, sticky "Love and Other Drugs." Based on the bestselling memoir of Viagra drug W rep Jamie Reidy, "Love" is a bipo- lar disaster waiting to happen - a sex comedy about a womanizing Pfizer salesman (Jake Gyllen- haal, "Brokeback Mountain") that transmogrifies into a PSA about Parkinson's disease. The muta- tion begins when Anne Hathaway ("Rachel Getting Married") comes into the picture, playing Maggie, a freeloving Manic Pixie Dream Girl with a crippling disease that grad- ually eats away at the crux of the storyline, tremor by tremor. Films generally have a natural rhythm, a beat that carries them through strands of dialogue and scene changes with relative ease. This rhythm is exceptionally important in films with relatively little substance, i.e. romantic com- edies, which need to balance out the rom from the corm so that one doesn't swallow up the other in magnitude. But this isn't a problem for "Love and Other Drugs" - as it stutt become the film front a If "L edy abo funny?' but th sidekic Hank) Movie' pawing throwi ping-p exhaus es to e resorts of actu This d mood. But i aboutl why is Jamie hendsu as he si blatant attemp climax, Ne dru close-u facesw Simone backgr certain from fu blownt as it do goop. ers through the motions, it None of this is helped by the es increasingly- clear that fact that Zwick doesn't seem to a has no substance on either have the slightest clue how to nyway. showcase simple human emo- ove" is a slapstick sex com- tions. For him, love and mutual out Viagra, then why isn't it attraction equals filming lots and There are not one, not two, lots (and lots) of sex scenes. Jamie ree awkward, unattractive and Maggie don't talk to each 'ks (Oliver Platt of "2012," other. They don't flirt with each Azaria of "The Simpsons other. Hell, they don't even look " and Josh Gad of "21") at each other for the most part, g at Gyllenhaal like puppies, unless they're ripping off each ng off lame penis jokes like other's clothes to have more sex. ong balls. When Zwick has Three-quarters into the movie, ted his various referenc- Jamie starts hyperventilating rections and genitalia, he uncontrollably and admits to the to showing camera shots dumbstruck Maggie that he loves al erections and genitalia. her. "I've never said that to anyone oesn't really lighten the before," he gasps. This is the first time they've ever spoken to each f "Love" is a Lifetime movie other with their clothes on for Parkinson's disease, then more than 30 seconds, so count us it so emotionally vacant? among the surprised as well. apparently never compre- But thankfully, Gyllenhaal and what Parkinson's actually is, Hathaway possess just enough tares straight past Maggie's natural chemistry to make their ly shaking hands while she characters believable. Even if the ts to pick up her pills. The majority of the time their "perfor- consists of a really obvious mances" consist of tangling their naked bodies together and making really loud sex sounds, they spar- kle. With his delightfully rakish ither love nor hair and lopsided smile crinkling up to his half-moon eyebrows, igs can save it. Gyllenhaal charms with a Cloo- ney-esque role in a decidedly not Clooney-esque movie. Hathaway, p into their tear-stained fresh off a Best Actress nomination while a husky-voiced Nina from "Rachel Getting Married," in training wails in the emotes a ragged sensuality that ound. Melodrama is fine in hints at more depth than Zwick instances, but "Love" turns tries to give us. Together, they've inny to sad in a shift so over- got the instincts to make magic hatit doesn't resemble soap in an otherwise flaccid movie. es really disgusting, mushy And after they brush the stench of "Love" off their shoulders, they need to make another movie together, stat. Or at least hook up in real life. ."Love and Other Drugs" is proof that Zwick needs to stick to mak- ing films about Nazis or blood diamonds or basically whatever the hell doesn't have a female mar- keting extravaganza prestamped in the title. It takes good acting to push through suffocatingly affect- ed dialogue and a director who has no idea how normal human beings interact with each other, and Gyl- lenhaal and Hathaway certainly do their best. But the fact of the mat- ter remains: "Love" can't be saved COURTtSY OF 20TH CENTUkY FO n-rot by them, not by love and not by drugs. Argus TV Studio has four permanent sets and was built with an uneven floor. The University Argus studio gives aspiring directors a training ground By EMILY BOUDREAU Daily Arts Writer Follow William Street west- ward for a little more than a mile off campus. Go past Beer Depot and the noisy bus stop. Keep straight even when the bustle of Main Street dissolves into quiet residential houses with lawns buried in fallen leaves. Stay on William until it ends in front of a low, unassuming brick building. As the blue sign out front pro- claims, this is the home of "Argus TV Studio II." The Argus building itself has been here for many years. Before World War II, it was a factory for the Argus Camera Company, known in photography history for mass-producing the 35 mm cam- era. After the war, the building was converted into a TV studio for a production company. "The film industry has been in Michigan for a while. I think the building's history demonstrates that," said Terri Sarris, a senior lecturer who teaches the classes in the studio. "At the time, (the production company) was fairly successful in terms of television in Michigan. They did some stuff for PBS." But luckily for Sarris and her students, the company wasn't suc- cessful enough and had a bit of difficulty with an uneven floor. "The first time they poured the cement in for the floor, it was uneven," said Rob Hoffman, the chief media engineer at the studio. "It was really expensive to redo so they lost a lot of money. Actually, the floor is still kind of uneven today." By the late 1980s, according to Sarris, the University bought it - uneven floors and all - and started to use it as an educational facility. Today, only those who take the Screen Arts and Cultures studio classes - which include SAC 290 (Introduction to Film, Video and Television Production) and Sar- ris's sitcom class in the winter - TV set seem to be aware of the studio's existence. "The whole point of the classes is to teach students how to work in the studio, and how to handle the equipment. It requires expertise," Sarris said. Despite the building's distance from campus, the studio is buzz- ing. There are four permanent sets standing in various corners of the room - an office; a kitchen with a granite countertop, stove and sink; a living room of what appears to be a very comfort- able apartment; and a talk show set with a dusty potted plant and leather chairs. The sets are their own little worlds, complete with characters played by students in acting classes and captured by the three cameras rumbling by on wheels. Looking into the room, it's easy to forget the piles of tangled wires on the floor or the boom mic swinging overhead. Students hustle in and out of the control room, which looks like something straight out of the Millennium Falcon with its flashing lights, See ARGUS, Page 6A The other drug is Ciali! A slice By ERIN STEELE DailyArts Writer "Vaults of Heaven: Visio Byzantium" is the Kelsey um of Archaeol- ogy's equivalent Vaultsd of a crash course in Byzantine his- tory and culture. ViSions The exhibit fea- Byzanti tures 24 large photographs by Phase I world-renowned through Turkish photog- January 2 rapher Ahmet Ertug and four Phase it cases of the February' museum's Byz- to May 9 antine artifacts. Kelsey Mus Ertug first got of Archaeol in touch with Free the Kelsey four years ago when he correspo with a Byzantine specialist museum. At the time, the um didn't have anywhere t his extremely large photogr some of which are six-by-five "He had done these enori ultra-large photographs of eral Christian churches in Tu and they were things that in what's now Istanbul, wha once known as Constantino said curator Lauren Talaylay compiled the exhibition, "and were also a series of photogral the interior of churches tha been hewn out of these enor volcanic spires that were laid hundreds of thousands of year when Christians had retreat the area." With Ertug's consent, the K held onto the photographs in age until the museum open new wing last November. LET ME PU APPLY T IT'S NOT, of heaven at Kelsey "It's actually quite different almost completely unknown. because it is almost exclusively "They know the Greeks, the a photographic show," Talaylay Romans, the Near East and the ns of said. Egyptians, but Byzantine means Muse- The change seems to be a wel- nothing to them," she said. come one, because the size and With the helpoftwo studentvol- )f quality of Ertug's pictures are unteers, Talaylay rooted through considered quite a technical feat the roughly 100,000 items in stor- Few photographers are able to age at the Kelsey to create four dis- Of enlarge their work while main- play cases of artifacts, including uM taining its clear quality. Byzantine coins, textiles and litur- "(He) has colossal printing gical items, as well as some Islamic presses and he's very particular pieces. Her favorite piece in the about the color and the size and exhibit is a red textile depicting 3 the print," Talaylay said. "They're Byzantine women. really crisp for something that's "Some of them were dictated that big." just by getting together myself 4 To bring visitors a broad- (and) the students and looking at er sense of Byzantine culture, each object, saying, 'Does it make eum Talaylay chose to supplement the sense intellectually to be in a ogy photographs with some of the case? Is it pretty? Is it something Kelsey's Byzantine artifacts and that would be interesting to the informational panels outlining public?' " Talaylay said. anded the history of the empire. The The artifacts are character- at the setup, with huge, vibrant pho- ized by opulent, saturated color, a muse- tographs dominating the wall heavy emphasis on symbolism and o put space and ancient artifacts sit- intricate design in even the most aphs, humble objects. One of the Islamic feet. water strainers, an ancient, artis- mous, ,. tic stone version of a Brita pitch- sev- iraCking er, for example, has a filter that urkey depicts a peacock, flaunting its were Byzantium. feathers against a delicate filigree I was background. ople," Talaylay hopes that visitors , who ting in the center of the room in to the exhibit will enjoy the art's there sparkling glass cases, takes the beauty as well as gain a new phs in viewer "inside" an ancient Byzan- understanding of the Byzantine t had tine church. Detailed depictions Empire and its importance to mous of Christ, saints and other Bibli- world history. down cal figures are displayed in their "This was a really important -s ago entirety, some accompanied by chapter of over 1,100 years of cul- ed to photographs that zoom in on the tural history," Talaylay said. "It's picture's more significant aspects. not like you're going to bring it up elsey Talaylay commented that, at a party, but it would be nice (to stor- while most people have at least a understand the culture in) a larg- ed its basic knowledge of some ancient er context of the importance of all civilizations, the Byzantines are these ancient cultures." T AN IDEA INTO YOUR MIND. O THE DAILY'S FILM SQUAD. STRICTLY SPEAKING, LEGAL. E-mail join.arts@umich.edu for information on applying. GET YOUR SENIOR PORTRAIT TAKEN December 6th-1th in the Sophia B. Jones room of the Michigan Union The sittingfee is just $15! This price includes your portrait featured in the 2011 Michignensian Yearbook Sign up online by visiting www.OurYear.com and entering School Code: 87156 Phone 734.418.4115 ext. 247 E-mail ensian.um-umich.edu ,P A Bring in this ad and receive $2 off the sitting fee. Michiganensian Y E A RBOOK I