The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Wednesday, December 1, 2010 - 7A

The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Wednesday, December 1, 2D1D - 7A

Please end 'Faster'

"MI Favorite Comic" was held in the League basement on Nov.17.
The 'U'tstands uP

By BEN VERDI violence and progresses into a
DailyArts Writer bloody rampage so over the top
that it almost starts to feel like the
"Faster" sucks. Really bad. Even film's intention is comedy, a sen-
if you see a substantial number of timent not necessarily squashed
movies every year, this is guaran- by what appears to be intentional
teed to be one of the worst you've overacting by The Rock through-
ever watched. out the entire thing. His recent
After watch- * appearances in funnier movies
ing "Faster" may have revealed a comedic side
you'll ask your- Faster to his acting as he's become more
self why you comfortable on the big screen, but
bothered paying At Quality16 in "Faster," he's back portraying a
to see it. And if and Rave character two parts Ronnie from
you somehow CBS Films "Jersey Shore" and one part rhi-'
snuck into the noceros on steroids.
theater without Not surprisingly, the most awk-
a ticket, you'll wonder what else wardly implausible (and thus, the
you could've done with the 98 most entertaining) moment of
minutes you wasted. This movie's this asinine action-orgy happens
plotline ranks just a few notches in a more reflective moment for
below your average porno in terms The Rock's character. Upon learn-
of how impossible, gratuitous and ing that his former wife aborted
ultimately pointless it is. their unborn child while he was
That's actually a pretty good serving his recently completed
10-year jail sentence, he sheds a
real tear. Then, once it's estab-
lished that he's pro-life and totally
Run away as fast full of morals, he stabs a bouncer
a youat a strip club with an ice pick, and
as can. then - because the stabbing didn't
kill him - he goes to the hospital
where the bouncer was taken and

shoots him in the head to finish
the job.
Then he points a gun at his own
mom's head while she's in bed and
threatens to kill her if she doesn't
tell him where his dad is, so that
he can go kill him, too.
This movie thinks it's about
action and revenge but it's actually
about shooting people in the head
and a small Southwestern desert
town where everyone does heroin.
So naturally, Billy Bob Thornton
("Mr. Woodcock") is this dystopi-
an suburb's most tenured cop, all
set to retire and spend time with
his overweight son and drugged-
out wife when The Rock starts
wreaking havoc on members of
the town who - we are shown
very explicitly - were terrible
people anyway.
You won't be invested in ary
aspect of this film, nor will you
be entertained by its violence and
fight scenes, even if you like vio-
lence and fight scenes. Friends
of yours who say they liked this
movie should be shunned from
your inner circle, or treated the
way the flawed characters in
"Faster" are treated: without
mercy.

r Student comedians
find laughs in
Ann Arbor
By STEPHEN OSTROWSKI
Daily Arts Writer
The smell of Taco Bell trailed
each punch line of the Nov. 17 stu-
dent comic competition "MI Favor-
ite Comic," held in the basement of
the Michigan League. Jokes were
rife with sex, drugs and other Bluto
Blutarsky-like tidings. Jerry Sein-
feld at the Bellagio it wasn't.
LSA junior Ron Harlow, who
emceed the event, is just one of a
handful of student comics at the
University. At age 19, Harlow put his
sophomore year on hold and moved
to Chicago to pursue stand-up com-
edy.
"I'm not saying I had a troubled
past by any means," Harlow said
in an interview on Oct. 28. "At the
same time there was a lot going
on in my head and I needed to fig-
ure things out, and I figured that I
would just take a shot at it."
Harlow described his sabbati-
cal as a "full-time" plunge into the
craft - he would write comedy dur-
ing the day and frequent Chicago's
many clubs at night. The Evanston,
Ill. native spoke positively of the
experience.
"(Comedy) takes years - it's a
craft, you know," Harlow said. "You
really have to perfect it over a long
time, and luckily for me I had plenty
of opportunities to get up there and
try it out. The best way to learn is
through experience."
After a year in Chicago, Harlow
returned to Ann Arbor to continue
his sophomore year. Between per-
formances at Detroit-area venues
and the Ann Arbor Comedy Show-
case, he founded LOL ROFL, a
student-run comedy club for which
members meet weekly to exchange
feedback on jokes. LOL ROFL also
hosts occasional shows.
Harlow, who cites the late Mitch
Hedberg among his comedic influ-
ences, admits that the student life
and that of the aspiring comic can
be a difficult juggling act. He com-
mits himself to weekly three-hour
writing sessions to ensure an output
of material.
Also performing that night was
School of Art & Design junior Eli
Yudin, who has been frequenting
open mics at the Showcase since last
February.
As a member of University
improv comedy group ComCo and
a former member of campus club
the Impro-fessionals, Yudin is no
stranger to performance art. Stand
up comedy, Yudin says, presents a
unique challenge.
"(Stand-up is) just such a com-
plete leap of faith," Yudin said.

According to Yudin, the singu-
larity of stand-up comedy can be
intimidating.
"I don't get as nervous about
improv because if you're not funny,
you have a bad day or something,
there's somebody else in the scene
to pick you up," Yudin explained.
"(In stand-up), the other thing is
you can't look like you're having a
bad time; if you look awkward, the
audience immediately senses it, and
they can't laugh."
Yudin has also performed multi-
ple times in his native Washington,
D.C. The Zach Galifianakis-influ-
enced comic highlighted the dif-
ferences between performing to
his hometown crowd and the Ann
Arbor community, saying he per-
forms politically charged humor for
the former.
The open-mindedness of Ann
Arborites caters to Yudin's self-
described brand of "weird" and
"dark" observational humor.
"I think people in Ann Arbor are
pretty open," Yudin said. "It's a very
cool liberal crowd, they're open to a
lot of weird humor; they're open to
a lot of things. They're polite for the
most part. You don't really get a lot
of heckles or anything like that."
Yudin's views on performance
mirror those of LSA senior Paul
Manganello, who, despite having
only performed stand-up comedy
since his sophomore year of college,
cited an enthusiasm for comedy
albums dating back to elementary
school.
"I think for me the appeal of
stand-up is that it allows for good
writing," Manganello said. "So a
good stand-up at his best will be
reading you an essay and expressing
a point of view, and there's a poetry
and a rhythm."
Manganello, who first performed
at one of the "MI Favorite Comic"
competitions, has also done open
mics in Ann Arbor and Royal Oak.
Manganello has compensated for
the limited number of local outlets
- the Showcase being the city's
mainstay - by collaborating with
fellow student comics to produce
their own shows, complemented by
live music.
Manganello fondly recalled the
self-organized shows and the recep-
tiveness of the crowds.
"That's what I like about comedy,
is that it's rallying people around
ideas," Manganello said.
Pursuing a degree in philosophy,
Manganello relishes stand-up com-
edy as an opportunity to articulate
the discipline in a "popular capac-
ity," and cites academic settings as
prime comedic fodder.
This semester, however, Mangan-
ello - whose tentative post-grad-
uation plans include auditioning
for the Piccolo Teatro di Milano's
school in Italy - has seen his com-
edy output drop in preparation for a

one-man show on the revolution-
ary-era Italian Filippo Mazze.
Male students are not the only
arbiters of chuckles: also partici-
pating at Wednesday's "MI Favor-
ite Comic" was LSA senior Jenna
Cortis. The only female performer
(of six) at the competition, Cortis
- co-president of LOL ROFL with
Harlow - believes female stand-up
comics to be "underrepresented."
However, she noted that the chal-
lenge remains uniform for all com-
ics, regardless of gender.
"It's always hard to do; it's always
hard to make people laugh," Cortis
said after her "MI Favorite Comic"
performance. "And I think that's a
challenge for anyone."
Cortis said family life accounts
for much of her routine's content
and referenced storytelling come-
dian Kathy Griffin as an influence
on the narrative quality of her act.
"Traditionally, it's like mostly
males (doing) set up, punchline, set
up, punchline," Cortis said. "And
mine, it's more like I want to take
you on a journey."
Cortis, who began performing
her freshman year, described stand-
up's irresistible allure.
"What Ilike is that it's like a rush,"
she explained. "Everyone's listening
to you; everyone's (focused) on what
you're saying ... I think I'm addicted
to that sound (of laughter) in a way
once I tell a joke, it's like, 'Did they
like or not?"'
Roger Feeny, a co-founder of
the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase,
observed that stand-up comics -
student or not - are held to the
same standard.
"If they're funny, they're funny,"
Feeny said in an interview at the
Showcase. "If they're not funny, you
know, the audience is going to dis-
cern that ... and they're not going to
laugh. So that (comic) needs to go
back there and re-write their stuff."
Undoubtedly, the student comic
must toe the fine line between being
too collegiate and appealing to the
masses.
"It's not a college crowd, it's a
community crowd," Cortis said of
open mics at the Showcase. "Some
of the things that would go over well
on campus don't go over as well on
an open mic."
Of course, laughs are not always
guaranteed. The prospect of bomb-
ing one's routine lurks - a pet-
rifying experience, according to
Manganello.
"You have to turn it at that point
to a place where you no longer are
feeding off the audience laughter,"
Manganello said. "You're just basi-
cally feeding off some inner fire."
Though each comic's brand of
humor and artistic mission might
differ, Harlow attests to a common-
ality that might give students the
gusto to perform in front of a crowd.
"I think for a lot of kids it might
just be a way to kind of handle
stress," Harlow explained. "I think
that might be the common link -
it's like there's got to be something
inside of you that, you know, makes
you crazy enough to get up in front
of a hundred people and, you know,
make fun of yourself."

way of explaining what it feels like
to watch "Faster": It's like a porno
with people getting shot through
the brain instead of having sex.
On second thought, no, that's not
entirely true. There is also some
sex tossed in there.
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson
("The Other Guys") literally gets
shot in the head three different
times and doesn't die. Don't worry,
his survival makes less sense each
time. At least there is some kind
of metal plate in his head by the
last gunshot to explain how he
survives that one, because, as we
all know, bullets can't get through
metal.
"Faster" begins with tons of

"What did you say about my movie?"

See-through UMMA

By ADDIE SHRODES
DailyArts Writer
A quick glance around the
UMMA Projects exhibit by Dan-
ish artist Simon Dybbroe Moller
reveals a
maze of UMMA ProjeCts
glass with S.
seemingly
everyday M0IIer
objects T
scattered Through Feb.13
about each UMMA
transparent Free
corner. But
a walk through the maze, titled
"BRAIN II-V," brings to light its
purposeful puzzlement. The artist
visually challenges the notion of
transparent meaning in contrast to
recent trends in modern art.
"You're almost struck by its lack
of communication, or by its sheer
weirdness," said Jacob Proctor, the
University of Michigan Museum of
Art's associate curator of modern
and contemporary art. "In some
ways, it's celebrating those kind of
experiences."
A paint-worn coat and a hand-
written "note to self" juxtapose
against framed sketches in the
exhibit, designed specifically for
a space in the recently built Max-
ine and Stuart Frankel and the
Frankel Family Wing. Sunshine
streams through the building's
glass walls and bounces off the
glass panels within, illuminating
and blinding in turn; each cor-
ner holds latent surprise. A trash
basket filled with crumpled color
photographs, suggesting Maller's
memories, reminds museum-goers
that the exhibit explores his mind.
Proctor became familiar with
Moller in 2007 at a group show in

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er, Germany. He continued parts of the mind or of the artistic
iw the artist's work, even- process," Proctor said.
asking him to present at Like the Pompidou, Maller liter-
A. ally presents every element of the
as impressed by the level of exhibit. The nails orscrews used to
tual and formal sophistica- hang pieces on the glass panels are
pecially the level of formal not hidden; he often tapes notes
nt, unusual in an artist of his and photos directly onto the glass.
roctor said of Maller, who is But there is no guide to traverse
nid-30s. the meaning and connections of
ler complicates and ques- the piece.
he ideal of transparency in Relationships do begin to
n art, presenting "unexpect- emerge within the exhibit, like a
figurations" so that "initial folded paper photogram and its
tognition leads to a moment blown-up reproduction. However,
hetic discovery," according those connections often take the
UMMA website. observer to an object that is com-
ere's a kind of formal trans- pletely obscure.
y, which is, at the same Along with the play on trans-
ubbing up against a concep- parency, "BRAIN II-V" aims to
scurity," Proctor said. "You demolish the hierarchy imposed
e everything, but there is on objects and elements of the cre-
anscendent rationality that ative process. Maller presents his
s." influences (like artistic works by
friends), elements of his artistic
planning process and objects from
.e b . his life equally.
Jew exhibit "So finished objects and just
.ea i i a handwritten note to oneself
p C are hung, essentially, at the same
level," Proctor explained.
ansparency. This exhibit is a full environ-
ment for the viewer, and itexplores
the experience of surroundings in
irding to Proctor, the mod- that way.
deal of transparency, exem- In keeping with the goals for
by the exterior of the Centre artists exhibiting in the UMMA
iou in Paris, hasbeen tied to Projects series, "BRAIN II-V" is
al of rationality. The goal is Moller's first North American
every aspect of the works' solo museum exhibit for an artist
tion and thus meaning, like who has received much attention
or-coded internal systems abroad.
ed on the outside of the "He has had a real meteoric
lou. Moller explores what rise," Proctor said. "This exhibit
known about artistic and brings to Ann Arbor and to the
ual intention. University an artist who is a rising
at it rubs up against is a star of his generation on an inter-
if irrational, unknowable national level."


LOL ROFL, ComCo and the Impro-fessionals provide an outlet for student comics.

PEAS
From Page 6A
it's in fashion to be blastin' those
beats." The song gets a bit strange
when Fergie starts to sing-talk and
spit random fashion jargon a la
Madonna on "Vogue" - the Black
Eyed Peas should leave the trendy
talk to the queen.
Though a spectrum of sounds
are present on The Beginning, each
song carries a similar beat, making

it harder to distinguish one track
from the rest. Unfortunately, each
track loses its unique sound, and
the quality of the album becomes
lost.
But if you're looking for an
album full of party anthems,
you've come to the right place. The
Black Eyed Peas' newest album
proves worthy of a tip-top dance
party album. The entire record
is a huge rave, so grab your glow
sticks and neon sweatbands; this
is only The Beginning of the party
of a lifetime.

Learn more about the Denefits of Peace Corps service.
Information Session
Wednesday, Dec.1st
S ~ 6:30p.m.
International Center, Rm 9
Apply by year-end for added programs leaving
in 2011 -- Peace Corps'50th Anniversary Year!
800.424.85801 peacecorps.gov/application