8A - Monday, September 13, 2010 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com MUSIC COLUMN How the Bee Gees betrayed my expectations I like- The Bee double a classic - lost. Itvw delia clir for life,a the albu tempora ily split t Brothers it has be reissued enjoys it est fanb: some cas some rat Or at] it to be.I listen, re imagina "Odessa my searc Prior1 run at R the Gibb Australi do what '68, they it. But 19 TI G so bro hits and brothers old atth pop soni less?) or pop vagt and a co bers ... n was a fat instrum a workin It didn't charts. A pressing felt, cau for recor - maybe love - Odessa. resulting in its circulation as Gees' acclaimed 1969 an abridged, felt-less cardboard ibum could be a "lost" admission of failure. if it had ever really been So, of course, it's got the lore, vas the tail end of psyche- ravings and history of a "lost clas- nging sic," a modest "masterpiece," a and "cult" gem. m that But maybe the music was never r- that good. up the I listened to Odessa casually at s Gibb. first, critically second and now en obsessively. I learned two of the and songs on piano. I read as many s mod- JOE reviews, histories and fanboy ase: DIMUZIO musings I could find on it. I was sual, persistent with it. I was patient. bid. I downloaded lousy mp3s before least that's how I imagine hunting down the original, com- I heard it was worth a plete with felt lining. I loved it. I ad a few reviews, let my listened to it going to bed, trying tion run free and typed to sleep, waking up, working out " and "rapidshare" into and drinking. h bar. This summer it was the only to their hugely popular album that never left my CD &B/Disco-pop stardom, changer and always sat on top s were some punks from of the turntable. Sometimes I a who figured they could propped up the sleeve so I could The Beatles did. And by stare at it. I told myself how great had some hits to prove the album could be, letting the 69's Odessa awarded no album's storied (probably false and out-of-proportion) history and expectation soak in without broters actually playing it. .he brothers acAnd listens started to occa- ibb aren't sionally yield a few skips. A few aimless minutes of passive unlike the listening. The acceptance that sometimes the hooks don't hook thers Jonas. like they should, this section could have been shorter, impos- sible things. Maybe I just don't like "Marley Purt Drive." Maybe temporarily split the Robin Gibb's voice really does (each around 19 years suck. Maybe I'm bored. e time) . It had lengthy A Saturday's late night clean- gs with tasteful (taste- ing as drunk strangers stumbled chestration, chamber out of our bi-level "house" (hah) ueries of battles at sea yielded some unexpected results uple square-dance num- for Odessa. With lights going out, ot exactly Ed Sullivan. It Odessa spinning and couches tty double album, with freeing up, the TV ended up on ental "symphonies," and a muted Encore presentation of ig title of Masterpeace. "Jonas Brothers: The Concert make bank or break Experience," a film I hadn't seen. ?dding to that, the first It looked incredible. The was lined with crimson Jonas Brothers changed their sing allergic reactions outfits at light speed, running rd factory workers, out to an HD sea of cell phone screens. Every head of sweat and string of hair shone. They were rock stars. They had violins. Apparently, the movie was also shot in 3-D. Tipsy and curious, I muted Odessa mid-song to hear the Brothers Jonas. They didn't sound like they looked. They didn't sound like Odessa either, but I wanted them to. Their performance, gawdy, awkward, expensive, huge ... it was the Odessa I had always imagined, and I was bummed to realize the album didn't sound the way I felt it should. Joe Jonas's cut-off, lime green v-neck shirt. The way he shook his lower head when he riffed. Clean, maybe a little annoying ... just like Robin Gibb. At one point, Kevin, Nick and Joe were lifted on tiny circle platforms 20 feet above the screaming, crying crowd. Their bodyguard rapped. The bombasity of it all, the spec- tacle, was overwhelming, like Odessa's luxury felt cover and inexplicable in-sleeve illustra- tion of an "epic" ship wreck. My expectations crumbled before the music again. ButI can't let go of that fake history, that imagined sound, my appreciation of an album on mute. I still dig Odessa. You can find it pretty easily at most record shops, and I recommend it. "Sound of Love" is still the best ballad/torch/anthem Aretha never sang. "Lamplight" still glows like a tortured teenage heart. The stubborn, bloody rally call of "Black Diamond." Pop music, distribution and Wiki- pedia. No one can take away the way I feel about Odessa. It's mine now. For now, I'll accept reality and wait until the Jonas Brothers make their own "lost classic." Might take a while. Dimuzio wants a JoBros cutout to hang above his bed. If you have one, e-mail shonenjo@umich.edu. Spy Vs. Spy' sst as tansy duriso the Csld War. 'Farewell' dismisses the usual spy formula Cold War film tells mission, codenamed "Farewell," promises to eventually release the the real story of lucrative "X-list," a list of all the Soviet spies across the world, to the Soviet spy Reagan administration. Save a rather hamfisted por- Yladimlr Vetrov trayal of Ronald Reagan by Fred Ward ("Sweet Home Alabama") as By JENNIFER XU a gunslinging, flag-waving 1980s Daily Arts Writer George W. Bush, "Farewell" man- ages to exercise excellent subtlety What kinds of lives do real and restraint in its depiction of spies lead? "Farewell," a quiet the Cold War. There is a quiet ten- little movie far sion threaded in the papers gently removed from slipped into a pocket or the intake the land of cin- of a breath when a Soviet police- ematic spies Farwell man comes near. All this serves as Jason Bourne an excellent allegory for the arms and James Bond, At the gridlock present in the actual war focuses on the Michigan - all friction, but no action. personal reper- NeoCassics At first, the film largely centers cussions of the on the rationale behind Grigoriev's outwardly excit- choices and his adherence to his ing life of political espionage, country's beliefs. Kusturica plays instead of resorting to thrilling the role of the conflicted, ursine chases and impenetrable mys- Grigoriev to great success, effec- teries. The film is a remarkably tively capturing the spy's doubts nuanced portrayal of the tension and concerns about his actions. of the times during the Russian- In betraying the country he held American Cold War. so dear, Grigoriev, who accepts no Based on the real-life story of monetary compensation save wine, Soviet spy Vladimir Vetrov, "Fare- chocolates and music cassettes of well" follows the partnership and Queen (whom he mistakenly and tentative friendship between KGB farcically calls "Keen") for his son colonel Grigoriev (Emir Kusturi- Igor, sustains the hope of a better, ca, "Underground") and nebbish more revolutionary Communist French engineer Pierre (Guillaume future for the next generation. Canet, "The Beach"). Increasingly Canet plays Pierre with more disillusioned with the Russian high-strung neuroticism, and administration under Leonid Bre- seizes his mission of delivering zhnev and Yuri Andropov, Grig- secret papers with considerably oriev begins to pass classified, less enthusiasm than his calm Rus- high-risk KGB information to the sian counterpart. The two spawn French ilysde Palace and eventu- a unique relationship, navigating allytheAmericangovernment.The the maze of espionage one min- MAKE YOUR TEXTBOOKS PAY Free two-day shipping for students Low prices on textbooks Sell back at great prices ute and companionably discussing French poetry the next. Yet while Grigoriev and Pierre grow closer in their quest for Soviet takedown, they begin to alienate their fami- lies in the process. Slowly, as the two spies spin their webs of deception, they migrate away from the wives and children to whom they cannot reveal their secrets, their gradual slip from reality comparable to the 2006 German film "The Lives of Others." The result is a rather touching, unglamorous portrait of spies who cannot return to their real lives after exercising such duplicity in their jobs, or perhaps because they were never part of it in the first place. Dismayingly, though, the film begins to lose all momentum as it approaches the last 20 minutes. As the plot begins to twist into more and more unsolvable knots, "Farewell" becomes reduced to an externalized account of political espionage, rather than the inter- nal one it had been building up to. Finally, when Willem Dafoe ("Antichrist") appears, making a brief cameo as the mustache- twirling American CIA agent with a dastardly plan up his sleeve, the film loses all shred of subtlety. The ending is pretty much what you would expect from a Cold War spy movie - a dramatic, climactic standoff set in the icy landscape of the Soviet Union, accompanied by the delicate plinks of a piano from the composer Clint Mansell ("Requiem for a Dream"). The ten- sion is still there, but the quiet has disappeared. COME TO THIS WEEK'S MASS MEETINGS AT THE DAILY! YOU'LL LAUGH. YOU'LL CRY. YOU'LL APPLY! Tuesday and Thursday at 7 p.m. 420 Maynard Street. Be there or beEl 0 0 a I 0 a Free two-day shipping available to customers who qualify for our free Amazon Student program.