The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - 7A The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - 7A Sundance shorts shine The Michigan puts on new shorts as part of Park City's festival By EMILY BOUDREAU DailyArts Writer It's easy to lose sight of what the Sun- dance Film Festival is all about in the midst of all the fur vests and celebrities who flock to Salt Lake City in the wintertime. But somewhere in those Sundance hoards of people, the $hots 2010 spirit and potential of the independent film Atthe still reigns. The short Michigan films for the 2011 Fes- Today at 9:30 p.m. tival have managed to capture that spirit for the most part and blend both tragedy and comedy from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds. The first film in the eight-film series is "The Six Dollar Fifty Man." It tells the story of a boy who creates a fantasy world in order to escape bullies at school, as well as the drone of ordinary life. While cer- tainly awell-made film, the child actors in "The Six Dollar Fifty Man" can't hold up against the vibrant characters portrayed by more mature actors in other films. "Birthday" and "Rob and Valentyna in Scotland" both deal with complex love relationships between adults in a harsh reality. The performances of the actors (particularly Kimi Reichenberg as Valentyna) infuse their cinematically striking yet painful worlds with delicate and often tender emotions. Both films attempt to tackle challenging and con- troversial subject matter. "Birthday" is a Polish film about a lesbian couple and the strain their relationship undergoes as they create a family. "Rob and Valen- tyna in Scotland" is perhaps the most contentious of the short films as it tells the story of a somewhat incestuous love story betweentwo cousins. The most vibrant of the films is "Mr. Okra," a documentary about a man who sells fruits and vegetables from his truck in New Orleans. Though simple, "Mr. Okra" successfully captures the per- sonality of both the man and his city as he cruises through the streets, singing about his vegetables and philosophizing about life. However, "Mr. Okra" isn't the only splash of color and lightheartedness. In fact, the vast majority of these films attempt to put a lighthearted spin on matters. "Young Love" is precisely what its title suggests - a satirical musing on a relationship - but it's got the added bonus of having llamas in it. "My Invis- ible Friend" is actually a very sad story about isolation and a boy who is too shy to even ask his own father to pass him the salt at the dinner table. But director Pablo Larcuen infuses it with warmth - and a half-naked man in an Admiral Ackbar mask. There's also "My Rabbit Hobby," shot in home-video style that almost twists into a mockingly terrible horror movie. But by far the funniest of the films is "Drunk History," where booze-infused comedian Jen Kirkman tells the story of Frederick Douglass (Don Cheadle, "Brooklyn's Finest") and Abraham Lin- coln (Will Ferrell, "The Other Guys"). Though it's part of the website Funny or Die's "Drunk History" series, the film could be interpreted as an interesting take on the way historical narratives can be manipulated. There is one animation in the short film series, called "Wisdom Teeth." Basically, it's one cartoon guy pulling out another's wisdom teeth stitches with calamitous results. It's bizarre and kind of grotesque, but at the same time, it's hard to avoid an occasional burst of laughter - whether that laughter results from discomfort or some kernel of humor is hard to discern. COURTESY OF MERGE After 10 days with Proactiv, his skin began to clear up. Destroyer breaks ground on albu-m 'The Way Back'a step ahead By IMRAN SYED Daily Arts Writer A 4,000-mile walk sure is impressive, but does it make for a good movie? "The Way Back" - a beautiful story of Soviet prisoners who walk all the way from Siberia through bit- ter cold and unfor- The Way Back giving desert toward India and freedom At Rave - shows that the Newmarket answer is yes. Based on the book "The Long Walk," the film is an allegedly true account - "allegedly" because ques- tions about the authenticity of the story have swirled since the book was first pub- lished more than 50 years ago. Seemingly confirmed as a fabrication at one point, "The Long Walk" was recently redeemed when a former Polish POW living in Eng- land revealed the account was true, and thathe in fact was amongthose who made the journey from Siberia to India. Truthiness aside, the film is an admi- rable production that manages to convey the heartbreaking reality of its charac- ters' lives without going overboard on sentiment or theatrics. Political prisoners being worked to death in hellish labor camps in the far reaches of Siberia, eight men hatch a plot to escape. But breaching the barbed wire fence is just the first of their challenges: They must then walk thousands of miles through blinding snowstorms and frigid temperatures unimaginable to anyone who hasn't been to Siberia - all without adequate food to sustain them. By JOE DIMUZIO Daily Arts Writer Destroyerisunpredictable. FromThe New Pornos' pop to Dan Bejar's work as a solo artist, which flirts with and disregards indie pre- dilections with a sort of chaotic panache,* Bejar's music is like De r the lemon perched on your glass of water at Kaputt a new restaurant. You M didn't know, ask for Merge or expect it. And it's a little fruity. Kaputt is Destroyer's ninth and fruiti- est LP yet. Following 2009's Bay of Pigs and 2010's Archer on the Beach EP's ambient diary-turned-disco, Kaputt flaunts sultry saxophone, funky fretless bass and 4/4 beats without irony. Acous- tic guitars and keyboards give way to muted trumpets and flute, smoothly gaz- ing two-chords-and-reverb - Kenny G was cool. It may not be the new pornography, but 'Kaputt' rocks. Chillwave this is not. Bejar's paint- ing in hip colors with Kaputt, but he transcends gimmick. "Chinatown" and "Kaputt," two of his most acces- sible tunes ever, don't hide behind gauze; they're not afraid of every piece, note and riff standing in spit-shine spotlight. Fel- low Vancouverite Sibel Thrasher plays back-up vocalistloBejar's sexy, theatri- cal free-verse, and she's really singing - chilly white-soul like D.D. Jackson or any number of disco divas lost in time. So while Destroyer's Bowie-Bryan Ferry-Coke-Gil Evans-Lindstrom make- over is cool, it's looking forward. Here, Bejar's melodies are given the space and groove his older work seldom had. Where manic-pop used to be, deliber- ate, widescreen-but-intimate jams have moved in, with room to breathe. And where past Destroyer had Bejar breathing heavy, here he's relaxed. His voice, which for some may be a hur- dle (get over it), resembles something between a French Revolution re-enactor and pillow talk. On Kaputt, he forgoes his old verbosity for impressionism. But like the best disco, the voice is more than just another instrument. Destroyer's lyrics have often been a sort of catch-all abstraction, capable of disorientation and directness all at once. Kaputt gives those words a new space, a looser but definite focus. In a recent interview, Bejar claimed to have recorded most of the vocals "while fix- ing ... a sandwich," which sounds about right. Pair it with a couple of gin and ton- ics, Thrasher's pipes and arguably the real vocalist of the album - JP Carter's trumpet solos -Kaputt has plenty to say. But dissecting the lyrics would need another review. Overall, the music speaks for itself. "Blue Eyes" gazes, grooves and rips in equal measure. "Savage Night at the Opera" rides out a New Order bass pump, unafraid of a nasty little guitar solo to cry all over the songs' new-age climb. The title track and "Suicide Demo For Kara Walker" are perfect songs for looking out of car windows, airplane windows, getting fucked up. And if all of Kaputt sounds samey to you, you're right. But it's like a 50-minute tone-poem with enough detail, purpose and sprawl to make every listen different. By the time you get to the album-closing "Bay of Pigs," you've been places. So, Destroyer's breaking ground and it's transportative stuff. It's not for everyone, which is fine. Unpredict- able as ever, Kaputt makes it clear that Destroyer is anything but normal. "This way to the Shire!" After overcoming impossible odds to get out of the tundra and over the Soviet line, the prisoners learn that Mongolia is also under communist control, and they won't be truly safe until they walk through to China. They brave the Gobi Dessert, and then traverse the Himalayas before entering British India to complete their stunning journey to freedom. Parts of the film are in Russian (with subtitles), but the majority is in accented English. Nevertheless, audiences won't feel inclined to question its authentic- ity. Benefiting from a talented cast - including Hollywood regulars Ed Harris ("Appaloosa"), Jim Sturgess ("21"), Sao- irse Ronan ("The Lovely Bones") and Colin Farrell ("In Bruges"), in addition to lesser-known American and foreign actors - the film manages to keep its epic story on a fathomable scale for its viewers. Never does it get lost in its own grandeur, and that is more than can be said for most Hollywood productions. There are, of course, moments of agony for the escapees, and several of them die excruciating deaths along the way. The suffering is immense, but portrayed on the small scale and thus kept very person- al - most readily reminiscent of the hours spent under the rubble in Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center." Hollywood's finest shipped to Siberia. Audiences may not exactly leap at the prospectof 133 minutesofpain and agony, but "The Way Back" presents its tragedy in a way that understands the limits of a viewer. Director Peter Weir could have presented much more graphic material and defended it as authentic. He chose instead to lighten an impossibly sad story with humor and personality. The result is a film that is perhaps far more watchable than something this inhumane should be. New season of 'Archer' sharpens its humor NBC's 'Couples' perfectly boring By JAMIE BLOCK Daily Arts Writer What happens when a couple of comedic actresses with moderate cult followings join a bunch of wayward, relative unknowns for a campy couples series that none of them seem to Perfect Couples belong in? Nothing good. Nothing at Pilot all, really. Even from it's Thursdays at 8:30 p.m. name, "Perfect NBC Couples" seems like an ill-advised choice for NBC to throw into its now three-hour Thursday comedy block. This isn't clever, oddball ensemble comedy. This is derivative dysfunctional-couple humor that's been done a bajillion times before, and often better. Sometimes it's not even clear where the jokes are in "Perfect Couples" - and when one is detectable, it's just not funny. First of all, what the hell is Olivia Munn, geek goddess of former G4 fame and recent correspondent on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," doing in a ter- rible romantic comedy like this? She should be surrounded by cosplay, lasers, irony and gadgets, not stale lines about how great her husband is. To make mat- ters worse, Munn's acting in "Couples" is pretty awful. She can't get away with looking like she's trying to be funny any- more. This isn't "Attack of the Show," and she doesn't fit here. Equally strange to find in this campy crap is Mary Elizabeth Ellis ("It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia"). She's great at acting bitchy, and that's what makes her character so enjoyable on "Sunny." And while there's something simply off about watching Ellis in a couple that's sup- posed to be at least partially functional, she's still the only actor on "Couples" who makes the character seem believ- able in the real world. Comedy night done wrong. Her competition isn't particularly strong, though. Worst of all is Hayes MacArthur ("Worst Week"), who always sounds like he's reading lines off a script - in the sixth grade. His inflection is all wrong, his timing is terrible and he can't even pronounce "jewelry." This is not the guy who should be playing the worldly hot-shot, even if that hot-shot is sup- posed to be kind of a douche. Then there's David Walton ("Heist"), who always seems to be on drugs or from another planet. The character is written to be a ridiculous caricature of the slov- enly, weird dude, and Walton's deadpan delivery only serves to make it unclear whether he's even supposed to be funny. Rounding out the cast are Kyle Born- heimer ("Worst Week") and Christine Woods ("FlashForward"), who both manage to look eerily familiar without having been featured in anything anyone watched. While they don't suck as much as MacArthur and Walton, they give depressingly one-note performances of the awkward goofball and hyper-sensi- tive working wife, respectively. What really sums up "Perfect Cou- ples" is the feeling you have after watch- ing it - or rather, the fact that you won't feel anything at all, or even be sure you really did watch it. You won't have laughed, it'll be hard to remember what the stories were and you probably won't remember any of the characters' names, but the clock will still show half an hour later than it did when you sat down to watch NBC's brand new comedy. It's the best possible physical manifestation of the Platonic idea of a waste of time. "Perfect Couples" doesn't amuse, enter- tain, enrage or annoy. It just happens, and that's one of the worst things a TV show can do. By JAMIE BLOCK DailyArts Writer After far too long a break, Sterling Archer is back in the danger zone. The writers of FX's breakout animated comedy "Archer" put their off-time to good use, crafting a * second season that, Archer if its premiere is any indication, focuses Season Two on what worked best Premiere in last year's batch of episodes. Thursdays at10 p.m. Right off the bat, FX that means much more back-and-forth between Archer (H. Jon Benjamin, "Important Things with Demetri Martin") and Lana (Aisha Tyler, "Ghost Whisperer"). Their swift transitions between per- fect spy team and dysfunctional couple are more hilarious than ever, and their banter is perfectly paced to maximize laughs. While there may be funnier individual characters on other shows, there's no couple on TV right now that comes close to matching Archer and Lana's tag-team hilarity. The refined second season also means more cultural references cour- tesy of our dynamic duo. Returning are Archer's constant self-comparisons to action heroes, joined by less-expect- ed cultural nods to "The Lorax" or "Where the Red Fern Grows." And as always, "Archer" trusts its audience to be smart, slipping references into the middle of conversations without mak- ing it too obvious. Not only does getting the reference make viewers laugh, it also makes them feel smart. Sadly, "Archer" can't just be the Archer and Lana show. The rest of the cast is greatly marginalized in the season premiere, but even the few scenes in which they appear just don't pack much of a comedic punch. While putting Archer and Lana together is always a great idea, putting them away from everyone else leaves the rest of the cast flailing without a solid come- dic anchor. If any other complaint could be made, it's that the season premiere's storyline was the show's most anti-cli- mactic to date. But while the lack of a shootout ending was a bit of a letdown, the fact that Archer and Lana went through explosions, alligators, dry ice injuries and putting up with each other, all for nothing, is probably the most fit- ting possible way to sum up their whole schtick. Call Kenny Loggins: 'Archer' has returned. "Archer" is one of the most intel- ligent comedies currently around. It's written by smart people, for smart peo- ple and about smart people (who hap- pen to do ridiculously dumb things). And with a second season promising humor that is more self-referential, pop cultural and socially unacceptable, it's only getting smarter from here.