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28 - Thursday, February 16, 2012

The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com


ARTS RECOMMENDS
In this feature, Daily Arts writers will give their endorsements
for the arts you need to experience to help you deal with current events.
"Memento"
There's nothing like a little Christopher Nolan
to get your brain fluids swirling. "Memento" is a
devious thriller about a man in pursuit of his wife's
alleged killer while suffering from.short-termmem-
ory loss. Every scene in this film is a heartbreaking
and mind-bending battle between deception and
vengeance, making "Memento" a masterpiece psy-
chological thriller you'll never tire of seeing.
NEWMARKET
"Maps" - The Front Bottoms
The Front Bottoms' vocalist Brian Sella sounds
a bit like he has come down with the uncommon
cold - indecipherable-Tom-Delonge-accent-itis.
Don't worry, it's not contagious, but "Maps" sure is.
Catchy with every strum, the songswells into a per-
feet three minutes of hand-clapping and off-kilter
background choruses. With optimism to carry lyr-
ics of heartbreak and regret, let "Maps" guide you
to your next lecture (and the one after that).
BAR/NONE
"Washington Crossing the
Delaware" - Emanuel Leutze
We live in America, but do we know what Amer-
ica is all about - the history, the art, the culture?If
not, what better way to be introduced than "Wash-
ington Crossing the Delaware?" It centers on the
beginning of America's founding, but it can be
found at the center of the newly renovated Ameri-
can Wing in The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
"Harvey Birdman,
Attorney at Law"
Let's be real for a second, Scooby Doo and Shag-
gy definitely had drug problems. So, when they are
pulled over while hunting for the "green monster"
in a smoke-filled Mystery Machine, they need to
go to court; and whenever a cartoon character has
legal troubles, they turn to the man in the suit, the
cat with the beak - the intrepid Harvey Birdman.
CARTOONT You should as well.

EFF WARANIAK/Daily
~(.BSide Buzz))
Kyle Kramer,
Media Arts Master's student
What are the benefits of being in a program like media arts?
I think one of the greatest things you can get out of being in a
program like this in a creative department is the networking and
using the resources that are available to you.
Have you taken the class UARTS 250: "Creative Process"?
I'm not taking UARTS 250. I've heard great things about it; one of
my friends was in it, one of my thesis advisors taught it. I just hear
they have really interesting approaches to the creative process and
there's a lot of experimentation, a lot of play, and it just seems like
a great way to open up your creative process and get ideas going.
Excerpts are taken from the B-Side Buzz video,
which con be found on MichigonDoily.com.
Interview by Jeff Woroniok

SINGLE REVIEW

TRAILER REVIEW

"Give Me All Your Luvin' "
is a somewhat-catchy tune that
doesn't embody any innovative
musical char-
acteristics
whatsoever.
If this were Give Me All
a Katy Perry Your Luvin'
song, nobody
would think Madonna
twice, Interscope
But that
is not the
standard to which we hold
Madonna, the fourth-highest-
grossing artist of all time, just
below The Beatles, Elvis Pres-
ley and Michael Jackson. She is
one of the greats, and it's dis-
appointing to see her breaking
back into the music industry
with such mediocrity.
Nearly every piece of the
song fits into the latest music
industry trends. The same
guitar melody currently popu-
larized by Flo Rida's "Good

"There was never only one!"
cackles the trailer for "The
Bourne Legacy," like an '80s
supervil-
lain laughing
maniacally at
our hero's stu- The Boume
pidity. Legacy
And how
stupid we Universal
were, to think
that Hollywood's powers-
that-be would leave a critically
acclaimed franchise as lucrative
as "Bourne"untapped, even if its
trademark director, Paul Green-
grass, and its trademark star,
Matt Damon, refused to return.
Well, they didn't return,
and the trailer for the fourth
"Bourne" movie is all about
compensating for that, hinting
at a comically wide conspiracy
("Jason Bourne was the tipof
the iceberg!") and a bigger, bet-
ter hero. "He's like Touchstone
without the inconsistency," says

Feeling," the rap verse inserted make trends, not follow them.
near the bridge of the song - The world's most influen-
even more typically, it's Nicki tial female pop superstar did
Minaj who's rapping - and get one line of the song right,
overdone lyrics such as "step though: "Every record sounds
into my world" and "dance our the same." It certainly does
lives away." now, Madonna.
Madonna is supposed to -GREGORYHICKS

a nameless CIA employee (read:
the new guy's just like Jason
Bourne, but better! If we say it
enough, people will believe it
right?).
But ultimately, it's a hard
trailer to hate. Jeremy Renner
("The Town"), Damon's quasi-

replacement, fits the role well
and breathes action. As we see
him facepalm prison guards and
eliminate pursuers with a fire
extinguisher and some nails, it's
hard not to feel a little hopeful "
for the franchise.
-DAVID TAO

TRAILER REVIEW

ewevr, te The
cause is jus-
tified: The Decemberists
band, along .Universal Republic
with Taylor
Swift and
Arcade Fire, was asked to con-
tribute a piece for the upcoming
"Hunger Games" movie - and
the result is "One Engine."
The song begins with a spir-
ited, tantalizing acoustic riff,
to which a driving bass drum
is added after a few seconds.
The start is promising, and the
drums are engaging.
However, as we get to the
meat of the track, "One Engine"
underwhelms and never really
delivers on its potential. The

Visualize "Raging Bull"
on steroids and in lieu of all
the pugilism, substitute mur-
der and the
utmost viril-
ity. In this
Belgian art- Bullhead
house drama, Drafthouse
we .nimmedi-
ately witness
shades of Terrence Malick
(most accessibly, "The Tree of
Life") in the smoothly organic
and raw camerawork, e.g., the
baby-blue skies and verdant
grass fields.
Any Joe Sixpack could
naively deem this Oscar nomi-
nee a contemporary "Cinder-
ella Man" or "Million Dollar
Baby" projection - just in a dif-
ferentlanguage. But thatwould
be unjust.
"Bullhead" is an emotively
charged, avant-garde crime
film that shrewdly presents
each dynamic frame with off-

chorus's lyrics are clearly
appropriate for the story: "And
the martyr line / It's a bitter
pill / And the line of right / It
will barely make you feel." But
unfortunately, the melody never
gets as exciting as the story of
"Hunger Games," and comes off

as mildly uninspired.
As far as movie soundtrack
songs go, one could do far
worse than "One Engine," but
in holding it up against previous
Decemberists efforts, the track
pales in comparison.
-ELLIOT ALPERN

screen breathing, dramatic
heartbeats, grunts, or all three.
On the surface, the trailer
delivers anything to appease
a machismo Guido: libido, vio-
lence, rancor and redemption.
If you relish ass-kicking
coupled with progressive art,

sprint to the box office for
this gem. Worst-case scenario:
you depart the theater with
an incessantly pulsating bicep
that can only be mitigated by
duking a Buckeye fan in the
mug.
-ANDREW MCCL URE