12 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, August 14, 1996 'Escape from L.A.' snakes i By Ted Watts Angeles, which became an island in wily Arts Writer2000. Los Angeles is essentially a Sequels are like metaphors: lots of wretched hive of scum them show up in and villainy, even movie reviews. in the movie. Kurt Russell ,, AUnfortunately, the reprises the role of Escape from L.A. President's daughter Snake Plissken I rted vy (o penter (A. J. Langer) has from the cult AB a nshowcase taken the control favorite "Escape * (out ofttie) device for a dooms- from New York" in day machine to the the new movie "Escape from LA." island for her revolutionary cybermate Don't worry, the first movie gets refer- Cuervo Jones (George Corraface) to use enced some, but you didn't need to see against the United States. Just like in it to understand the new one. New York, it's up to Snake to save the day. It's 2013 and the United States has The movie is largely a way to showcase been declared a morally pure country. the weird and wild future, from the gadgets Anyone not morally pure is sent to Los that the USPD provides to Snake to the ARTs nto theaters post-apocalyptic Los Angeles set, where you can surf down major streets and the Los Angeles Coliseum is a place of sport atrocities. And despite how the ads on TV look, it's done pretty well. But whereas John Carpenter's New York was dark and shady, his Los Angeles is more brightly lit. The plastic soul of California is integral to the look of the movie, and it's pulled off pretty well. Also in keeping with the California theme, characters are intensely shallow in the movie, but this is more of a flaw in the writing than part of the intent. Several are cloned from characters in the first film, head Los Angeles cop Malloy (Stacy Keach) as the most blatant example. Lustre's Secondary characters die left and right, or suddenly drop in minutes before they dis- By Heather Phai appear again for the entire movie. There Daily Arts Writer isn't even much development of Snake Despite the i other than surface characteristics. and their self-tit Everyone seems to recognize him, and by-the-books ri that's good for a chuckle, but along with his While there's n constantly requests for cigarettes, that's just the unrelievedn about the deepest insight into the character warmed-over Co we get. He's just running around with a ripoffs is worset very hoarse voice, a mission and absolute- are somewhat re ly no investment from the audience. The album is mostly character with the most development is , "Lustre" is fil Map to the Stars Eddie (Steve Buscemi), rock and '90s m and he is an empty Hollywood agent-type. ness. This timele Oh well. cent: A record li Essentially, the movie is just fL.A.sh. the Who, Hiske It's a moderately well done toss-off play an instrume action flick with some neat cameos The main pro (Bruce Cambell, Peter Fonda). It's better them. Is there a than a kick in the teeth, but if you have Otherwise, if yo a choice, see the original instead. COMEDY 'Cause it ain't a Continued from Page 10 bitches in a Hyut diggers need toc damn selves. Take black women run- get you what yo ning up to 'Waiting to Exhale' like it don't ask for it was a documentary. I knew things were refrigerator, just wrong with that movie, 'cause you warm Kool-Aid don't burn no nigga's clothes or burn No doubt his car when he does you wrong. Underwood w- 'Cause yo' new nigga can wear them Comedy Jam" clothes and drive that car. was as hype as "And I can't believe women were left the stage, complaining about the Million Man that they had1 March going, 'well why can't we go?' worth. mediocre modern rock res ntruiging name, Lustre led debut turn out to be Lustre ff-heavy modern rock. Lustre othing truly awful here, A&M mediocrity of the band's **(out of five) llective Soul and Sponge than tiresome. Though the nods to bands like Sugar and the Who freshing, as on "Lustre"'s opening track, "Musta Been Cool," the an excersise in taking a long time to get nowhere. led with a weird sense of deja vu: The group's mix of '70s hard- odern rock cliches gives its music a vague, disturbing timelesse- essness, however, is a long way from classic. Instead, it's compla- ke Lustre's suggests that if you listen to the "right" music (Nirvana, r Du and countless '70s classic rock bands in this case) and can nt competently, you too can have a major label record deal. blem with Lustre is that there's no real discernable problem with cure for competent mediocrity? For the band's sake, let's hope so. u lack Lustre, you're not missing much. iinn m a three ' A I Snake ftflu 15u Wt) nangson WI Tr a lue trougnutust mu eetsur Uo sn ein "Escape from LA." Think You're Pregnant?___ * Free Pregnancy Test - Information about pregnancy K- rt I and options WAS Aw Cemar - COMPLETELY CONFIDENTIAL 2 CelnnFy Pregnancy Counseling Center. Women Helping Women n ntl (313) 434-3088 (24 hours) ______ ___ 2950 Packard, Ypsilanti, MI (I Block East of Golfside) IS ANNOUNCING DISPLAY ADVERTSING EARLY DEADLINES: indai. Also all you gold- quit. 'Cause a man will u need as long as you t. If you need a new tbring him a glass of about it, Sheryl as the All-Star Def Saturday night. She they got. After she the audience knew gotten their money's ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS!!! GRANTS & SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE! BILLIONS OF $$$ IN PRIVATE FUNDING. QUALIFY IMMEDIATELY. 1.800-AID-2-HELP (1.800.243.2435) VVNVV1 Continued from Page 10 dream. The jokes are invariably unfun( ny and unclever. Taken together, the cardboard chamc- ters and corny humor are enough to ruin "Going Down." However, it gets worse. Much worse. The story goes nowhere. The heroine starts out looking for a means to support herself and fulfill her desire to act. Along the way, the plot and characterization becomes muddled. Nothing is resolved, certainly, but neithc is anything really confrontec. Bennington is as shallow a major char- acter as the others are minor characters. There is no development or exploration of the labyrinth of her psyche (or at least, the psyche one would imagine a girl her age, thrown into a life of such problems and quirky developments, to possess). Instead, she merely flits around through trauma after trauma. The only way we know she even notices her surroundings is that she sometimes breaks out in ran dom spurts of tears or nausea. This may be the worst part of the novel. If Bennington finds herself in a sad situa- tion, the author seems to automatically turn on "the tears" or "the vomiting." In both cases, it has the feel of an automatic, ineffectual device that exacerbates Belle's absolute ineptitude as a psychologist of her characters and as a novelist. She makes no impact on the emotions or con- science of the reader at all. Her novel h more in common with a marathon of bad television comedies than anything resem- bling art. Perhaps her next attempt at novel-writing will be more fecund, but this first one is easy to dismiss as vacuous and utterly unimportant.