12 - The Michigan Daily - Monday, June 4, 2001
iviULIN
Continued from Page 10
writes a musical that closely mirrors his
own life with Satine.
Reality and performance during the
film are sometimes confused -
Satine's life as a courtesan requires her
to convince every man that she loves
him, whether she is offstage or on. Her
entire emotional life is an act until she
meets Christian. Through the entire
film, there is a sense of constant
voyeurism, as the audience's own sense
of reality is confused with that of the
Moulin Rouge.
The writers developed an original
musical through bizarre means - the
setting is 1900, but the music is con-
temoorary. It ranges from David
Bowie's "Nature Boy" to Madonna's
"Material Girl," mostly performed by
the cast and reinterpreted in ways
appropriate to the plot.
"Moulin Rouge" is romantic in the
classic sense, while drawing on more
contemporary elements. Itsis comedic
and campy, with its shameless use of
love cliches and camera shots under
dancers' skirts. The character Harold
Zidler even seems to draw some inspi-
ration from Dr. Frank N. Furter of "The
Rocky Horror Picture Show."
Like any good cabaret show, the film
is visually entertaining with its music
and dance numbers. Unlike many musi-
cals made into movies, "Moulin
Rouge" is truly interesting in its con-
struction, to the point where a simple
plot is a nositive thing.
ARTS
iffy' slays vampires, suspens
By Laura LoGerfo
LFor the Daily
"It's a drag to be the Chosen One.
Occasionally a girl would rather be at the
mall ... or even
doing homework
than saving the
Buffy: The worid from untop-
Faith Trials pable evil."
Finally, a character
J. Laurence whose dilemmas
Grade: C+ mirror my own:
Pocket Books Study for class, or
slay vampires? If
your name is
Buffy, the answer's
clear.
The first volume
of the "Faith Tri-
als" in the "Bufly the Vampire Slayer"
book series opens with a new slayer's
arrival in pleasant Sunnydale. The new
slayer, Faith, a sexy and mysterious
brunette who enjoys staking vampires in
the nude and long walks on the beach,
inspires Buffy and her gal pals' envy. Let's
face it: Faith oozes chic cool, while the
often tightassed Buffy takes her role as
civilization's savior way too seriously, and
she even hesitates to date anyone new.
Only a few months previous, she gave her
love a one-way ticket to hell because he
turned into a vampire. Talk about a trau-
matic breakup. No pint of Chunky Mon-
key will make that baggage disappear.
To Faith and Buffy, slaying vampires
becomes routine, almost boring. However,
all hell breaks loose when the Jabba the
Hut of the vampire underworld arrives in
town, seeking an extraordinary glove -
apparently they heard about the return of
the blue light special on Isotoner gloves
-that holds the power to "ascend."
And therein lie the primary problems
with this fantasy. First, I never discovered
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1
the alluring qualities of this uber-gl
Second, the book fails to build to any
max. The author creates "suspense
refusing to divulge the point of the b
Ever
Beyond Faith and Buffy, few chara
ever develop. Most personalities inge
less than a page before they die or sin
disappear without explanation. AA
grace is the liberal use of witty as
castic lines by most characters. Mv
lines elicit hearty gsffaws and susta
laughter. One agent of evil pulls a
Man; in her thrilling moment of triur
as she stretches one arm towards the
she sneers, "Faith, a word of ads
You're an idiot." That's not one word,
that's not even advice, just a pretty a
rate comment on the obvious.
Another favorable factor rests in
quickly moving plot. I could not pu
book down, not for the aforeme4
suspense (or lack thereof), but for kee
track of the plot. Plot lines I had folkc
for a paragraph, in which I felt de,
invested, started and finished within
same page. My eyes wandered f
moment. Returning to my page, acci
tally beginning a sentence below wb
had stopped, cost me Faith's selling
soul to the dark side and the stunning
elation that Bufoy's ex is actually 4
guy.
In its greatest moments, this I
offers solid laughs and reassures its z
ence that life as a student can be bala
with life as a Slayer. And I was stresse
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