1 ) Th Mi Lhid!! ld -IUIIdY 76Z5 LO ALRTS lz-in ingan uniy - Monday, Juy 2b, :2004 Old 97's act their age ByJoetHoard N "And I feel it slowing /And I feel it slowing down," bassist Murry Ham- mond plaintively sings halfway through the Old Old 97'S 97's latest release, Drag It Up Drag It Up. It's the record's most Ne West Records telling line, both in terms of the band's sound and their rock'n'roll lifestyle. Hard-driving country rock has given way to quiet and restrained balladry, and beer- swilling and barroom brawling have become domesticity and fatherhood. At their peak, the Old 97's defined the alt-country genre with up-tempo, guitar-heavy country rhythms, catchy pop hooks and just the right amount of emo sensibility on 1999's Fight Songs and 2001's Satellite Rides. Ken Bethea's guitar churned and seared beneath Rhett Miller's spirited vocals and clever homespun tales of the heartbroken and hopelessly romantic ambling down Texas highways and drinking in dingy bars. On Drag It Up, the group's sixth album and first for New West Records, the emphasis no longer lies in driving guitars and unbridled ener- gy, but more on melody and atmos- phere. Bethea's twangy guitar lines meander lazily behind Miller's melodies, which, though still catchy and laden with hooks, are delivered with breathy vocals, making Drag It Up the 97's tamest record to date. The band's new slower approach on Drag It Up makes for some espe- cially pretty melodies, such as the mournful "No Mother," an appropri- ately sentimental tribute to a friend who was killed by a drunk driver last year, and the simple heartbreak tale "Adelaide." Others, however, like gloomy lounge song "Smokers" and the lugubrious "Blinding Sheets of Rain," fall flat. On many of the slow- er numbers, Miller's usually witty, on-the-ball lyrics lack the poetic punch of some of the 97's classics. Only a few times do the old Old 97's show through, like on the boun- cy "The New Kid" and the unabashedly schmaltzy "Friends For- ever," which features witticisms remi- niscent of the bygone era: "I was a debater / Was not a stoner nor an inline skater / Was not a player nor a player hater / I was just a bookworm on a respirator." The new Old 97's direction isn't necessarily a bad one, but they seem to have hung up their spurs and put their trailblazing days behind them. Rhett Miller's knack for creating catchy melodies still exists, but the band's youthful exuberance and care- free abandon are, for the most part, missing. They sound less like a group of rowdy Texas punks and more like, well, a group of first-time fathers. Hi, I'm Hollywood's new indie darling. Check out my hoodle! RENAISSANCE MAN 'GARDEN STATE' CREATOR TALKS ABOUT TV, MOVIES AND REAL LIFE Classes on Monday? Make Monday a Friday! Exam on Tuesday? Make Tuesday a Friday! Ac TGI Friday's it's Friday every time you come iii, no matter what lay of the week it happens to be? So grab your friends and head on over for a study break that'll be sure to leave you satisfied. - - - - - - - - - - - - - , $5 00 off Dinner1 Any purchase over $20 1]For dine-in only. One oifer per table, per visit. Not valid By Puja Kumar For the Daily Zach Braff is probably best known as klutzy doctor J.D. Dorian on NBC's hit sitcom "Scrubs" but with the upcoming theatrical release of the new film "Gar- den State," he's sure to surprise audi- ences with his maturity and ease both behind and in front of the camera. The scruffy, likeable New Jersey native wrote, directed and starred in the upcoming tragicomedy. Twenty-nine-year-old Braff plays Andrew Largeman, a frustrated Los Angeles actor returning home to New Jersey after a decade's absence to attend his mother's funeral. While back home, Andrew, ina sort of post-coming-of-age, discovers himself and his place in rela- tion to the expansive and sometimes unfamiliar ideas of home and love. "Garden State" adeptly deviates from the template of twenty-something for- mula flicks. The relationship between Andrew and love interest Sam (Natalie Portman) progresses at an awkward but steady pace that is simultaneously inter- esting and believable. Sam, a pathologi- cal liar, epileptic and hamster collector, meets Andrew in a hospital room after an oversexed Doberman tries to mate with Andrew's leg. Inspired by Diane Keaton's character in Woody Allen's classic comedy "Annie Hall," Sam is, according to Braff, "so happy and high on life and optimistic and passionate and quirky and just dif- ferent." Her fun-loving, character con- trasts sharply with the drabness of Andrew, who has been heavily medicat- ed for depression since childhood. Portman was Braff's first choice to play Sam: "She brought somuch to the character ... She's very fun and silly and has so much energy and she laughs that classic Natalie Portman laugh that's in the movie a bunch. I mean, she's just so fun and happy, and I think a lot of peo- ple haven't gotten a chance to see that." He also got his top picks with the other actors in "Garden State," including Ian Hokn, Denis O'Hare and Method Man. For well over a decade, Andrew has been heavily medicated for depression. Through his character, Braff reveals the possible dangers that go along with overprescription: "I'm saying that (Andrew) ... got comfortable on some- thing that was way too extreme for what he should've been on, and it just was like, 'This is what I know. This is what's comfortable to me.' And he stayed on (the medication). I think there are proba- bly a lot of cases of people that get really comfortable on medicine and don't nec- essarily need to be on it." In the film, Andrew doesn't take his meds during while he's home. The fol- lowing events - falling in love, con- necting with his father - make a bold statement that mood-altering drugs don't necessary aid or hinder emotions. "Garden State" includes another ele- ment of drug use - those which aren't prescribed by doctors. The movie fea- tures a frenzied party scene, which hosts a whirlwind of cocaine, pot, alcohol and ecstasy use. Impressing and highly absorbing, the scene is free of special effects - the small budget wouldn't allow it. Braff explains how the scene was shot completely in-camera: "The camera is static and for 10 minutes, everyone is moving around me, and I'm totally frozen. And over 10 minutes, you'll get, like, a minute of film." Braff admitted that he doesn't like cocaine and explained what he sees as a prevalent assumption about actors: "When I came back to Jersey after being in L.A. and working as an actor, there was this vision of my friends that I was rich and drove a Porsche and had a man- sion and did coke and (lived) this Holly- wood lifestyle, and meanwhile I was waiting tables like my character in the beginning of the movie." Launching a new film is risky, espe- cially when simultaneously writing and directing for the first time. Though Braff has written several shorts, "Garden State" is this Northwestern film school graduate's first full-length project. When asked to choose between acting and directing, Braff pledges loyalty to both sides of the camera. "They're both challenging," he explained. "If I had to choose at gun- point, I'd choose directing. I like decid- ing what goes into the final product. One of the hard things with 'Scrubs' is, sometimes you fall in love with some- thing you do, or you love a scene, and you see the episode and it got cut for time or pacing and for the producer, who shapes the vision of that show" Just like the semi-autobiographical content of "Garden State," the sound- track is personal to Braff. "(The sound- track) was the music that was really affecting me, so I thought it would speak to our generation." Braff wrote letters to the bands on the compilation, which range from the Shins to Iron and Wine, and eventually he got "all the bands to agree to be in the movie 'cause they would see the scenes where there songs were used." When shopping his script, Braff included a mix CD of the songs he wanted on the film. Braff views the popularity of "Scrubs" as a foot in the door to sell the script and get attention from the press. "The media's always been very nice to me from 'Scrubs,' " he admitted. "I feel very lucky, 'cause this is a small movie, and the only way it'll get seen in the middle of the country ... is if it has sup- port of the media and word of mouth" Preliminary screenings also proved to be a useful promotional tool as well as a rewarding experience for Braff as the film's creator. "The best response, over- all, is from (young) people. You know, I went and showed the movie - I had a lot of screenings of the movie with quote-unquote young people in it, butI went to a screening at UCLA, which was all twenty-somethings, and I've never had a reaction like that to the movie. People loved the movie, but this was like going to a rock concert," exclaimed Braff. "There were people dressed up in garbage bags at the screening .. They loved the movie, and they got all the lit- tle subtle things that you'd never heard an audience laugh at, that like only maybe someone in their twenties would get, like they got, and it was just awe- some. And so, I love the movie in that people of all generations are responding to it, but for me, when people in their twenties really react to it and say, 'Wow, I felt like that spoke to me,' that makes me feel really good." Check back next Monday for The Michigan Daily's official review of "Garden State,"