Tuesday
May 3, 2005
arts.michigandaily.com
artspage@michigandaiLy.com
Adams's
'Galaxy'
returns
By Alexandra Jones
Daily Arts Editor
The problem with "The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy" is that only the first
third of it is really any
good - but that third
is near perfect. The The
film opens in almost Hitchhiker's
exactly the same way Guide to
as the 1981 BBC ver- the Galaxy
sion, as well as the At Sh e
book and the radio andwQualcase6
show it was based on
- with the superla- Buena Vista
tively average Arthur
Dent (Martin Freeman, "The Office")
waking up to find a wrecking crew poised
to demolish his house to make way for a
bypass. Soon after, his buddy Ford Prefect
(rapper/actor Mos Def) arrives, telling
him that, well, he's not really from Earth
but from a small planet in the vicinity of
Betelgeuse. And another wrecking crew
- this one a fleet of alien destroyers - is
about to demolish his planet. Arthur and
Ford, who is a writer for galactic bestseller
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,"
stick out their thumbs and are picked up
by one of the alien ships seconds before
Earth is destroyed. Arthur's journey into
the rest of the universe begins here - but
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The triple threat: A towel, a robot's arm and a juicer.
"Son of a bitch! This says movies released In April never win Oscars!"
S-mart 'Interpreter'
falters With climax
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After falling victim to a poetry read-
ing by the Vogons, the aliens whose
craft they're hitching a ride on, Ford and
Arthur are picked up yet again - this
time by President of the Galaxy/party ani-
mal Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell,
"Matchstick Men") and Trillian (Zooey
Deschanel, "Almost Famous"), a girl
Arthur had met at a party on Earth only a
week before. Zaphod has stolen the Heart
of Gold, a spaceship that boasts the newly-
developed Infinite Improbability Drive.
The addition of Humma Kavula (John
Malkovich), Beeblebrox's opponent in
the last galactic election, presents the film
with a problem that can be dealt with in
its 108 minutes. Kavula holds information
about the answer to Life, the Universe and
Everything, the learning of which sud-
denly becomes the shallow, self-centered
Zaphod's fixation.Inturn,Kavulademands
that Zaphod and co. pick up a mysterious
gun for him. While an attempt to encapsu-
latethe events ofthe first book in the"Hitch-
hiker's" series could have been a disaster,
this invention simply sends the cadre on a
tedious story arc that leads nowhere.
But perhaps the remake's worst
aspect is its transformation into a love
story. Disney may have wanted to sani-
tize the dark, sometimes ribald humor
of the original story; the book's constant
reminders of human insignificance and
the incomprehensible scope of the uni-
verse are disregarded to focus on the
pithy romance between last remaining
humans Trillian and Arthur.
The performers (Mos Def and Rock-
well especially) excel in their roles, and
the special effects are sleek, understated
and appropriately absurd. But many fans'
faith was inspired by reassurances that
Adams himself had taken part in the
remake's writing and development until
his death in 2001. For his sake, it's happy
that the project reached audiences at least
close to the way he intended - but many
elements, including a few changes made
by Adams specifically for the remake,
simply don't work.
By Jeffrey Bloomer
Daily Arts Editor
Like many of the film's characters,
Sydney Pollock's "The Interpreter" has
a reputation that precedes it. The movie,
which pivots around a U.N. interpreter
(Nicole Kidman) who claims to overhear
a death threat on the
leader of a fictional The
African country,
is the first film in Interpreter
history allowed to At the Showcase
shoot inside a U.N. and Quality 16
embassy (yes, that Universal
includes Alfred
Hitchcock's 1959
classic "North By Northwest"). The movie
doesn't let us forget it, either: A majority
of its action is set in and around the iconic
halls of the diplomatic headquarters.
What qualifies "The Interpreter" for
such an honor? The talent involved -
including former Oscar winners Sean
Penn, Kidman and legendary director
Pollack ("Out of Africa") - couldn't
have hurt. But aside from that, the
film's plot offers another explanation;
it boasts a full slate of exploding buses,
oppressive foreign dictators and other
elements of popular, post-Sept. 11linter-
est - all things that the controversy-
laden United Nations was likely more
than willing to take under its wing.
Even with such an impressive incep-
tion, on the whole, "The Interpreter"
is neither as relevant nor as skillfully
conceived as its cover-story production.
Granted, with Pollock behind the camera
(and on the screen in a minor supporting
role), the film is a thoroughly competent
production, with crisp narration and rich,
exquisite photography. There is also the
exceptional performances from Kid-
man and Penn, both of whom execute
restrained and calculated turns that skill-
fully downplay their powerhouse potential
to match the film's subtle tone. And then
there is the aforementioned setting - the
rhythmic, enigmatic halls of the United
Nations - that provide the movie with an
inherent visceral allure that is, by defini-
tion, one of a kind.
On the other hand, the film's hopelessly
over-plotted story stretches and eventually
sidesteps its initial intelligence in lieu of
the monotonous artificiality of the final
third. And as topical as the plot may be,
the movie treats terrorism and guerilla
warfare as if they were expendable story
tentpoles that function mostly to lead up to
the inconceivably absurd climax, which is
almost as overwrought as it is implausible.
And if the security standards at the United
Nations are half as slipshod as "The Inter-
preter" wants us to believe they are, the
inside look it offers is just about as close as
anyone who sees the film will rationally
want to get the facilities.
Moreover, as many critics of the film
have pointed out, there is also the dubi-
ous casting of the title character - why
did Sylvie Broome (Kidman) have to be
white? Yes, the cast is functional as it is,
but the film never quite convinces us that
making Broomea white African hadmore
to do with the narrative than it did with the
studio fine-tuning its opening weekend
prospects (the movie debuted at the top of
the charts worldwide, with $23 million in
the United States alone). In any case, "The
Interpreter" remains a taut and sincere
effort, with the outlandish material as the
unfortunate drawback to what is otherwise
an expertly-produced and effective thriller.
Still, for their part, the United Nations
might have been better served by opening
its doors to Hitchcock years ago.
CRANBROOK WRITERS CONFERENCE
- STUDENT WRITERS WORKSHOPS
Student writers at the University of Michigan are invited to submit applications for scholarships
to the annual Cranbrook Writers' Conference, August 4 through 6.
Sponsored by the Cranbrook Writers' Guild, the 2005 conference at the Cranbrook Academy
of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan offers study with three professional writers on the
campus of Cranbrook.
This year's writers include: Leslea Newman is an award-winning author of fiction, poetry and
children's books, Jim Burnstein is screenwriting coordinator at the University of Michigan,
and David James a poet and faculty member at Oakland Community College.
Applicants should submit an original short story for the fiction category, three to five poems
for the poetry category, or a script for the screenwriting category to The Cranbrook Writers'
Conference 2005, PO Box 1593, Birmingham, MI 48012 or electronically to Conference
Director Richard E. Bailey (Rbailey@hfcc.edu) by May 15.
Thirty applicants selected for the quality of their writing receive scholarships from the
Guild. Only $200 of the more than $500 cost is paid by students or institutional
sponsors. Scholarships cover room, board, tuition and social functions during three days
on campus, along with personal critiques of each student's work.
Information is available by phone at 313-845-6498 or on a website:
http://www.cranbrookwritersguild.com
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