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 itcam whsrP.th. fim tnrt.to I abE 1irliganiti ARTS 4 10 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 I 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 4