Monday, July 7, 2008
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

9

ALBUM REW
Jews return strong
By DAVID WATNICK vous behind the microphone
Daily Arts Writer before pulling himself up by his
bootstraps and landing on his
Get this: David Berman feet for a chorus of confidence.
sounds healthy. Really. Sure, Continuing a career-spanning
Tanglewood Numbers was his rivalry, Berman's wounded
nominal post- croon emerges from its deep
recovery album * register to go toe-to-toe with its
after years of own monotony and arrhythmia.
self-abuse,butit SierJews It manages to eke out a strange
still carried the victory, and for the duration of
unmistakable Lookout Lookout it earns a more promi-
head-scratch- Mountain, nent position in the mix than
ing, what-the- Lookout Sea it ever received on a prior Jews
fuck quality of Drag City album.
catharsis on Joined by the powerful but
tape. If Tangle- lovely voice of his wife Cassie,
wood was the sound of Berman Berman goes soft, taking the
trying to swim cross-current Jews in an unprecedented,
to escape the riptide of life in a poppy direction. But soft doesn't
gutter of raw sewage, Lookout necessarily mean bad, and tell-
Mountain, Lookout Sea catches ingly, the unmistakably Jews-ish
him on a partly-cloudy summer country pop is straight-up gold.
day sporting Ray-Bans and gulp- "Suffering Jukebox" has the
ing down a Miller melody to be a
High-Life in a No. 1 hit for any
pleasant munici- faux-country
pal park nestled A pleasant star like Carrie
against a well- new sound Underwood, and
disguised water n on "We Could Be
treatment facil- Looking For The
ity. He's found a Same Thing,"
new approach to his sound, but the Bermans turn in a romantic-
it ultimately serves as merely comedy duet that would've made
an alternate route to the same for a guaranteed show-stopper
musical consistency he has once-upon-a-time on The John-
established in the past decade- ny Cash Show
and-a-half. Though Lookout takes a note-
Stumbling awkwardly into worthy step into more acces-
the hard-start vocals of opener sible territory, it doesn't signal a
"What Is Not But Could Be If," change in strategy for the Silver
Berman sounds classically ner- See JEWS, Page 10

FILM REVIEW
Starpower helps
Smith and Theron . a,

rescue a weak plot
from super-mediocrity
By IMRAN SYED
DailyArts Writer
"Hancock" - the highly antici-
pated, slightly overhyped superhero
blockbuster starring Will Smith
- is a memorable
enigma. It's two
entirely different
movies - almost
exactly the same Hancock
'length and each At Quality16
about as ambi- and Showcase
tious, stunning Columbia
and frustratingly
incomplete as the
other. There's a jolting disconnect
in what is nonetheless an entertain-
ing production,.and when the dust
settles, only one thing is left clear:
Will Smith can do, say, play and sell
anything.
Smith plays the title character,
Hancock, who is at first sight just
another drunk, grumpy homeless
man in Los Angeles. But this hobo's
got a secret: He can fly and he's
invincible - and no, it ain't just the
alcohol talking. Hancock is L.A.'s
resident superhero, but this isn't the
fantasy world of your average Bat-
men, Supermen or what have you.
This is the real world, and bad stuff
happens when some drunk super-

hobo starts flying around trying to
fight crime.
Hancock's "so-called heroics,"
as the movie's irate newscasters
call them, cause millions of dollars
in collateral damage and make him
about as popular as, well, your aver-
age grumpy homeless guy. A chance
encounter with Ray Embrey (Jason
Bateman, "Juno"), though, brings
Hancock the opportunity to remake
his life and image, with plenty of
hilarious false starts alongthe way.
So goes the first of the twin nar-
ratives in "Hancock." The second
awkwardly addresses the little mat-
ter of Ray's wife Mary (Charlize
Theron, "Monster"). Even if you saw
the three trailers for "Hancock,"you

still might be unaware that Theron
is in this film. Relegating a stunning,
Oscar-winning actress to but two
brief screen swatches in a three-
minute trailer may seem odd, but
the reasoning for it becomes clearer
in the second half of the film.
It isn't possible to discuss Mary
any further without giving too much
away (though I should note that
a new TV spot gives away almost
everything), but it is important to
point out that the plot twist that ren-
ders her important is also the one
that shatters what could have been a
thoughtful, humorous and cohesive
film. Hancock is a superpower who
is unpopular for his recklessness
See HANCOCK, Page 10

FILM REVIEW
" *A Will Ferrell carbon-copy, 'Foot
LOw - itting laughS Fist' conveys impressive realism

By BRANDON CONRADIS
ManagingArts Editor
WhenWillFerrellopenlyendors-
es a low-budget
comedy and plays
a large role in get-
ting it released in
theaters, it should The Foot
come as no sur- Fist Way
prise that the
film in question At the State
closely resembles Theatre
one of the famous MTV Films
comedian's own
box-office hits.
"The Foot Fist Way" may as well

have starred Ferrell himself, as it's
no different from his comedies like
"Anchorman: The Legend of Ron
Burgundy" (2004) or "Talladega
Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby"
(2006): It's the charming story of
a sleazy career man (in this case a
Taekwondo instructor), the people
he humiliates and his inevitable
nose-dive into self-pity, before,
eventually, trying to turn his life
around for the better.
Fred Simmons (Danny R.
McBride, "All the Real Girls") is
the man: He's a world-champion
Taekwondo instructor, married to
a beautiful blonde bombshell (new-

comer Mary Jane Bostic) and has
just come into the good graces of
B-movie action star Chuck "The
Truck" Wallace (co-writer Ben
Best). Or at least that's what he'll
tell you. In actuality he spends most
of his days insulting the young kids
he instructs, doesn't know how to
prevent his promiscuous wife from
sleeping around and has, in fact,
unwittingly become the next oppo-
nent of Wallace, who challenges
him to a fight in front of Simmons's
own students.
As we watch this gloriously raun-
chy character tailspin into self-
destruction, we meet an assortment

of oddball characters including his
much-abused young sidekick Julio
(SpencerMoreno)andbizarrefriend
and cohort Mike (director/co-writ-
er Jody Hill). Can this mustachioed,
pot-bellied phoenix rise from the
ashes 'of his pitiful existence with
the help of his friends? Will his wife
ever stop cheating on him?You'll be
surprised by how much you actually
care about these things as the film
nears its conclusion.
What's even more surprising is
that, with its debts well in check,
the film still manages to distinguish
itself, albeit in an unintentional
way.

Like all truly low-budget films,
"The Foot Fist Way" is hampered
somewhat by its backyard origins,
as it tends to resemble a deranged
home movie more than an actual
film. But film's tackiness is some-
thing of a double-edged sword,
as it completely sets it apart from
the bleached, trimmed and coiffed
homogeneity of Hollywood - it's all
cowlicks, pimples and beer bellies,
as if to say, "This is America, take it
or leave it." The actors, the major-
ity of whom have never appeared
in a film before, resemble the kind
of people you see on a day-to-day
See FOOT FIST, Page 10

is I