Monday, August 2, 2010
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

9

'Kids' is all right

. Non-traditional
comedy focuses on
non-traditional family
By JENNIFER XU
Daily Arts Writer
So let's say you happen to look over
at the marquee of the Michigan The-
ater's latest cinematic pickings, and
you spot the title
"The Kids Are All
Right." What's that
all about? you ask The Kids Ar
yourself. And so
you cruise over to Rt
IMDb to read the At the Michigan
plot description. and Quality16
"Two children
conceived by arti- Fncs
ficial insemina-
tion bring their birth father into their
family life," the text reads. Okay, so it's
a lesbian comedy, featuring Julianne
Moore and Annette Bening as the les-
*bians in question, no less. So it's going
to be about two upper-crust liberal les-
bians leading typical suburban SoCal
lives. Their kids will be well-behaved,
but ultimately lonely. There will be

Summer music's
beached 'King'
By JASMINE ZHU former Wavves drummer Ryan Ulsh
DailyArts Writer to pour a beer on Williams's head
before calling it quits for good) - all
Wavves frontman Nathan Wil- of which led up to an inevitable Inter-
liams is not sorry for partying - that net backlash.
much is clear. After finding solace in the arms
Williams has **** of Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast,
certainly had his and smoking a bowl or fifty-hundred,
share of press over Wawes Williams managed to quickly regroup
the past year, lead- from the disaster, finding.new band-
ing up to his band's King of the mates and signing with Mountain
sophomore release, Beach Dew's Green Label Sound for King of
King of the Beach. Green Label Sound the Beach, a jaunty, snotty overture to
The San Diego- weed, surf and sun.

"Please pass the sperm - I mean, potatoes."
lots of gay jokes and misunderstand-
ings, the family will initially hate the
sperm donor but then slowly warm to
his gravelly charm. Then finally they
will develop to an expanded, adorable
family transcending heteronormative
conventions and the kids will at long
last be "all right," right?
Wrong.
Despite what the plot summary
would have you believe, director
and "out" lesbian Lisa Cholodenko

("Laurel Canyon") is not interested
in making a cutesy indie with an easy
resolution. "The Kids Are All Right"
may well become the Academy's token
indie of the year - but it's no "Little
Miss Sunshine," and it's certainly no
"Juno." Resolution does not come eas-
ily, nor does it ever come thoroughly.
In fact, if there's any movie that "Kids"
calls back to, it would probably be
Woody Allen's "Husbands and Wives,"
See KIDS, Page 10

bred, pizza-loving weed demon/skate
punk blew up the blogosphere with
his own homegrown version of lo-fi
noise-pop experimentation, often
referred to as "shitgaze," on his first,
deliberately unpolished Wavves EP,
followed by his second album Wav-
vves. Then, in rapid succession: criti-
cal acclaim from media outlets such
as Pitchfork, followed by the infa-
mous Primavera festival meltdown
(in which Williams took a reported
drug cocktail of ecstasy and Valium
before jeering the crowd, and then,
if that weren't enough, prompting

The drugs don't
work, Nate.
King is definitely not Wavvves ver-
sion three-point-oh (or "Wavvvves,"
as some had surmised it would be
called).While Williams's first albums
relied heavily on experimentation and
SeeWAVVES, Page 10

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