Q I Monday, July 9, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Idle 'Savages'-bores. Heart beats far out of rhythm Creativity lost Menage a no: 'Savages' bad with romance and script By NOAH COHEN For the Daily Though Oliver Stone contin- ues to live up to his reputation for unflinching violence, the truth remains clear: violence, sex and drugs do not* make a movie.S Even under the influence of some At Quality16 glowing act- and Rave ing and nonstop action, "Savages" Universal manages to bore. The movie is a film adaptation of a book written by Don Winslow, who is a much better writer than this screenplay would suggest. The movie follows two marijuana entrepreneurs, Ben (Aaron John- son, "Albert Nobbs") and Chon (Taylor Kitch, "Battleship"), as they attempt to skirt domination by an ambitious Mexican cartel. They fail, however, as their shared girlfriend 0 (Blake Lively, "The 'NACHOOOOOOOO!' Town") falls into the clutches of Elena (Salma Hayek, TV's "30 Rock"), the almost-ruthless king- pin. The game is then set in motion, with Ben-and Chon attempting to comply with the demands of the cartel so that O does not suffer con-. sequences, meanwhile grasping at leverage over Elena with which to ensure O's rescue. The dynamic among the three protagonists - Ben, Chon and 0 - works hard to convince the audi- ence of its sincerity as a functional menage. A trois, and, against the odds, succeeds. We believe that they are a cohesive romantic unit, and this lays the foundation for the much more interesting dynamic between the men, Ben and Chon. Ben is the mastermind of the operation. The dreadlocked, Bud- dhist, scientist-hippy who believes conflict can be resolved with peaceful deliberation. This belief is repeatedly stomped upon over the course of the movie, which is where Chon comes in. Chon is the ever-alert muscle, unafraid and more than capable of handling what Ben cannot stomach. 0, as the narrator, makes the Spirit/Earth dichotomy very clear at the out- set, and the relationship the two men share is touched upon even by Elena and her fantastically creepy right-hand-man, Lado (Benicio Del Toro, "The Wolf- man"), who suspects the two are "faggots." Lively is good, not exceptional, as the narrator, and plays a good, not exceptional, damsel in dis- tress. Playing her captor, Hayek does a much better job with her own archetype, excellently bal- ancing the expected fragility of someone who genuinely loves with the gritof a leader for whom love is translated as weakness. Del Toro shines as brightly as scum can shine, but may have taken a little too much initiative in makingthe audience hate him. His creepiness goes beyond the pale, and finds an electric chem- istry with Dennis, the DEA agent played by John Travolta, who has a deceptively small part in the action of the movie, but whose role weirdly and unexpectedly mars the movie's ending in a big way. See SAVAGES, Page 9 By Elec run int ing a f leisure ing th avocad cart is champ strawb and sr even you've ing at the ba She's a her ph( well by droppe solitar' .same c drawn For1 and th her pre focuses .obsesse sake fo of Mar ego, bu everytf to be. In a tice", 1 concep as an Dream Electra pursuir happin To not in se "I ju Americ vapid a that's 1 explore around And Electra. full of ANNA SADOVSKAYA accompanied by dance beats ManagingArts Editor and electronic interludes. With song titles like "Homewrecker" tra Heart is the girl you and "Radioactive," the album o in the supermarket wear- promised to be provocative, but aux fur coat and sunglasses, instead Marina delivered such. ly pick- pearls of wisdom as "Lying on rough the ** a fake beach/You'll never get a o. Her tan." filled with Electra Despite collaborating with big agne and Heart names like Dr. Luke and Stargate, erries Electra Heart doesn't carve a large he doesn't Marina and enough niche for its sound. care that the Diamonds The first track, "Bubblegum been star- Bitch," sets the tone of the album her from Atlantic with a rousing chorus of "I'm miss kery aisle. sugar pink liquor, liquor lips/I'm ngsty, and you can tell that gonna be your bubblegum bitch." one conversation didn't end The poppy, upbeat tempo coin- y the way she dramatically cides with the no-fucks-given atti- d her phone and wiped a tude of Electra Heart. y tear from her cheek. The Electra takes no prisoners in heek that has an eyeliner- her love escapades, but she reiter- heart on it. ates this point again and again in her second album, Marina her songs. Similar to "Bubblegum e Diamonds diverges from Bitch," "Power and Control" looks achy debut album roots and at a relationship doomed from the s on bringing to life the self- start due to Electra's romantic ed Electra Heart, the name- prowess and her need for destruc- r the album. The opposite tion. Backed by a synthesized ina, Electra is not an alter- beat, Marina croons "Think you're t rather the embodiment of funny/Think you're smart/Yeah hing Marina has strived not you might be good-looking, /But you're not a piece of art." n interview with "Popjus- Each track focuses on being a Marina explained that the bad-ass woman, but rather than t for this album started embracing it, Marina manages to homage to the American make it seem ugly and contorted. and followed the story of The album does have its , a fictional character that's moments, though, and one of ng the corrupt version of them is "Teen Idle.' Produced ess. by Liam Howe who collaborated with Marina on her first album, this song stands out lyrically and )o much o musically, allowing listeners to 0 I fully embrace the chaos of Electra enough voice Heart's world. Similarly, "Starring Role" shows the more vulnerable 1 Diam onds' side of the album and accentuates Marina's impressive vocals: some- cond effort. thing sorely lacking in this album. With lyrics like "Sometimes I ignore you, so I feel in control/ Cause really, I adore you, and I st love the side of (the can't leave-you alone," the song is an Dream) that's really refreshingly honest and relatable. nd hollow," she said. "And If Electra Heart focused more kind of what I've really on the softer moments and less on d. The whole album is trying to tell the story of a corrupt that." glamour girl, the album would be at its core, that's what vaguely awesome. But, unfortu- Heart really is - an album nately, Electra Heart doesn't really vapid and shallow tracks leave room to want more. I spent my childhood similarly to how I imagine many of you did - without a care or worry in the world. As chil- dren, we act on impulse, explore ' the world around us and are intrigued by everything we touch. Whether hunting for lep- rechauns on the SARAH playground or SKALUBA starting a pot and pan rock band, my child- hood memories bring back a sense of imagination and raw creativity. But somewhere along the way, this innocent creativityis lost and tucked away for good. Eventually, we mature and begin to focus on more refined artistic skills. Whether it's playing a wind instrument, painting with water- color or writing prose, high school encourages us to nourish our cre- ativity and express our innermost thoughts and feelings. From honors wind ensemble to advanced paint- ing and drawing, the opportunity to engage our artistic side exists and we take advantage of it. This focus on creativity and fos- tering our artistic side is a large part of growing up. We're taught to be expressive, to think imaginatively and discover our passions. But this no longer proves useful when we pack up our bags and head to college. Of course, there are the gifted among us who come to the Univer- sity to attend the School of Art & Design or the School of Music, The- atre & Dance. But the majority of us enroll in LSA and are lost in a new community that favors intelligence and brains. We lose sight of our past hobbies and focus on getting the highes grade point average possible. Stumbling along as young freshmen at Michigan, we quickly learn that creativity is not a priority - in fact, it's almost frowned upon. Previous all-state musicians stow away their instruments for good, and passion- ate artists pack up their supplies once and for all. Our society today emphasizes the intellectual power of individu- als. Strength is seen in those who obtain high test scores, declare dif- ficult majors and maintain 4.0 GPAs despite takinga million credits. But what ever happened to the idea that we should follow our passion and engage our artistic side? We come to Michigan and are overwhelmed by the difficulty of huge lectures, the enormity of a 40,000-person student body and, of course, the freshman social scene. We inevitably lose sight of our high school passions as we begin a new chapter in our lives. It's difficult to balance an intense class load with a decent social life and still find free find time to write, paint or dance. The world in which we live favors intellectual ability over artistic ability. It favors methodology over, creativity. We're living in a soci- ety that pushes us to take as many classes as possible while still main- taining extraordinary GPAs and acing every exam. The strong dis- tinction between what's perceived as a difficult major as opposed to the -"easy" ones is evident in the way people respond when they ask, "So what exactly are you studying up in Michigan?" High GPAs are valued over creativity. As an undeclared junior according to my transcript, I find people's reac- tions to a Brain, Behavior and Cog- nitive Science concentration - as opposed to an English Language and Literature concentration - amus- ing. Granted, I'll most likely major in both, but the demeaning looks and skeptical nods associated with an English concentration are neither appreciated nor necessary.. The huge emphasis placed on sci- ence, math and business degrees won't be ending anytime soon. But that doesn't mean we should place our creative interests and passions on the backburner. Take advantage of all the student groups and clubs our University has to offer. Whether your passion lies in fashion, music, writing or art, it's up to you to hold onto your individual creativity and raw sense of imagination. We shouldn't only strive to stay passionate about old interests but also work to develop new ones. At a University with so much to offer, we have the power to break societal norms and prove there's more to a well-rounded education than an immense class load and a spotless GPA. Part of what makes us such a diverse campus is the past experi- ences and creative abilities we each bring to Michigan. So don't bury your passion and lose sight of what excites you. Instead, foster your cre- ativity and make it a point to take advantage of groups like MDrawand the crazy courses that only our Uni- versity could offer. Sarah Skaluba can be reached at sskaluba@umich.edu. Follow her on Twitter at @SSkaluba. As the 100-plus-degree days hopefully become fewer and farther between, it's that exciting time of year when over- achievers receive their syllabi for their falll coursework and delve in. MICHAEL When they SMALLEGAN take that head start on the jour- ney along that nearly sacred roadmap - the syllabus - very few will stop to think about the document itself. The syllabus is undoubtedly a product of the hard work of educators who thought a lot about how a coherent narrative will unravel over 13 weeks. It's probably the result of multiple iterations of - the course and reflection on what went well and what needed to be changed. It demarcates readings, prob- lem sets, exams and all the other familiar mechanisms of a well-oiled course. Let's take one step further back and examine the syllabus from there. The document is a collection of concepts organized around a central theme. Either tradition or innovation decreed that these concepts should be taught together, that they are somehowunified and that learn- ing them all together would be more beneficial than learning them separately. Butisthatreallythecase?Cer- tainly the story of British colo- nialism segues nicely into the story of the American Revolu- tion. So for some history courses, a narrative style works perfectly. Perhaps for most of the trivium, a story format fits nicely, but what of the quadrivium? Of math, cell biology or physics? I can vividly recall multiple instances in which, sitting in class last fall, my internal nar- rative sounded like this: "Hey, what? We're learning this now? I could have used this math concept three weeks ago in my physics class!" Actually, at times, the voice in my head is a bit more vulgar when expressing distaste, but you get the idea. Ideas are further catego- rized not only into syllabi and courses, but also into depart- ments. And with those depart- ments trying to determine the overlap between courses and the proper ordering of courses, there just isn'tenough time and communication within depart- ments to have the perfect coherent ordering of ideas and classes and to completely mini- mize overlap. So, as long as we have syllabi, we may learn how to find the cross product of two' vectors in three different class- es, or by bad luck - or good luck, depending on your view - we may never run across Lagrange multipliers. We have both the technology and the understanding of how concepts build on each other to take a more systematic and strategic approach to pedagogy. So what would school without classes and narratives and syl- labi look like? It would be more individu- alized - we have the IT infra- structure to track the concepts each student has mastered. Though this is a bit more granu- lar than tracking classes mas- tered, the process is the same. It would be easier - we know that building concepts on top of what you've already learned is easier than skipping steps. Fur- thermore, when you have a solid foundation, it takes much less time to learn new ideas. Monday, July 9, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com5 CONTRIBUTE TO THE COVERSATION Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and viewpoints. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while viewpoints should be 550-850 words. Both must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. Send submissions to tothedaily@michigandaily.com Syllabi 2.,0 It would be harder to teach - certainly having 80 people learning the same thing at the same time presents some "effi- ciencies" for the education provider, and in the past these aspects have trumped teach- ing the concepts students need at the time and in the order the students need them. It's a huge challenge to provide a more modular education, but chal- lenges exist to be overcome. Syllabi may not be effective for all classes. Already, online courses and TED videos are providing more modular, compact concepts packaged in 10- to 20-minute videos. When you walk away from a TED video, you have a new idea in hand, and you're ready to use it. That concept doesn't need to be embedded in a 13-week format for you to grasp it. Software products such as Knewton and Cogni- tive Tutor implement "adap- tive learning," which actively tracks what students know and what they are having trouble learning, and then measures out exactly where they need further teaching. So, the questions become: How long will it take higher education to adopt new meth- ods? Who will be a part of find- ing solutions to the challenges? Will it be you? Michael Smallegan can be reached at smallmic@umich.edu.