Monday, August 13, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Monday, August 13, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 15 'Bourne' holds viewers' attention 'Bourne' again, the legacy continues with a new face By AKSHAY SETH DailyArts Writer I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't expecting much from the fourth installment of the Bourne series. Why? The same old reasons * any fan of the tril- ogy would likely The Boume list - No Damon,L no Greengrass and a plotline At Quality16 thatseemed like a and Rave direct, unimagi- native rip-off of Universal the first three films. In other words, the project had all the tell-tale signs of a Hol- lywood studio struggling to milk the last few dimes out of a franchise that didn't really need any more screen time. But as it so happens, "The Bourne Legacy," although flawed, isn't a complete failure: There's no point dancing around the most obvious mistake here - the storyline centers on the pain- fully dull premise that "there was never just one" super-spy. It's a cheap way to start off a reboot and the blandness behind it all never gives the script an opportunity to grab the audience. Instead, writer and.director Tony Gilroy ("Michael Clayton") leaves us thinking 'No shit. Would the United States of America really put all their money behind one program?' Of course not. But we are told to take this as some kind of unprec- edented revelation. The product of this revelation is Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner, "The Avengers"). Cross is a covert agent for Outcome, a government-funded agency with many of the same directives as Treadstone, the infamous program that produced Jason Bourne.. Interestingly, Gilroy chose to set the film along a timeline run- ning parallel to the events of "The Bourne Ultimatum." Most of the action takes place around the time Jason Bourne re-enters the coun- try and helps Pamela Landy expose the CIA's role in the illicit activities of the Treadstone Initiative. Con- sequently, the U.S. government is forced to do damage control to pro- tect many of the other beta stage training procedures still on the drawing board. Surprise, surprise - the first step of said "damage con- trol" involves terminating Outcome along with all of its agents. And thus, the manhunt begins. At its best, the action in the film is intelligent if not thrilling. Rather than Greengrass's shaky, seizure- inducing camera work, Gilroy opts for a more straight-laced approach to the fight sequences. For most of the movie, the gambit works. The stunts are well orchestrated and paced beautifully until we wind down towards the tail end of the film, which involves a drawn out Poorly-timed primaries City council elections should be non-partisan Last week's elections were - for the most part - quite uneventful. What seemed to dominate headlines, rather was the low voter turnout in Ann Arbor. With many people on summer vacation and even more students living elsewhere this summer, voter turnout 'Can you feel the love tonight?' motorcycle chase that fizzles away into an overwhelmingly unsatisfy- ing conclusion. The writing is similarly impres- sive yet hollow - missing the nuanced brilliance of the predeces- sors. The film manages to keep us engaged, but the excitement and unpredictability from the original trilogy is nowhere to be found. A bonus is the easy charisma behind Renner's acting. Yes, that magnetic vulnerability Matt Damon was able to create in Jason Bourne is not present in this film. But Renner remarkably manages to avoid Damon's shadow by some- how making us feel sorry for his character. As a result, we end up caring about Aaron Cross and this entire unfortunate mess he finds himself in. Is it the same way we felt about Bourne? No. But when all's said and done, you can only expect so much. was minimal. Absentee ballots are a way to combat this problem, but unfortunately many students do not seek out this option or are unaware that it exists. However, Ann Arbor City Council makes decisions that have a profound effect on studentlife, and many of the recipients of these decisions aren't physically present to voice their opinion for whom they feel represents them the best. City Council elections should be non- partisan and elections should only happen in November so that students have the opportunity to influence decisions that greatly affect them. Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2012, was the primary election day for Ann Arbor residents to vote for city council members, state represen- tatives and state senators. When polls closed on Tuesday, "pre- cinct 1-1 had counted 15 ballots (.77 percent of registered voters). Precinct 1-2 had counted four votes (49 percent of registered voters). Precinct 4-1 had count- ed eight ballots (39 percent of registered voters) while 3-2 had counted 59 ballots (2.79 percent of registered voters)." Low voter turnout is expected, and this year was no exception. With less than 1 percent of voters voting in many precincts,. this past election does not accu- rately represent the University's student body. Elections must be pushed back until November, or else Ann Arbor will continue to let a minority of residents deter- mine who will possibly represent them. This isn't not democracy and it certainly isn't represen- tative. Changing the day of the election is the simplest way to give students the opportunity to actively contribute to their com- munity. CAMPAIGN From Page 7 conspire to bring "insourcing" of Chinese laborers to the North Caro- lina district. The bylaws to do so can only be dodged if a Republican can- didate can oust Cam. Meet Marty - someone who wore Crocs to his mother's funeral - the best worst option for the partners in crime. Since his father refers to him as, "Richard Simmons' hobbit son" and his brother nicknames him, "Mouthful of pubes," Marty's only stimulus is his Jesus-loving, wouldn't-hurt-a-fat-kid nuclear family. The kin's character is exem- plified during a dinner-table confes- sional scene in which the Marty's wife voices her attraction to Drew Carey and an under-10 son admits to having a beer with an elderly man down the street, followed by Marty getting down to business with the obligatory squeezing of his spouse's jugs. The meat of the story marinates as the candidates one-up each other -via unconscionable and downright hilarious television ads - one of which borders on a certain Tommy Lee/Pam Anderson tape. Another rests on a candidate "adopting" the son of his opponent. It is entirely outrageous, butwhere would a farce be without that "Billy Madison"- caliber of folly? Unironically, the film ironi- cally illustrates the primo bullshit that pervades politics. Candidates, in some cases, don't wholly com- prehend the messages, plans and vernaculars they advocate. "The Campaign" exaggerates this stupid- ity in a fresh and effective manner. Cam and Marty make Hermain Cain (in his prime, mind you) speak like Ayn Rand. The only problem with "The Campaign" is its flagrant false start in avoiding banality and by spend- ing too much time with the lens on the air-conditioned commentators. Show us the race for crying out loud! Fortunately, the false start is, by and large, negligible. Through tools like a one-day- stand in a Porta-Potty and punch- ing a rugrat io the jowls, "The Campaign" succeeds for what it is: slapstick to produce guffaws, not redefine the comedy genre (see: "Ghostbusters"). During your post-showing dis- cussion with your cynical buddy, one question begs itself, "Did you laugh?" A simple three-letter word should suffice. And in a brisk 85 minutes, Cam's kindly son epito- mizes our director's LOL-fest, "Win at all costs." Jay Roach is a fierce competitor, like Usain Bolt - farci- cally speaking, of course. Time to act Last week, my hometown finally tog with climate change. And even received a considerable amount of if global warming isn't connected to rain after weeks of miserably high this particular drought, we still need temperatures and to take action to prevent ourselves minimal precipi- from inflicting further damage on our tation. It was a planet - before it's too late. welcome relief and a bit of a sur- prise - I was so accustomed to the It's time to lack of rain that I almost forgot address global that it's supposed MICHAEL to rain every now SPAETH warming. and then during the summer. Unfortunately, many people across the country have So far, President Barack Obama been suffering from an even more seems to be concerned about climate severe absence of rain. According change. In an interview with Roll- to the Aug. 7 Drought Monitor map, ing Stone earlier this year, Obama 52.27 percent of the U.S. and Puer- outlined a few steps that he wants to to Rico is "in moderate drought or take to help deal with global warm- worse and 38.48 percentis "in severe tog: "Doubling fuel-efficiency stan- drought or worse." The PBS New- dards on cars is going to take a whole sHour also noted during its Friday lot of carbon out of our atmosphere. broadcast that the U.S. Department We're going to continue to push on of Agriculture "now projects 10.8 bil- energy efficiency, and renewable lion bushels of corn to be produced," energy standards, and the promo- which is "the lowest average corn tion of green energy." He also believes yield in 15 years." that we can find a way to address cli- A few people have been citing mate change "that is entirely compat- global warming as the cause of recent ible with strong economic growth record-breaking hot temperatures and job creation - that taking steps, and droughts. In a recent op-ed for for example, to retrofit buildings all the Washington Post, James Hansen, across America with existing tech- who directs the NASA Goddard Insti- nologies will reduce our power usage tute for Space Studies, wrote that "it by 15 or 20 percent. That's an achiev- is no longer enough to say that global able goal, and we should be getting warming will increase the likelihood started now." of extreme weather and to repeat the In his op-ed, Hansen proposed caveat that no individual weather the establishment of "a gradually event can be directly linked to cli- rising fee on carbon collected from mate change. To the contrary, our fossil-fuel companies, with 100 per- analysis shows that, for the extreme cent of the money rebated to all legal hot weather of the recent past, there residents on a per capita basis" to help is virtually no explanation other than reduce global warming. He argued climate change." that "this would stimulate innova- While some aren't convinced that tions and create a robustclean-energy global warming is the cause of the economy with millions of new jobs." current drought, an increasing num- These ideas are certainly much ber of reputable voices are empha- more promising than those of Mitt sizing the monumental threats that Romney, who said in October that global warming poses for our planet. "we don'twknow what's causingtcli- In a recent op-ed for The New York mate change on this planet." His Times, Prof. Richard Muller from running mate, Paul Ryan, wrote in the University of California, Berke- December 2009, "Unilateral eco- ley declared he is "a converted skep- nomic restraint in the name of fight- tic" about global warming. He wrote ing global warming has been a tough that the results of a recent analysis sell in our communities, where much conducted by the Berkeley Earth of the state is buried under snow." Surface Temperature project "show But no matter what we decide to do, that the average temperature of the we need to make sure that we take earth's land has risen by two and decisive action to deal with climate a half degrees Fahrenheit over the change right now, before we damage past 250 years, including an increase our planet beyond repair. of one and a half degrees over the We can't wait until we're suffering most recent 50 years. Moreover, it from natural disasters to start seni- appears likely that essentially all of ously addressing global warming. We this increase results from the human have to take action now, so that these emission of greenhouse gases." natural disasters will never happen in If global warming is contributing the first place. to the current drought, then this sum- mer should be a loud wake-up call Michael Spaeth can be reached for people all over the country that at micspa@umich.edu we need to get serious about deal- Finance the arts New millage in A2 will enhance the city's individuality Ann Arbor: is considered by many to be one of the most well- known cultural hubs in Michigan. And while Michigan foot- ball games may attract many of the city's tourists, the art scene is a major part of what distinguishes Ann Arbor. To maintain this vibrant art scene, residents pay taxes. A proposed millage would replace the current Percent for Art program. Voters should support this new proposed millage as it promises to bring concerts and events to Ann Arbor that will make the city even more attractive to tourists, simultaneously giving residents a vibrant city in which to live and work. * Aftn11-nD dwght t'a ;do" F&Ye ... Asstinz" Breakfast -Lnh- rnh-Catering U of M's preferred Catering Service! We accept U of M Shortcodes! 251 East Liberty - Ann Arbor (734) 665-7513 www.afternoondelightcafe.com Buy 1 Sandwich and Receive a 2nd Sandwich of Equal or Lesser Value FREEI Lirnit One offer per customer with coupon. Cannot be combined with any other offer alid at Barry Bagels Ann Arbor location ONLY BAGELS Barry Bagels Westgate Shopping Center 2515 Jackson Ave, Ann Abor, M! 48103 (734) 662-243s www.barrybagels.com L Expires: August 19, 2012 - - - - - - - - - - J A ballot proposal that would change the way Ann Arbor pub- lic art is funded was announced Thursday night. City Council- member Christopher Taylor (D- Ward 3) is the primary sponsor of this proposal. According to Taylor, this art millage would cost the average household $10.97 a year. The current Per- cent for Art program takes away more than $2 million from vari- ous city funds and is extremely limiting. The proposed millage would be more-flexible and allow for temporary installments, con- certs and events. Ann Arbor is thriving through- out.the economic downturn com- pared to other cities in Michigan, This can be attributed, in part, to the individuality of the city. Ann Arbor's local government has the responsibility to serve its citizens beyond their basic rights and maintain an arts scene that separates it from other cities, thus encouraging tourism. This mill- age promises to do so, and voters should support it.