__ARTS The Michigan Daily Tuesday, March 26, 1991 Weapon is a perfect waste Page 5 The Hatfields and McCoys look tame The Perfect Weapon dir. Mark Disalle #yJon Rosenthal The Perfect Weapon moves across the screen like a sumo wrestler try- ing ballet. Clumsy and poorly con- ceived, the movie jerks along with- out providing even a complete plot line. How contrived is The Perfect Weapon? Let me count the ways. Kempo karate black belt Jeff Speakman plays Kempo karate black .elt Jeff Sanders. (It's his first film, so they probably didn't want to risk confusing him with a new name.) The Korean mafia wants Jeff's friend Kim, played by the sin- gularly-named Mako, to sell methamphetamines out of his an- tiques shop. (Obviously, they heard he was a dealer and just assumed.) He refuses and they insist and he re- uses and they kill him. So, Jeff has The Meatmen Crippled Children Suck Touch and Go The time was obviously here. The synchronicity was unmistakable: ur apartment was robbed over win- -Oer break and the thieves took most of stereo; I had flunked my first class, which was unfortunately the last class I needed in order to gradu- ate; the United States was about to break out those fuel-air doohickeys in the Persian Gulf; the heat in my building never quite seemed warm enough; and yet another woman told me, "Mike, you're just too damn Weird." So I broke out the new Meatmen album. OK, so there's not such thing as a new Meatmen album: everything is almost a decade old (which scares the crap out of me: "I was barely a teenager when these guys were angsting out like this? Sheesh... "), but boy, does it hit that little mys- terious spot in all of us (you have one, too) where there is no political *onsciousness, where there is no rea- son and no fairness, where no one cuires for you and you don't care buck, where Jesse Helms and Abbie Hbffman both choke on their food, where that elementary school pe- dophile-turned-gym-teacher finally has that heart attack that you've bien waiting for, and where Julie Andrews pierces her nipples, but wets hepatitis in the process. That shot called... uh, called... well, you know what it's called. The album itself is pretty lame, mostly cuts from either their origi- nal demo tapes ("Orgy of One," "ve got a Problem" and that clas- si John Lennon tribute, "One Down Three to Go") or from their '82 7" to hunt down the bad guys in order to avenge his dead friend. Occasionally the contrived scenes are matched up with plastic dialogue. After he chases his friend's killer down the street, he stops to catch his breath and four big guys, who all look like George Michael on steroids, surround him. One pulls a knife and delivers one of filmdoms most original lines: "Give us your money." Another of the film's great lines, "You came into my house to kill me, but you leave with one of my people. Weird deal," is delivered by a Korean mob- ster who completely forgives Jeff for having invaded his house and beaten up all his guards. Paramount hails Jeff as the new Bruce Lee. He's not. Bruce Lee's movies never won an Academy award and they honestly didn't de- serve one, but they did have a certain flair that made them entertaining. Perhaps it was those strange, stran- gled-cat noises that Bruce used to make when he fought, or his acro- batic style, or maybe it was just the '70s, but his films were campy and fun. Jeff, well, Jeff just can't cut it. He takes himself too seriously, although not seriously enough to shave. Yes, he strives for that Yassir Arafat/Don Johnson look. Director Mark Disalle deserves a large part of the blame for the prob- lems in The Perfect Weapon. The most glaring error in the film is the inclusion of the love interest that fails to materialize. The film shows Jeff training as a child, all the while exchanging shy glances with one of the girls in his dojo. He grows. She grows. Their glances across the dojo floor become infused with hor- mones. She disappears. She reappears at Kim's funeral and this time glances at Jeff with disgust. She dis- appears. She reappears for the last time at the dojo after Jeff has proved himself, and this time she glances with approval. They never speak to each other. It is quite obvi- ous that at least one or two scenes, those that would explain all this glancing, ended up on the cutting room floor. The fight scenes do tend to be well done. When Jeff takes out the mutant George Michael clones, he does so in about a second, gyrating around with his hands and feet flail- ing. It looks good. If you enjoy scenes such as these, then this movie is for you, because there is, on aver- age, a fight scene every five minutes throughout the main body of the film, and that increases to one every two minutes at the end. The producers of this film are obviously trying to cash in on the present spate of martial-arts films. It would seem that the best way to do this would be to make one with an original script and good produc- tion values. Obviously, though, this has yet to occur to them. THE PERFECT WEAPON is show- ing at Showcase and Briarwood. by Diane Frieden It wasn't until the mid-18th century that scholars began to distinguish between the Greek and Roman cultures instead of grouping them under the heading of one ancient civilization. This distinction arose from the finding of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and it spawned a debate as to which culture had truly attained perfection and classicism. It also was the inspiration for the exhibition Greece vs. Rome: The Search for the Classical Spirit , now on display at the University Museum of Art. The Museum has its own practice program, which enables students to learn the how-to's of curating. At the culmination of the program, they organize their own exhibitions. Monica Nagler and Carole Campbell are students who have combined their interests in archaeology and the fine arts with this controversy to create the current presentation of ancient art and artifacts. Representations of both cultures are in the exhibition, with evidence on each side to prove that it is the most worthy of classic perfection. The analysis by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett of Greek monuments is the most winning argument on the side of Greece, illustrating the aesthetic beauty and scientific use of their art and architecture. The printmaker Piranesi sparked the debate in Roman favor by depicting its architecture. However, at the end of his career, after studying the Doric architecture of three Greek temples, he concluded that all of the ancient cultures must be observed to have achieved great architecture. Also included in the exhibition is work done in the 18th century that falls under the synthesis category, using elements of both civilizations. Most noticeably in the museum exhibition is the synthesis work of Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, employing both Greek and Roman classical designs in their 19th century ceramic pitcher and candlesticks. Another pair of candlesticks by John Carter, these constructed in silver, copy the Corinthian order of columns from the 18th century perspective. While neither the argument of superiority nor its outcome may be of as great importance in the 20th century, Campbell and Nagler say, it made Western civilizations aware of the place that ancient culture has in present-day art, interior design and architecture. Nagler and Campbell agree that their two favorite pieces are the Roman wall fragments and inscriptions dating from the second century B.C. to the fourth century A.D., and the copy of the Portland Vase by Wedgwood. "They symbolize the beginning of classicism and the end of the search," said Campbell. Indeed, the Portland Vase has a specific history - originally the frieze was thought to be of a Roman lifestyle, but as it switched hands, it was termed a Greek piece. Greece Vs. Rome is a solidly organized exhibition. The art is arranged in logical sequence along both sides of the hall, one wall for the Greek and the other for the Roman art, meeting at the Portland Vase. Artifacts are. See WAR, Page 8 I: ', ffi t Y b ' "'Odes~*9__ .*e~,fs what the Meatmen are all about. The boys in Stetsasonic: the world's only hip-hop band, or just a bunch of -Mike Kuniavsky suckers? You be the judge. Stetsasonic Blood, Sweat and No Tears Tommy Boy As the Churchillian title indi- cates, Stetsasonic's latest record at- tempts to resonate with a mythic African-American populism. Un- fortunately, this shot at a trans- Brooklyn universalism is undercut by the title track's sucker MC dises and an obsessive clinging to the clich6s that they claim to have in- vented. The forced rhymes of "Blood, Sweat and No Tears" like "Stompin' MC's like a pesky ro- dent/ Outsellin' 'em all like Bazooka does Trident" are not a vic- torious reclamation of the hip-hop throne like LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out," but a sadly re- gressive grasp at the glory days. Despite the efforts of Prince Paul's "To Whom It May Concern" to create an "and the band played on" epic of Grand Funk Railroad pro- portions by basing the groove on Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World," the song only serves to strengthen the historic, not epochal, glorification of "the world's only hip-hop band." By the time you get around to the dreadful collaboration with the Force M.D.'s ("Do You Remember This") and "Walkin' in the Rain," it becomes obvious that the trans- Diaspora community that they envi- sion includes women only because they need someone to party with. And when they re-mix "Free South Africa," you realize why they're grasping to the old days when they were the world's only hip-hop band. - Peter Shapiro Sweet talkin' hippies sing the blues They're not pretty, but they probably aren't trying to be. A friend of mine, when exposed to a photo of Blues Traveler, cringed and said, "They're so ugly!" Their looks, however, have absolutely no bearing on whether or not they can jam for a few hours, as they proved at Rick's on Thursday night when they played the funky music that their fans like to dance to. The band includes a few of rock's more creative musicians. Guitarist Chan Kinchla, playing a plain red strat affected only by a cry-baby, was continually impressive. It was not an excessive, Van Halen-like flashiness, but rather something which relied on how Kinchla felt the music. On many occasions he banged harmonics out of his guitar's neck instead of relying on standard strumming, completely changing. the direction of the tunes. Other times, when Kinchla was just play- ing chords, he made great use of his hair, not caring if the fans in the front were wearing raincoats or not. They did not play as many covers as they usually do, with the excep- tion of the Stones' "Miss You" and the finale, which singer John Popper introduced the last number as- "something from the '60s... the- 1860s, that is," before easing into a See WEEKEND, Page V ANN AROR THEATERS1 & 2.-5TH AVE. AT LIBERTY 761.9700 Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (PG-13) Cyrano De Bergerac(PG) 5g.. FJPrCe 4/11/91cor RPRESENT THIS COUPON WITH PRHASED TICKET THRU Although set in a California city, the documentary Berkeley in the '60s is a tightly orchestrated movie highlighting the events, moods and tones that radically changed the morals and. life of Americans. "(Using Berkeley as an example) is the best microcosm to look at all the country in the '60s," *says director Mark Kitchell. "We used the events (in Berkeley) to talk about the issues." Highly praised for its directing and content, Berkeley in the '60s could possibly be the most widely viewed documentary today. "We've been seen by over 100,000 people al- ready, and we haven't even been on television yet," says Kitchell. Documentaries are not usually mainstream material. The public views them as boring, something made for historical purposes or to view on an educational public broadcasting station. For many peo- ple, history is not supposed to be en- tertaining, but rather intellectual. But Berkeley in the '60s is both. It's narrated by individuals who took part in the movements, some leaders and some followers. They chronicle the movie by describing their part in the events, starting with the Free Speech Movement in the early '60s and moving to the overtaking of a school parking lot to create the People's Park in the late '60s. Each event is described in detail, but from a very human perspective. Historical events, captured on film clips that Kitchell spent .10 years archiving, are interspersed with the. feelings of the participants. "Good documentaries are about real people and real lives," says Kitchell. "The events in the '60s succeeded in rais- ing questions more than finding an- swers." It shows how the Free Speech Movement, relatively tame compared to the later Anti-War Movement, "was a success - it gave people a sense of accomplish- ment," Kitchell says. Berkeley may have been a hot spot of activism in the '60s, but it' wasn't the only one. "There was Madison, Ann Arbor, Gainsville, Florida," says Kitchell. "Didn't you have SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) in Ann Arbor?" Berkeley in the '60s is being shown this week at the Michigan ~ Theater through April 1. - Mary Beth Barber i __- U U m The Second Annual Pre-Med Students' Symposium "A Kaleidoscope of Information: From Education to Application" Featuring Keynote Speaker: Dr. Francis Collins, M.D. #I ATTENTION GRADUATE STUDENTS!!! Symposium Topics Medical School Preparation Saturday, April 6, 1991 9:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. North Campus Commons Information and registration forms available at ,8.00PM Wednesday March 27 .{ ,f 1.