The Michigan Daily - We/kt., 4. - Thursday, November 9, 1995 - 9B

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'Swing' is entertainment
for 'twentysomething'

Mmmm ... Menthol play their fresh, fun and
cool brand of music at the Shelter Friday

With songs about lust, greed and
rock'n'roll, what more could you ask
for?
The minty fresh and tasty band
Menthol will play an all ages show at
the Shelter In Detroit on Friday with
openers and Capitol Records
labelmates Triple Fast Action. Come'
on out and see them play for only $6.
Really, It's only $6. That's less than a
movie, and you can even smoke and
drink while watching the band. What
more could you ask for? A good
show? Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Don't
be late.

Primus tell their 'Tales From the Punchbowl'


Les Claypool and his band of funky
bandits Primus will be slappin' the
bass all night long when they play
the Fox Theatre on Sunday night.
The mad-cap funksters will share the
stage with Arizona country-rockers
the Meat Puppets.
Join Primus as they sail the seas of
cheese with their wacky and
dubious sounds which will have your
feet tapping and your ass groovin.'
Their new album 'Tales From the
Punchbowl' offers many story-like

songs, some not suitable for small
children or those with heart
conditions.
Hear the tales of Winona taking her
big brown beaver Into the back of
Jerry's racecar (we will offer no
guesses as to what it all means). Join
the band for an evening of enigmatic
enchantment. My name is Mud, and I
am funky. Tickets are still available
at the box office, or charge by phone
at (810) 433-1515. Showtime Is 7:30
p.m., and tickets are a mere $21.50.

'Seven' reigns supreme over latest gloom genre


By Christopher Corbett
Daily Arts Writer
In "Seven," the king of the new
"gloom" film genre (a trend which in-
cludes "Copycat," "Strange Days" and
"Pulp Fiction"), we see a man force-fed
to death. His body balloons until it
bursts. We see his enormous stomach in
a slick bag in the dimly-lit morgue.
Later, the killer informs us, with his
own warped logic, that the deceased
was overweight to begin with. He was
guilty of gluttony; he deserved his pun-
ishment.
If we see dreary films like "Seven" to
make our own lives seem brighter in
contrast, then what does that say about
our lives? Do we need to see a pound of
flesh sitting on a scale or hear the
ramblings of a maniac in order to feel
good when we exit the theater? Perhaps
"Seven" is correct in framing our world
in a gutter.
As the film's killer murders greedy
lawyers and diseased prostitutes, he
forces detectives to research the seven
deadly sins. He argues that we have to
regain our sense of morals. Pointing to
the corruption of society, the film seems
to say that we have been overlooking-
perhaps even accepting as normal -
what we once considered a sin.
And "Seven" succeeds in making us
draw parallels - in our cities, like the
nameless city in the film, we have grisly
murders and detectives working in the
shadows (at one point in the film, the
detectives appear as mere black
smudges on the screen). Even the killer

- faceless throughout much of the film
- comes across as capable of being
anybody's neighbor.
Why, then, do so many people line up
to see such gloom? "Seven" was num-
ber one at the box-office for four weeks
in a row. If our world is completely
dark, why would we want to see a film
about hell-on-earth anyway? Wouldn't
its mirror-image bore us?
Dismal movies aren't heralding the
corruption of our world as much as they
are offering us a different kind of film.
You can't walk away from "Seven"
without having felt twisted like a pret-
zel. The ending rubs our noses in the
dismalness; it seems to say, "You didn't
feel awful during the murders and the
madness? Well then, you asked for it:
FINISH HIM!"
In the end, "Seven" functions as a
healthy backlash from the recent moun-
tain of feel-good films like "Forrest
'I'm so proud to be an American and
everything is Disney' Gump." Like
moody and shady Film Noir as opposed
to the musicals back in the '40s, or the
horror films as opposed to the fairy
tales ("E.T." or "Field of Dreams") of
the '80s, gloom films feel gritty instead
of silky-smooth. And many of us enjoy
this change.
Still, just before I saw "Seven," my
friend was telling me about his job
helping people who suffer from schizo-
phrenia - he recently took a few of
them out to Bill Knapp's. One man
believes he lives in a certain kind of
movie and says one-line quips. When I


i


Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman are the psychotic man's Forrest Gump.
heard the delusional thoughts of the onefallingsick doesn'tlastlong. Plenty
man in "Seven" who believes himself a ofpeople do, in fact, spendtheirtime-
Messiah, I thought for a moment that even devote their lives to - helping
"Seven" really does reflect an image of others. The gloomy "Seven"just points
our decaying civilization. to thunderstorms that roll in--between
But that feeling of despair, of every- our many clear, cloudless days.


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