The University News (Irving, Tex.), Vol. 26, No. 1, Ed. 1 Wednesday, September 5, 2001 Page: 5 of 15
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The University News
Arts & Entertainment
September 5, 2001 5
Bard insulted, Blue Grass celebrated
by FS
The Bard must be twirling in his tomb
over O (wide release), an updating of Othello
which relocates the tale of jealousy
and death to a posh southern prep
school. The title character (Me-
khi Phifer), the solitary African-
American among the students, is
a basketball phenom engaged in a
romance with the dean's daughter
Desi (Julia Stiles) but betrayed by
his team-mate Hugo (Josh Hartnett),
the coach's son, who resents his
father's lack of attention.
The makers have tried to trans-
fer the plot mechanics of the play
into their version, but the result is
unhappy: the scarf business seems
absurd in this context, for instance,
and having the young lovers spend
a night at a motel called The Wil-
lows hardly constitutes a proper
homage.
The release of O was delayed for two years
because it was thought, after the Columbine
shootings, that it could lead to more campus
tragedies. Not to worry: the picture is so
dull that it is more likely to incite snoring
than violence.
Down from the Mountain (Regent
Highland Park) is a toe-tapping record of
a Nashville concert featuring the musi-
cians who contributed to the soundtrack
of the Coen Brothers' O Brother, Where
Art Thoul The picture is entirely con-
ventional, with simple camera work
and predictable backstage and rehearsal
inserts, but the blue-grass music is great
and the performances exhilarating (the
late John Hartford, already ill at time of
filming, makes a genial host, and his ren-
dition of "Big Rock Candy Mountain " is
a highlight). It's almost as much fun as
Brother was.
For its first forty minutes, Jeepers Creep-
ers (wide release) manages to be a canny,
unsettling little horror flick about two bicker-
ing, college-age siblings (Gina Philips and
Justin Long) who encounter a menacing killer
while traveling home down an isolated high-
way during spring break. So long as writer-
director Victor Salva keeps the atmosphere
claustrophobic and the villain in the shadows,
the picture is genuinely scary. But when the
photo courtesy of Dimension Films
Desi (Julia Stiles) and Odin (Mekhi Phi fer) share a rare
happy moment in O , an updating of Shakespeare's "Othello. "
kids' foe is unmasked and other characters are
added, it turns into a dumb, repetitive chase
movie, and the supposedly shocking ending
photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures
Tilda Swinton gives a memorable performance, as a
Nevada mother blackmailed when trying to help her
son, in The Deep End.
is telegraphed too obviously by the title tune.
If you're devoted to this sort of screamer,
half a loaf may be better than none; if not,
steer clear
Scottish actress Tilda Swinton gives a
marvelously controlled performance as a
mother trying to conceal a death for which she
believes her teen son responsible, and being
blackmailed for her trouble, in The Deep End
(wide release), a stylish if flawed thriller based
on a crime novel from the 1940s.
The mystery elements of the plot
come across as more than a trifle
creaky when updated to the present,
but the Lake Tahoe shore proves a
perfect setting for the piece, the glis-
tening surfaces suggesting a tempest
roiling beneath them; and Swinton
transcends the limitations of the
genre to provide a wrenchingly au-
thentic portrait of a mom harried by
familial demands and extraordinary
circumstances. This is a very good
little film.
At the opposite end of the cin-
ematic spectrum is Bubble Boy (wide
release), an incredibly moronic and
cruelly insulting would-be comedy
about a young man afflicted with
immune deficiency who travels cross-
country in a protective plastic suit to stop the
girl he loves from marrying a jerk.
Jake Gyllenhaal, a talented actor, is forced
to do a Jerry Lewis imitation in the
title role, and the script is so blithely
offensive—ridiculing not only the
physically disabled but virtually
every religious and ethnic group one
can think of—that even in the year of
Freddy Got Fingered and Rat Race,
the result is especially obnoxious.
Woody Allen, old and wizened as
he is, wants us to believe that Helen
Hunt would fall for him in The Curse
of the Jade Scorpion (wide release),
a feeble period comedy that aims to
mix Double Indemnity with Tracy-
Hepburn style badinage.
Allen plays a 1940 insurance
investigator who fights constantly
with his firm's new efficiency expert
(Hunt); but when the two are hypnotized to
rob their own clients, the experience suppos-
edly leads them to realize they've loved each
other all along. The premise is slight, and the
fact that Woody's script contains little that's
humorous beyond a few one-liners he hoards
for himself makes the picture more annoying
Collegium
continued from pg. 4
belongs because we went to the place where
the composer had sat and written the music
and we sang it right there in the architecture
where it was meant to be, not just m a UD
music room,"Thornton said.
Junior Sean Lewis was a member of Colle-
gium's Schola, a group of male choir members
Fr. Ralph, professor of music, organized to
Sing Gregorian chant during the trip
"I liked the focus of the trip as a musical pil-
grimage. We weren't merely giving concerts;
but we were giving our God-given talents back
to God in the liturgy of the Mass in churches
and cathedrals where it's been said for millions
of years," he said.
The choir also spent several days in Rome
and surrounding areas, including singing at
Mass in Saint Peter's for UD in celebration
of the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of
the Rome program. Collegium Cantoruin is
a campus choir that sings at First Friday Mass
at Cistercian Abbey each month and at various
other events throughout the year.
A subscription to
The University News
will keep your relatives
up to date on the
goings-on at UD.
A year-long paper
subscription is $35.
For more information,
contact the newsroom
at x5089.
Don't Forget: TGIT in
the Rat Thursday night
Interested in things musical,
artistic or dramatic in nature?
Want to write about them? I seek
opinionated individuals wishing
to preview, review, or state a point
of view. For more information
contact Michael C. Lyons:972-
579-0078. Send submissions
to: unews@udallas.edu; send
recommendations or salutations to:
ofspector@hotmail.com.
Videos in the Village
An exhibition focusing on artists' video
projects opens with a public reception
Friday, Sept. 7 in the Beatrice Haggerty-
Haggerty Arts Village. Steffen Bodde-
ker and Christine Bisetto will serve as
curators.
Coming
Events
• The Push Kings
The Gypsy Tea Room
Sept. 6
(214) 74-GYPSY
• Burning Airlines
Trees
Sept. 6
(214) 748-5009
• The White Stripes
Trees
Sept. 13
• The Crystal Meth-
od
Bronco Bowl Theatre
Sept. 20
(888) 597-7827
• Wilco
The Gypsy Tea Room
Sept. 21
• Pedro the Lion
Trees
Sept. 25
• Tricky
Deep Ellum Live
Sept. 26
(214) 373-8000
• Beulah
Rubber Gloves Re-
hersal Studio
Sept. 28
(940) 387-7781
• Built to Spill
The Gypsy Tea Room
Sept. 30
• Candide
Bass Hall, Ft. Worth
Sept. 7 and 9
1-877-212-4280
galleries
• "Mondrian"
Dallas Museum of
Art
JER Chilton Galleries
through Nov. 25
(214) 922-1200
theatre
• Blood Brothers
Theater Three
through Sept. 30
(214) 871-3300
• Hedda Gabler
Dallas Theatre Cen-
tre
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Gaunt, Sarah. The University News (Irving, Tex.), Vol. 26, No. 1, Ed. 1 Wednesday, September 5, 2001, newspaper, September 5, 2001; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth201342/m1/5/: accessed May 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Dallas.