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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 20, 1995)
Battalion ' sday • June; The Battalion • Page 3 Tuesday • June 20, 1995 *a>*. - nil' i of the playefi jmmer jobsa r ill illegal rr s a flat rate rcollegiate o: said thatr it would alsc . a lot of talks: ;r some athler. of money, ami better players ly its players.’ \yers not only r their person g the problen as, kids thit think thereiss , except to re: k that mostcc ,his area arer. TS URDU! irs this si 11 need to I lys) for to id repainM arking arf! reet will d) d) lue) PA h of Rd. ling 47, When y Q]} >lease ;aivadOi Holy-hype, Batman — FOREVER is here Film deserves its huge audiences Seal, U2 make soundtrack soar Movie Review Batman Forever Starring Hal Kilmer, Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones Rated PG-13 Playing at Hollywood *16 and Schulman 6 ★★★ 1/2 (out of five) By Wes Swift The Battalion Director Joel Schumacher said in a recent interview that he wanted his newest picture. Batman Forever, to feel just like a comic book. He succeeded. The third installment of the caped crusader’s saga is easily the most dazzling, stunning and en tertaining Batman film yet. Where the first Batman left audi ences oohing and ahhing over the scenery and cinematography. Nicole Kidman play's Batman's love interest in Batman Forever. Batman For ever uses high-tech computer ani mation and superb light to climb up another rung on the visual ladder. Val Kilmer takes over the lead role as thg D ar k Knight, Gotham City’s protec tor and local billionaire, Bruce Wayne. This time he battles Harvey “Two-Face” Dent (Tom my Lee Jones), a former district attorney who blames Batman for the incident that turned him into a psychotic freak, and the Riddler (Jim Carrey), a criminal genius bent on the demise of billionaire Wayne. The gruesome tag team con cocts a complex scheme that will make the Riddler the most pow erful man in the world and end Batman’s crime-fighting days. At the same time, Wayne falls in love with Dr. Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman), a criminal psy chologist obsessed with his crime-fighting alter-ego, and takes in Dick Grayson (Chris O’Donnell), a young circus per former who watches his family die at Two-Face's hands. The plot rolls along like a comic book storyline. Each sub plot seems to stray in its own di rection, giving the audience a look at Dick Grayson’s thirst for revenge against Two-Face, the love “triangle” between Batman, Wayne and Meridian and the Riddler’s schemes. But as the film moves along, each situation becomes slowly woven into an action-packed tapestry. Kilmer plays a much more convincing Batman adding a darker, more romantic, gothic side to the Dark Knight that predecessor Michael Keaton lacked. Jones and Kidman give solid performances, and O’Don nell as Grayson/ Robin plays the roll with a surprising tough-guy quality. As Dr. Meridien, Kidman plays the good-girl-who-loves- dark-mysterious-men type and adds a little something extra to the film’s token romance. Two- Face gives Jones a chance to shed the conservative, tough-as- nails personality he usually gets stuck with. Two-Face is off the beaten path, and Jones lets watchers know that he enjoys playing the role. i wf' i ' Album Review Various Artists Batman Forever Atlantic Records ★★★ (out of five) V. - t ^ % / Chris O'Donnel plays Robin in the sidekick's first appearance in the Batman movies. While no one role dominates this film, Carrey’s performance stands above the rest. He care fully tip-toes down the line be tween his trademark zaniness and a dark psychosis that should surprise audiences. Carrey’s Riddler iipnit just Ace Ventura in a green suit. Joel Schumacher has succeed ed in making Batman Forever the world’s first cinematic comic book. By Michael Landauer The Battalion All good superheros need a rhythm section. And Batman has one of the best. The Batman Forever sound track offers a wide variety of artists and sounds and will lend a few hits to this summer’s mu sic charts. U2’s “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” is a standout full of energy. Lead singer Bono’s voice is full of power and feeling, and the music gives the song its thrust. Other songs lack U2’s energy but serve to create a mellow mood for the soundtrack. Seal produces the best of the soulful songs with “Kiss From A Rose.” Seal’s lyrics are the most poetic on the soundtrack. Seal’s voice works well with the music to make “Kiss From A Rose” the collection’s most gripping song. Eddi Reader comes closer to matching Seal’s efforts with her pleasant voice on “Nobody Lives Without Love” than Mazzy Starr’s mellow song, “Tell Me Now.” “Where Are You Now?” by Brandy also fits the quiet mood, but it just can’t compare to Seal’s accomplishment. The Offspring offers a con trast to the mood songs, adding a much-needed punk element to the compilation. Although it starts as a bouncy tune, “Smash It Up” does just what it says. Lead singer Dexter Holland sings, (or screams) “We’re gonna scream and shout till my dying day.” “Smash It Up” carries the same amount of energy as U2’s track and does it with a kick. Nick Cave’s “There is a Light” is a dramatic, rhythmic tune that gives this soundtrack a dark side. The Devlins offer a similar song with “Crossing the River,” but it is a little less mellow, re lying more on its steady rhythm. Method Man’s “The Rid dler,” the album’s only rap song, creates a deranged pic ture of Jim Carrey’s charac ter in the movie. Unfortu nately, Method Man’s sound is hollow, and “The Riddler” ends up lacking depth. Michael Hutchence (INXS) contributes a remake of an old Iggy Pop song, “The Passen ger.” The song has a steady beat, and combined with Hutchence’s vocals, it creates an intriguing sound. The song grabs the listener’s attention. Few other songs are able to draw in the listener. Sunny Day Real Estate’s “8” and The Flaming Lips’ “Bad Days” carry some ap peal, but neither song adds much to the mood or the en ergy of the soundtrack. At times the music is just too slow. But the slower tracks may be preferred by listeners when compared to the noise offered by PJ Har vey on “One Time Too Many.” Given the other high- energy offerings on this com pilation, listeners could do without Harvey’s distorted screaming voice. The contrast between the songs makes this soundtrack an interesting compilation. It suc ceeds in bringing together a good mix of mellow poetry and loud, penetrating tracks. Considering the film for which these songs were chosen, the broad mix should be no surprise. Although the whole collec tion is unremarkable, certain performances make it a solid soundtrack. U2, Seal, The Offspring and Hutchence all offer songs that do more than just create the soundtrack’s polar moods. Each of these performers has taken a Batman project, given it wings and made it fly on its own. Seal Screaming Fields fails at pop-culture publicity Album Review Sonic Youth Screaming Fields of Love DGC ★★ 1/2 (out of five) By Libe Goad The Battalion Sonic Youth seems to be just out to make a buck with its April release. Screaming Fields of Sonic Love. The sonic clan catalogs its pre- DGC recordings on a nifty compi lation released in time for the Lol- lapalooza tour that it’s headlining this year. Coincidence? Don’t think so. Despite the band’s question able intentions, this album guides the lis tener through the highlights of the band’s un derground sound, covering I Dreamed I Dream” songs like from the band’s 1982 self-titled. The band seems to follow cir cular trends in its music, alter nating between hard-core noise and more melodic guitar and singing. “Teen Age Riot,” “Eric’s Trip” and “Candle” capture Sonic Youth’s melodic, atonal sounds that Sonic Youth fans have come to know and love. Screaming Fields of Sonic Love features an edited version of “Teen-Age Riot,” which Moore says in a press release is “about the kids who don’t give a f—k about the prez and his pals, but they hang on every solipsistic syl lable floating frothily from J. Mascis’ [of Dinosaur Jr.] lipz.” The band also has a satirical version of Madonna’s “Into the Groove,” a humorous deviation from the band’s usual straight forward speak against pop cul ture’s apathy. Moore sings like a sarcastic, lazy Madonna, randomly adding ssimples of her voice. But this pop-culture marketing attempt contradicts Sonic Youth’s underground image and appears to be diversion from its “riot trail.” Moore goes solo but does not depart from Sonic style By Amy Uptmor The Battalion Album Review Tfiurston Moore King DGC *** 1/2 (out of five) Thank the music gods for Thurston Moore. Not only has he fronted Sonic Youth, but he has come into his own as a musician and songwriter. Psychic Hearts does not quite have Sonic Youth’s characteristic abrasiveness, but it is by no means a large departure from the band’s sound. The 15 songs are moody, occasionally angry and always noisy. Thurston Moore does not have as much of an edge without his fellow bandmate, Kim Gordon. But Moore has created a hybrid Sonic Youth style on this album that is good enough to keep fans from missing the band’s traditional style. Moore brings nothing short of rage to the album’s title track, where he threatens to take revenge on people from an abused loved one’s past. Despite the apparent fury in Moore’s voice and lyrics, this song is surprisingly poignant — not exactly what listeners would expect from the leader of a ground-breaking punk band. But Sonic Youth fans will love "Hang Out,” which has the band’s trademark sound. Thurston Moore The album might be better off without the last track, “Ele gy for All the Dead Rock Stars,” a noisy 19-minute long instrumental that cycles through three-minute repetitive guitar riffs. Although most of the instrumentation on Psychic Hearts sounds the same, it is still outstanding with the contributions from Moore’s bandmates from Son ic Youth. Psychic Hearts exposes Thurston Moore as an im pressive songwriter who is more than capable of standing on his own. He runs the spectrum of emo tions without ever sounding pathetic or whiny. The MTV Movie Awards Show succeeds where Oscars fail Michael Landauer Aggielife Editor A nd the golden popcorn goes to ... It just doesn’t seem like a pres tigious trophy. But that is what makes the MTV Movie Award show so fun to watch because it doesn’t take itself seriously. When you consider all the show has to offer, it doesn’t seem like it should give the Oscars much competition. The two shows don’t compete, of course, but if I had to live on a deserted island and could only take one movie award show with me (I’ve been faced with this question many times), I would take MTV’s. In short, the MTV Music Awards kick Oscar’s ass. MTV has cooler stars, an incredible stage, complete with an elevated phone booth- type entrance for presenters, and Courtney Cox (even if she did look worse than anyone ever thought possible). The Academy Awards has some things that MTV is lack ing. Take the opening act every year, for example. Wow! It never ceases to entertain people. Or is it that it never entertains people? I forget. But the Academy Awards does have Price Waterhouse to protect the sealed en velopes that contain the su- per-top-secret winner’s names. Now that is prestige. But who cares? MTV had 1-900 numbers. That may not be prestigious, but it is funny to think that MTV actually made money off of poor saps with nothing better to do than call up and vote 100 times for Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock as the best on-screen couple. Now that’s democracy. And what do we get from the Oscars? Pure dictator ship. Yeah, they say they vote, but rarely does a film win big and do well with the public. It’s all a con spiracy led by Paul Newman and a conglomerate of other salad dressing companies. MTV chooses to honor the bad movies that we all like. Speed was not a good movie. Neither was Dumb and Dumber. But we don’t always like good movies. If there is one thing that MTV taught us as we grew up, it is that crap entertains as much as quality. However, it is impor tant to take note of which award show honored Hoop Dreams this year — MTV’s. Sometimes when justice isn’t done, it takes the rebellious, young award show to do the de cent thing and recognize innovative work. Aside from a few mo ments of seriousness, the awards show stuck to the crazy categories and raked in the best accep tance speeches we have ever seen. Seeing Jim Carrey share his award with himself — both he and himself were nominated in the same category for different movies — was truly touching. The most notable differ ence between the Oscars and MTV’s awards lies in how each show presents the nomi nees for best song. While the Oscars take the cheesy Broadway-style route, MTV chose one band with three chords and gave them 2 1/2 minutes. In retrospect, how can you have an awards show without the Ramones singing Madonna’s “I’ll Remember” as part of a melody? And never would the Os cars think to have the cast from “Welcome Back Kotter” act out a Fkilp Fiction scene when presenting it as a nomi nee for best picture. But we should beware — this is not our fathers’ award show. The MTV Movie Awards is for people who have gotten a taste of the channel’s creativity and can’t Jim Carrey shows that Dumb and Dumber is winner — on MTV. settle for anything else. If someone would just beat up whoever did Courtney Cox’s hair and make-up, the award show would be poised to make America forget the Oscars. And when forced to choose an award show to take with us on our trip to a deserted island, we would all agree — “We want our MTV.”