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The Behrend Beacon
The
Widow of
Saint-Pierre’
A film by
Patrice Leconte
Starring
Juliette Binoche
Daniel Auteuil
Emir Kusturica
Will be shown in
Room 117 in the
McGarvey Commons
on Tuesday at 7 p.m.
by Cindy Orton
contributing writer
Based on a true story from history,
this romantic tragedy brings to ques
tion the justice of the death penalty
in hazy situations.
In 1849, two drunken men stabbed
a man to death. Although remorse
ful, one is convicted and sentenced
to death by guillotine, one of the al
legorical widows of the title. But,
because they had to wait for the over
seas arrival of the weapon to their
island territory of France, the pris
oner, Neel Auguste, was placed in the
custody of the Captain and his wife,
Madame La.
Madame La takes it upon herself
to transform this sorrowful sinner into
a moral upstanding citizen. This
causes a huge uproar in the commu-
nity, which questions the wisdom of
allowing this convict to walk around,
almost freely, in the town. The Cap
tain, whose passion for his wife is the
center of his life, allows her to pro
ceed with her modern ideas for con
verting Neel. This causes an upris
ing against the authorities, pitting
them against the native islanders.
Gradually during the next two
months, Neel becomes a valued
member of society to all but the few
most narrow minded. He saves
another's life and wins over the
townspeople. This climaxes on the
day when the guillotine finally arrives
to the island. What will the people
do? Will they uphold the court's sen
tence or will Neel’s actions of repen
tance save him from certain doom?
As for Madame La and her husband,
the Captain, what will their repercus
sions be?
New Dave Matthews Band
single rocks shelves in April
The Dave Matthews Band is scheduled to release “Where
Are You Going,” the first single from its upcoming album
next month. This will be the band’s sixth RCA studio album,
set to hit record stores sometime this summer.
This album will be the follow-up to last year’s “Everyday.”
2002 tour through Yahoo! Auctions. All proceeds will go to the band’s own
charity, The Bama Works Foundation.
Steve Liilywhite, producer of “Everyday” has worked with
the band to re-record several songs from the previous album
including “Bartender,” “Grey Street,” “Digging a Ditch,” and
“Grace is Gone.” These songs became collector’s items when
they were placed on the Internet and spread among fans last
year. Matthews said that some of these older songs, which
may be released on their new upcoming album, reflected a
A Chris Flix’s Video Picks
A weekly entertainment guide
to current movie rentals
Once again Bchrend movie watch
ers, Chris Flix returns on the scene to
give you the high and low of this
week's movie rentals.
In a world of endless criminal vio
lence. it gets harder and harder for the
typical hoys in blue to stop, or at least
slow dow n. the increase in crime. Be
cause of this, a new type of police of
ficer has evolved; the type that blurs
the line between cop and criminal.
"Training Das' takes us through a
single day as a rookie officer, played
by Ethan Hawke, experiences his first
by Amy Wilczynski
contributing writer
day as an inner city narcotics officer.
He is escorted by a veteran, played by
Denzel Washington.
Now, the storyline of the movie was
pretty decent. I wouldn’t say it is the
best out there, but each of the actors
kicked this movie up a few notches.
1 am not surprised one bit that both
Washington and Hawke are Oscar
nominees in the Best Actor and Best
Supporting Actor categories. I was
captivated by them from start to finish
and I am sure you will be, too, if you
go pick up this movie.
Friday, March 22, 2002
grim time for him.
“They inspired pity, self-pity-or pity for the sad bastard
that wrote them. It was not a good time for me. I usually
find that when I’m in one of those slumps I do the better
part of my drinking,” said Matthews in a previously pub
lished report.
The new album, which will likely showcase 12 tracks, is
being co-produced by the band with longtime engineer Steve
Harris.
months off the road, what
seems like an eternity for the Dave Matthews Band, they
will launch a 33-date North American tour on April 4, in
Washington, D.C, recess for a month in June, and start again
July 5 in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Supporting artists such as Soulive, Gov’t Mule, Robert
Randolph, Bela Fleck & The Fleckstones will open for DMB
on various dates.
Nothing too horrifically bad has
come out this week, so I thought 1
w'ould inform you of another decent
movie that has graced the video store
shelves.
“Joy Ride,” starring Paul Walker and
Leelee Sobieski, is a movie about a
college kid (Walker) and his brother on
a road trip to pick up his girlfriend.
When they pull a prank on a lonely
trucker, things turn a little bit deadly,
and the trucker is determined to teach
them a lesson.
Now, I am not a big fan of scary mov
ies, simply because they usually aren’t
too scary, but I definitely enjoyed “Joy
Ride."
For those of you living in the 21 s 1
century and have DVD players, 1 would
highly recommend it, because there is
so much extra footage and a few differ
ent alternate endings. It’s almost as if
the DVD has two or three movies on it.
This is another movie targeted towards
the Gen-X college crowd, so don’t be
surprised if “Joy Ride 2” pops up in the
near future.
Chris Flix Grade: C+
So get out there and rent some mov
ies. And that’s the bottom line, because
Chris Flix says so.
*Chris used to be a manager at a
movie theatre in Virginia and is
currently an employee at Giant
Eagle's Iggle Video.
Matthews primarily
played electric guitar for the
first time on “Everyday.”
Billboard magazine quoted
a source who said the art
ist plays both electric and
acoustic guitar on the up
coming album. Last fall
during a series of acoustic
performances in the U.S.
and the U.K., Matthews un
veiled “Where Are You
Going.” This stirred audi
ences to anticipate DMB’s
next album.
“Everyday,” which
has spent 53 weeks on The
Billboard 200, has sold
more than 3 million copies
in the U.S., according to
Sound Scam. The album
included hit singles such as
“I Did It” and “The Space
Between,” which was
nominated for a Grammy.
After more than six
‘Resident Evil’
is no longer a game
by Daniel J. Stasiewski
staff writer
As a person who has played the
“Resident Evil” video games, I’ve
never really been thrilled with the idea
of it as a movie. It’s not because video
game adaptations are generally infe
rior films, but this particular game was
a movie. The control over its outcome
was the main attraction.
Writer/director Paul Anderson, a
video game film veteran ("Mortal
Kombat”), took the game’s idea of
control and morphed it into the theme
of this version of “Resident Evil.”
Though the film’s action sometimes
mirrors the game, it turns out to be a
ferociously frightening, but surpris
ingly intelligent survival horror talc.
In the underground laboratories of
the Umbrella Corporation, experimen
tation with biological weapons is se
cretly taking place. Whe
of the experimental T
virus forces the artificial
intelligence unit in
charge of the lab to kill
everyone inside, an elite
team of special forces is
sent to shut her down
and investigate the
cause for the slaughter.
One of the team mem
bers, Alice (Milla
Jovovich), was a special
operative responsible
for guarding the secret
mansion entrance to the
lab. After being gassed
during
supercomputer ram-
page, Alice suffers acute
memory loss. She
doesn’t have much time
to attempt any recollec
tion, though. Once the
supercomputer is shut
down, the team has to
try and survive the mu-
tants the T-virus created
As the team attempts to
escape the lab and its
deadly predators, Alice
slowly recalls the events
and the people respon-
sible for the underground outbreak.
When I went into “Resident Evil," I
was very prepared to hate it. Even al
ter the terrifyingly brutal infection se
quence that opens the film. 1 waited
for an inevitable wrong move. Every
time something annoying did come
along, however, something terrific
eclipsed it.
The upstaging is a direct result of a
tremendous script by Anderson. When
the one-liners get to that point where
you just want the characters to shut up,
they actually do. Then, Anderson uti
lizes the silence to scare the hell out
of you with heart-pounding, gut
wrenching volatility. In an unexpected
twist, however, it’s not this wild fright
fest that makes the movie fantastic.
Unlike the usual dumb action/hor
ror film, “Resident Evil” is a surpris
ingly thematic film. With a constant
battle where there’s no distinction of
good and evil, Anderson is able to
show what happens when humans give
up control, but still crave it. The first
instance can be found in the distrust
of their artificial intelligence unit’s ac
tions. From that point it spirals into a
battle to dominate the situation, the
other team member, the virus, and the
unit again. Directly related is Alice’s
need to understand what she’s forgot-
Jeanino Noce, A & E Editor
behrcolls@aol.com
ten, and her memories add another
level of suspense to this already night
marish horror film.
One blunder Anderson does make
in an otherwise faultless Him is his ex
treme loyalty to the game (or his fear
of steering away from it). Like his ad
aptation of ‘Mortal Kombat,” Ander
son remains particularly close to vi
sual characteristics of the video game.
The action sequences, outside of the
actors, might as well he shot from the
game. Art and set directors do a fabu
lous job ot mirroring locales, but any
one who's played the game isn’t see
ing anything extremely new beyond
the supercomputer's chamber. With a
thoroughly plotted game in “Resident
H\ il. " Andeixon is also able to follow
a set story line. Luckily, the liberties
he doesn't take with the appearance,
he does take with the plot.
Two fine performances only add to
Based on the video game, ‘Resident Evil’ is
an action-packed thriller which focuses on
the battle of good and evil, humans vs. com
puters and the living against the undead.
Jouw icli is perfect as the bad-ass hero
ine, Alice. As female action stars go,
Jovovich is building a great resume.
I lei previous roles in dramas like "The
Messenger" and “Chaplin" don’t stand
up to the acting muscle she revealed
as “The Filth Element’s." Eeeloo, and
now Alice.
Her costar. Michelle Rodriguez, is
fantastic as the infected trooper who
tries to hold off mutation. Proving her
role in “ The Fast and the Furious” was
a waste of her talent, Rodriguez out
performs the rest of the "Resident
Evil" cast. With the blazing perfor
mances, the two lead actresses both
make “La Femme Nikita” look like
strawberry shortcake.
Genuine in its ability to frighten and
amazingly composed, “Resident Evil”
is easily the best videogame adapta
tion ever to hit the screen. In that cat
egory, the competition isn’t really
fierce. So maybe I should go with this;
the dinos in “Jurassic Park” might be
facing extinction, as “Resident Evil”
has changed the way we strive to stay
alive in the survival horror genre.
A k A; 1/2
out of 4 1
5
O
O
cd