18 I FRIDAY, March 18, 2005
'Mars Volta'
re-defining
progressive
rock genre
Reviewed by Paul Weinstein
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER I ptwllo@psu.edu
Ah, progressive rock. It's a genre music fans
either worship or want to beat up after school.
Fbr many, it's just an easier way of saying
"unnecessarily ridiculous nerd rock" Because
complicated time signatures, 20-minute song
suites with multiple parts (why not just make
them separate tracks?) and guys who wear
medieval outfits and think they are wizards are,
admittedly, unnecessarily ridiculous and nerdy.
For music fans that like to challenge them
selves and can put up with a little cheese, how
ever, prog rock makes sense. Unpredictable
compositions keep us on our toes, longer songs
just mean more music, and, let's face it, Rick
Wakeman's silver capes are cool, in the same
way that the "Magic Bullet" infomercial is the
coolest thing on television.
Still, the sometimes over-the-top nature of the
genre begs the question: Is any of it really gen
uine? The Mars Volta's second album, Frances
The Mute, seriously begs that question. It could
easily be the most pretentious release of the
year, from its multi-sectioned tracks to its Storm
Thorgerson abstract artwork (hint: this is the
same guy that worked with Pink Floyd). But
anyone who has seen Cedric Bixler-Zavala and
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, the two brains behind
the operation, can vouch
that these guys really
mean what they have to
say musically. It's diffi
cult not to take a guy
seriously when he, in a
frenzy of rockstardom
and musical ecstasy, nar
rowly misses his band
mates while spinning his
guitar around. And it's
tough to argue with a guy that can throw his
mic in the air, swing it a few times, catch it by
the cord, pull it to his lips and lick it before
singing the song's next line. Even without know
ing that stuff, Frances is bursting with musical
integrity. The four-part opener, "Cygnus Vis
mund Cygnus" pounces on the listener with
more ferocity than any other rock release in
recent memory. The track settles into a compli
cated groove under an expressive guitar solo
and builds up to an explosion that's just as
intense eight minutes later. The intensity does
n't disappear on the next two tracks, the acces
sible but still respectable "The Widow" and "E
Via E Viaquez," which contains a Latin section
that seems even more genuine than Antonio
Banderas singing at the Oscars. It's not easy to
place a three-minute ballad next to a 12-minute
shapeshifter, but The Mars Volta pulls it off.
That's what progressive rock is all about.
That's the thing, though. "Progressive" isn't
just a meaningless, pretentious term anymore
The Mars Volta is actually pushing the genre
farther ahead than any digital keyboard or elec
tronic drum has in 20 years. But there are still
some problems. In the past, listeners cringed at
lyrics about mystic mountains and cosmic war
riors; Bixler-Zavala's updated poetry doesn't
really answer any questions, but at least it
sounds cooler ("those nicotine stains on his
every word / my scavenger quilt will only hide
the truth"). No, the lyrics aren't really the prob
lem anymore. Instead, the listener is forced to
sit through and, presumably, take seriously at
least 12 minutes of what could only be defended
as "artistic noise." One can imagine that a typi
cal Mars Volta practice contains several hours
worth of what we can call "Omar's time." It is
during this time that the guitarist/producer
emerges from an intense jam, places down his
six-stringer and heads over to a console of pret
ty flashing lights and dials. He then manipulates
noises while the rest of the band either watches
in awe or goes upstairs for pizza or Bactine for
those guitar wounds. Yes, it is unfortunate that a
large chunk of ambience could have been
trimmed from this album, which would have
resulted in a clearer musical focus. As demon
strated by the 30-minute-plus closing suite,
"Cassandra Geminni," some of this music is
incredible and some of it is too meandering or
experimental. But when it hits the mark,
Frances The Mute speaks for itself.
`Bride' charming, funny in bringing Bollywood to Hollywood
Reviewed by Caralyn Green
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER I cmg23s@psu.edu
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's
1813 comedy of manners, has been
reworked so many times in so many
different contexts it should be way bor
ing by now.
We all know smug Mr. Darcy and out
spoken Lizzie will somehow navigate
the ruled and rigid social network to
get over her pride and his prejudice (or
is it that other way around?) and just
get it on already.
So why, oh why, has the story stayed
so appealing to generation after gener
ation of romantic comedy-a-holics?
Well, because Pride and Prejudice is
really, really good. It's fun, it's funny, it's
honest, and most importantly, it makes
any girl (or boy) swoon.
So, taking the reins from Helen
Melding and BBC and that upcoming
version starring Keira KnigAlley,
Gurinder Chadha has created yet
another Pride and Prejudice adapta-
ARTSlnßeview
Be Cool' not cool at all
Be Cool thinks it's cool to point out its own
shortcomings, as if acknowledging them some
how forgives them, but I don't really think it
works that way.
The movie, based on author Elmore
Leonard's sequel to the novel that inspired
1995's Get Shorty, opens as movie producer
Chili Palmer (John Travolta) and 'Pommy
Athens (James Woods), another felon-turned-
Hollywood big shot, chat about the artistic fail
ures of Get Lost, the sequel to the fictional
movie Chili produced in Get Shorty.
Chili laments that you can only say the f-word
once in a PG-13 movie (like Get Lost and Be
Cool) and then immediately says it ... ha ha. Of
course what the PG-13 rating really means
nowadays is that it's a film marketed to high
school kids, and not at the same crowd that
enjoyed Get Shorty so much nearly ten years
ago.
After Athens gets shot abruptly by a Russian
mafia man with an errant toupee, Chili shifts his
sights from movies to the record company
Athens left behind, now run by his widow Edie
(Uma Thurman), whom Chili quickly begins to
court.
Chili's first prospect as a record industry big
wig is to sign Linda Moon (Christina Milian), a
perky, young singer-songwriter seemingly
trapped under a contract with a '7os nostalgia
`Kasabian' original and refreshing
lion this time with a vibrant Bolly
wood spirit.
Chadha's Bride & Prejudice is an
enjoyable, multiculti song, dance and
love-fest from the director and writer of
2002's breakout Britt!lick Bend It Like
Beckham.
Like Beckham, Bride & Prejudice
has a marriage-hungry mom, a hunky
love interest, some spirited chicks who
aren't down with the status quo, and
lots of stuff challenging racism, sexism,
classism, imperialism and con
sumerism.
The Bennets of rural England trans
form into the Bakshis of "Hicksville,
India," as one character calls their
town. Lizzie becomes Lalita, that sec
ond eldest daughter who vows to marry
for love, and Mr. Darcy stays Mr. Darcy,
this time an American hotel mogul
named Will who's visiting India for a
friend's friend's wedding.
As Lalita, Aishwarya Rai is luminous.
She's confident, clever, tastefully sexy
and painkillingly gorgeous.
John Travolta and Uma Thurman had chemistry on the dancefloor, but it wasn't enough to save 'Be Cool' from the ire of critics
Reviewed by Nicholas Norcla
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER I ndnlo9@psu.edu
Reviewed by Mike Kulick
COLLEGIAN STAFF yYRITER I msk2l4@psu.edu
Let's get this out of the way first: Kasabian
isn't a band with an original sound.
That said, this new band from Leicester, Eng
land has introduced a self-titled album to the
masses that combines an array of different
sounds, most of which sound incredibly refresh
ing.
"Club Fbot," the first track and single from the
album, starts out with a subdued noise intro
before bursting in with the typical catchy bass
line that serves as the backbone of the majority
of Kasabian's songs on the album. "Processed
Beats," the next song, is probably being played at
Long on chemistry, short on stay
girl band that is well beneath her tali nts.
But first Chili will have to get by Raji and
Nick, her sleazy managers, played by Vince
Vaughn and Harvey Keitel, respectively.
To make matters worse, Chili's new record
company owes 300 grand to Sin La Salle (Cedric
the Entertainer), a rap producer who travels
with an entourage of husky, pistol-packing
gangsta rappers.
In order to get his new company out of debt,
Chili hatches a plan to make Linda a big star by
getting her to sing with Aerosmith, for whom •
Edie used to be a roadie. Enter Steven Tyler,
who tells Chili that he doesn't want to be one of
those singers that appears in movies ... ha ha.
But judging from his vapid, humorless self-por
trayal that instinct was probably a good one.
That's about when the movie stops for a few
minutes so that John and Uma can dance to the
Black Eyed Peas in a sequence captured with
out a hint of the pizzazz of the duo's famous
Pulp Fiction twist, but then it's hard to recreate
chemistry when two characters are drawn to
each other by nothing more than convenience to
the plot.
Then, a little while later the movie stops
again, this time so we can watch Linda sing
"Cryin"' at a real live Aerosmith concert. What
an uninterrupted five-minute rock concert
excerpt is doing in a black comedy/crime caper
was a mystery to me until I realized that Aero
smith, whose current label is Columbia Records,
and Be Cool, produced and distributed by MGM,
In India, Ash (as the former Miss
World is called) is already Hollywood
royalty; if this, her first totally English
language role, is any indication, it's
only a matter of time before Ash
becomes the next Hollywood "It" Girl.
And Martin Henderson (best known
for The Ring) is up to the challenge of
romancing such an accomplished,
glamorous heroine his scowling and
smoldering definitely meets the Colin
Firth standard of Darcy-ness. Oh la la.
The Pride and Prejudice story, natu
rally, transcends its time and place
beautifully: pride stays pride, prejudice
stays prejudice and courtship stays
courtship.
But Chadha's vision of Austen has
something unique going for it: It's pat
terned after the Indian Bollywood
You know, comedy, action, romance
and drama all rolled into one lavish,
spectacle-heavy flick, where characters
are apt to break out into song-and
dance numbers whenever they feel like
a dance club somewhere
as you read this review.
Every song seems to
meander in a slightly dif
ferent direction, yet it all
seem to come off seam
lessly. In other words, this
whole album would fit in
quite nicely with a typical
Guy Ritchie flick
This is the type of music you just want to throw
in your car CD playeg crank the volume until
your eardrums feel pleasantly numb and drive
until you're either pulled over by an officer of the
law or your car runs out of gas.
Many bands have recently brought back the
it, and everyone and everything is as
pretty as can be.
The bhangra-flavored songs aren't
the most memorable ditties ever, but
they're full of joy and passion and
humor.
A village marketplace boogies it up
with a new bride; four sisters tease one
another in verse about finding that per
fect man who'll talk to their faces
rather than their chests; a gospel choir
and some Baywatch-esque lifeguards
swirl around an embracing couple; and
Ashanti shows up, gyrating and croon
ing, at an Indian beach resort
Bride & Prejudice is not without its
flaws though: It crisscrosses the globe
(India, England, LA and back again),
making some scenes feel rushed and
lending the narrative a wobbly-at-spots
structure.
But its sweet nature and fun-loving
charm eclipse that.
It's best to give up any cravings for a
high-art cinematic experience, and just
take in Bride & Prejudice's kooky per-
share the same corporate owner. our good
friends at Sony, who can always be counted on
for shameless cross-promotional advertising.
"I had to get out of the movie business," Chili
says earlier, "because it's gone too corporate,"
... ha ha.
The film's failings are certainly not the fault of
the cast, most of whom come with their respec
tive A-games. Andre 3000 in particular is quite
hilarious as lanky foul-up gangsta Dabu and
manages to steal just about every scene he's in.
Dre, Cedric, Vaughn, and even The Rock (as
Vaughn's gay bodyguard) are clearly trying hard
and even manage to get a fair amount of laughs,
but far more of their jokes fall flat than hit. This
is not their fault but the fault of the director, F
Gary Gray, whose ear for comedic rhythm is
clearly untrained.
While Barry Sonnenfeld's direction of Get
Shorty was airtight, disciplined and moved at an
incredibly brisk pace, Gray's idea of comedy
direction is forcing his actors to mug for laughs
like a pleading stand-up comic until the movie
slows to halt and the gags grow stale to the
point of embarrassment.
I would strongly caution anyone from seeing
Be Cool. I found it not only sub-par, but person
ally insulting. It's one thing to rob us of our time
and money with an inferior product, but the fact
that the filmmakers realized the movie was
shoddy and chose to rub it in our faces instead
of making the movie better, makes me think this
should have been called Be Cruel.
popularity of synthesizers in rock music, but
Kasabian does this particularly well. Songs like
"Cutt Off" contain a huge amount of cleverly
used synth, with a sing/shout chorus by lead
vocalist Tom Meighan that rivals some of The
Mars Volta's lyrical conundrums: "chew the back
bone, a solar system, these clever convicts."
The album ends with "U Boat," a song that
shows that the band doesn't necessarily always
need crunching bass to deliver a heavy and
memorable song.
Kasabian may not sound completely original,
but they seem to have a little something for many
aspects of your musical tastes. Check out this
debut, and ready yourself for more good things to
come from Kasabian in the future.
'Bride' is a spin off of Austen's classic
formances, colorful visuals, equally
intelligent and slapstick wit, and that
eternally relate-able premise of finding
some sweet lovin' in the most unex
pected people and places.
THE DAILY COLLEGIAN