The Rice Thresher, Vol. 93, No. 9, Ed. 1 Friday, October 21, 2005 Page: 11 of 20
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THE RICE THRESHER ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21,2005
Ml sit \//\7 /V
Self-titled 'Broken Social Scene,' Wolf
Parade's 'Apologies' warrant attention
Broken Social Scene
BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE
Arts & Crafts
★★★★1/2
(out of five)
Broken Social Scene, which
first stole indie listeners' hearts
with its 2002 sophomore album
You Forgot it in People, follows it
up with an even greater achieve-
ment. The self-titled album builds
on its predecessor's peculiar and
pleasing assemblage of instrumen-
tal and beats, and embarks into
more unfocused, airy territory.
The result is a catchy and ethereal
effort that rollicks along an epic,
lushly-produced dreamscape and
flows beautifully from one song
to the next.
The result is a
catchy and
ethereal effort
that rollicks along
an epic, lushly-
producecl
DREAMSCAPE.
And while Broken Social Scene
is an astoundingly cohesive col-
lection of songs, it is not without
individual standouts. "Swimmers,"
a quiet and endearing song about
falling in love, represents how
even at its most conventional, the
group is nothing but unique. The
mischievously-named "Handjobs
for the Holidays" — whose chorus
asks "Has it brought you closer to
this?" — and the album's opener
"Our Faces Split the Coast in Half'
also warrant repeated listenings.
Wolf Parade
APOLOGIES TO THE QUEEN MARY
Sub Pop
★ ★ ★ 1/2
(out of five)
:u 1 { t f % i
» 4
waif jf
Another Canadian rock group, the
Montreal-based Wolf Parade, looks
to follow in the tradition of big indie
names — such as Modest Mouse,
The Arcade Fire, and Clap Your
Hands Say Yeah! — with its debut LP
Apologies to the Queen Mary.
CALDER
From page 10
collections of anthropological objects
that fascinated and inspired them,
and Calder was no exception. His
work with found objects, displayed
in the third gallery, demonstrates
the cabinet of curiosities' influence
on his art.
In fact, the third gallery is the
most surprising, displaying an
organic element of Calder's work
that one rarely encounters in most
art history texts. Using man-made
and natural materials, Calder relates
his found objects to each other in
spatially diverse ways. The textural
and color qualities of his earthen
materials contrast with the brightly
colored sheet metal surfaces and
What Wolf Parade's sound lacks
in distinct individuality it almost
compensates for with sheer en-
thusiasm and vitality. The album
gets off to an uneven start with
"You are a Runner and I am My
Father's Son," a mediocre track
that lacks the rest of the album's
highly-produced texture.
What Wolf
Parade's sound
lacks in distinct
individuality
it nearly
compensates for
with sheer
enthusiasm and
VITALITY.
It picks up with "Modern
World," a track that closely resem-
bles The Arcade Fire in its use of
background vocals, and "We Built
Another World," whose chorus "I
had a bad, bad time tonight/bad
things happen in the night" plays
like the partygoer's lament. Other
strong tracks include "Shine a
Light" and the very Modest Mouse-
esque "I'll Believe Anything."
Nada Surf
THE WEIGHT IS A GIFT
Barsuk
★ ★
(out of five)
8 ♦ Mil t ..
I si si* L,
rvi y
Nada Surf follows 2003's exuber-
ant and soulfully introspective 1st Go
with Vie Weight is a Gift, an ultimately
bland effort that picks up on a lot of
the previous album's themes, includ-
ing love and heartbreak.
When listening to the album's
opening track "Concrete Bed"
— which features the nauseatingly
saccharin chorus "to find someone
you love, you've gotta be someone
you love" — it is hard to believe that
this is the same group that brought
us "Inside of Love," which covered
similar ground without the cliches.
But if lame love songs are your thing,
be sure not to miss "Always Love,"
which preaches "Always love, hate
will get you every time, always love,
even when you want to fight."
The band softens its edges so
much that by the time a song like "In
the Mirror" — with its catchy beat
and candid vulnerability—showsup
late in the album, it both pleases us
and makes us hungry for what the
rest of the album does not give us.
Liz Phair
SOMEBODY'S MIRACLE
Capitol
★
(out of five)
Irately, nothing has been as hard
as being a Liz Phair fan. Her 1993
debut, Exile in Guyville, is widely
considered one of the crowning
moments of 1990s indie rock.
With rants like "Fuck and Run"
and "Mesmerizing," it is a searing,
visceral album that ripped into
sex and gender with exhilarating
candor.
All that's left is a
reedy voice and
an easy listening
sound that recalls
the innocuous
DRIVEL Sheryl
Crow has been
hawking for the
last five years.
She narrowly avoided the
sophomore slump with the less po-
tent but still affecting Whip-Smart.
After a forgettable, mediocre-
at-best third album, whitechoco-
latespaceegg, Phair returned in
2003 with an unabashedly shallow,
pop-produced, self-titled effort.
Most hardcore fans turned away,
but the hedonistic pleasure of The
Matrix-produced "Why Can't I?"
and the naughty "H.W.C." cannot
be denied.
Now, with Somebody's Mir-
acle, things have gotten out of
hand. Everything that made Phair
great — the attitude, the provoca-
tion — has been stripped away. All
that's left is a reedy voice and an
easy listening sound that recalls
the innocuous drivel Sheryl Crow
has been hawking for the last five
years.
The title track features lyrics as
banal as "each frog has a prince just
waiting inside of him/baby, there
goes somebody's miracle walking
down the street/there goes some
modern fairy tale, I wish it could
happen to me." And it just gets
worse. Phair may be the saddest
victim of the Britney Spears-led
youth takeover of contemporary
pop. As this pandering album
proves, she is not an artist for a
wide audience.
— Jonathan Schumann
man-made found objects, creating
a tense balance. In "White Panel,"
Calder installs cranks on each sus-
pended element, allowing it to wind
up and move.
The fourth gallery continues
the exploration of Calder's work
with found objects, focusing on his
monstrous, fantastic creatures. For
instance, he uses a branch from an
apple tree to create the legs of his
Apple Monster, a sinister-looking
construction of counter-balances.
Iliis gallery, along with the fifth and
sixth, illustrate Calder's invocation
of nature in his work. The forms
in his art allude to those found in
nature, and he demonstrates his fas-
cination with natural orbits through
his mobiles.
The final galleries focus on the
natural and celestial qualities of
Calder's work. Drawing inspiration
from the spontaneous patterns of
nature and the cosmos, Calder
creates a mesmerizing effect of
kinetic energy in his work of the
late 1930s and early 1940s. The
tempered energy of his wire forms
excites and fascinates, changing
with every movement.
With The Surreal Calder, the
Menil Collection constructs a unique
lens through which to view Calder's
work, and for the most part, suc-
ceeds.
CHICKS wmi (,l AS
Domino causes this movie
fan's stomach to turn
Jonathan
Schumann
Standing in line to buy my ticket
far Domino, the new film that show-
cases Bend it like Beckham starlet
Keira Knightly as a tough-talking,
chain-smoking bounty hunter, I
had a bit of an existen-
tial crisis. Why was 1, a
semi-snobby cinephile,
willfully subjecting my-
self to a chicks-with-
guns flick?
I normally scoff at
mainstream Hollywood
fare, but in a season
when watchable high-
minded entertainment
has been in remarkably
short supply, movie-
going escapism has
become the only option.
So what could bebetterthan seeing
KnighUy busting out of that Pirates
of the Caribbean corset and doing
battle with Los Angeles' worst
criminal lowlifes?
Domino is as
repulsive as it
is flashy — a
grimy, blood-
splattered
CESSPOOL
that's all style
and no
substance.
Walking into the film, I thought it
would be, at the very worst, dispos-
able studio dross—the type of film
than neither excites nor offends.
P.ut leave it to Tony Scott — better
known as Ridley Gladiator Scott's
brother — to take the girl-kicking-
ass genre to a new low. Domino isas
repulsive as it is flashy — a grimy,
blood-splattered cesspool that's all
style and no substance.
The film does have its gems
of empty style. We all love glit-
ter, glamour and Knightly's dye
job and heavy eye shadow. The
film does have some funny mo-
ments, like when Knightly asks
her sorority sister, "Have you
ever had a nose job?" When the
superficial blond scoffs, "No,"
Knightly punches her in the face,
shattering her nose. Scott must
have gathered that this was a fun
IRIETIME
says THANKS to all who attended
the C.SA Fell! Picnic.
We had a great time performing and
hope everyone had a great time as well.
Album available at Cactus Records & CDbaby.com.
BOOKING: 713 398 3798
www.IRIETIME.com
,
IRIETIME
say Tree"!
11
moment, because similar occur-
rences happen throughout the
film. I didn't count, but I think
the broken-nose tally may reach
into the upper teens. Christopher
Walken has a spirited
cameo as a sleazy real-
ity television producer,
and has-beens Ian Zier-
ing and Brian Austin
Green, of Beverly Hills
90210fame, play them-
selves in amusing self-
mockery.
But even with all
these elements going
for it. Domino emerges
as the worst kind of en-
tertainment — a sloppy
film that takes itself
painfully seriously. Scott too often
pulls away from the more-captivat-
ing-than-ever Knightly — who,
with a cigarette in one hand and
a loaded gun in the other, may be
the closest thing to a female cinema
crush I have ever had. Imagine an
arm blown off by repeated sawed-
off shotgun blows, an armored-car
heist by a group of crooks dressed
up as first ladies Bush, Clinton,
Kennedy and Reagan and, perhaps
most repellant of all, aging hard-
body Mickey Rourke sitting in a
Nevada hotel room watchingporn.
These are just a few of the bizarre
set pieces Scott utilizes to try to
elicit audience reaction.
We all love
GLITTER,
glamour and
Knightly's dye
job and heavy
eye shadow.
It's not that surprising, really.
ITiis is die man who, in the cult
vampire flick The Hunger, managed
to have David Bowie, Catherine
Deneuve and Susan Sarandon all
on hand and muster only one sex
scene, albeit a lousy one. How could
a liplock between Denueve and
Sarandon go flat? In Scott's hands,
as Domino would confirm, even the
hottest ideas are prone to fizzle.
Jonathan Schumann is a Baker
College senior and arts and
entertainment editor.
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Obermeyer, Amber. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 93, No. 9, Ed. 1 Friday, October 21, 2005, newspaper, October 21, 2005; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443146/m1/11/?q=%22%22~1: accessed June 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.