The Rice Thresher, Vol. 88, No. 15, Ed. 1 Friday, December 8, 2000 Page: 16 of 24
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Wm
ARTS A ENTERTAINMENT FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8
THE RICE THRESHER
THE THRESHER'S
RECOMMENDATIONS
FOR EVENTS AROUND
HOUSTON THROUGH
JAN. 16, 2001.
EDITORS
*
!
picks
tomorrow
ASTROBLAST
This Austin band calls itself
|
i noise-pop — jaunty female
*
i vocals and Moog drenched
, in miles and miles of guitars.
I
Mansion and Black on
f Blonde are also on the bill.
f
4 The Mausoleum. 411
i
Westheimer. Admission $5. For
more info, call (713) 528-5858.
jan. 5
V
CHOCOLAT
Chocolat, a new film from
French director Lasse
Hallstrom (The Cider House
Rules and What's Eating
Gilbert Grape) will be
released in all U.S. markets
on Jan. 5. In January the
Thresher will be printing an
interview with one of its
stars, Carrie Anne Moss
(The Matrix). It's the story
of a woman and her
I
daughter who open a
chocolate shop in a
small French village.
I In theaters Dec. 15 in Los
i
Angeles and New York,
Dec. 22 limited release,
Jan. 5 nationwide.
ongoing
s
I
THE PICTURES
OF TEXAS
MONTHLY:
TWENTY-FIVE
YEARS
/ For all you Texans who will
I be within spittin' distance
of Houston over the break,
stop by the Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston's
exhibition of the best
photography from Texas
Monthly magazine in its 25-
year history.
The Caroline Wiess Law
Building of the MFAH. 1001
Bissonnet. Through Jan. 28.
Ang Lee's'
Robert Reichle
THRESHER EDITORIAL STAFF
Ang I^e, director of Sense and
Sensibility, might seem an unlikely
match for the upcoming mystical
Chinese fist-and-sword epic Crouch-
ing Tiger, Hidden Dragon. What does
the director of a tale of love, emotion
and societal duty think he's doing
directing Hong Kong action stars
Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh in
a movie about stolen jade swords
and martial arts masters who skip
across the canopies of bamboo for-
ests?
'crouching i'ger,
hidden dragon'
' a fierce surprise
Rating: **** 1/2
(out of five)
Opens Dec. 22 at the
Landmark River Oaks Theater.
Whatever I^e's reasons for un-
dertaking this project, the results
are amazing. In Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon, he's created a magi-
cal world of wuxia martial arts mas-
ters whose characters ring true not
because of their awesome fighting
sequences but because of their emo-
tional depth and scope.
Chow plays Li Mu Bai, a noble
knight-errant who's a master of the
supernatural martial arts. He and
his longtime friend Yu Shu Lien
(Yeoh), also skilled in various modes
of fighting, have submitted for y^-ars
to the social rules that prevent them
from voicing their obvious love for
each other.
As the story begins, Mu Bai en-
ters semi-retirement and asks Shu
Lien to bring his jade sword, the
powerful Green Destiny, to Beijing
for him and to give it to his friend Sir
Te (Lung Sihung).
Upon arrival, Shu Lien meets and
befriends Jen (Zhang Ziyi), the re-
bellious young daughter of a pow-
erful governor who wants to bolt
from her upcoming arranged mar-
riage and live the giang hu martial
arts life.
One night in the governor's com-
pound, a mysterious masked thief
makes off with the sword with Shu
Lien in pursuit. And then it happens
— the audience (quite willingly)
> / «
CHAN KAM CHUEN/SONY PICTURES CLASSICS
Jen (Zhang Ziyi) jump-kicks a crowd of desert thieves using her lighter-than-air wuxia skills in Ang Lee's upcoming
epic adventure Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
suspends its disbelief as the combat-
ants float weightlessly through the
air, hop effortlessly across rooftops
and pull off impossible fighting
moves. All of the fight scenes, cho-
reographed by Yuen Wo-Pingof The
Matrix fame, are works of brutal,
elegant poetry.
Mu Bai suspects that Jade Fox
(Cheng Pai Pai), the evil criminal
who murdered his mentor years
prior, is behind the theft, and goes to
Beijing to investigate. Ilie audience
is also given a look at Jen's unex-
pected past through an unusually
long flashback sequence, in which
we meet \jo (Chang Chen), Jen's
former lover who has a shady past of
his own.
Since Chow gets top billing, you'd
expect his character to be the lead.
Not so — the plot really revolves
around a series of choices Jen makes
and how they affect her friendship
with Shu Lien and her student-
teacher relationship with Mu Bai.
Jen and Shu Lien have much more
screen time than Mu Bai, and there-
fore their characters are somewhat
more developed as a result. The
usual male-dominated action film
this is not.
The movie is visually stunning
and is set in diverse locales ranging
from misty bamboo forests to an-
cient Beijing to the empty Gobi
desert. In addition to the wondrous
settings and colorful extras, the ex-
citing fight scenes provide even more
eye candy, especially for a typical
American who hasn't been overex-
posed to the visual style of Hong
Kong action films.
All of the fight
scenes are works
of brutal, elegant
poetry.
Crouching Tiger is an adaptation
of the fourth book of a series of five
written at the turn of the century.
Allusions to earlier events lend it a
"your father and I fought in the Clone
Wars" quality and flesh out the his-
tory of the characters.
The film is in Chinese with sub-
titles, so the language barrier might
be a problem for some. Then again,
MIKE'S ALWAYS GOT HOT CHOCOIATE
Reinterpretation of Dickens pales next to 'Christmas' past
Tim Crippen
THRESHER EDITORIAL STAFF
This is the twelfth year that the
Alley Theatre has produced the holi-
day parable A Christmas Carol. In
this perennial replay of the produc-
tion lies its best facet: tradition.
0-
4a Christmas carol'
The Alley Theatre
Rating: -kit 1/2 (out of five)
Through Dec. 31. For ticket info
and times, call (713) 228-9341.
If the Alley had adhered to tradi-
tional elements of the show, they
could have produced a production
that would be pleasing to their whole
audience. When they depart from
tradition and add artistic flourishes,
they lose some of the fun
and simplicity that are
essential to this show.
The story is about
Ebenezer Scrooge, the
greedy miser, and his
change in opinion of
Christmas from ''Bah,
humbug!" to "Merry
Christmas." On Christ-
mas Eve, Scrooge is vis-
ited by the spirit of his
Marley, who tells him he will be
visited by three more spirits. The
Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present
and Future show Scrooge around
London, where he sees scenes that
well up sentimentality in the old
man's heart and turn him into a glee-
ful philanthropist by Christmas Day.
James Belcher plays an appropri-
ately crotchety old Scrooge, but the
energy he's had in other Alley per-
formances don't really come through
until the very end. His tone as
Scrooge is muddled; it's hard to tell
if he's playing a comic or tragic mi-
ser. However, after Scrooge's rev-
elation on Christmas morning,
Belcher's energy does come
through, and the audience responds
heartily. I wonder if the annual rep-
etition of this performance hasn't
sucked some of the interest out of it
for Alley regulars like Belcher.
The spirits are all played well.
Past is portrayed by a solemn Eliza-
beth Hefiin whose costume looks
like a wedding dress lined with
Christmas lights. David Rainey plays
Present. His costume and appear-
ance are all jovial enough for the
spirit that takes Scrooge through
the reverent home of the Cratchits
and the happy celebration of
Scrooge's nephew Fred. However,
Rainey's delivery is a little too seri-
pus and is marred by tbe phaser
effect that is used on his voice to
give it an echoing, ethereal sound.
In the review performance, Bob
Cratchit, usually played by John
Tyson, was played by understudy
Christopher Patton, who did an ex-
cellent job. Tyson is one of my favor-
ite Alley regulars, but I challenge
him to perform better than Patton.
I wonder if the
annual repetition
of this
performance
hasn't sucked
some of the
interest out of it
for Alley regulars.
Cratchit is a rather pitiful character
with a peasant nobility. His perfor-
mance could easily be made sappy
and sentimental, but Patton avoids
both. Ixiuren McKenzie Patrick, the
seven-year-old girl who plays Tiny
Tim, also produces an outstanding
performance, which is quietly pitiful
but not precocious or overbearing.
I think the first big failure of the
Alley performance is that it's not
P!5HiR
Chow (Anna and the King, The Re-
placement Killers) and Yeoh (Tomor-
row Never Dies) are good enough
actors that it's never an issue, and
Zhang is entrancing as Jen — let's
hope American audiences get to see
more of this newcomer.
The plot does wander a little, but
not too much. However, the social
codes and expectations that deter-
mine the characters' interactions
with their friends and enemies might
be a little too foreign for some West-
ern viewers.
The one other problem with the
film is its ending. l"he final battle,
while visually amazing, is brief, and
the final scene presents an ambigu-
ous conclusion (although hopefully
this was to leave open the possibility
of a sequel).
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
is an awe-inspiring film. It combines
the fairy tale quality of The Princess
Bride, the epic fantasy adventure feel
of Star Wars, the fighting effects of
The Matrix and the love-vs.-duty
struggles of Lee's Sense and Sensi-
bility. There's something here for
absolutely everyone, and it's defi-
nitely the coolest film of the year.
funny enough. While there are some
good laughs, especially toward the
end, the play should be better tem-
pered by consistent laughs to keep
younger (and older) viewers inter-
ested in an otherwise predictable
play.
The second problem with the
Alley's A Christmas Carol is that its
attempts at artistic flourishes take
away from the traditional aspects of
the play and contribute to an overly
serious attitude. For example, the
townspeople that Scrooge sees mill-
ing about the street are sometimes
in choreographed dance that's un-
natural and doesn't allow the actors
any freedom to make interesting
movements to back the dialogue or
other action on stage. The costumes
and the sets are all fairly traditional,
which makes these choreographed
movements seem all the more out of
place. In this traditional air lies the
value behind the Alley's annual per-
formances.
Parents can take their kids and
expect them to have a good time, but
I think the Alley would be better
served by creating a more traditional
show overall. Older members of the
audience could pretend they're kids
hearing the stofy for the first time,
and younger audience members can,
10 years from now, look back to the
Alley as the origin of their memories.
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Stoler, Brian. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 88, No. 15, Ed. 1 Friday, December 8, 2000, newspaper, December 8, 2000; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443216/m1/16/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.