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Above: Adele (Susan Saranden), left, and Ann (Natalie Portman) share a typical moment. Adele has done something psycho, Ann is upset, and Dunkin Donuts 'coffee fixes all.
Below left: This cozy mother-daughter scene seems to illustrate that *Anywhere But Here* is an uplifting movie about female bonding. Don't be fooled. Contributed art.
Nothing but depressing
Anywhere But Here a never-ending tragedy
By Brendan Walsh
Kansan movie critic
A double dose of Prozac is in order before viewing Anywhere But Here, a depressing melodrama about a mother and daughter searching for meaning in Beverly Hills. Directed by Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club) and based on a novel by Mona Simpson, the film is a nonstop tearjerker that offers little in the way of entertainment or insight.
Ann is mad about having to move to the West Coast, doesn't fit in well at
Natalie Portman (The Phantom Menace) portrays Ann August, whose mother, Adele (Susan Sarandon), has just divorced her boring husband, Ann's stepfather. Adele decides to move, with her daughter, to Beverly Hills. It soon becomes apparent that Adele isn't mentally stable. If she isn't outright crazy she's at least way too immature to be a mother. She has problems remembering to pay the electric bill, likes to live beyond her means and is more interested in repairing a scratch on her 20-year-old car than buying furniture for her apartment.
Film facts
Rating: PG-13
Grade: D
Where: South Wind 12, 3433 Iowa St.
Running Time: 1 hour,53 minutes
her Beverly Hills high school (no, none of the 90210 gang make cameos) and hates having to be the responsible one in the family. She fosters a warped co-dependence between herself and her mother though she dreams of leaving home everyday.
Several tragedies follow a teen-ager dies, a grandparent has a stroke, a biological father rejects his offspring and a man uses a woman for sex. As each event unfolds, the movie falls into a downward spiral toward hopelessness. It's so depressing that that one finds it easy to cheer for consumption of Ann's suggestive relationship with her male cousin.
The film's few redeeming moments
always involve Ann or Adele's interaction with outside characters, not with each other.
Portman and Sarandon are believable and even do a great job in their roles. But that hardly makes up for the clichéd, melodramatic events in the film. Crazy people just aren't
entertainting in this context, and the overly sentimental plot remains superficial, not insightful. Sappy films have their place in the canon, but they are supposed to be ultimately uplifting and invigorating. They shouldn't make audiences beeline for the liquor cabinet in search of relief.
Now's not the time to stop on Reservation Road
Contributed art
By Clare McLellan Kansan book critic
If you had just one word to sum up John Burnham Schwartz's latest novel, *Reservation Road*, haunting would be perfect.
Dwight Arno, the man responsible for the crime, flees the scene but cannot escape the memory. Since his divorce, Dwight's relationship with his son, the same age as the boy who died, has become troubled. The strain of dealing with his conscience further drives the wedge between Dwight and his son.
The book opens with a terrible accident on a dark highway one summer night. It is narrated by the young victim's father, Ethan Learner. Thereafter, a rotating cast of main characters chronicle the unfolding nightmare, creating a story of despair in three dimensions. The result is ominous
Grace Learner, Ethan's wife and mother of the victim, slips into a deep depression following her son's death, and she and Ethan grow apart. Their other child, an 8-year-old daughter, is left living in a somber, almost lifeless home,
Film facts
Grade: C
Publisher: Vintage Contemporaries
Price: $13
Number of Pages: 292
where its inhabitants go through the motions of day-to-day activities.
And this goes on for 292 pages.
While Schwartz's writing style is deeply emotional and compelling, this book is just depressing. It is a study of how people try to deal with an unthinkable tragedy and in this case, fall — at least as far as we find out by the end of the book. The conclusion of the story leaves somesemblance of hope for peace to find its way back into these torn-apart lives, but it leaves no real assurance that this will happen.
To his credit, Schwartz does a fine job of pulling the reader through the story; wondering if Ethan will find the revenge he seeks, if Grace will fold under the weight of her
loss and if Dwight will overcome his guilt and become a better father.
Each chapter delves further into the pain these three experience in gut-wrenching detail. Memories of their respective sons constantly flood their thoughts; everything is a reminder of the son they lost, the son Dwight is on the verge of losing. They are left wondering if there is still a valid reason to continue life.
Sound depressing enough? If you're looking for commiseration, this book can provide it. The simple memories the Learners have of their son - saving a turtle in the middle of the road, carving his first pumpkin, playing the violin - are images that will stick in most readers' minds because of their simplicity. As I read the book, these images haunted my mind as they haunted the characters.
This is not a book to be read with the end-of-the-semester stress on the horizon. Most people have enough to deal with in their lives. I know I don't need to read the intimate details of what boils down to simply a book of deeply sad people and their thoughts.
Contributed art.
Sincere simplicity establishes Willis as new king of pop
By Chris Eckert
Kansan music critic
In the world of pop music, predictable sounds and interesting sound bytes are the lifeblood of many careers. In both of these realms, Wesley Willis should by all rights be the next King of Pop.
On Wesley Willis's
Album facts
Title: Greatest Hits Vol. 2
On Wesley Willis' Greatest Hits Vol. 2, Willis, a diagnosed schizophrenic, weaves a sonic tapestry of intricate guitar work and complex Beach Boyslike harmonies. OK, he doesn't. He's a big burly formerly homeless guy from Chicago who headbutts people to greet them and used to sell ballpoint pen drawings for money. That was until someone suggested he try to write music and gave him a keyboard.
Artist: Wesley Willis
Grade: A
Label: Bicycle Music Company
Willis produces what really is outsider art more than any sort of novelty. There's a sincerity and love to the songs that just isn't evident in calculated gimick albums. With the exception of a couple songs from his full band effort, the Wesley Willis Flasco, each song follows a very similar mold.
The demonstration melody of the keyboard kicks off the song. It may be a different "instrument" on the keyboard, but the same melody. Then Willis speaks over the melody with staccato verses about the titles of the songs, such as "They Threw Me Out of Church," "I Broke Out Your Windshield" and "Feel the Power of Rock & Roll." Willis then croons the title of the song for a chorus, and then repeats. Each song ends with his trademark motto, "Rock over London / Rock on Chicago," culminating with a commercial motto such as, "Arby's – Different is Good." This formula is repeated 20 times on this album.
Willis honestly appears to love every band he meets. Several of his valentines show up on this collection, including "Lotion," "The Frogs" and "Jello Biafra." He also waxes poetic on his "buddy" Arnold Schwarzenegger on a song sadly missing off of the *End of Days* movie soundtrack.
To many this is repetitive, even boring. But when listening to it in the background, Willis approaches a near Teletubbies-like Zen. It's a familiar formula, almost a mantra, only with tiny variations. The lack of subtext and agenda and the pure emotion, just like in Teletubbies, can produce a state of calm and peace.
On "Oil Express," Willis describes how well a local oil change company changed the oil of his car. Since the liner notes state that Willis does not own a car, this song obviously is not true, just as "Birdman Kicked My Ass" and others probably are works of imagination. While this is confusing and counter to the honesty infused in this album, it's almost to the level of gonzo songwriting. In the tradition of Hunter S. Thompson, Willis does not let the facts get in the way of the truth. Even if he has no car, you know Oil Express did the job and did it right. And Willis certainly has experienced the pain of Birdman's assaults in his life.
The most pleasantly surprising inclusions on this collection are two covers of near-forgotten songs, Duran Duran's "Girls on Film" and Pure Prairie League's "Amie". Both are performed by the Flasco with enthusiasm and respect for the original, and Willis does his best to make sure that the crowds will roar like a lion.
While many will dismiss the career of Wesley Willis as novelty or exploitive, he is a musician like any other — making music he loves. And because of his unqualified love of the music, Willis is one of the few true rock stars left in the world.
top ten billboard
Top Video Rentals
(Compiled from a national sample of rental reports)
1. The Bloc Witch Project, Artisan Entertain ment
2. The Matrix, Warner Home Video
3. Arlington Road, Columbia TriStar
4. Life, Universal Studios
5. The Mummy, Universal Studios
6. Election, Paramount Home Video
6. Election, Paramount Home Video
7. New York City, KM1 3EW
8. 10 Things I Hate, Touchtone Home Video
© All Things Free, Attribution Needed V1
© Anatoly Shulevich, Warner Video
10. Enemy Of The State, Touchstone Home Video
source: 1999 BM Communications
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