Wednesday, July 28.1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section A · Page 7
Racing in a whole new direction
Run Lola Run chases fresh cinematic insights
Anybody suffering from digital effects overkill? Many of this summer's releases have relied a bit too heavily on computer-generated creatures, critters, beasts and brutes to breathe new life into tired Hollywood cliches.
From George Lucas's overwhelmingly detailed, almost cartoonish Phantom Menace to Wild Wild West's humorless, pointless, mechanized spider to the seemingly endless parade of new B-films featuring snakes, alligators, sharks, aliens and Samuel L. Jackson, Hollywood is obviously having difficulty outdoing itself each summer.
Jan De Bont's absolutely dreadful remake of The Haunting is a new low, throwing in enough silly, digitized mayhem to render the original story (very frightening, believe it or not) completely worthless.
Hollywood filmmakers could learn quite a bit from 41-year-old German director Tom Tykwer. He has combined special effects, camera tricks and delirious pacing to actually advance his story. He integrates the camera as one of the film's central characters, without pandering to the audience. A novel concept, no doubt, yet one seemingly foreign to mega-budget producers and directors.
Tykwer's summer release, *Run Lola Run*, is a stylish, manic, speedball of a movie, with a wry sense of irony and a passion for life that outshines films with 50 times the budget. Tykwer takes what, in lesser Hollywood hands, could have been a story completely devoid of any passion and infuses it with the personal joys and pains of everyday life.
Movie review
He contemplates the missed chances and utter grief that accompany life's difficult situations as well as the sheer beauty and pure elation of happier, less common moments. And there are some cool car crashes, too.
The strength of Run Lola Run is Tykwer's realization that no medium is more perfectly suited to the exploration of alternate universes than film. Imagine if you would have left the house 30 seconds earlier. Would you have received that speeding ticket on your way to school? What if you had decided not to go dancing one night? Would you have met your significant other? Clearly unable to answer such questions ourselves, these problems can be endlessly explored on celluloid. Tykwer cleverly plays devil's advocate, exploiting cinematic tricks to give the audience not one, but three possible outcomes to his story.
As the film begins, we meet Lola, an athletic girl with a shock of deep pink hair, as she receives a life-changing phone call. It is her boyfriend Manni, a small-time hood, saying that he will be killed in 20 minutes unless she can come up with 100,000 German marks. Lola instantly takes off, not sure of what to do, but absolutely determined to save Manni.
True to the film's title, she runs endlessly through German streets, unsatisfied with anything but complete resolution. In the meantime, Manni decides that he will rob a grocery store if Lola does not arrive in time. Will she make it?
While this is essentially all there is to the plot, Tykwer gamely explores the possibilities with an invigorating energy. Not content to stick to one style, he has formulated
the film's action from a remarkably divergent palette. We are treated to countless edits, sped-up and slowed-down film stocks, even animation. In one of the film's more inspired tricks, any minor character whom
Lola encounters while running in the streets is given his or her own future storyline, just a few unexpected photographs flashed on screen to foresee an entire lifeline.
While reliance on these cinematic sleights-of-hand may seem depersonalized and cold, they enhance the immediacy of Lola's situation. We are there, running right behind Lola, a slight bit
John
Ahearn
opinion @ kansan.com
confused, but determined to reach a solution by any means necessary.
There is a pureness of purpose to Lola that instantly allows us into this frantic, harried world. Actress Franka Potente blazes as Lola. Whether gleeful, terrified or forlorn, her strong physical features coordinate the integrity and intensity in her eyes.
Some may remember Sliding Doors with Gwenneth Paltrow, a film that explored similar themes and reminded us that every action we take has consequences, no matter how small the detail. Yet where that film ultimately saw fate as having an interconnected hand in the future, Run Lola Run contemplates a world filled with endless possibilities. What makes Run Lola Run so entertaining is the life-affirming quality of just such an examination.
Ahearn is an Overland Park graduate student in film studies.
Survey says people clueless about credit
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Americans are saving money for down payments and finding homes they can afford in record numbers. But a recent survey says that many are fairly clueless about the vital link between one's credit record and one's chances of getting a home mortgage.
Released by government-chartered mortgage giant Fannie Mae, the survey revealed that only two in five Americans understand that if they continually fail to pay bills on time, they will have major problems getting lenders' approval for a mortgage.
This lack of awareness is emerging just as other obstacles to home ownership, such as the inability to save for a down payment and racial discrimination, are crumbling, Fannie Mae officials said.
The nation's home ownership rate rose to a near-record 66.7 percent in the first three months of this year. It set records for African Americans and Hispanic Americans, reflecting low interest rates and low unemployment.
Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer, said the company's annual housing survey depicts a vibrant mortgage marketplace marked by high levels of consumer confidence and satisfaction with the home mortgage process.
But he added, "A shadow falling
across the otherwise positive news is how many Americans don't fully comprehend the relationship between paying bills late, having bad credit, and experiencing difficulties in qualifying for a mortgage. This is a problem the mortgage industry needs to address."
In Fannie Mae's nationwide survey of 1,812 adults, 41 percent of respondents said being more than 90 days late paying utility bills three times or more in recent years would be a major problem in getting a mortgage. Thirty-two percent said it would be a minor problem, but 18 percent said it would not be a problem.
The survey disclosure comes at a time when more people have been getting so deeply in debt they have filed for bankruptcy. Despite the strong economy, the number of Americans filing personal bankruptcies last year reached a record 1.4 million, up more than 300 percent since 1980.
Some experts blame soliciting by the credit card industry and the easy availability of credit in general for the apparent lack of understanding of the consequences of a bad credit record.
Efforts to educate consumers must compete with the most aggressive marketing campaign in the world by credit card companies that send out billions of solicitations a year, said Stephen Brobeck, executive director of Consumer Federation of America.
The Associated Press
HUTCHINSON — Gus Grissom's space capsule has landed once again — at a Kansas museum.
Several large cranes lifted the Liberty Bell 7 into the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center Monday morning, where it will undergo a thorough cleaning and restoration before being displayed to the public.
The capsule spent 38 years at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean before it was recovered from waters off Florida last week. It will rest in a tank for about two weeks with a constant flow of fresh water to remove the salt and to prevent further corrosion, said Jeff Ollenburger, vice president of marketing for the Cosmosphere.
Truck driver Max Davis of Mineral Point, Mo., drove the capsule the 1,550 miles from Port Canaveral, Fla.
"There were a lot of people driving alongside taking pictures of it," Davis said. "The favorite hand sign was like 'ding-dong' like they were ringing a bell; and five fingers and two, for 7; and 'is that it?' After the truck pulled into the Cosmosphere parking lot, restoration
workers opened spouts to let the green, murky water shoot out the bottom of the container to decrease the weight for moving it inside.
Once cranes had lifted the capsule into the Cosmosphere's loading bay, workers hooked up a garden hose and began refilling the container with fresh water to begin the flushing process.
The 50 to 60 people who gathered to watch the unloading were allowed a peek inside two coolers filled with artifacts brought up with the capsule. One contained the dye marker that was to show the spot where the capsule splashed down. The other contained an emergency parachute.
It will be several weeks before Liberty Bell 7 will go on display. After the capsule is thoroughly cleaned, it can be exposed to the air. It will be displayed so visitors can watch the restoration that is expected to take several months.
Grissem made a 15 minute suborbital flight aboard Liberty Bell 7 on July 21, 1961, but the 7 1/2-foot aluminum and titanium capsule sank after splashdown when its hatch blew open prematurely, and it filled with water.
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