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Today is Mummy's day
The undead rule over live actors in special effects extravaganza
AAAAAAHHHHHHH! Thank goodness Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) has a belt on, or this mummy would surely scare his pants off. Evelyn the librarian (Rachel Weiss) plays a damsel in distress. Fraser and Weisz star in Universal Pictures' The Mummy. Contributed photos.
The Mummy Rating : B+
By Brendan Walsh Kansan movie critic
In Stevie Wonder's classic song *Superstition* he sang "When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer." That was good advice for treasure seekers and archeologists planning on excavating tombs, whether in Indiana Jones or The Mummy.
In 1925, Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser)
is a treasure hunter who, along with a brother-sister team of Egyptologists, Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) and Jonathan (John Hannah), searches for the mythical city of Hamunaptra. Although Hamunaptra is thought to contain all the riches of Egypt, it also has the foreboding distinction of being known as the City of the Dead.
who's been in a catatonic state for the past 3,000 years. Boy, do they regret that.
When O'Connell's group and a competing team of pilfers stumble upon the City of the Dead, they open the wrong treasure chests and chant the wrong things and mistakenly awaken Imhotep, a mummy
In Imhotep's quest to waken his dead mummy girlfriend, he unleashes a variety of plagues upon the land, mixing Biblical prophecy with pseudo-Egyptian curses. O'Connell and company do their best to save the world from the mummy's libidomotivated destruction.
The set designers' recreation of 1719 B.C. Thebes is absolutely amazing. The "historical" scenes in which the audience learns the history behind Imhotep shows
Almost equally amazing are The Mummy's special effects. There are apparently four distinct levels in the hierarchy of mummies. In ascending order, there are the undead, who are basically ordinary people who walk around like zombies and have open sores on their faces; there are your average mummies, who act as blind attackers and can usually be destroyed with a couple of shotgun blasts; the royal guard mummies, who,
ancient Egypt in all its grandeur. If Cleopatra had a set as beautiful as this one, Elizabeth Taylor would be hardly noticeable.
armed with shields and swords, are very clever and more difficult to kill; then there's the king mummy, Imhotep himself. This huge variety of mummies and their varying powers make for a cornucopia of special effects opportunities.
Although the scenery and special effects couldn't have been done any better, there's a lot that could have been improved. The Arab stereotypes portrayed in the film might have worked in the 1933 version of this film, but they're quite distracting in this day and age. None of the Arab characters are heroic, and most are shown as being either crazy, wacky guys who run around screaming unintelligible things, or greedy men out for profit at any cost.
Fraser, Weisz, and the rest of the cast all do an adequate job of providing the occasional bit of dialogue between special effects. Hannah delivers witticisms at incredibly inappropriate times, à la Indiana Jones, but they're usually somewhat funny and not too distracting. Anyone looking for advice on how to pluck their eyebrows should pay special attention to Weisz's brow.
Although this movie has a lot in common with the Indiana Jones series, there's one significant difference that makes that movie better than The Mummy. In Indiana Jones, Indiana learned the secrets of the tombs in such a way that the audience understood what was going on and discovered secrets along with him. In The Mummy, the puzzles are solved in Evelyn's head and her solutions are never revealed.
Suburban megaplexes are a blight on the landscape, and well as a destroyer of smaller movie houses with character. That said, a movie like The Mummy is best appreciated in one of the giant theaters. The landscape and special effects are most impressive on the screen the size of Rhode Island.
Family Values' CD no match for individual band albums
"Family Values"
Live Tour
Rating : C
By Matt Cox Kansan music critic
Too many problems plague this live album, but it still is worth a listen if you're a fan.
The tour featured Korn, Ice Cube, Orgy, Limp Bizkit, Rammstein and Incubus and raided the United States last fall. And now you can try to relive the experience through the live album.
The CD starts off with Incubus' New Skin, a straight-ahead hardcore rap tune in the 311 style, except more intense and powerful.
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The song starts with congas as though it were going to be a Billy Joel tune, but the guitars and drums come crunching in, killing that idea.
Orgy is the next band featured. They start off with Dissention, a song about conforming to the world. The song gets old fairly quickly, but lead singer Jay Gordon tries to liven it up by saying the "f" word a lot.
They end their little set with their hit cover Blue Monday. It starts off really fast, then slows down, then picks up the pace again. Their attempt at innovation just sounds like Orgy has a horrible time sustaining the tempo. However, it still has a decent effect, but not compared to their non-live version.
Limp Bizkit is horrible live. They suffer from a syndrome that many hardcore bands do today. The guitars can't sustain rhythms well and lead singer/screamer Fred Durst can't hold a note at all. Their live rendition of George Michael's Faith is worse than their radio version. There is no separation of the instruments; they all bang together to form ear-splitting noise.
They do another cover. This time House of Pain's Jump Around is the victim. The only difference is that they added hardcore guitars to the chorus. It is okay and actually better than Everlast's live remix that the former House of Pain member performs on tour with Lenny Kravitz and the Black Crowes.
Luckily Ice Cube follows Limp's lame set. He
Freak on a Leash sounds so much better than their album version. Jonathan Davis' vocals are the most polished live compared to all the other singers besides Ice Cube. They end their set with Got the Life.The bass player is just as annoying as he is on their album version. He can't play but tries to slap the rhythm of the song. It takes away from the song.
starts with his oldie Check Yo Self and leads the song off by staging a fight with an audience member. It's really effective. The live beats are as mesmerizing as his albums and his style in front of a crowd lacks nothing.
Then in comes the German metal band Rammstein. Their only cut on the compilation, *Du Hast*, starts off with a very promising intense metal riff. Then it never ends and lead singer Chris Schneider starts singing "Du ... du hast" about 12 times. Keyboard samples come in that sound like space effects from the techno mogul Moby.
Finally, Korn takes the rest of the album to spout their current hits.
If you must have a live version of one of these bands because you are a devoted fan, go for it, but if you are looking for quality, buy their individual albums.
Blur is unlucky with 13
Long ago, in the neato land of soccer video games, commercials and rock radio was the hit Song 2. It was in and out in under two minutes flat and we all wanted to hear more of "Woo-hoo." Clever hook.
The hum-drum, boredom and drone that define Blur return with their latest album. 13.
By Matt Cox
Kansan music critic
So, we all listened to Blur's self-titled album with anticipation of it being energetic, but instead we disappointingly spoozed.
13 stays faithful to that style.
To stay faithful to that style.
First of all, the album sounds like it was recorded in a basement by rookie engineers. Guitars are sometimes out of tune and unbalanced. It sounds like you are listening to mud most of the time.
However, 18 offers more than just horribly recorded mud. There are bad songs as well.
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B. L. U.R.E.M.I. is a really innovative song. The title is ingeniously a combination of their band name and their direct record company EMI Deep.
Apparently the lyrics are about the relationship with the company. Too bad you can hardly hear the vocals to make out whatever lead singer Damon Albarn is saying in that cool Brit accent.
When you listen, you automatically think, "Ah! So this is the song they hoped to be the next Song 2."
The problem is, you can't tap your foot to it because the drums never find a solid tempo. It's as if everything about this song were intended to be bad.
These problems also plague the likes of Bugman. A typical Everclear-like guitar riff starts the
Albarn sings "They let me out in the summer ... So I can look for another Bugman." I can relate. I just hate the search for my fellow bugs.
Tender lasted on rock radio for a little more than a week. Remember? It was that anthem chanting some trite "we should all get together" lyrics with a gospel choir singing to a down-home country acoustic guitar rhythm. If your ears blinked you probably missed it.
song but then an annoying distortion effect is applied to the guitar, which makes the rest of the song difficult to listen to.
**Trailer Park spouts a droning guitar chord with a trippy effect for four minutes while Albarn feels sorry for himself for losing his girl. He sings "I lost my girl to the Rolling Stones." Ouch! Couldn't compete with human artifacts eh, Albarn? Don't worry, they'll
Okay... the good parts ... er ... part.
*Battle* is the highlight on the record.
Of course it would be more suited for a Halloween-music record. Start this track at 4:30 on a Tuesday morning.
Your roommate will be freaked out, guaranteed.
The vocals repeat in an eerie echo with guitar strings plucking high notes with tons of echo. The effect is reminiscent of any part in a horror flick when you know someone is about to die. It's plain scary.
retire in at least 20 years.
Actually, the whole album is scarc.
If you need a coaster for your coffee table, please pick up 13.
To check out the events calendar See page 2A.