8B THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FOOTBALL
SPORTS
THURSDAY, MARCH 17. 2005
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Movies
Excellent: National Lampoon's Animal House
Good: Old School
Okay: Revenge of the Nerds
Bad: PCU
No stars: National Lampoon's Dorm Daze
William Shakspeare's The Merchant of Venice
(☆☆☆1/2)
R, 138 minutes, Liberty Hall
One of the Bard's most controversial plays, The Merchant of Venice is the rare Shakespearean piece that defies easy categorization. It's neither a light romantic comedy like A Midsummer Night's Dream nor a heavy tragedy like Hamlet, though the grisly wager at its center keeps the tone more dark than light.
In 1596, Venice Jews are forced to live in housing surrounded by brick walls, and on the streets they must wear red caps to identify themselves.
himself.
A brash young Christian named Bassanio is in love with Porta, the Lady of Belmont, who's enduring a succession of princely suitors. Bassanio needs money to fund his courtship of Porta, so he goes to Antonio, the Christian merchant of the
All images courtesy of www.movies.yahoo.com
title. Antonio borrows the money from Shylock, a Jewish creditor, who comes up with a ghoulish proposition: If Antonio can't repay his debt after three months time, Shylock will cut off a pound of Antonio's flesh.
time to a climactic courtroom scene where the fate of Antonio is decided. It's one of the most conceptually distinctive sequences ever adapted from Shakespeare, capturing the Bard's complex and
named central character of Shylock is hounded by society until he lashes out. Even the most reasoned members of the establishment address him as "Jew" — as if they meant "dog." Shylock's response: "Beware my fangs."
The play has been accused of being anti-Semitic, but as written and directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Michael Radford (II Postino), this impassioned, often fiery new film adaptation takes a sympathetic approach to its famously named central character.
troubling ideas but also expanding them through the power of editing.
Rick's response. Do not
Radvord devices considerable screen
Al Pacino creates a wounded persona as the lonely Shylock. His delivery of the famous "if you wrong us, shall we not revenge" speech is one of the actor's career highlights. Also impressive are Jeremy Irons as Antonio and Lynn Collins as Portia.
-Stephen Shupe
Hostage (1/2)
R, 113 Minutes, South Wind Theater
Trailers for the movie Hostage boast that the film contains Bruce Willis' best work since Die Hard. A more accurate claim would be that this film essentially recasts Willis in the same role. Willis plays Jeff Talley and joins on a past.
- grizzled cop with a past. Willie is
Only this time Willis is a hostage negotiator turned small town police chief. He is trying to escape his troubled history by moving to a quiet community and starting over.
However, the past dies hard, and Jeff is soon caught up in yet another hostile situation. It seems that three maladjusted teens have taken a small family hostage in a remote mountain estate that contains the largest air ducts in the history of the world. The father of the family (Sydney Pollack) is a shady accountant who works for some deadly cartel, and they want their account back. So the cartel kidnaps Jeff's family in order to assure that their property is returned.
Jeff is stuck in a tragically ironic reversal of events. Now he is the hostage, and he has to save the victimized family and his
own. Despite the series of completely implausible events required to create this scenario, it is quite engaging to see Jeff work against the clock and the system to save these lives.
The movie actually works quite well until the director, Florent Siri, decides to ramp up the slow motion gore. Character after character is bludgeoned and stabbed and burned alive until you begin to forget what purpose of all this was. Violence can be cathartic, but it can also be really distracting. In the end, Willis, and the movie, limp to a strangely unsatisfying end, and I couldn't help but remember that at least John McClane always got to shoot off catchy a "Vippe-ki-yay, mother fucker" when his job was done.
Will Lamborn
Jayplay 03.17.05
The Jacket
(100)
R, 102 minutes, South Wind Theater
Terror does not have a new name with the new film The Jacket directed by John Maybury. The movie combines a psychological thrill with a little romance, suspense and even comedy, but contains no terrifying scenes.
This fact, however, does not
This fact, however, does not affect the film's quality in any sense. The Jacket is enriched by a great performance by Adrien Brody (Jack Starks) who can make a spectator cry when needed or laugh if the occasion calls for it. Maybury, the director, also did a great job on involving the viewer on the scenes through close-up shots. The combination of Maybury's direction and Brody's acting skills makes the audience sympathize with Starks.
Starks is a military veteran who, after a series of events, mistakenly ends up in an asylum. There, he becomes victim of Dr. Thomas Becker (Kris Kristofferson), a doctor who places patients in a straight jacket and lays them in a coffin. Through it, Starks is able to mentally travel time, which causes him to find out the day of his death. Knowing that, he attempts to explain a series of bizarre events he has
gone through.
gone in though.
The best qualities of this film are the ability it has to make the viewer laugh one second and be disgusted the next. This flexibility makes the film easy to watch. Contrary to other thrillers, the end does not leave the spectator nervous but rather with a desire to further analyze the motion picture.
The Jacket is a film which adventures into different genres without losing its purpose. Even though anything but terrifying, it is definitely a film worth watching.
Alaide Vilchis
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