reviews
MOVIE: Gran Torino
Clint Eastwood has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards for a reason: The man makes damn good movies. Gran Torino is no exception.
Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a bitter and racist old man who is recently widowed. The story is centered on his relationship with the sullen Thao, played by Bee Vang, a kid plagued by pressures to join his neighborhood gang. Walt takes it upon himself to teach Thao about tools, life and his baby, a 1973 Ford Gran Torino.
Walt talks like your average geriatric, pissed off at the world for changing and hating any car not made in America. The racial slurs roll off his tongue like an everyday hello. But he is revealed to be an honest and decent man, who more than knows his way around a firearm.
Eastwood plays a character reminiscent of the past with his fists flying before any questions can be uttered. His performance is the best so far this year, and might just hold that title for months to come.
Sharing the name of an old muscle car, Gran Torino is a film that beautifully covers a host of emotions. Could you expect anything less from someone as dedicated as Eastwood? He not only starred in and directed the film, he even sings the title song.
Mark Arehart
MUSIC: Animal Collective. Merriweather Post Pavilion
Merriweather Post Pavilion, Animal Collective's ninth studio release, is one of those albums that managed to garner plenty of attention and excitement long before its release, and it doesn't disappoint.
Animal Collective, which is made up of David "Avey Tare" Portner, Noah "Panda Bear" Lennox, Brian "Geologist" Weitz and Josh "Deakin" Dibb (although Deakin did not take part in this album), has created music that is equally strange and beautiful. With a unique sound that doesn't overpower its appeal, Merriweather Post Pavilion is a nearly perfect combination of eclectic and alluring sounds and harmonies.
While listening to the album seems at times like a dream or even a bit otherworldly, the band manages to bring the songs into a sphere that is personable and easy to relate to—on "My Girls," Panda Bear sings about wanting to provide a home for his family amidst synths and claps, and on "Summertime Clothes." Avey Tare tells of wanting to take a walk with his lover, a simple desire delivered in an original way that only Animal Collective
can deliver.
This album is an innovative, eccentric, evocative and exhilarating release—it lives up to the hype that came before it, and will generate hype for years to come.
Amanda Sorell
MOVIE: The Unborn
Little is to be said about The Unborn except that it is a predictable piece of Hollywood garbage. It is the horror movie equivalent of those over processed packaged cheese slices you find in grocery store dairy aisles. But it's hard to expect anything less from producer Michael Bay, who has made a career of specializing in big budget artistic travesties that crush the souls of critics.
The poorly constructed plot is this: Casey Beldon (Megan Fox look-alike Odette Yustman) starts having crazy dreams involving bull terriers, formaldehyde-encased fetuses and a ghostly little boy.Then the psychotic child she's babysitting starts giving her ominous warnings about something "wanting to be born." Turns out Casey had a twin brother who died in the womb.This and the strange mental decline and suicide of Casey's mother cause her to seek
out her grandmother, who claims the family is being cursed by a dybbuk, a bad spirit whose origins can be found in the Kabbalah.
Weird stuff keeps happening until the movie turns into a flimsy Jewish, mysticism-infused version of The Exorcist, complete with possession victims crab-walking down flights of stairs (this movie gets negative points for lack of originality and besmirching the good name of William Friedkin's classic).
In an attempt to make up for the horridness of the rest of the movie, writer and director David S. Goyer gives us plenty of gratuitous shots of Yustman doing sexy things. The audience sees Casey in her underwear about 50 percent of the time. Apparently, she also likes to take showers and sleep in the nude. Go figure.
The Unborn has a pretty decent supporting cast, but most of the screen time goes to the
prettier-looking,younger lead actors. Blink,and you'll miss Idris Elba,Carla Gugino and,most disappointing of all,the great Gary Oldman,who gets about fifteen minutes onscreen as a rabbi performing Casey's exorcism.
Do not waste time or money seeing The Unborn. This bland, hardly frightening heap of flaming dog poo is not worth it. It's not even so bad it's good. It's just bad.
— Abby Olcese
18
January 15,2009