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6 - THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FILM
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2002
Eminem shines in feature film debut, '8 Mile'
FILM
A DJ spins records as a large man with muscles bulging from his white cotton tank top grips a microphone and stares down a short, white rapper with a bruised face. In front of a concrete room full of observers, the larger rapper unleashes a slew of trash talk-filled lines of freestyle rap. The crowd reacts to the rapper's taunts by screaming, throwing their hands in the air and jumping in unison as if each person were part of a larger organism. This freestyle battle between rappers is more than just a concert. It is where dreams are made and credibility is given. Eminem is doing more than just fighting for street credibility. He is fighting for his own credibility in the acting world as he tries to silence critics in his first feature film, 8 Mile.
Peter Black
pblack@kansan.com
So why is there so much concern about Eminem's jump from music videos to the big screen? Other rappers have done it. Ice Cube is coming off the wildly successful Barbershop, and let's not forget about IceT. Perhaps it is because Eminem seems to be following the lead of the likes of Britney Spears and other MTV prodigies who have used their success with the teen demographic to feed their own desires by using their star power to make a movie. However, Eminem seems to be different. 8 Mile allows him to shed the TRL candy shell that has coated his career and shows audiences a gritter side and a past that he has made public through his lyrics.
8 Mile is not the biography of Marshall "Eminem" Mathers, but perhaps it is a fictionalized depiction of his past that Eminem has constructed for his fans. 8 Mile is the part of Detroit that separates what some consider to be the white trash part of town from the urban slum of the motor city.
Jones, Future, played by Mekhi Phifer, and others are working toward getting a demo together so they can get out of the rundown streets and into a world of flashy cars women and money. Rabbit seems to be the most promising rapper out of the bunch to snag a record deal.
Coming from the white trash trailer park is just one more obstacle that Rabbit, played by Eminem, has to overcome on his way to gaining the street credibility necessary to launch a career. Rabbit, along with his friends Chedder Bob, played by Evan
He feels the pressure to make something happen so he can quit his job at a metal-stamping plant and move out of the trailer owned by his mother, played by Kim Basinger. After choking at his first freestyle battle, he looks for other ways of cutting a demo, all of which end up screwing him over, leaving him dejected and angry with the dream he has been living. Instead of giving the movie a glamorous ending, it ends simply with a glimmer of hope and a sense of understanding.
'8 MILE' ★★★ (OUT OF FOUR)
The role of Rabbit doesn't require Eminem to take on a character too foreign to him, but he gives a powerful and gripping performance. It is revealing to look at the rap superstar stripped of all of his pride and struggling to make it. Under the hooded sweatshirt and the stocking hat pulled down so far it almost covers his eyes is a vulnerability and uncertainty that makes the character Eminem plays seem
Starring Eminem, Kim Basinger,and Brittany Murphy Rated R for strong language,sexuality some violence and drug use Opens tomorrow
like a real person rather than the commercialized and commodified by-product of MTV.
Much of the film is shot with a wobbly handheld camera following Rabbit as he stomps through the decrepit and decaying grayness of the slums of Detroit. The image may shakily mirror the uncertainty that Rabbit has in his life, but Eminem's performance is solid.
He walks through life with confidence and unstaggering pride. His icy blue stare pierces the bleakness of his surroundings, shining as the only bright spot in the world around him. This may not be Eminem's life story but he brings the intensity and ferocity of his lyrics to his acting and gives a performance that says he is more than this week's fad and is a star who is going to be around for a while.
'Auto Focus' clearly tackles sex and stardom
Auto Focus initially looks to be the FILM SNOB
Auto Focus initially looks to be the equivalent of a cinematic yet inconsequential El True Hollywood Story. But in the assured hands of director Paul Schrader, the story of Bob Crane becomes a meditation on the religious family man of the '50s being tempted into the dark side of the Free Love Movement of the '60s and '70s.
James Owen
jowen@kansan.com
Schrader, the writing collaborator of Martin Scorcese (Taxi Driver, Ragging Bull and Bringing Out the Dead among others), looks at the glossy innocence and slowly peels away the layers for the film's duration. Crane, played by Greg Kinnear, began his career in L.A. as "the Johnny Carson of radio." He takes the chance to be the lead on Hogan's Heroes, which turns out to be a hit, and Crane's new recognition brings about all sorts of changes.
His wife, played by Rita Wilson, worries about the long hours that he spends on the set and its effect on his balance of career and family. Crane also becomes more appealing to the ladies. It's all harmless fun until one day when on the set Crane meets John Carpenter, played by Willem Dafoe. And no, this Carpenter is not the director of Halloween.
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For more reviews by James Owen, check out www.filmsnobs.com.
Carpenter is on the set putting together a sound system in the trailer of one of Crane's costars. Crane is intrigued by this guy's technological know-how. Carpenter, sees Crane's enthusiasm as a ticket to hang out with a celebrity and invites Crane to a strip club for lunch. What develops from this initial meeting is a life of swinging and sex that envelops Crane. His obsession with random sexual encounters with women is exciting for a guy who has lived a bland Catholic life. He embraces new video technology, introduced to him by Carpenter, that allows him to experience these moments over and over. Crane gets
divorced but, in order to anchor his life in something that doesn't involve multiple body parts, he marries a normal, yet understanding, costar played by Maria Bello.
Once Heroes is canceled, Crane still enjoys recognition but needs money to carry on the techno-heavy lifestyle. He starts doing dinner theater — an awful looking comedy called Beginner's Luck — that allows him to carry on his activity all over the country. But the life, as well as Carpenter, begin to take their toll. Even ordinary actions become sex-driven to the point of awkwardness and he finds that his reputation hinders any chance for a comeback. Crane tries to break off his relationship with Carpenter, but that is more than likely what led to his murder in 1978 when he was bludgeoned to death with a camera tripod in a Scottsdale, Ariz., motel room.
Crane may seem like an unlikely subject for a feature film. He was known only for Hogan's Heroes, a show that made light of a German prisoner of war camp. Crane was average and typical of the 1950s. He went to church every Sunday and even at his darkest moments, never resorted to alcohol or drugs: his drink of choice at the strip clubs
Crane becomes trapped by his status, perfectly displayed in a dream sequence where he is sexually accosted by his costars as the walls of the set cave in on him, and finds that his temptations ultimately offer no satisfaction. Schrader's message is that there is no way of crossing the devil without paying the ultimate price.
was cranberry juice. This allows the film to examine the themes of star worship and sexual obsession without other details scrambling for the spotlight..
'AUTO FOCUS'
While Auto Focus has a lot going for it in message and performances, it does have trouble spots. The shifts in style almost come off as forced and seem to be too late in the point of the story. A small complaint for a film that is able to deftly examine the power of sex and television in concurrence so well.
Starring Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe Rated R for strong sexuality, nudity language, some drug use and violence Playing at Liberty Hall, 644 Massachusetts St.
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