THURSDAY,SEPTEMBER 19,2002
FILM
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN -7
'Barbershop' signifies mature shift in Ice Cube's acting
FILM REVIEW
The new film from Ice Cube's Cube Vision production company, 'Barbershop', represents a significant shift in the rapperturned-actor's cinematic repertoire.
Stephen Shupe
sshupe@kansan.com
Ice Cube gives a mature performance in the new comedy 'Barbershop.'
At 33, Cube looks more mature, observant and PG-13 rated film. His reticence and baby fat render him almost cuddly, and they make it easy to forget this man once released a song with Dr. Dre entitled 'Natural Born Killaz'. The hard-edged provocateur who teamed up with NWA and said "F--- the police" has evidently softened.
Contributed art
Cube plays Calvin, an expectant father who dreams of opening his own recording studio. In his third year as the proprietor of his father's south Chicago barbershop, Calvin is burdened with too many free cuts and too many runaway customers, so he agrees to sell the shop to local gangster Lester Wallace (Keith David, a leering, silk-suit stereotype). On the last day of business, Calvin begins to understand the shop's place in the community, and thinks twice
about its demise.
The film recalls Kevin Smith's 'Clerks' more than any other. The characters occupy a single space, rarely pausing to venture out of it. The film concentrates on individual moments between them, rather than providing a larger narrative drive. This ploy worked wonders for Smith, and serves Barbershop's director, Tim Story, equally well.
with the Illinois penal system.
In the shop, we meet Jimmy (Sean Patrick Thomas, from"Save the Last Dance'), a self-proclaimed intellectual who enjoys talking down to customers and co-workers alike. We meet Terri (Eve), the lone female cutter in the shop who gets ragged on for letting her cheating boyfriend off too easy, and Rick, a well-spoken antagonist to Jimmy who's just trying to avoid his third strike
Along with Calvin, two other characters, Eddie and J.D., dominate the film's screen time, and while the first contributes heavily to the film's ambition as a newer, more engaging kind of African-American comedy, the other merely detracts from this.
Cedric the Entertainer ('The Original Kings of Comedy') unbelievably is cast as the elderly Eddie, a chin-whiskered man who speaks in a token, sermonic accent, but the comedian works with a surprising amount of pathos, and earns Eddie's weary tears. Eddie's life lessons to the younger barbers in the shop ring true enough not to buckle under the weight of the film's sentimental music, and director Story lets him talk tough about such political figures as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., in a way that would send other filmmakers scurrying.
Anthony Anderson ('Two Can Play That Game') plays the broader, more problematic char-
'Barbershop'**1/2(out of four)
Starring Ice Cube, Eve and Cedric the Entertainer
Rated PG-13 for language,sexual content and brief drug content Playing at Southwind 12,3433 Iowa St.
actor of J.D., a loud-mouthed criminal who spends the entire film wandering around the city attempting to break into an ATM he's stolen.
Violent jokes involving bodily harm and the 'Home Alone' rip-
off music take away from the more realistic tone the film sets up in the shop. This immaturity occasionally invades the rest of the movie. The straight-laced, Marsha Brady hair that Eve and every other African-American actress in the film are forced to sport is especially embarrassing.
The film induces at least a dozen belly laughs, though, and Cubanages to stake out new territory in a commercial market without the assistance of censors and red tape.
'One Hour Photo' develops sense of emptiness, voyeurism
FILM REVIEW
As the lights go up in SavMart a super convenience store, offering everything from groceries to hunting equipment, things appear to look more like a mental hospital than a place for shopping.
Peter Black
pblack@kausan.com
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Robin Williams stars as Sy Parrish in the new film, "One Hour Photo."
Even when the store is full it feels empty and perhaps this sense of emptiness pushes Sy Parrish over the edge in the film One Hour Photo.
It is in the one-hour photo lab at a suburban SavMart that Sy, played by Robin Williams, finds his sanity in his meticulous developing of perfect photo prints. His job also gives him the opportunity to feed his addiction.
When he goes home to his empty apartment his addiction is made clear. He passes his time by covering a wall with the pictures of a family of three whom he has no relation to besides being their photo developer. Like most pictures people take these are snapshots
of the family celebrating and enjoying life.
Excluding the few interactions he has with the family, the Yorkins, the only knowledge he has of the family comes from what he can gather from what he sees in their pictures. As he stares into their pictures he dreams he is sitting just outside the border of the photo enjoying every moment with them.
As the film progresses his desire to become part of the family grows stronger, and the border between the Yorkins seemingly ideal world and his position as a voyeur becomes more and more blurred.
Having nothing else in his life besides his dream of becoming part of the family's world, he becomes consumed with his dream. His fantasy is dashed when he discovers that their family is as corrupted as the rest of the world. This discovery pushes him over the edge and into their lives but not as "Uncle Sy" as he had dreamt, but as a hunter focusing
on the ideal world that he thought existed.
Perhaps the reason people go to see movies is because films fulfill a voyeuristic urge that lies deep inside everyone. The popularity of reality television leaves little question that our culture thrives on peering into someone's personal life.
One Hour Photo is brilliant
'One Hour Photo,'***1/2 (out of four)
Starring Robin Williams and Connie Nielsen
Rated R for sexual content and language.
Playing at Westglen 18,16301 Midland Drive, Shawnee
Throughout the movie, an overwhelming sense of awkwardness and self-questioning consumed me. I couldn't think of another movie that has found a way to pull me in and make me feel like I am just as guilty as the character.
because it submerges the voyeuristic viewer into a world of peeping,but it does more than just show how a stalker operates. It actually makes you feel like you are taking part in the action.
One Hour Photo is absolutely chilling, not because of cliché genre elements, but because it is
so real.