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THE UNIVERSITY HAILY GANSAN
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2012
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
E entertainment
Treasure the 'Indiana Jones' rerelease
PLAY REHEARSAL
BRANDON SMITH/KANSAN
Sophomore Maggie Boyles from Les Brouzils, France goes through her lines during the rehearsal for the upcoming play "The Laramie Project." The play premieres 6.30 Friday night at Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union.
MUSIC
California band staying busy
LYNDSEY HAVENS
lhavens@kansan.com
Dead Winter Carpenters, a California-native band, will be performing their second album release in Lawrence at the Bottleneck next Monday, Sept. 17. The band released their second album in May, titled "Ain't it Strange." When asked how this album compared to the first time around, singer/guitarist Jesse Dunn felt that "overall we kinda created our own sound. When we were working on our first album, we had only been together as a band for about 4 or 5 months. We had a bunch of songs but hadn't played together that long." Dunn felt that as a group not only has their sound grown over the past couple of years, but their songwriting has, too.
Dead Winter Carpenters is an unlikely name for a California band, but Dunn explained that the group is from Lake Tahoe, a ski-industry town that gets "lots of snow and cold temps." The five-piece band consists of Dunn on guitar/vocals, Venn Charles on fiddle/vocals, Sean Duerr on guitar/vocals, Dave Lockhart on upright bass and Ryan Davis on drums. The band collectively agrees on Old Crow Medicine Show as a leading influence, along with Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, Neil Young and Nirvana.
The group has kept extremely busy playing several shows and festivals this year. Dunn mentioned High Sierra Music Festival as one of his personal favorites. "We've played there the past two years; it's fantastic." The band also played at String Cheese Incident's Horn-
ing's Hideout, along with others. When asked where he would play if given the opportunity to play at any festival — anywhere at all — Dunn said, "Coachella, if you're trying to go popular."
This October, the band will play at Railroad Earth's Hangtown Halloween Ball in California. Delta Spirit and Blind Pilot will play the festival as well. "It's beneficial for smaller bands like us to play with bands like them," Dunn said. "It gets you more exposure from many different outlets from all over, especially social media. Were excited about it, not only to play with them but to see them play."
- Edited by Sarah McCabe
LANDON MCDONALD
/mcdonald@kansan.com
"It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage."
More than three decades after its original release, Steven Spielberg's seminal swashbuckler "Raiders of the Lost Ark" remains the purest distillation of the action adventure genre, forever embodied in the fedora-topped, bullwhip-wielding, globe-trotting, snake-loathing Indiana lones.
Endlessly imitated but never once equaled, the film that birthed an icon has received a glorious high-def restoration that can be seen this Saturday as part of AMC's "Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures," an exhibition meant to promote the series' Sept. 18 Blu-ray debut.
Fear not though, Indy purists.
Unlike series co-creator George Lucas, Spielberg is not using this re-release as an opportunity to fix what isn't broken. The serpents in the Well of Souls aren't blinking CGI stand-ins, Indy still shoots the marketplace swordsmans and the villainous Belloq (Paul Freeman) doesn't exclaim, "NOOO!" as he opens the
Ark of the Covenant and feels his skin begin to liquevy.
When I caught "Raiders" during its brief IMAX run, the only technical differences I saw were a vastly improved picture and a fully remastered, crystal clear soundtrack. Parts of the film looked as if they could have been shot yesterday. The majority of the matte paintings and practical effects have held up remarkably well.
Harrison Ford seems almost impossibly young and dashing in his first turn as Dr. Jones, blending bare-knuckled aggression with a bookish charm that seems entirely appropriate given the character's second home in academia. He's also surprisingly idealistic with his "It belongs in a museum" mantra and implicit faith that the U.S. government actually plans on letting his university keep the Ark after witnessing its power.
The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent. Karen Allen exudes feisty sensuality as Marion Ravenwood, a consummate foil the sequels would later try and fail to imitate. Here was a woman who could drink hard and fight dirty without sacrificing her
Something else that struck me was the fluid, breakneck editing courtesy of Michael Kahn and an uncredited Lucas. There's literally no fat on this film. Every chunk of expository dialogue is succinct, cleverly written and, perhaps most crucially, relayed while our heroes are in motion, fighting or fleeing their dogged Nazi pursuers.
femininity in the process. She remains so much more than another pat love interest. Other acting highlights include John Rhys-Davis as the jocular Egyptian excavator Sallah and Ronald Lacey as a ghoulish Gestapo interrogator.
The violence, including decapitations and exploding heads, still feels jarring within the context of the PG rating. There are no narrative gimcracks or dated pop culture references, just a simple story well told. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is a film that was made to feel timeless, and that's exactly what it has become.
Edited by Lauren Shelly
Robot partners with ex-con
LANDON MCDONALD
imcdonald@kansan.com
Funny and touching without resorting to weepy sentiment, "Robot and Frank" might also be the first film to qualify as domestic science fiction.
Jake Schreier's Sundance winner is a slight, soulful exercise that dares to imagine the future not as some bombed-out hellscape but rather as a familiar gloss on our present, complete with robot servants and marginally advanced Skyping technology. The film's real strength, though, lies in the casting of Frank Langella, who brings cantankerous charm to a comedy that defyly comments on the subjects of age and memory loss.
Ex-con Frank (Langella) is a man literally going through the motions. Recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's, his daily routine has dissolved into an aimless shamble: first to the library to pitch woo at sweet Jennifer (Susan Sarandon), then off to filch decorative soaps from the store that replaced his favorite restaurant. His adult son Hunter (James Marsden), grudgingly devoted to the father who neglected him growing up, decides that Frank could use a helper. One arrives in the form of Robot, a plastic fantastic robo-butler voiced with deadpan wit by Peter Sarsgaard.
At first the old man has nothing but contempt for his shiny new babysitter. My favorite exchange, after the nutrition-minded Robot throws out all the Fruit Loops: "Frank, that cereal is for children. Enjoy this grapefruit."
Frank sneers, fumbling for words
until coming up with the optimal retort. "You're for children!"
Tensions ease after Frank discovers Robot's untapped talents as a safecracker with a conveniently erasable memory and decides to resume his career as a jewel thief, a profession he says once found him rappelling down the walls of a casino during a hurricane.
The new partners' target is Jake (Jeremy Strong), an insufferable yuppie seeking to turn Jennifer's
library into a kitsch museum for the printed word. Their plan is complicated by the arrival of Frank's daughter Madison (Liv Tyler), who doesn't want her father becoming dependent on any machine.
"Robot & Frank" simply wouldn't work without Langella, a true master of his craft who only seems to improve with age. His portrayal avoids making Frank too doddering or loveable, a choice that bolsters the film's surprisingly poignant third act. His presence also seems to bring out the best in Tyler and Marsden, both of whom turn in first-rate performances as Frank's offspring-turned-caretakers. And special mention must be made of Robot, played by Rachael Ma in a body suit inspired by the real-life Honda ASIMO.
Schreier, a filmmaker/musician whose band Francis and the Lights also provides the film's agreeably retro score, has made an art-house crowd-pleaser that doesn't skate by on style or schmaltz. I honestly can't wait to see where he goes from here. But he would do well to bring Langella.
— Edited by Ryan McCarthy