The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, October 22, 2004, Page 6, Image 6
MOVIE REVIEW
Gere and Lopez stumble through awkward ‘Dance ’
“SHALL WE DANCE?"
★★ out of ☆☆☆☆☆
By LESLIE DENNIS
THE GAMECOCK
Don’t go into “Shall We Dance?”
thinking it’s a romantic comedy — it
isn’t. The trailers and previews give litde
plot or insight into the film, which is a
good thing for the studio because if they
did, no one would go see the movie.
While watching it, one wonders what
type of movie “Shall We Dance?” is and
how to classify it. Is it a teary-eyed
drama, a laugh-out-loud comedy, a gut
wrenching horror flick or possibly even a
thriller in which dancers pull Out guns
when they lose the competition and
shoot the winners when they accept the
award for best cha-cha?
Actually, the latter would have been
better than what “Shall We Dance?” is:
a hybrid of all the above. Girls will tear
up with the sight of Richard Gere in a
tux holding a rose because no guy does
that or will ever look like that. Men will
stifle a laugh when Stanley Tucci has his
wig yanked off by another dancer
because they will feel the pain of
receding hairlines. Most viewers will
watch in horror as Jennifer Lopez
attempts to be a “serious” actress
because she looks more like a hamster
trying to swim than an actual complex
character, and everyone will be on the
verge of sleep during the final dance
competition because they all know
what’s about to happen.
With big name stars like Gere, Lopez
and Susan Sarandon one would think,
or at least hope, the film would at least
be entertaining. But this remake of the
Japanese smash hit with the same name
twirls into a dizzying film about nothing
in particular.
Gere plays John Clark, a bored
husband and father. Not bored with his
wife or children, just inherently
unhappy. He watches a detached
dancer, Paulina (Lopez), night after
night on the ride home from work on
the L-train. One night, something
pushes John off the train, (possibly his
feet’s need to dance but more likely his
libido) and into Miss Mitzi’s Dance
Studio where he promptly joins a
ballroom dance class for beginners.
John joins fellow inept dancers Vern
(Omar Benson Miller) and Chic
(Bobby Cannavale) as the third
member of the class taught by Miss
Mitzi herself (Anita Gillette)." With
other frequenters of Miss Mitzi’s such
as Link Peterson (a self-tanned, wig
wearing Tucci) and Bobbie (Lisa Ann
Walter, the sarcastic “olive” to Tucci’s
“toothpick”), John learns to let go with
the music and begins to enjoy life
again.
Back at home, John’s wife, Beverly
(Sarandon), begins to suspect he’s up to
something. She hires an uncouth
detective (Richard Jenkins) and his
literature-quoting assistant (Nick
Cannon) to spy on her husband.
The movie drags on, feeling longer
than an hour and a half. Although Gere
is extremely talented as an actor and
does what he can with the part of John,
he is the wrong choice for the role.
Gere, showing his dancing talent in the
Oscar winning film “Chicago,” is
unbelievable as the unnoticed, unhappy
man and seems too suave for the
character.
But Gere is not as miscast as Lopez.
Lopez’s portrayal of Paulina is like a
beginner in the ballroom dance class:
mechanical and unsure.
Probably the best moments in the
film, although these could also use some
tweaking, ate the ones when there is no
speaking, only dancing. Gere and
Lopez’s steamy dance scene in the dark
studio is passionate and detached, fitting
both characters’ complex natures.
While there are some touching
moments in the movie such as
Sarandon’s speech on why people marry
and Gere’s romantic gesture to his wife,
the movie fails to lift itself to its
potential. With the right actors and
more elaboration of the characters,
“Shall We Dance?” could be a pretty
decent film. As it is, the movie builds no
emotional ties with the audience and has
no firm foundation upon which to
stand.
Comments on this story? E-mail
gamecockfeatures@gwtn.sc.edu
PHOTO SPECIAL TO THE GAMECOCK
From left: Stanley Tucci, Susan Sarandon, Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez star in the new romantic
comedy, “Shall We Dance?” This remake of a Japanese film falls short of expectations.
Puppets do dirty work on screen, stage
PHOTO COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS
The risque activities of the puppets in Trey Parker and Matt Stone's
“Team America: World Police” nearly earned the movie an NC-17 rating.
By CHRIS VOGNAR
KRT CAMPUS
Whether living on Avenue Q or
working for Team America, puppets are
engaging in the kind of behavior that
could get you evicted from Sesame Street.
Sure, they still walk and talk, sing and
dance. They still act a little wooden. But
they also vomit and have sex.
Why the sudden surge in edgy,
puppetry? They can do and say the kinds
of things largely forbidden to real people
in this complicated, politically correct
world. Hey, it wasn’t me; it was the
puppet.
“People don’t expect to take puppets
seriously, so there’s basically no material
that they can’t do,” says Rick Lyon, who
conceived and designed the all-puppet
cast for the Broadway smash “Avenue Q.”
The Tony-winning musical, which will
set up shop in Las Vegas next year,
spotlights a group of bawdy, multiethnic
New York puppets who bear a suspicious
resemblance to the Muppets. “But
viewers do get the message, and they get it
in a very profound way.”
The word “profound” doesn’t
immediately come to mind when you
watch “Team America: World Police,”
which hit movie screens Friday.
Created by Trey Parker and Matt
Stone, the guys who built a potty
mouth, construction-paper empire out
of “South Park,” the movie’s puppets
blow one another away, throw up, give
profane monologues and engage in some
seriously compromising positions. That
last part nearly got Team America the
most restrictive movie rating — NC-17
— before the filmmakers made last
second cuts.
Parker and Stone got the puppet bug
while watching a rerun of
“Thunderbirds,” a futuristic ‘60s TV
show from England with puppet heroes
and model spaceships.
“It just looked cool, especially
nowadays when everything is computer
generated,” Stone said at last month’s
Toronto International Film Festival,
where “Team America” footage was
shown to critics. “Just watching the
puppets say their lines and walk away was
making us laugh. They had litde model
cars and they just threw them off a hill.
They tried to do the detail so that it
looked real. They couldn’t, but even the
attempt was visually interesting.”
The filmmakers wanted to do a
“Thunderbirds” movie with puppets and
a bawdy “South Park” sensibility. But the
rights had already been scooped up for a
live-action version of “Thunderbirds,”
which tanked this summer.
Yet they still had the puppet itch. So
they did something a little more topical.
The puppets in “Team America” include
an anti-terrorism strike force, a variety of
terrorists, Kim Jong II, Peter Jennings,
Michael Moore (holding two hot dogs,
wearing mustard on his foce and
explosives around his waist), Sean Penn
and Tim Robbins. None, of course,
voiced by the real-life models.
They get chopped off at the waist and
decapitated. The Moore marionette
blows himself up. Giant house cats tear
the Penn puppet to bits.
Think poor behavior among our
inanimate friends is a new phenomenon?
Think again.
The original Punch and Judy
marionette shows, which date to at least
the 17th century, were grisly affairs.
Punch, an obese hunchback, throws a
crying baby out the window, kills his wife
(that would be Judy) with a stick, hangs a
hangman, murders a doctor and eventually
even triumphs over the devil. The shows
were enormously popular across Europe.
When the logistics of traveling with a full
marionette show grew less cost-effective,
Punch was converted into a hand puppet.
After all, the puppet show must go on.
Some shows featured a human Punch,
in costume. But, according to “The Oxford
Companion to the Theatre,” “it was as a
puppet that Punch gained his great success,
for it was as a puppet his physical
disfigurements could be exaggerated in a
manner impossible to a living actor.”
Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy,
the courtly ventriloquist and his trash
talking dummy, honed this only-with-a
puppet approach in the mid-20th
century. And today, it’s practiced by the
likes of Robert Smigel, who took a crude '
doggie hand puppet, popped a cigar in his
mouth and created the rudely hilarious
Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog for
“Late Night With Conan O’Brien.” And
don’t forget the Comedy Central show
“Crank Yankers,” in which celebrities
give voice to crank-calling puppets.
Comments on this story? E-mail
garnecockfeatures@gwm.sc. edu
■ TRIO
Continued from page 5
have his first three recordings reach
No. 1 on Billboard’s traditional jazz
chart, is coming to Columbia after
playing a show in New York.
“Students should take a chance
and take a risk and if they have
never heard of anything like they
will say, ‘Hey this is interesting,’”
■ Gustnersaid.
Some of Columbia’s at-risk youth
will get to hear the concert as part of
the campaign, “Give Our Kids a Seat
at the Table.” This program allows
corporate sponsors to reserve seats
for children who would not
normally be able to attend the show
and be around the arts.
Gallery 701, an area non-profit
organization, has hosted jazz events
in Columbia since 1996. The gallery
previously featured Wynton
Marsalis at the Koger Center in
2002 where it was the first soid-out
concert in 12 years.
The doors will open at 7 p.m.
with the concert beginning at 8
p.m. Tickets for the concert will be
on sale by phone at 544-6069 and
by e-mail at tickets@gallery701 .org
through Saturday morning.
If available, tickets may be
purchased the night of the concert.
Student tickets are $12 and adult
tickets range from $25 to $300 for
a table of eight.
Comments on this story? E-mail
gamecockfeatures@gwm.sc.edu
IF YOU’RE
GOING
WHAT: Marcus Roberts
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WHERE: Columbia
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Center
WHEN: 8 p.m.
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Continued from page 5
collared shirt, which would
probably act as the most
pronounced feature of the outfit if
you like stripes or checks.
For any event in which the
invitation uses the phrases “pig
pickin’” or “bluegrass” or even
“BYOB,” it’s definitely your call.
After all, you’re working with these
people now and have had time to
gauge their sense of formality.
It’s never a problem to wear
shorts to summer barbecues, just so
long as you don’t show up to meet
the boss’s wife in the khakis you just
ripped in a tackle football game the
day before, only to have your Spider
man themed boxers showing
through the frays.
My problem when considering
these events is that you only have
time to get dressed once in the
morning and have to pick
something that will function for
the day’s many events.
It’s a problem when you’re
trying to be casual for class, formal
for your big meeting at work and
then semi-casual at the cocktail
party at the private club.
Of course, there’s always room
for improvisation like rolled-up
sleeves or slipping off that tie and
tossing it into your book bag.
Clothes are fun because of how
versatile they are, and, therefore,
it’s just all in how you wear what
you’ve chosen.
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