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(04/27/06 4:00am)
MOVIEREVIEW
'Duck Season'
2 Stars
Foreign cinema is hit or miss in America.
Fernando Eimbcke's first feature-length film, "Temporada de patos," - "Duck Season" - falls somewhere in the middle, teetering between the relatable and the obscure.
Produced by Alfonso Cuar
(04/18/06 4:00am)
Sometimes, making it big is as easy as getting a phone call.
University alumna Maddy Curley found out that she'd landed a major supporting role in Disney's latest sports-based film, "Stick It" - with just one call.
With its peek into the world of competitive gymnastics as seen through the eyes of an elite gymnastics program, the film, it seems, was right up Curley's alley - she was a UNC gymnast and an academic All-American for four years.
Curley also was active in the University's drama scene, with roles in Lab! Theatre and Company Carolina productions and a stint with CHiPs improv comedy group, a program she said helped her dramatic career more than anything else.
Her dramatic experience combined with time spent on the mat primed Curley for what would be the opportunity of her life.
"Well, I did think I was going to be in Hollywood because I really wanted to, but I didn't think I'd get my opportunity this quickly," she said.
The film, which premiered in Los Angeles on Monday, proved to be a bit of welcome nostalgia for Curley, who said some of her fondest memories of UNC were competing in Carmichael Auditorium with her teammates.
Curley, who majored in international studies and dramatic arts before graduating in May 2004, plays Mina, a shy but talented gymnast who encourages her team to excel.
That role mirrors Curley all too well, said UNC gymnastics head coach Derek Galvin.
"Her enthusiasm and her hard work ethic made her a team leader," he said. "She was very vocal and encouraging of her teammates, and (the role) is so consistent with the kind of person Maddy is."
Says actress Missy Peregrym, the star of "Stick It," Curley's personality off-screen doesn't stray too far from Galvin's description.
"It was nice to have someone there who had been there before because it kind of gave credibility to the sport as it's seen in the movie," she said. "She was just great to have there, and we were all really grateful."
Curley, in turn, said she was grateful for the experience.
Few actors land roles after their first auditions, and even fewer first auditions are for $20 million Disney films in the ilk of "Bring It On" - also written by the director of "Stick It."
But it wasn't just beginner's luck for Curley. Twilla Tanyi, another University alumna and one of the assistant casting agents for the film, clued her in to the audition.
During the rounds of auditions for the film, Curley was working with the Teach For America program in Rocky Mount traveling back and forth to Chapel Hill three times a week to get back into shape for a film she didn't even know she'd be a part of.
It was during a January training session with Galvin that Curley got the call from Disney asking her to audition with the film's director, Jessica Bendinger.
"Her phone kept ringing and ringing, and whoever was calling seemed pretty persistent, so I told Maddy that she should pick it up," Galvin said. "Turns out that that phone call was pretty important."
Though the role wasn't an easy one, Peregrym said Curley gave an impressive first outing.
"Film can be very scary and very judgemental, so I imagined what it was like for her, and I couldn't even begin to imagine," she said. "She did a lot to get this role, and we're all so proud of her.
"(The film) was incredibly challenging, and I have even more respect for gymnasts than I did before."
After "Stick It," which opens nationwide April 28, Curley is hoping that the Hollywood spotlight will strike her once again.
"I auditioned for a bunch of (TV) pilots, and I'm hoping that, once this movie comes out, I'll have more of a legitimacy," she said. "This is definitely what I want to be doing."
Contact the A&E Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.
(04/13/06 4:00am)
MOVIEREVIEW
'CSA: The Confederate States of America'
3 Stars
In an hour and a half, director Kevin Willmott - with the aid of producer Spike Lee - presents audiences with an intricate and plausible revisionist's history based on a simple premise:
What if the South had won the Civil War?
Set against the backdrop of a British documentary being aired for the first time on modern-day Confederate television, "CSA: The Confederate States of America" presents audiences with images of slavery, black exploitation and white supremacy.
And those are just the commercials.
(03/30/06 5:00am)
MOVIEREVIEW
"Thank You for Smoking"
3.5 Stars
"Thank You for Smoking," an impressive feature debut from director Jason Reitman, would have you believe that anti-smoking lobbyists are just as evil as the users they rally against.
Cynical though it might be, the film manages to cast a witty and uniformly sardonic light on each side of the issue; it finds its strength in its unrestrained satire.
And it didn't hurt that Reitman's film has an impressive A-list cast that delivers a top-notch collective performance.
(03/23/06 5:00am)
MOVIEREVIEW
'Cache'
4 Stars
For a film to have meaning and depth beyond its own framework is no novel task.
But with Michael Haneke's "Cache," a film of arguable brilliance set against an all-too-palpable tension, thematic gravity is in no short supply.
Few have created such a flood of potential interpretations.
With a script that is equally frustrating and engrossing, Haneke has crafted a film that urges audiences to look closer at a subject and then reexamine it from beyond its own focused scope.
(03/21/06 5:00am)
Poets, spoken-word artists and writers will have the opportunity to showcase their talent to a wide audience as an on-campus open mic series begins tonight.
The series, hosted by the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, will kick off in the center's Robert and Sallie Brown Gallery and Museum.
The series, co-sponsored by Tribes Magazine and Durham's SpiritHouse arts collective, is set to run through April 25, with tentative plans to continue into the summer and next year.
(02/21/06 5:00am)
The casual observer might not have noticed it, but director George Clooney's 2005 film "Good Night, and Good Luck" took place entirely indoors.
And that made production designer Jim Bissell's job just a little more difficult.
Bissell, a 1973 graduate of the University, recently was nominated for an Oscar, alongside Jan Pascale, for his work on the film.
Along with fellow alumnus Hughes Winborne, nominated for his editing work on "Crash," Bissell anxiously will await the March 5 ceremony.
As production designer, Bissell worked with set designers and other visual technicians to create a realistic depiction of a professional newsroom.
"It's terrific; it's really a thrill; it's a surprise," Bissell said of his Oscar nomination. "I'm very proud of my work with 'Good Night, and Good Luck'," he said.
Bissell said the film was inexpensive compared to other films nominated for art direction, which often are large-scale fantasy or historical pictures. Indeed, it is the lowest-budgeted film in the category.
"'Good Night, and Good Luck' was about tearing things down," he said. "We decided not to go outside because this is about the world of a newsroom, about these reporters wrestling with these issues - we wanted to keep it just about that."
Bissell, who said he originally thought no one was going to see the film, said it isn't often that a film like "Good Night, and Good Luck" comes along.
Bissell said he wanted the film's actors to feel comfortable on his set, the core of which was the re-created CBS newsroom.
"You always see activity in the background - there's not a scene where you don't get that sense that there's always something going on," he said. "This is a unique project in that it had one big set.
"My first job is to create the world of the story, the world that the actors walk through and live in," he added. "You just have to make sure that when you stylize things, they're consistent with the story."
Bissell, who has yet to revist UNC, said he has a lot of fond memories of his time spent in Chapel Hill, including falling in love with his wife.
"I was a caretaker in Graham Memorial for two years, and I used to have the Great Hall open to myself to sing badly with my guitar," he said.
Bissell is wrapping production on "300," an adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel about the 480 B.C. Battle of Thermopylae.
Contact the A&E Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.
(02/17/06 5:00am)
ATTEND THE SHOW
Time/date: 7:30 p.m. today; 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Location: Hanes Art Center
auditorium
Info: www.unc.edu/student/orgs/uncvday
A campus performing group is giving an old play a new look.
Organizers of this year's production of "The Vagina Monologues" are hoping their revamped play will draw new fans and expose even more people to its message.
The play, a series of vignettes about women and their bodies, has sold out its first two evening performances and will run through Saturday in the Hanes Art Center auditorium.
(02/16/06 5:00am)
Conversations come to a close as the clock strikes 10 p.m. Laptops are shut quickly, and the once-vibrant atmosphere of Eringhaus Residence Hall's game room evolves into a quiet captivation.
"Grey's Anatomy" - ABC's newest hit show - is starting.
The viewing party for the show, which took place Sunday, was organized by Eringhaus resident assistant Greg Carrero, who attended the event dressed in scrubs, harkening the characters in the hit medical drama.
"It's a great show and everyone loves it," sophomore Brian Husar said of "Grey's Anatomy." "The characters themselves work well together, and it's just really entertaining."
Carrero said he planned his program around the show because it was the kind of show that people like and can get into.
"Grey's Anatomy" is just one of the many hit television series that college students have made into a weekly viewing ritual - others include Fox's "24," "The O.C." and "American Idol" and ABC's other hit dramas, "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives," which comes on before "Grey's Anatomy" every Sunday.
But television wasn't always such a "group thing," as Husar put it.
The formative years of television saw families getting together around a black-and-white set, taking in the experience of a new medium as a group.
The decades that passed became what Melva Benoit, senior vice president of research for Fox Broadcasting, called a "singular-viewing experience."
That assertion is substantiated by industry insiders who note the fact that television remains a medium that is enjoyed privately.
But Benoit said group viewing is out there, and it is still a driving force in the broadcasting industry.
She said that Fox encourages viewing parties and that the company's research has shown a minute but consistent spike in the frequency with which groups come together to watch certain shows.
Citing examples such as "American Idol," "24" and "The O.C.," Benoit said ratings breakdowns indicate a rise in the trend.
Fox looks to the Nielsen Media Research group to gauge the level at which people get together to watch television shows.
Not surprisingly, Benoit said, the numbers correlate with Fox's ideas of success.
"There's not a ton of co-viewing going on out there, but Nielsen has experimented with several different methodologies that show us how many people are watching one (television) set," she said.
"Nielsen does measure everyone that's watching, but we don't look specifically at co-viewing."
Well, maybe they should.
While the goal of broadcast companies is viewers - and that has been the bottom line since the their inception - television has become the medium du jour on college campuses, allowing students on a tight budget the freedom to get together and enjoy themselves for an hour or two at relatively no cost.
But Scott Grogin, Fox Broadcasting's vice president of corporate communications, said marketing against the idea of singular viewership has become a Catch-22 for broadcast advertising developers.
"We encourage viewing parties, but the best publicity is and always has been word of mouth," he said.
Of course, the television culture is always changing. University journalism professor Sri Kalyanaraman said there are aspects about it that make it apt to mass adoption.
"We use media - especially television - in order to enhance our relationships," Kalyanaraman said. "I think a lot of it has to do with the cultural and sociological aspect of the medium."
Kalyanaraman also said that a great deal of the medium's effects on groups of individuals comes from the idea of social currency.
Television has become a way for people to interact with each other, and people take advantage of its position as a means of social legitimacy.
And students have been doing just that.
In the wake of a reality television blitz, there has been a shift back to the idea of group viewership, with friends and co-workers sharing in the experience of a storyline in which they have become mutually enveloped.
Sophomore Katie Ort, who started watching "Grey's Anatomy" after its heavily publicized post-Super Bowl special, said she likes the show because of its easily relatable format and storyline.
"Everyone can get into it and talk about it with each other during the commercial breaks," she said. "I started watching it after the Super Bowl, and I got hooked."
Husar, also a "Grey's Anatomy" fan, seconded Ort's opinion, saying that the interaction between the show's characters and their relations with one another was a big drawing factor for him.
But many, such as sophomore Kate Lasater, said the main reason to get involved with shows like "Grey's Anatomy" is to enjoy them with friends.
"It's a good way to have fun and be around friends," Lasater said.
That mentality is something that people like Benoit bank on when determining the shows they pick up for airing and the advertising campaigns that go hand in hand with network success.
"We're a broadcast network - bottom line - so we look for the shows with the broadest appeal," Benoit said. "We want to reach the broadest possible audience."
Curtis Miles, creative services director for WTVD-11, the Triangle's ABC network affiliate, offered a more specific view of garnering an audience.
"I think it's more a matter of (marketing analysts) targeting viewers and what's the most interesting portion or aspect of the show," he said. "Things like the social aspect of 'Lost' or the rebellious nature of the women on 'Desperate Housewives.'
"It's what draws people in and keeps them there."
Miles said advertising developers and marketers for the ABC network craft the message they want to send first, then they figure out how to do what everyone else in the market is doing in a different way.
"They try to break it down to, 'What is the emotional connection that viewers have to the show,' and then they plan their marketing around that.
Miles, though, said television culture is largely maintained as "independent by nature," citing the examples of homes with four to five television sets.
Grogin echoed Benoit's thoughts, bringing up the issue of the Fox network as more than just a peddler of entertainment. As Grogin put it, it's a business above all else.
"It's all about getting as many eyeballs as possible," he said. "With 'The O.C.,' we did a lot of outreach to college newspapers to try to make them aware of the season premiere."
But it's not all about getting in tune with the college demographic.
Benoit noted that the presence of show's like "American Idol," which the network labels as "family viewing," gives Fox its largest percentage of group viewing.
"'American Idol' is something we market as family viewing in every sense of the word," she said. "People tune in and they become hooked so they tune in the next week and it becomes a habit for them.
"Sporting events, the Super Bowl, the height of the college championship season - there's a point to viewing it in groups."
That viewing mentality, Grogin said, is something that Fox aims for, as both an entertainment distributor and a bottom line business.
"You want people to watch your shows and then to talk about your shows, and it's cyclical," Grogin said. "We want that show that gets in peoples' hearts and minds."
Contact the A&E Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.
(01/26/06 5:00am)
MOVIEREVIEW
'The New World'
3 & 1/2 Stars
With just four films under his 36-year directorial belt, Terrence Malick is either doing something right or something incredibly wrong.
His fifth film, "The New World," provides a good argument for either side, falling short of many of the expectations people had for it.
A retelling of the founding of Jamestown, Malick's revisionist history centers around the story of Pocahontas, her romance with John Smith and her subsequent marriage to John Rolfe.
(01/19/06 5:00am)
MOVIEREVIEW
'Brokeback Mountain'
5 Stars
In interviews conducted after the completion of "Brokeback Mountain," director Ang Lee reflected on Michelle Williams' involvement with the realism of the on-screen romance between Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.
(01/19/06 5:00am)
MUSICREVIEW
T. Duggins
Undone
2 Stars
Taking T. Duggins' debut album, Undone, at face value might get you in some geographical trouble.
Though the album sounds like it was recorded with the rolling hills of Ireland in mind, the truth is that the native Chicagoan's album is about as unauthentic and derivative as a Pogues cover band.
Frontman for the Celtic-punk band The Tossers, Duggins undertakes an ambitious effort: a 13-song set of traditional Irish folk songs, Pogues covers, Tossers originals and even an interpretation of Bob Dylan's "Boots of Spanish Leather."
(01/19/06 5:00am)
MOVIEREVIEW
"Hoodwinked"
3.5 Stars
It's not at all unexpected that a film like "Hoodwinked" gets pigeonholed into a genre based on its appearance alone.
For all its convention bending, many will still view the adult-friendly CGI romp as a cheap "Shrek" knockoff that can't hold its weight when stacked against its sleeker contemporaries.
But the reality is that Cory and Todd Edwards' first film delivers an unparalleled level of quality that the genre assuredly lacks.
(01/13/06 5:00am)
Working for Oscar-nominated directors might not have been in professor Brent Wissick's job description, but he didn't seem to mind the opportunity much.
For four days in June, Wissick, a cellist and professor in the University's music department, was in New York recording the score for "Casanova," director Lasse Hallstr
(10/12/05 4:00am)
It's not exactly the classic struggling novelist story.
(09/15/05 4:00am)
It's been getting easier to take gut-shots at emo. And bands like Criteria don't contribute much of a defense for the critically withering yet ever-present genre.
(04/20/05 4:00am)
Consistency is key for PlayMakers Repertory Company. Each theatrical foray the group undertakes is a dramatic success, full of the things professional theater is made of.