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By The Lowell
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May. 4, 2004 |
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Album
For someone who is supposedly out to rid the world of all pop princesses, Avril Lavigne fits the mold of the same stuff she's trying to eliminate.
A self-proclaimed Britney-hater, this 18-year-old Canadian YM Magazine covergirl released her debut album Let Go through Arista Records this past summer. Backed by a band of unfortunate boys who play in her shadow, the fresh-faced teen appears assertive and in control, but the reality is her band mates are too ashamed to show their faces on camera.
Lavigne's first single, "Complicated," is a catchy song about her frustrations with preppy, conformist boys. She sings about the façade her man is putting up, claiming "You're trying to be cool, (but) you look like a fool to me." Unfortunately, the song breaks into a whiney chorus of "Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?" which proves to be more annoying than anything else.
In her second single, "Sk8er Boi," Lavigne sings about her "depression" and her relationship with a skateboarder. "He was a skater boy; she said see you later boy" is the deep and insightful chorus that has earned her multi-platinum status. "Sk8er Boi" conveys the same message as "Complicated" but to slightly different music.
Sadly enough, Lavigne's latest single is a paraphrase of her first two. "I'm with You" is yet another song about how a guy she liked played her for a fool and left her out in the rain. Unfortunately, most of her 13-song album follows the same pattern of uncovering the perils and confusion of relationships and complaining about how she is deceived and unloved.
Lavigne may say she hates pop queens, but her songs are just overstrung versions of her foes' tunes. Using her "attitude" and "rebelliousness," Lavigne's bland and overplayed "skater rock" sound makes for a shockingly popular album that should have never left the studio.
-Danai Leininger
TV Show
"When you're deep undercover, use what you've got."
Such is the tagline for FOX's newest endeavor, Fastlane, which fails to deliver even on its promise of vacant, fluffy fun.
Fastlane consists of the adventures of Van Ray (Peter Facinelli) and Deaqon Hayes (Bill Bellamy), undercover cops who snag a variety of criminals in the seedy portion of Los Angeles, often leaving a swath of wrecked cars and dead bodies in their wake. Tiffani Thiessen, who appears as threatening as a Muppet, plays their beleagured boss, Billie Chambers.
The director, who only goes by "McG," is a veteran of commercials and music videos, which explains the show's inability to sustain a coherent narrative. Any occurrence, from the exiting of a car to the passing of cash-, calls for a series of flamboyant, slow motion shots. Tight tank tops and low-slung jeans abound and that's only the men's attire. In Van and Deaqon's fantasy world of gleaming cars and promiscuous women, subtlety does not exist.
Neither, apparently, does decent dialogue. The characters' conversations range from bare-bones exposition to tired innuendo. One feels that if McG were to have his way, all spoken words would come from the self-consciously trendy songs often blaring in the background.
Fastlane's big guns, shiny cars and gratuitous sex are not new to American audiences. The hyperkinetic direction and hammy acting fail to inject any originality into this trite formula. This show calls for you to use what you've got the remote.
-Joyce Chen
Movie
On July 3, a new form of evil was born.
Columbia Pictures made a deadly mistake when it released Men In Black II, the sequel to the intergalactic crime-fighting blockbuster hit starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Unfortunately, the Motion Picture Association of America made a blunder far more grave when it gave the movie a "PG-13" rating instead of "NV": Not Viewable under any circumstances.
If you're looking for the worst movie of the year MIB II has it all: tasteless humor, ridiculous dialogue and an incoherent, off-the-wall plot that would probably leave even the most enthusiastic and optimistic moviegoer wondering why he paid $9 and forwent the chance to sit at home painting Easter eggs all night.
The movie, which, as a concept, may have originally seemed viable and effective, touches on many ideas from the first MIB flick. In the sequel, the world once again unknowingly relies on agents J (Smith) and K (Jones) of the underground government organization that monitors extraterrestrial activity on Earth to save the planet from dangerously powerful creatures. While the first of the two films awed 1997 audiences with its creativity, humor and superb special effects, MIB II left audiences either snoozing in their seats or shuffling hastily towards the exits only a few minutes into the movie.
Let me summarize the 88 minutes of garbage for you: A talking dog sings to the tunes of the Baha Men in a state-of-the-art Mercedes Benz, Tommy Lee Jones is somehow "deneuralized" and brought back into the MIB alien-fighting squad, and Will Smith falls in love with a pizza-delivery girl who as we find out in the end is actually the savior for all of mankind. A thriller, indeed.
But the worst part of MIB II is not its weak plot or bland humor, but rather its rash commercialism, a characteristic so prevalent in modern cinema. In the movie, companies like Sprint and Burger King almost steal the spotlight from the actors themselves. The products of these companies share so much of the screen that at times it seems the movie is nothing more than an enormous advertisement. As if the hundreds of millions of dollars the first MIB took in weren't enough, the producers of the sequel must have thought they hadn't milked the world of enough green yet.
If, for some reason or another, you decide to reward awful cinema and mass commercialism by picking up MIB II at the video store, be forewarned: It's an other-worldly movie that very few people or aliens, or covert government agents, for that matter can bear.
-Jeremy Elprin |
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