A&E the HERALD Page 5
The 47th Annual Grammy Awards Ceremony Cheesy Euro-Pop is Tasty chorus, flute loop sample, and lyrtook place Sunday, February 13th. Here are ics written in a nearly unknown semester abroad can do Central European language. The some of the top winners: many things for you: best part about listening to pop muAmanda Jantzi A&E Contributor
Record Of The Year:
mance :
Alicia Keys
Here We Go Again Ray Charles & Norah Jones
Slither Velvet Revolver
Album Of The Year:
Best Metal Performance:
Best Rap Solo Performance
Genius Loves Company Ray Charles & Various Artists
Song Of The Year:
99 Problems Jay-Z
Best Rap Performance By A Duo Or Group:
Whiplash Motörhead
Best Rock Album
Daughters John Mayer
Best New Artist: Maroon5
Best Female Pop Vocal Performance: Sunrise Norah Jones
Best Male Pop Vocal Performance: Daughters John Mayer
Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal:
Let’s Get It Started The Black Eyed Peas
American Idiot Green Day
Best Alternative Music Album A Ghost Is Born Wilco
Best Female R&B Vocal Performance: If I Ain’t Got You Alicia Keys
Best Male R&B Vocal Performance Call My Name Prince
Best Rap/Sung Collaboration Yeah! Usher Featuring Lil Jon & Ludacris
Best Rap Song Jesus Walks Miri Ben Ari, C. Smith & Kanye West, songwriters (Kanye West)
Best Rap Album The College Dropout Kanye West
Best Female Country Vocal Performance
Best Dance Recording:
Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals
Toxic Britney Spears
My Boo Usher & Alicia Keys
Best Male Country Vocal Performance:
Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal:
Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance
Live Like You Were Dying Tim McGraw
Heaven Los Lonely Boys
Vertigo U2
Best Hard Rock Perfor-
Alicia Liable Jaded Journalist
Redneck Woman Gretchen Wilson
Musicology Prince
Best Country Collaboration With Vocals
Best R&B Song
Portland Oregon Loretta Lynn & Jack White
You Don’t Know My Name
A
broaden your horizons, ex- sic in another language is that you pand your knowledge of yourself, get to experience the infectious acquaint you with high quality beer, hooks and blips of the music withand expose you to other cultures. If out having to deal with trite, irritatone is speaking of much of Europe, ing lyrics. I first heard it when two this includes a refined culture long friends and I stumbled into a bar in under development that knows how Northern Denmark where we were likely to be the only to appreciate, rather than people who met the drinkmock, heinously bad music. ing age of eighteen. There, you realize that you Drunk, sweaty teenagers can still be cultured, sophiswere ebulliently pumping ticated, and still embrace a their fists to the chorus. good boy band. The song is readily Specifically, a Moldovan/ available on Itunes, but Romanian boy band that FromDelafontMusic that does not give you the sings in absolutely gibberish (even in there own language, judg- full experience. Like many things in ing from the translation), wears today’s society, it is best experigaudy gold sunglasses, unbuttons enced in a variety of media. The their shirt to their navel, and has a original music video (http:// hit video full of suggestive homo- mapage.noos.fr/martialro/ozone/ eroticism and jumbo jet engines that video.html) is a masterpiece on its become large speakers as they own, but even more enjoyable is a spread their message of peace, clip of an exuberant fat child lip hope, and love across the world. synching to the song (http:// Best yet, the Moldovans who com- www.newgrounds.com/portal/ promise the group appear young view/206373). I present this as an enough to be some of those unfor- example of the joy that solid pop tunate ex-Soviet citizens you often music can bring. For an additional read about who are sold into sex laugh, watch with subtitles and enslavery for Western Europe. Except joy the fact that pop music, univerthese individuals were sold to some- sally, features lyrics that were one in Romania to make fabulous pieced together seemingly by randomly picking nouns and then depop music. O-Zone’s Dragostea Din Tei termining suitable verbs and other swept across Europe this fall, bol- parts of speech to bring them tostered by its catchy and oft repeated gether. My hope is to one day see exuberant bar goers pumping their fists in the air much as their drunken Danish compatriots had done, and well likely continue to do, for the foreseeable future. isn’t something to hide your head about, Children of the Corn V really tops it off. I could see being in part one, maybe two, but never a part 5. Her bad acting ruined the one thing I could have loved about this movie. In a sub-plot, Smith takes on the challenge of helping Albert (Kevin James) win the love the Heiress Alegra Cole (Amber Valletta). He is a tubby accountant with a good heart (though not a healthy heart), and he provides most the laughs in the movie. He makes the movie much more bearable. On the Alicia scale of 1 to 10 I rate this movie a 6.8. I am only giving it such a good grade because I know most of you will like this light comedy. It makes for a good first date and even in my pessimism I can see that.
You’ve Already Seen the Hitch
I
t’s the night before Valentine’s Day and people across campus are cuddling up next to their honeys, making promises of lifetime commitment and fidelity. Most of you will be broken up by the end of next month. Sorry, but statistics are against you and so am I. So how did I spend Valentine’s Day? This jaded writer went to see Hitch. Alone. In a movie theatre filled with lovers on first (or last) dates, I sat alone eating stale popcorn, thinking that this must be what hell is like. It was my own personal Inferno. So what was my comfort? Was I able to take refuge in the comic relief of Will Smith? Did he warm my heart with his witty retorts and charm? No. I cried because this was exactly like every other romantic comedy I have ever
seen. And most of you will love it. It is just another hit of the week soon to be replaced by a screenplay I am writing called Jersey Girl Saying Something About Mary When Along Came Polly. And it’s being Maid in Manhattan. It will star Ben Stiller as a down on his luck artist
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who lacks inspiration and hasn’t met his manager’s quota of bad modern art. He will meet Kate Hudson, who will become his muse. Then in a tragic twist… actually screw it, my bitterness and distaste for romantic
comedies has become cliché even to me. Hitch (Will Smith) is a dating consultant who is black and suave, which means he has something his loveable yet dopey white clients do not: a much larger batch of confidence. He teaches the silly white boys how to be that perfect gentleman no straight woman can resist falling in love with. All the while not putting any faith into true love himself. Then, surprise! He meets a woman who is his equal match: Sara (Eva Mendes), a detestable, jaded, cynical journalist. Sara had potential. Barry Wetcher Unfortunately they went and cast Eva Mendes. Lets look at her accomplishments: Stuck On You, 2 Fast 2 Furious, All About the Benjamins, Urban Legends: Final Cut, A Night at the Roxbury, and Children of the Corn V. If that list
Dump The Wedding Date Sandra Maroska A&E Contributor
T
he fact that after I saw The Wedding Date, I told people I’d seen Million Dollar Baby tells you what kind of movie this is. A guilty pleasure? Sadly, not even that. A guilty pleasure would imply something that could make up for an absurd plot, like the beautiful boys of the O.C. making you forget that their kind of story only exists in minds like McG. Truth be told, I was embarrassed that I drove to Rochester and paid eight dollars to see The Wedding Date, which pales in comparison to your garden variety romantic comedy – I’m even shocked that it made it to the big screen, because I’ve seen better movies on the Fox Family Channel.
In any case, The Wedding Date attempts to tell the story of the dilemma a thirty-something’s (played by Debra Messing) encounters as she finds herself dateless for her sister’s wedding, at which “the ex” is going to be the best man. Come on, girls, you can understand her problem here – you all know that we each have that one ex boyfriend, the one who makes us need to be seen with the perfect guy, in the perfect dress, and so on. So, what does our damsel in distress do? She opens up her friendly yellow pages and hires an escort, played by Dermot Mulroney. It may not be what all women would resort to in such a situation, but hey, it provides for one hell of a story to tell the grandkids. Here’s the problem: even though it’s clear from the beginning
that there’s going to be a happy ending, in spite of the clichéd uptight behavior of Messing’s character, Kat, which is countered by the cool charm of Mulroney’s character, Nick, the love story seems entirely forced. Not only was there absolutely no chemistry between the two, but it actually seemed like the producers just picked at random which scenes to include in the movie. One scene portrayed Messing obsessing over her ex at her sister’s bachelorette party and the very next scene showed Messing and Mulroney having a very intimate affair in her father’s yacht. There was no fluidity to the movie – their growing relationship seemed to literally change over night as the characters developed profound emotions for the each other without showing
any real connection onscreen. I managed to tear myself away from this captivating love story and look around to gauge the audience’s reaction, which was the same as my own: what the hell is going on? Do they love each other? Do they hate each other? Do I even care? Oh, but let us not forget the ever so deep psychoanalysis given by Mulroney’s character as he criticizes Kat for her fear of commitment, because we all know male escorts are therapists on the side (and isn’t it just perfect that he’s pretending to be a therapist so the whole family doesn’t know their little Kit Kat hired a male prostitute to bring to her sister’s wedding). Not even the deeply emotional scene where Nick confronts Kat about how he feels and demands that she feel the same way can save
this “romantic comedy” from the doom of the bottom Blockbuster shelf. The supporting actors also provide little comic relief in this movie, a fact that made me want to cry a times, it was so bad. For the record, I’m the biggest sucker for romantic comedies. I loved the absurdity of even 50 First Dates, which, for a tale about disjointed memories in love, did a better job of connecting two people than The Wedding Date did for showing any kind of spark or chemistry between Messing and Mulroney. Don’t be fooled like I was by Mulroney’s performace in My Best Friend’s Wedding (which I loved, by the way). You won’t find it here. In a word the movie was forgettable. I’m just mad that I can’t forget the eight dollars I spent on it.