The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, February 10, 2016 — 5A
TV REVIEW
FILM COLUMN
A beard made for Westerns
A
ABC
You know they’re on their way to Red Lobster.
‘Galavant’ wraps up with homages Amid cancellation rumors, Season 2 finale a success. By MEGAN MITCHELL For the Daily
Through all of its madness and cringe-worthy scenes, ABC’s “Galavant” might just be the only show on television that’s not Abending over backwards for Galavant the audience’s Season 2 approval. It’s Finale the “friends with benefits” ABC show that has absolutely zero strings attached because they might not make it another season. And trust me when I say that they’re well aware of this — it’s basically a “do whatever the hell you want” card, and they definitely swipe it in the season two finale. After all, this might be the end. Capital T-E “The End;” And if this is really it for the musical, then they certainly went out with one hell of a show. The first part of the finale “Battle of the Three Armies” plays off of the “Hobbit” franchise’s “Battle of the Five Armies” in both name and style. If J.R.R. Tolkien had somehow written “The Hobbit” as a Broadway musical directed by Mel Gibson, then this 20-minute episode would hit the target dead-center. First, in arguably the catchiest episode recap in history and surprising throwback to “A Knight’s Tale”, the Jester (Ben Presley, “What We Did on Our Holiday”) gives us the lowdown on what’s been going on this season, which earns
him a round of applause from the armies about to face each other to the death. Meanwhile, Princess Isabella Maria Lucia Elizabetta of Valencia (Karen David, “Castle”) faces her own challenges when the Valencian army suggests suicide as an alternative to battle, which leads to a “Braveheart”-style speech and a song. “It’s a Good Day to Die” is frustratingly catchy. It exposes the Hortensia confidence and the ultimate fear of the Valencians when the battle begins; it even reprises a duet between a young couple whose house is unfortunately located right in the center of the battlefield. But despite these humorous inserts, emotions really rule most of this episode. Especially the hesitation shown by Queen Madalena (Mallory Jansen, “Young & Hungry”) when the magician Wormwood (Robert Lindsay, “Atlantis”) requests her use of dark magic to win the battle. “Actually, I’ve been having second thoughts about the dark evil way,” she spills. Even though it’s whiny and grabs a quick laugh, it’s totally believable — I mean, it took a while for even Anakin Skywalker to turn into Darth Vader. It takes a lot of thought, and apparently a Disney-esque musical number and synchronized choreography for the Queen to give in. The first part of the season finale ends with a reunion of friends and the reprise of “It’s a Good Day to Die” that gives way to the clever “Oh please, this isn’t ‘Game of Thrones!’ ” line that will most definitely be recycled by fans. Just as the Jester ponders leaving the audience on another huge cliffhanger similar to that of season one, the screen promptly switches to black. The final part of the season finale begins with duet with
Richard (Timothy Omundson, “Supernatural”) and his younger character’s counterpart (Alfie Simmons, “The Woman in Black 2”) that’s cringeworthy, but stylistically pleasing. It highlights an important question we all might be pondering. What would our younger selves think about who we are today? So even though it’s incredibly cheesy and offkey, there’s a deeper, emotional meaning much like that we’ve seen in the more recent episodes of “Galavant”. The writers are taking all the right stylistic chances with this episode. We’re thrown back into battle and as Richard fights Wormwood, we finally see the true power that’s been previously dormant in Richard after the supposed death of the lizard/dragon Tad Cooper. The change between fighting freestyle and with a vengeance that Omundson shows is striking and quite terrifying, so I almost wish we could have witnessed it sooner. Now completely worthy of the “One True King” title that we’ve all been waiting for, Richard pursues lost love Roberta (Clare Foster, “Ripper Street”) in an attempt to save her from a life of becoming an old cat lady, earning him a ticket from the police on the way that hits us all in that secret “oh, c’mon!” spot, I’m sure. Overall, the (possibly final) season finale of “Galavant” took chances that paid off in the long run, while still playing off the “cheese” factor it’s well known for. One last joke pokes fun at the unlikeliness of a renewal for the show and the possibility of the cast being sent to “crappy cable TV” before it finally all comes to an end. Almost. Because Tad Cooper finally turns into a big fucking dragon at the end, and I’m personally proud of that.
STYLE NOTEBOOK
A case against the Canada Goose coat By HANNAH SPARKS For the Daily
It’s that time again, the time when all of the Canadian Geese start to migrate to Ann Arbor, Mich. When the temperatures drop, we see an influx of these geese by the hundreds. If you haven’t caught onto my attempt at sarcasm yet, I’m talking about Canada Goose jackets. Having just transferred to this fine University, seeing every other person wear a Canada Goose is the very first thing I noticed. For the record, I do own a Canada Goose, but in my defense it’s just a vest. How did Canada Goose manage to become so popular in these past five years? Apart from them being everywhere, some of the jackets are quite unique and come in fabulous colors: greens, blues, greys and red. Having said that, the majority of what I see is the same long, black fur hooded Canada Goose parka. Prices for these beloved jackets start at $495 and can get as high as $1,275. Can we just stop and put that into perspective for a second? That money could go toward so
many other things — paying rent, paying for insurance, a million Starbucks coffees and not to mention you get even get a plane ticket to Europe for those high prices. Also let’s not forget the last option — we could always just choose to put our money in the bank and save it, but that’s, like, a crazy concept. Canada Goose jackets are quite literally made for and worn by people who are out in the Arctic. I know Michigan can feel like living in an icebox at times, but there are other jackets out there that can make you feel just as warm as that Canada Goose. Admittedly, when I first got my hands on my Canada Goose vest I was very eager to “show it off.” Being someone who values material things (sorry not sorry), I felt very proud to finally have my very own Canada Goose product. Yet, having owned it for two years now, I realize it’s nothing more than a warm vest with a cool patch on the front. There’s really nothing else to it. If anything, I should be feeling bad for all the geese that had to die for this product. The “Kensington” parka,
priced at $775, is definitely what more than half of the girls at the University are wearing. For the guys, the “Carson” parka seems to be the popular choice. These jackets are so expensive that they’re what I would call an investment piece. I struggle to believe that this many people like the same exact style, in the same exact color (black). Let’s be real. The jackets aren’t actually flattering, they’re just formless parkas. The jacket is hot right now. For a lot of people it’s just a fashion statement that will grow old in the next couple of years. I applaud everyone who has ventured outside of these two types and has decided to go with something different. People tend to spend money on things they don’t necessarily care for, with money they don’t necessarily have, just so they can conform to the majority. To me, this is sad. Please only buy a Canada Goose if you truly want one. Although I do like my Canada Goose vest, and have to admit the jackets are good quality, I cannot deny the fact that they’re incredibly overrated.
bout four weeks ago, I decided to grow a beard. I made my decision out of necessity: I was skiing out West where, on the first day of a six day excursion, the wind and cold ripped apart JAMIE the skin BIRCOLL on my face into peeling, inflamed flakes of shedding epidermis. With my face burning red, tender to the touch, I needed some extra protection if I was to return to Ann Arbor without looking like Captain America’s nemesis, the Red Skull. After those six days, I decided to challenge myself and see how well (or poorly) I could get my barely visible bleach blonde scruff to grow. After a month, the results are satisfactory, better than I had predicted. During that month, I also watched 10 Western films, old and new. Almost every single male character in these films, with the exception of Gary Cooper in “High Noon,” sports some mighty form of bristly, manly facial hair. Kurt Russell’s potent mustache in “Tombstone,” which grew even more formidable in “The Hateful Eight,” the rugged stubble of Clint Eastwood and Franco Nero in the “Dollars” trilogy and “Django,” respectively, Jeff Bridges’s scruffy, one-eyed sheriff in “True Grit” and even Leo’s dirty, disheveled, somewhat patchy mountain man look in “The Revenant” (which, I would argue, is most certainly a Western), all of these protagonists don better facial hair than I ever could. I find my own mildly bristled visage inadequate by comparison. But of course, they’re actors; they have makeup departments to fix what they can’t grow, to make their beards and mustaches perfect. They are, in fact, perfect specimens of facial hair. And given their perfection and their pervasiveness and visibility, one realizes that facial hair has become integral to the Western hero. Because when I think about Kurt Russell’s Wyatt Earp without a mustache, he looks less grizzled, less haunted by his past as a soldiering peacekeeper (and it wouldn’t be historically accurate, but that’s beside the point). A clean-shaven John Wayne in “The Searchers” seems less desperate, less martial. And I have a hard enough time believing Leo
could ever survive in the wilderness like Hugh Glass — the absence of his beard would make “The Revenant” beyond incredulous. I ask myself why this is. Naturally, we can reason a couple explanations as to the characters’ beards: It’s the Wild West, so of course many men will be unkempt, since they have larger concerns at hand. And the costume and makeup departments likely want to remain historically accurate in the case of biopics, and many classic lawmen and outlaws grew some sort of facial hair. But it’s very easy to write off these decisions to historical accuracy. I imagine most people don’t know what Hugh Glass and Wyatt Earp actually looked like, and no one would complain if they lacked facial hair. After all, film has influenced much of how we think about and perceive the West, for better or worse, as much as if not more than history itself. We have mythologized the West into, well, a Hollywood version of itself through years of mythic constructions in the 1930s and ’40s, some deconstructions in the ’50s and some hyperviolent hyperboles in the ’60s and ’70s (and most recently with “Django Unchained”). All of these films attack or build or borrow from the myth of the American West in a myriad of ways, but they are all tied to their bearded heroes and villains.
My barely visible bleach blonde scruff. Most recently, I watched the 2007 remake of “3:10 to Yuma,” and the situation is no different. Christian Bale’s Dan Evans is an ex-Union soldier, who lost his leg during the war and a struggling farmer. He is tasked with escorting renowned outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) to the town of Contention to catch the train to Yuma prison. Both Bale and Crowe don the same shortboxed, low-trimmed beard — these men are two sides of the same coin, a complicated mix of good and evil, success and failure, muddied by differing perceptions of justice. For Wade, justice is monetary, a give and take depending on actions dealt and received. Evans is more concrete: justice is honor and code, a duty to uphold “though the heavens fall,” as the saying goes. Over the course of the film, the two
ideologies mesh and mingle, and morality and justice shift depending on the perspective. That’s not to say that the facial hair itself dictates this idea, but that it links these two forceful characters and contrasts them with the others: the snooty, rich railroad man’s slicked moustache, the seasoned officer’s thicker mane, the out-of-his-element doctor’s modest moustache and the beardless, angry stowaway son of Evans. All of these other characters are wildly different from each other and serve mainly to highlight this central conflict between Evans and Wade, two titans of morality. It is here we find the heart of the Western. Every tale set in the American West is tragic, because, in every case, no matter what happens, the story, the characters, the laws and the values will inevitably be left behind. But even in the nameless, endless stretches of sand and mountain ranges that time and progress will soon forget, the stakes are never higher. In the myth of the American West, a fight in the small town of Contention between two men with nothing in common but their beards can create an atmosphere rich with tension, so dangerous and fateful it might as well be a fight between God and the Devil. It’s an atmosphere that only the Western has been able to achieve so perfectly and consistently. That’s why the Western will never disappear; our perceptions, historical and current, of good, evil, morality and justice, though they change and though we revise them through the years, are engrained in our consciousness, and engrained in the American Western. Even in films like “Unforgiven” (where the heroes are bearded and the villain is clean shaven) that completely reject and deconstruct the West for all of its ugliness. Though it’s a genre fixed in time, it is, in the end, timeless. And if the Western is timeless, then so too are the beards that contribute to its ethos. I like to believe that the emphasis placed on a strong beard in these films is not due to the lack of cheap Gillette razors but to the evocation of the battle for justice and a bygone way of life that the beard symbolizes. I can only hope to one day honor that ethos, and grow something that might make Kurt Russell proud. This is a story of a boy and his beard. If you’d swipe right, email jbircoll@umich.edu.