What Happened?

Rumor has it Margarita Momma’s has closed. Ready for some Tuesday night debauchery at the Spanish-inspired CocoWalk hotspot, students arrived to find the doors closed and no security checking IDs. For now the closure will remain a mystery.

Rumors

The ongoing saga of who will replace Dan Rather continues as CBS chief Leslie Moonves stated that several anchors will likely replace Rather on the evening news. Moonves commented that this format would update the antiquated form of news reporting to which viewers have become accustomed.

Deaths

Johnny Carson, host of NBC’s The Tonight Show from Oct. 1962 to May 1993 (when current host Jay Leno took over), died of emphysema Sunday. He was 79.

Moesha star Lamont Bentley died last Tuesday in a car accident in California. The actor, who was a regular on the sitcom, passed when his vehicle plunged of off the San Diego freeway.

Correction

In the Friday, Jan. 21 issue, the caption under the photo of Alicia Keys in page 12 stated that she had attended Paris Hilton’s Vegas-themed New Year’s Eve bash. Keys in fact did not attend the party but did perform at the Y100 Jingle Ball that occurred in December.

Addicting is the perfect word to describe the new EP from Esthero. Almost six years from her album Breath From Another, Esthero continues to transcend all classifications with her latest work. Moving to Reprise Records and rediscovering the essentials to the elemental existence of her music and her life, Esthero has emerged with a five-track beauty.

Embarking on a journey the EP is just a taste of what is to come in Esthero’s fully released album to come in March 2005. Titled We R in need of a musical ReVoLuTIon!, the EP takes listeners on a soulful, sensual, body-moving experience. Esthero’s soothing voice combined with drumbeats and sometimes kitchsy-type elevator music exudes passion and true artistry.

Starting with lyrics that proclaim her opinions about the music world today, Esthero’s lyrics are not be overlooked. Kooky, erotic, confident and sometimes a little cocky, Esthero’s lyrical and musical combinations are intriguing works of art in their own. One can only wait for the full release of her album to come soon.

Joanna Davila can be contacted at j.davila1@umiami.edu.

Oh, Gwen, you’re not in No Doubt anymore. I do believe you’ve sold out on us.

On her solo album, Love, Angel, Music, Baby, Gwen Stefani takes her sound from the ska-driven rock of No Doubt to Japan-obsessed techno-pop. While her catchy songs are mixed with a strong beat and exude an ’80s vibe, they come across as something more appropriate for the gay-club set.

Stefani’s greatest inspiration for her disc is made apparent in several tracks, including the unoriginally named “Harajuku Girls,” as she croons about the trendy Tokyo district where she met the muses for her line of Japanese inspired clothing.

Her single, “What You Waiting For?” is one of the best recent pop songs, but alas, one song does not make an album. The majority of Love, Angel, Music, Baby is an unabashed advertisement for Stefani’s clothing line, L.A.M.B. (oh, so that’s what L.A.M.B. stands for!).

Stefani pushes L.A.M.B. conspicuously in “Rich Girl,” a re-make of the Fiddler on the Roof show-tune, “If I Were a Rich Man.” Her version would be cleverer if it weren’t a blatant copycat of a lesser-known Indian bhangra pop version. This track features Eve, who also markets her own clothing line as she raps, “See Stefani in her L.A.M.B. / I rock the Fetish / You know who I am.”

Love, Angel, Music, Baby does include some other noteworthy tracks: Listen to “Cool,” a sweet ballad with a rockin’ beat, the New Order-backed “The Real Thing,” and “Long Way to Go,” a brilliant duet with Andre 3000 that sharply criticizes race relations. Unfortunately, the rest of the songs make up a CD better left at the bottom of the sale bin.

Hannah Bae can be contacted at h.bae@umiami.edu.

Movies have become so predictable these days that whenever someone tries something even remotely different, it’s billed as brave and edgy. A sad ending, for instance, is not a great and daring choice, but a simple aspect of storytelling. There are rare movies, however, that do deserve to be heralded for their bravery, and The Woodsman is the latest example.

The Woodsman stars Kevin Bacon in the lead role as a child molester who has been released from jail and is learning to cope with the real world. Seeing a child molester on screen is not entirely new, as some villains and small characters have been sex offenders in the past. But the reason The Woodsman is so different is that Bacon’s character is not just another pure villain.

The fact that the film takes a neutral look at someone who once committed horrible crimes makes it extremely difficult to deal with. This doesn’t make it bad, however; it actually makes it better. There has never been a film made like this one, and that is a reflection on all the characters, not just Bacon’s.

The supporting characters in this film are interesting as well. They include Kyra Sedgwick as Bacon’s love interest, Benjamin Bratt as his sympathetic brother-in-law, and Mos Def giving a great performance as a suspicious detective. All of them show depth rarely seen from supporting characters. Sedgwick is especially interesting in her role as Bacon’s co-worker turned girlfriend. The fact that she stays with him after finding out about his past shows a lot about her character, a conflicted one as well.

Although there are some great supporting parts, the film belongs to Bacon. Despite past mistakes (Hollow Man), Bacon has proved himself to be a solid actor with roles in top-notch films like JFK, A Few Good Men, Apollo 13 and Mystic River. But he has never been as good as he is in The Woodsman.

His character is soft-spoken and quiet, allowing Bacon to convey many of his emotions through his facial expressions and body movements. There are a few scenes with Bacon that are completely terrifying in a dramatic sense, instead of the usual suspense or horror scariness. This is a tribute both to Bacon and writer/director Nicole Kassell, a first-timer destined for greatness.

One of the most interesting aspects of The Woodsman is its lack of classic character values. None of the main characters can be classified as pure good guys or bad guys. They are all a mixture of the two, something rarely seen in any kind of story, not just movies. Bacon is not a malicious man, but a shy, disturbed one. He clearly has a disease and he knows how horrible it is; thankfully, the film doesn’t beg for sympathy. He fights his urge throughout the film, and the few scenes in which he actually talks to young girls inspire gasps from the audience.

The film attempts to be neutral to its topic, but in order to present a watchable narrative film, it has to lean slightly towards Bacon’s side of things. The Woodsman instead tries to get inside the mind of a man guilty of what could be the worst crime imaginable. The most important thing is that it succeeds.

Shawn Wines can be contacted at s.wines@umiami.edu.

A story that begins at the end, The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a heartwarming novel that weaves together the lives of several characters, revolving around the main character, 83-year-old Eddie, a head maintenance man at a local amusement park on a pier. After readers are introduced to Eddie, they are told of his impending death, and thus the novel begins at the end.

As author Mitch Albom indicates, all great ends are new beginnings. Tracing his final moments, Albom describes Eddie’s journey after his death- the journey that most of us are insipidly curious about. As Eddie enters his afterlife, he meets five people that were all connected to his life, whether directly or indirectly. Each person has been waiting for him in heaven and as a result each soul has a story to tell, a secret to share and clues to lessons to be learned. As Eddie travels on his path to the ultimate heaven, he begins to understand the meaning of his life on earth, bringing closure to those that were awaiting him.

Short and rather simplistic, Albom’s novel is a relatively easy read that veers away from the preachy and cheesy life-after-death tales. Containing some profound and thought provoking commentary, Albom has created another reader favorite.

Joanna Davila can be contacted at j.davila1@umiami.edu.

For most of us, Miami Beach is about haute shopping, expensive drinks and long late-night hours. Yet, while most of us were sun worshipping on the white sands or schmoozing with a well dressed party player these past few days, the Miami Beach Convention Center was taking a trip back in time.

Home for the weekend to one of the most highly rated antique shows in the country, the Convention Center was packed with sparkling estate diamonds, vivid art and marbled statues. In addition to the usual scheduled exhibit hours, art and fashion have merged

If there’s one common thread in all the buzz about Woody Allen’s latest film, Match Point, it’s that it feels nothing like a Woody Allen film. The surface reasons for this perception are obvious, seeing as how Match Point is set in England, is not a comedy and doesn’t feature Allen as his familiar neurotic self. Looking deeper, Match Point has at least a few traits that have become commonplace in Allen’s 40-year career as a filmmaker.

The dialogue in it is sharp and bright, something that has become expected of Allen, and this time around, the story is excellent, even if it does take too long to unfold.

Match Point feels like a British art film, with its lush colors and interesting locations, and represents Allen’s best visuals since he last worked with cinematographer Gordon Willis 20 years ago. Its look and feel are highly cinematic, and the tone is heavy and serious, a harsh departure from Allen’s newer work like Melinda and Melinda and Anything Else.

Allen may have never attempted something this dramatic before, but for a guy who lists Fellini and Bergman among his biggest influences, it’s not a surprise. Match Point deals with wealth and society, two common themes in Allen’s comedies, although this time it’s London’s class structure being studied, not New York’s. When the ideal of marriage comes under scrutiny in the film, it’s hard not to think of Allen himself, twice divorced and now controversially married to his former girlfriend’s adopted daughter.

Allen is renowned for staying in the background on set and not getting too involved with the actors. Match Point’s star, Scarlett Johansson, says endearingly that he was “practically doing it with his eyes closed.” He’s also gotten amazing performances over the years. Fourteen actors, ranging from Diane Keaton to Jennifer Tilly, have been nominated for Oscars in his films, and Johansson seems like she could be the 15th for Match Point.

“I’ve always been a huge fan of Woody’s,” she says. “I could work with him forever and never get bored. It just kind of gives me the opportunity to see him every day, which is a joy. I think that it was great. It feels like a dream come true.”

She plays Nola in the film, an American dating the son of a wealthy English family. When Nola’s boyfriend brings home his friend Chris (Bend It Like Beckham’s Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), an affair begins between him and Nola. But as things get complicated, Chris ends up marrying his friend’s sister, played by Emily Mortimer, and his new position within the wealthy family makes leaving her impossible, even though he wants the newly single Nola more.

The relationships sound like a soap opera, but the themes are deeply rooted in the characters and their actions. The main theme of the film is luck, and Allen’s story delves into how it impacts the lives of Chris and Nola. Along the way, the film shifts radically in tone, details of which the viewer should avoid beforehand in order to fully appreciate the unusual surprise in emotion it evokes.

Allen crafts the plot in this one as intricately as he usually crafts his characters. While many of his films feature a sort of basic plot, usually something dealing with the shifting of relationships, his characters are almost always deeply drawn. This time, the story is arguably deeper than the characters, but very solid, traditional acting from the whole cast evens that out.

Mortimer, one of the younger veterans of the indie world, said acting in the film was almost effortless. “He doesn’t feel the need to explain things,” she says of Allen. “It’s very brisk and laconic somehow, the way that the screenplay is written, and there was something so impressive about reading that, because we read an awful lot of scripts in our job and so many of them are just overwritten and desperately trying to explain themselves and this was just so spare and it was very arresting to read it.”

“There was no real rehearsal,” she added. “Very often the first time that you say your lines is the first take.”

Johansson impressed Allen enough to be invited back for his next film, a comedy called Scoop that finished shooting in England in September. Johansson is no stranger to great directors, having worked with Robert Redford (The Horse Whisperer) and the Coen brothers (The Man Who Wasn’t There) before turning 18. But for her, Allen’s upcoming film was a different kind of challenge.

“It’s real serious business doing comedy with Woody Allen,” she says of acting alongside him in Scoop. “I set up a lot of his lines in that film and the timing was hard, hard work when you’re working with a comic genius like that. Of course he nails it in one take. I, on the other hand, two days later, am still struggling.”

For big fans of Allen, Match Point has to be both exciting and worrisome at the same time. Worrisome because it’s not a New York comedy and could signal a shift away from the walk-and-talk Manhattan style that made Allen so loved. And exciting because Match Point is Allen’s best film in a while, a very mature and classical-type work, and one of the best movies of 2005.

Shawn Wines can be contacted at s.wines@umiami.edu.