DON’T YA THINK
It’s ironic how the CEO of McDonald’s died from a heart attack earlier this week.

VEhicles for flight
Reports have it that students at a certain university with the letters N-Y-U have been more depressed than usual lately. Maybe all the dreary weather and lack of an actual campus are getting to the students. According to sources, the Mental Health Center at the university has been prescribing twice the amount of antidepressants than usual. Not to mention, you know, people jumping off things to their untimely deaths.

DARE YOU
In these last weeks of the semester, go out and try something new. Check out Lounge 16 on Collins on Thursday nights and relish in $3 Buds. Or check out Rock and Roll High School Sundays, also there – so late 90s, but without pep rallies and all those people you hated.

Joy & Jake take this dorm room to a whole new level

Earlier this semester, Joy and Jake Home and Bed Furnishings sponsored a raffle to win a $1,000 bedroom makeover. Andrea Goodwin won the raffle and these are the before and after pics. Check out Joy and Jake on their website at www.joyandjake.com and receive 20% off by typing in the keyword Hurricane.

Red Bull is no longer just for mixing with Vodka. This Saturday, you can watch it fuel the bodies and brains of hundreds of contestants as they get ready to propel off of a 30 foot barge into the intercoastal at Bayfront Park, while strapped to something that they’re all hoping will fly far enough to win them flying lessons.

Invented by the founder of Red Bull, Dietrich Mateschitz, FLUGTAG, which is German for “flying day,” first warmed the hearts of Austrians in 1991 before coming to America in 2002 to be received by thousands of wild fans with open arms and squished Red Bull cans behind their ears. Finally, FLUGTAG is coming to Downtown Miami where 31 teams have been working since last year to perfect their crowd-pleasing, air-savvy aircrafts. Among the 31 contestants are Flying Sun-chaiser, Bonzai Penguin, JIPC Cruzr, Sandbar Flyer, and Empanada Glider – all Miami natives – each bringing their own taste of Miami life to the event.

Flying Sun-chaiser, for example, is a symbol of the great Miamian pastime: lying in the sun. It’s not for sure, but guessing from the name of their plane and the style of the event, they could be flying a lounge chair into the water.

Miami’s diversity also gets major representation at FLUGTAG. “JIPC stands for our collective heritage,” says Frank Andreu from team JIPC Cruzr. “Jewish, Irish, Polish, and Cuban.” Jewish and Cuban, yes. Irish and Polish?

On another note, The Empanada Glider basically says it all. “The classic empanada shape is perfect for a glider-style wing,” Captain Simon Nava says of his aircraft. “I don’t think anyone eats more empanadas than we do!” he says, so he should know.

Not everyone is a fan of the Miami thang though, especially when it comes to University of Miami students. “Our football team beat Miami 31 to 7 last season, when Miami was ranked number 2…it takes more than a Hurricane to intimidate us,” says Chris Tallman of Virginia Tech, who will be flying Hokie Hunt this Saturday.

What else to expect this Saturday: Vatican Air, inspired by The Flying Nun, a flying camel, and a 25 X 30 foot piece of paper to take its final form as a paper airplane at the dock. Strange.

Red Bull says it takes brains to build one and an entirely different body part to pilot it off a 30-foot ramp. I say that other body part is chutzpa.

Linda Hoffman can be contacted LindaNHoffman2@umiami.edu.

WOW. This kid can sing.

Michael Bubl

Fat Hed’s, Night Train to Babble On is a poor attempt at making a successful CD. Fat Hed is an MC trying to break through into the rap dominion. However, if he keeps recording this awful music then he most definitely won’t make a dent into an industry beaming with talent. I don’t know where to begin. The music is described as a “cosmic thrill ride” though it doesn’t take me anywhere out of this world.

The beats of the songs are definitely assorted ranging from electronica to freestyle and are atypical for the rap genre. I commend him for daring to experiment with different styles, but unfortunately they don’t work out the way he most likely anticipated they would. Sad to say, the problem isn’t so much the rhythmic backgrounds but Fat Hed’s voice. It’s unquestionably annoying and the main cause for the CD’s downfall. “Cosmic Beam’s” intro seemed promising until Fat Hed’s irksome vocals took over. “People Skit” was the most endurable track to listen to on the entire album – it was also just instrumentals. Overall, this CD lacks in quality, talented vocals, and genuine Hip-hop bumpin’.

Christie Asencio can be contacted at c.asencio@umiami.edu

An Irish quartet with a wintry obsession, Snow Patrol does nothing but warm listeners up. The 12 track CD is 45 min. of running emotions and thought-provoking lyrics, all written by at least four members of the band. As the clich

Thank God for action directors like Tony Scott, who with one film can make up for all the evil done by McG and Jerry Bruckheimer these past few years. The genre of pure action film has been dying as of late, with miserable garbage like Charlie’s Angels 2 dragging it down. Sci/fi films, comic book adaptations, and Rush Hour-style comedies have been taking over the action realm, but Scott’s Man on Fire is the perfect example of what action filmmaking should and can be.

Man on Fire stars Denzel Washington as Creasy, a burned out government assassin with a drinking problem and nothing left in his life. His friend Rayburn, played by the consistently remarkable Christopher Walken (Catch Me if You Can), gets him a job as a bodyguard for a family in Mexico City.

Creasy’s real job is to protect the family’s daughter, a likeable, intelligent nine-year-old American named Pita. The film reports early on that there is a kidnapping every hour in Latin America, and that there have been 24 kidnappings in Mexico City in the past four days alone. Grabbing the kids of wealthy parents and then demanding a hefty ransom seems to be the most popular form of kidnapping and it has come to the point where Pita’s parents won’t let her go to school until they hire a suitable guard. Despite his alcoholism, Creasy has an impressive resume and gets the job as Pita’s bodyguard.

The film’s plot, based on a book by A.J. Quinnell, gets fairly complex, but Man on Fire turns into a revenge film about half way through, something that’s become popular in Hollywood this year. The Kill Bill movies, The Punisher, and even the upcoming foreign film Dogville all deal heavily with revenge.

Man on Fire is close to flawless in its technical precision and power. Scott has always been considered a top notch action director, with hits like Top Gun, Crimson Tide, and Enemy of the State on his resume. But Man on Fire is on a different level from these films, due largely to a terrific script by Oscar winner Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Mystic River).

Scott is one of the most original and dazzling visual directors around, and he’s especially great at blending awe-inspiring visuals with a solid story, instead of just relying on explosions and swooping camerawork. Scott uses sharp focus changes, quick cuts, and heavily filtered colors to keep viewers on edge, which works well for Man on Fire and most of his previous work.

Washington is good as always, but is especially brilliant in scenes with Pita, played by up-and-comer Dakota Fanning (I Am Sam). Fanning and Washington appear to really bond in their time together on screen, which is perfect for their characters, who grow to be friends as the film progresses. Fanning has a bright future, as long as she can make the transition from adorable little girl to real adult actress. She shows no signs of being intimidated by sharing screen time with a legend like Denzel, and is deserving of the critical praise she’ll likely get upon the film’s release.

Man on Fire won’t make as much money as Top Gun, and it’s not as amazingly dramatic as Crimson Tide, but Scott’s directing, combined with good writing and great acting, make this one of his best, and likely one of the top ten films of 2004.

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

Thought of as boring, dull, and generally uninteresting to most students, art museums do not rank high on everyday to-do lists. However, with a new exhibit displaying student art, the Lowe Art Museum should definitely being moving up the ranks in the list. Held annually, the Juried Student Art Exhibit gives students a chance to display their works in a formal museum setting. Totaling over 200 entries, only the best 60 pieces of art are displayed in the Greene wing of the Lowe art museum; replacing the Change and Continuity Indian and Folk Art traveling art collection. Divided into sections of printmaking, graphic design, photography, painting, drawing, ceramics, sculpture and video, the art is the best of the graduate and undergraduate work from UM’s Art Department.

An exquisite example of sculpture, one of the most noticeable pieces in the main gallery of the venue is a bust mounted to the wall. Molded by Gregory Di Micco, the head is uniquely shaped, much like Di Micco’s plexi-glass encased sneaker made of metal wire that distinctly resembles styles of Nike and New Balance. Across the gallery the walls are filled with different photography series, all capturing and portraying very different moods. The winners of the top awards in the category were K. Anne Harper who won Juror’s Best in Show for her Paper Girl Series, Ashley Saks, winner of the Thomson Photo Award for her Schizophrenia Series, and Zachary Ordonez who won the Michele Edelson Award in Photography for his Organic Ambiguities Series. In conjunction, the entries for the graphic design category were enlightening, specifically Eric Marks image New York State of Mind which combines images of the infamous Big Apple with what seems to be a self-portrait and pictures of protestors waving a flag.

The other pieces in the gallery are mostly landscape paintings done in oils and charcoals. A particularly interesting painting done for mixed media was The Morning is Full by Andrew Jay Gambrell. The painting was a mixture of what seemed to be scrap materials, such as cardboard, a bamboo mat, and even scraps of computer paper.

Overall the art exhibited in the Lowe was both fascinating and mentally stimulating, showcasing an array of uninhibited and expressive works by members of the student body. The exhibit runs from April 10 to June 6, check it out for some insight.

The Lowe Art Museum is open Tues., Wed., Fridays, and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. On Thursdays the museum is open from noon to 7 p.m. and on Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. General admission is $5 for adults; $3 for seniors; and absolutely free for UM students with ID.

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