Post The southern accents are horrible, the plot was written by a checklist and the ending sucks, but the on the plus side, the football is good. Varsity Blues could have been a good movie. Its depiction of Texas high school football, and the town frenzy that surrounds it, is frightening, although, it goes a little overboard at times. For example, the players are given free rein of the town, including one scene where they go to a strip club with drinks on the house all night. Another problem with the film is the little incon- sistencies that pop up repeatedly. Like Jon Voight, as coach Bud Kilmer, con- stantly telling James van der Beek’s character that, “we're a running team,” yet all but six of the plays that the audience saw were passes. Now, this is because “three yards and a cloud of dust” may win national championships at Alabama, but it’s painfully boring for a movie crowd to watch, so why were we told to expect scenes that never appeared? The other minor inconsistency with Varsity Blues was that, outside of the team’s running back, all of the players on the Coyotes were white (more on that later), yet 90% of the oppos- ing players were black! It also seemed like that running back was the only black ....continued from cover Young Texas Footballers Disturbing Behavior, Joshua Jackson in Urban Legend, 1 e: repor Hamish Knox person in the school. Now, that may happen in small passas dumber than the hook’n'ladder towns in the BC interior, but at a high school in Texas? Not very likely. On to the plot, which MTV felt wouldn’t-be good enough with only two main conflicts (van der Beek and Voight and Voight's treatment of his players), it had to throw in everything, from a slutty head cheerleader, to Voight being a racist to van der Beek being threatened with losing his scholarship if he didn’t play Voight’s way in the big game. It was almost as if someone was sitting beside the director during filming with a checklist saying, “racism, check; wild teenage partying, check; team threatens to quit on coach, check;” and on and on, until every conceivable conflict was thrown in. Ultimately Varsity Blues fails because it tries to do too much (or, in some cases too little) and ends up with a giant soup of loose ends, some, but not all of which are tied together with van der Beek’s voice-over at the end of the movie, including a future classic line, “and Tweeder drank beer, ‘cause, well, he’s a beer drinker.” Dialogue would be another complaint, however, time is short.... If you like football movies, sit down with a six pack and watch The Program, because shelling out eight bucks for this incomplete thought of being the star The Nightmare of Jn Dreams Jen Swanston Instead of going to see In Dreams, just take the Port Orchard ferry without any travel sickness medicine and read a R.L.Stine book. While the ideas behind In Dreams are interesting and poten- tially terrifying, the combi- nation of simplistic writing, indifferent or over acting and horrible cinema- tography turned this movie into a seasick ride of apathy. Annette Benning plays Claire Cooper, a woman who has dreams about the future, horrible visions of brutal deaths of missing children. After the body of Claire's daughter Rebecca (Katie Sagona) is pulled from a local lake, Claire goes slightly crazy. Claire had ‘seen’ Rebecca's murder, but did not know what she was seeing. Her visions are actually shared dreams and thoughts of a serial killer that is stalking young girls in New England towns. more Claire tries to convince her doctor that she is not crazy and that her dreams are reality, the more everyone around her is convinced Claire is insane. In Dreams had the potential of being a serious psychological thriller, the story idea was there, it just was never realized. Even with the shaky storyline, the story would have been slightly more bearable without the constant heaving of the camera. It was as if the entire film was shot aboard a ship caught in a hurricane. The cinematographer should try a first year high school course or maybe use a steadycam. Don't go unless you are paid to do so. * Death, Deception, Delusion. Shakespeare’s Classic HAMLET January 22 — February 20 OETe ade mPs lee eee www.ticketmaster.com Box Office 687-1644 Michelle Williams in Hallow- een: H20 —but Van Der Beek says he’s not a fan of the genre. “The only horror film I've ever seen, front to back, was Scream, and that was only after I'd worked with Kevin Williamson,” he says. Does he think Varsity Blues will be a harder sell without all the trendy terror stuff? No, he snorts. “It would be much harder to sell a horror film; there are so many out right now! My gosh, what could I talk to you about? ‘Well, I think this is different from Scream and Urban Legend: “T didn't find a horror film that I liked over the hiatus,” he adds, “and it wasn't like, ‘Oh, I've gotta do a horror movie!’ It’s not a story that I’m really inter- ested in telling.” In the film, Jonathan is distinctly uncomfortable with his newfound celebrity; he'd much rather read a book by Kurt Vonnegut than put on pads and tackle someone. Van Der Beek—who says he’s currently reading novels by Jack Kerouac and F. Scott Fitzgerald—is reluctant to say whether he felt the same way after Dawson’s Creek made such a big splash. “I think you're lying if you Say you never once player. I think everybody has desired it at some point—not that you really want every- thing that comes along with it,” he says. Van Der Beek took the part of Jonathan Moxon because it gave him a chance to play someone quite different from his TV persona. He dyed his hair, assumed a Texan accent, and put on about 15 pounds of hard- earned muscle for the role. But he’s still playing a high school student—not that there’s anything wrong with that, even at his age. “I think I can probably play this role more at 21 than I could at 17,” he says, “because I've got distance from all those experiences, so I can put them in the proper context and really use them. Hindsight is 20/20.” And what's his take on the film and its underlying message? Here, he echoes his director: “It’s about standing up to authority figures, when authority figures are in the wrong. It’s about questioning the society in which you're born, and it’s more about that than it is about winning the big game, though it does have that kind of Hoosiers element to it. And that’s what I really liked about it. It’s about...” You can almost hear him pause for a smile. “-Tebelling.” On the recom- mendation of psychia- trist Dr. Silverman (Stephen Rea), Claire’s husband (Aidan Quinn) ®@ checks Claire into a mental hospital. The epee Group Sales 687-5315 Granville at 12th Canadi>n Airlines Pa Pg CO THE VANCOUVER SUN CBC 48} Vancouver Art Supplies & Custom Framing “Winsor & Newton Grumbacher Liquitex Derwent Strathmore Canson Fredrix Special orders welcome Full Spectrum Art Supplies 665 Columbia Street, New Westminster Tel: 517-1700 Bring your student card! the Other Press January 20 1999 7.