ere aa ~ June 2003 Fresh Baked Amanda Aikman Culture Editor Check out these latest releases while they're still warm! Movie: Prozac Nation, Release date: June 6 Christina Ricci, Jessica Lange and Jason Biggs star in this film adaptation of Elizabeth Wurtzel’s best-selling memoir Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America. Set in the mid 1980s before the prevalence of anti-depressants, the film chronicles a young woman's battle with depression during her first year at Harvard. Directed by Erik Skojoldbjaerg, the film explores the effects of divorce, drugs, sex, and overbearing mothers on the generation of youth that preceded the pill-happy 1990s. Book: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J. K. Rowling Raincoast Books, Release date: June 21 The fifth installment of the wildly successful Harry Potter series will soon be vanishing from bookstore shelves every- where. Watch as author J. K. Rowling’s bank account magical- ly grows larger and larger before your very eyes. While the con- tents of the book remain a highly guarded secret, the President of Scholastic Children’s Books, Barbara Marcus, assures us that it is an “utterly compelling new adventure.” Album: Liz Phair, Liz Phair Release date: June 24 In her first release since 1998’s whitechocolatespaceegg, Phair makes her major-label debut with a self-titled album on Capitol Records. The much-anticipated project, originally set to be titled Happy Tragic Thing, will feature 14 new tracks by the former goddess of raunchy indie rock. In creating the album Phair has enlisted the help of such unlikely collabora- tors as Michael Penn, Pete Yorn, and the Matrix (the evil geniuses behind Avril Lavigne’s hits “Complicated” and “Sk8ter Boi”) prompting widespread panic amongst her fans. In the event that the new album falls flat, Phair supporters will be able to console themselves with an expanded tenth-anniver- sary reissue of her landmark Exit in Guyville, which is tenta- tively slated for a Christmas release. Culture ¢ the other press © The Dancer Upstairs Norlinda Ghazali OP Contributor I expect certain things from a political thriller set in Latin America—a tormented pro- tagonist ruminating the fuzzy lines of social justice; the brilliant adversary who plays a crafty game of cat-and-mouse; subtitles and foreign accents; and yes, lots of angst. The Dancer Upstairs has all of this and more; it is less about making a political statement, and more about telling a good story. That's apparently what the film’s director, John Malkovich (yes, the actor) had in mind. “ [The writers’] main concern with the adap- tation was that it not be just a rehash of every story in this kind of genre that you've ever seen...You have to find a different way to see if you can make something compelling without all those fairly tired methods.” The Dancer Upstairs is a love story pegged into the political genre. It opens with the smoky vocals of legendary jazz singer Nina Simone—that’s easily 50 teenagers’ worth of angst right there alone. The main character, Agustin Rejas (Javier Bardem) is an oxy- moron; a duty-bound lawyer turned honour-bound police officer. He keeps to the straight-and-narrow path, a rare achievement in Latin America where corruption is as prevalent as poverty. He heads an investigation into a revolutionary faction responsible for assassinations, bombings, and the eerie hangings of dog carcasses on city street-lamp posts. Ezequiel, the faction’s elusive and psori- atic leader, spouts communistic musings and biblical references. And so the angst builds, punctuated with periods of shocking violence. The focus of the film however, is on Rejas. There's a telling scene where he tries to com- fort a dying criminal in the same tender way he dotes on his daughter. In another, he dons an apron and does the dishes. Trapped in a loveless marriage to a bourgeois “princess,” he soon develops strong feelings for his daugh- ter’s ballet teacher Yolanda (Laura Morante). As the investigation intensifies, he begins to rely on this fragile relationship for solace. The preview audience responded to certain scenes with laughs, gasps, cries, and some- times yells, reflecting Rejas’ frustration during the tense situations of the film. Loosely based on the novel of the same name, the writers (Nicholas Shakespeare and Malkovich) suc- cessfully created a continual sense of anticipa- tion in the film adaptation. There is black comedy in the glib one-liners that are deliv- ered with deadpan seriousness by the cast. Bardem especially shines, and is mesmerizing to watch in every scene he’s in (he makes even the simple task of washing dishes down- right fascinating). Nominated in 2001 for Best Actor in the foreign film Before Night Falls, his character reminds me of a stoic Humphrey Bogart minus the fedora. Ezequiel’s and his followers’ rabid devotion to their cause; Rejas’ simple love for a woman; a father’s love for his daughter; and a man’s careful devotion to duty—the dif- ferent plotlines mirror each other and reflect one basic human emotion: this thing called love. If there was one thing that could improve the flow of the film, it would be to have the entire dialogue in Spanish. Rated 14A. Fifth Avenue Cinema This Month In History... ~ Amanda Aikman Culture Editor June 7, 1972: Grease opens on Broadway. Over thirty years later it is still inspiring obnoxious outbursts of “Summer Nights” and “Born to Hand Jive” by obnoxious people the whole world over. June 9, 1980: Pryor Fire. After an explosion that occurred while he was freebasing cocaine, comedian Richard Pryor is spotted, ablaze, running down the street from his house before http://otherpress.douglas.bc.ca_ se finally collapsing. Unfortunately he recuper- ates in plenty of time to star in 1985’s Brewster Millions. June 7, 1986: Air Supply’s Graham Russell marries Jodi Varble, thereby giving hope to soft-rock groupies everywhere. The couple had met four years earlier when Varble won tickets and the chance to meet the easy-listening gui- tarist backstage at a Chicago tour stop. S Page 23