ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iain W. Reeve,
Internet Super-Highway Hitchhiker

power the website’s stellar ontent, which
is really just good, clean, ¢ -hec
Golly gosh. It is divided into all ee of

wicked categories like creatures on my cat,

toys on my cat, nature on my cat, and the
ominous miscellaneous stuff on my cat. In
fact, it even inspired me to start putting
stuff on my cats. A fact that, from one
look at the picture here, they are none to
pleased with. They should just be happy I
didn’t decide to start my very own
sedans on my cat” section. _

For sticking it to the world’s most
stuck-up domesticated animal, and for
making me laugh out loud with no sexual -

content or cursing, I give Wola wemmpas

cat.com and eight out of ten,

Send your submissions for “I Saw In On Li
Interweb” to avditor@gmatl.com.

 

Liz Phair—Somebody's Miracle

Sajia Kabir, OP Contributor

 

Leave it to Liz Phair to release the best summer album of
2005 in October. Her career, which began promisingly
enough with the much-feted Exile in Guyville in 1993, has
been a case of “two steps forward, one step back,”
ing in the sexploitation sell-out that was her recent epony-

culminat-

mous album. Somebody's Miracle aims towards pure pop, but
it’s great pure pop, with Phair abandoning the Matrix pro-
ducer-songwriters—who hung like an albatross around her
neck on Liz Phair—for producer John Shanks, who also co-
wrote three of the songs.

For the first time in her career, Phair inches slightly out
of her corner of 90s women’s rock, with the bluesy “Got
My Own Thing” and the new-wave pastiche “Count On My
Love.” The first single, “Everything to Me,” has a rootsy
intro, but the loveliest musical moment on the album has to
be the bridge in “Lazy Dreamer,” with its moody keyboards.
“Closer to You” is a simple song of love and acceptance,
while “Table For One” recounts an alcoholic’s regrets with-
out being mawkish.

Oh, and did I mention that Liz Phair has, after 12 years,
finally learned how to sing? She might not regain her hipster
cred with the Village Voice crowd, but she’s definitely re-
established herself as a master pop craftswoman.

 

 

Can You Dig It?

Say “Yes” or Mil shove a bat up your ass and turn you into a popsicle

Kevin Welsh, OP Contributor

 

The true measuring stick for any film is the test of time.

Many films are produced and released to much fanfare,
enjoy great returns at the box office, benefit from a resur-
gence of interest once released on DVD, then are quietly
relegated to their respective genre section at the local video
store where they collect dust until they’re blown out in the
discount bin. Blockbusters and Academy Award winners are
often the only films to escape this cycle—with the excep-

tion of bona fide cult films.

With the DVD boom, nearly every film ever has now
been re-released. However, some titles return yet again to
DVD in Special, Ultimate, or Collector’s editions. These
editions come packed with extras and insights and cater not
to the general moviegoer, but directly to their legions of
fans. Films like Children of the Corn, Escape From New York,
Airplane!, The Hills Have Eyes, and others have all received
special treatment more than 20 years after their box office
run ended. Fans have seen these films countless times,
know all the lines, and sometimes (especially the case with
Children of the Corn) try to convince themselves that this
time it will actually be good. Yet, they watch them again
and again.

Recently, though, the 1979 film The Warriors has enjoyed
a resurgence of interest from multiple angles. The film is
being remade by MTV Films (booo-leave it alone!), has had
an ’Ultimate Director’s Cut DVD released (yay-about
freakin’ time!), and, on October 18, will finally be the sub-
ject of a videogame courtesy of Rockstar North, the happy,
well-adjusted people behind the infamous Grand Theft Auto
series. No parenthesis here—that’s just plain rad.

The Warriors is loosely based on the tale of Xenophon, a
Greek soldier whose army became cut off from their allies
and found themselves 100 miles behind enemy lines. In the
film, The Coney Island Warriors are called to the Bronx by
Cyrus, the leader of the Gramercy Riffs, for a meeting.
Over 100 gangs are present, and Cyrus attempts to unite
them to take over the city but is assassinated during his
speech. Blame falls on our heroes, who try to make their
way back to Coney Island with every gang in the city hunt-
ing them.

Continued on Pg 16