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Show Crow Matthew Continued from D l Continued from Dl ries of downs made tolerable 4 i i-by more fleeting ups. Two of her biggest recent hits. 2002's "Soak Up the Sun" and 20O5's "Steve McQueen," exemplify Crow's way of turning 7 an arched eyebrow toward rock's liberationist bravado. The first is s bubble gum, its lyrics disguised by PETER KRAMERAssociated Press Crow's shiny, multitracked vocals. "Steve McQueen" adds Sheryl Crow arrives at the 41st Annual Country Music a dollop of weariness to the classic road song, with Crow Association Awards, on Nov. d riff 7, 2007, in Nashville, Tenn. riding a Texas duction facility, where McConaughey gave some notes on visual effects for his new movie, "Surfer Dude," which he's also producing. The movie, for si slacker-righteou- bar-ban- toward oblivioa The albums that bore these hits were decent successes, but Crow still hasn't made that career-toppinwork that d sends artists to- ward legend status. "Detours" is that attempt, a bold album that puts Crow's and her chops convictions as a singer and songwriter front and center. A reunion with producer Bill Bottrell, who helmed her debut, and a response to the intense public scrutiny she endured during her romance with cycling champ Lance Armstrong, it g foregrounds musical and lyrical truth-tellinIt's a move toward the territory of the heroic, and occasionally swells into grandiosity. But to Crow's credit, she can't let go of her qualifiers and her doubts. Coming after a series of events a battle with breast cancer, the split from Armstrong, single motherhood through adoption "Detours" is being sold as one of Crow's most personal albums. There's a lullaby for her son. There are a couple of kiss-off- s g long-live- risk-takin- plain-spoke- n thrown toward Armstrong; the best is a glammy vamp that would have been perfect for Bottrell's other former protege, Shelby Lynne. "Make It Go Away" eerily invokes radiation therapy, and Crow sings it with wrenching clarity as a click track conjures the hor- she turns her big statements into party songs, a twist that alleviates the weight of the lyrics and turns that gift for ambiguity into a sneaky consc- tool iousness-raising jaun-tines- sadness. Crow's political conviction. Some of Crow's role models, "Lullaby for Wyatt" is such as John Mellencamp and Crow's love song to her son, Neil Young, have transformed and what's beautiful about it is her frank uncertainty about themselves into fervent pohow to guide this little crealemicists, and "Shine Over ture through such a messed-u- p Babylon," the first single world. "You are mine, for from "Detours," suggests that Crow might be headed in that a time," Crow breathes as her direction: An environmentalbaby cries in the background, a ist jeremiad with a furiously mother alsweeping hook, it's the oppoready realizing that she's gosite of subtle. But elsewhere, ing to have to let go. good-enoug- h guuu-siuuci- n insurance discounts! vou pany. Stop in our agenw and ask us about it! 4V : Auto Owners Insurance -- . ) f flat-ou- high-schoo- First-time- first-tim- rs e n, high-scho- -- sing-son- land-locke- d d n co-st- light-hearte- d -- Giraffe time she'll return with it for a fitting and make adjustments if Continued from Dl necessary. After the measuring and more carrot consumption by Tiki, her keepers and Swarbrick discussed fabric weights and colors. Someone coat suggested a leopard-prin- t might be fun, just to freak out the other giraffes. But good taste prevailed, and zookeepers settled on a muted forest green. "As long as it's not hot pink, it's fine," Phelps said. "But can you embroider her name on it? If we're gonna put her in a coat, stool by Tiki's side, gently stroking her back to keep her calm and, with Swarbrick's instructions, used a dressmaker's tape to take the measurements. the neck," Phelps announced, and Swarbrick jotted it down. So that's an h collar size. Even Lane Bryant can't accommodate that neckline. Swarbrick says she should be able to complete the coat in about two weeks, at which .. 1 1. 2008 . " . t 'i,y l "Forty inches on this side of earning a "B" or better average and have a 9f you'redriving mav be elieible for a sub record, stantial discount on your auto insurance preInsurance Commiums through McConaughey, is a labor of love shot over a month last summer in Malibu on a budget of $6 million, he said. In it, McConaughey plays a surfer . whose sponsorship gets bought s out by a guy who wants to put his surfers in reality shows and digitize their images. McConaughey's character, Steve Addington, just wants the waves to be out there "naturale." So he quits and finds himself in Malibu waiting Matthew McConaughey stars as out a bummer summer. "It's a surfer flick about a guy who loves waves and he's for a interview conducted over linstuck with ens in a hotel dining room, the year," McConaughey said, as standard bargain, but somethe van took him the short distance back to the offices of j.k. thing more McConaughey. For the whole van setting remindlivin, McConaughey's production company. "This script was ed you of his very first movie t comedy, Robb part, in Richard Linklater's just a coml got a hold of it, worked it into affecting 1993 having something that had sort edy "Dazed and Confused." of, you know, some very fun, McConaughey was a UT student at the time, discovered quirky messages. It's a very by casting director Don Phillips green movie." in an Austin hotel bar. Robbis S.R. Bindler.the don't usually arrive on feature writer film's screen so fully formed. Mcdirector, an old Texas friend whom McConaughey said he Conaughey was David Wood-ersoa noxiously sweet cad, met in art class. mustache with his porn-sta- r Much about McConaughey's and Ted Nugent's Amboy Hollywood operation feels, Dukes at first blush, like the HBO trolling for unseries "Entourage" by way of derage girls in his 1970 Chevy, Austin, Texas. Gus Gustawes, wooing them on a Saturday McConaughey's longtime man- night in his pot addled Texas ager, and Gustawes's brother "You heard about the party Mark, head of production for j.k. livin, are friends from being busted, right?" Wood-erso- n McConaughey's University of says unsolicited to a teen-ag- e Texas days. redhead, arm hanging casually out the window. "Not They all work out of a spacious, loftlike space steps from to worry, there's a new fiesta in the making as we speak. the Venice boardwalk, having It's out at the moon tower, full just relocated from kegs; everybody's gonna be Beverly Hills. "I have no 'yes' there. You all are going to go." people around me," McCoThat guy trails McConaughey said. "I can turn my back and everything's naughey like vapors. The movThere's not gonna be any lyin', ie star is 38 now, slicker and harder. His image might be cheatin', stealin' going on. more Malibu than small-tow- n There's hot going to be any and toned Texas, all dishonesty." and topless. But then he talks Rounding out the team, in an advisory role, is the power- and you can hear clear to his small-towUvalde roots. ful Creative Artist Agency In the 15 years since Wood-ersopartner Bryan Lourd. Lourd, McConaughey has represumably, is the one who gets the movie star his healthy solved into a Hollywood hunk in movies such starring in bankable romantic quote to as "Fool's Gold," a comedies that have furthered adventure flick with Kate Hud- his image as simpleton beefcake. Such is McConaughey's son that will open Friday. Asked what his fee is these durability in these formula, days, McConaugftey said only, money making ventures "I can afford this van," that he hasn't had to bother It was after the "Surfer changing his accent, despite Dude" meeting, when the van playing a slick New York ad brought him back to a lot near man ("How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days") or a San Francisco j.k. livin, that McConaughey had agreed to talk about all pediatrician ("The Wedding Planner"). "Failure to Launch" things that aren't "Surfer Dude." This was not a celebrity (where he played opposite ankle-slappe- "Love Is Free" confronts a the horrors of s Louisiana; its countrified goes down easy, but with a bitter tang. "Peace Be Upon Us" calls for tolerance by incorporating Arabic elements into what could be a Bangles song. "Motivation" resurrects the satire of "Soak Up the Sun," poking fun at famous boys in $100 and the girls who admire them, as a sliding guitar line and a popcorn drum part push the shoppers along. Crow's progressive lyrics hit like rubber-ban- d pings fired by some joker in the back row at school. No one is likely to sing her verses at a march on Washington, D.C. But by addressing serious issues in the language of pop, they remind us that political speech and casual breeze, shooting can and do often intersect. These lighter-tone- d takes on the state of the world let Crow take pride in the everyday tone that she has mastered. They're interrupted now and then by love songs the one in which she plays a smitten ingenue is harder to buy than the one about her heart." Better than "paper-thi- n either are the two offhand ballads in which Crow goes into rible tedium of illness. Crow a tiny private moment and definitely laid herself out in these songs, although the gently extracts its essence. The one that opens "Degreater sense of intimacy tours" is a character song; simply might be a result of her time in the tabloids with the other closes it, and it's all Crow's. Both are arranged Armstrong, which clothed of simply to highlight her conher in the versational singing. "God celebrity. As a singer, she always has been great at hitting Bless This Mess" imagines a nerves. That doesn't change telemarketer trying to understand how the fallout from just because we're now supSept. 11 cracked apart her posed to believe they're her own. unremarkable life; it's two minutes of telling, taciturn What feels most real is wt unci Monday, February HERALD DAILY 02 -- ilM VINCE VALITUTTIWarner Bros. Ben "Finn" Finnegan in "Fool's Cold.' Sarah Jessica Parker) ended up grossing more than $100 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo, continued proof that McConaughey can move tickets as a ladies' man. "He's very shrewd about himself," said Scott Rudin, who produced "Failure to Launch." In the movie, Parker plays a kind of liferelationship coach hired by McConaughey's parents to get their son to grow up and move out, finally. Of course, the two fall in love. Rudin found McConaughey very instinctual about what audiences wanted to see him do, the situations in which his character would work best. "He's very unsentimental about it," Rudin said. "It's not calculating, it's knowing." "Failure to Launch" was a battle-of-wicomedy, but the power dynamic was tipped ts toward Parker's character. McConaughey's comedies are typically about the female leads. In this way, he has become a throwback to the old studio-systedays in Hollywood, when actors like Tyrone Power, Melvyn Douglas or Ray Milland functioned as handsome, credible support for their leading ladies, said Jeanine Basinger, chairwoman of the Film Studies program at Wesleyan University, whose latest book, "The Star Machine," examines how stars were manufactured. "He's been willing to surrender himself to image, and most movie stars of today are trying not to do that," she said of McConaughey. "We're in a phase where the romantic comedy is more about the women being able to choose and be in charge. He fits with the time where a sort mindless-ap- of in a lot of works actor pearing comedies," Basinger said. Indeed, it is difficult to come up with anyone who compares in this Keanu Reeves, say, is equated with good-lookin- micro-categor- "The Matrix" movies, while Hugh Grant lazes through the role as a sheepish Brit. McConaughey, by contrast, is even wholesome. "We're talkin' M&Ms, baby, you know?" McConaughey said, referring to a piece of safe, romantic business in "The Wedding Planner" in which his character throws out all but the brown M&Ms. "And let's dance, you know, and hey, at the end, hop on the moped, you go get the girl. Well, in 'How to Lose a Guy,' you get on a motorcycle, catch the girl in the taxi. 'Failure to Launch' you have to get tied up and held prisoner to then, OK, you go get the girl." If McConaughey has reservations about all this, he didn't betray them. Nor does he see his oeuvre as or "Fool's Gold" as just another comedy. "Fool's Gold" reunites McConaughey with Hudson, his costar in 2003's "How to Lose a Guy," McConaughey plays lower-IFinn, a high-seatreasure hunter. Hudson is his wife and fellow adventurer (the actress did not respond to an interview request for this article). Hers is easily the more evolved character. When the movie opens she's filing for divorce. "You married a guy for the sex, and then expected him to be smart," says her lawyer. In the van, McConaughey laughed, hearing that line read back to him as proof of the character's supposed inferiorlook at ity. "Dude, Finn's a his name, Finn, from Finn,'" he said, hitting the syllables. "He's an for the rest of his life. ... Get the gold, get the girl. He's a scallywag; he's not a pirate, but I bet you he's a smuggler, you know what I mean? Not a bad guy, heart o' gold. Man, but you don't know if he's going to show up or not anywhere. And he doesn't know." . 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