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Show ""SUMMER UTAH CHRONICLE ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT Decrees Liman: 'Violence is sooo hot' Monday, June 13, 2005 "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" Twentieth Century Fox Directed by Doug Liman Written by Simon Kinberg and Jez Butterworth Starring: Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Wince Vaughn and Adam Brody Rated PG 13/115 minutes Opened June 10t 2005 One out offour stars • Jenni Koehlcr Chronicle Writer You know the scene. One guy says, "Look, it's (insert celebrity name here)!" and then, when the other guy's head is turned, he proceeds to rob the guy of his wallet or other valuable possession and promptly disappear. The victim turns around a second later, starting to say, "No, I don't see that celebrity anywhere," but then realizes what has happened, seconds too late. Director Doug Liman's newest flick, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," knows how to use this trick all too well. Though touted as a sexy-romantic action adventure, anyone in his or her right mind will be able to recognize "Smith" for what it really is: a brazenly shallow and meaningless two-hour display of shock-and-awe diversion. Everything in the film—reckless violence, shameless objectification of bodies and endless displays of special effects and high-tech gadgets—is trying to distract from what is absent, namely: dialogue with substance, character development and a remotely decent story. This astonishingly predictable film chronicles the escapades of a seemingly normal married couple stuck in a rut. .. But wait—Jane (Angelina Jolie) and John (Brad Pitt) Smith aren't normal, they're secret assassins working for competing top-secret assassin firms! And each has no idea about the other's secret life! Because neither spouse really knows the other, and because all they ever do is lie to each other, the marriage is basically in shambles. Then one day the pair crosses paths when they're both assigned to kill the same person. From then on, the movie is "God, explosions are so sexy! Now, where's that gun? I'd better hurry up and kill my spouse." essentially just Brad and Angie kicking the crap out of each other in increasingly violent—and erotic— ways, showing off their cool moves and body parts to fill the screen and the time. Of course, our badass assassins fight each other...a lot. Of course, they roll around lustfully in the wreckage their combat has yielded. And, of course, they eventually have to team up and fight the dozens of people trying to kill them. This means dancing a murderous waltz together in a giant shootout that leaves only our blood-spattered lovers standing. 'The Honeymooners' should stay on permanent vacation Cedric's freshest dump stinks up theaters nationwide "The Honeymooners" Tired of landlords and underhanded supers, Ralph's wife Alice (played by Gabrielle Union) and Ed's wife Trixie (Regina Hall) want nothing more than to own a house. Conveniently, a senile old woman plans to sell her massive duplex and offers it to the pair for a measly $20,000 down payment—that is, if they can scrounge up the dough in the next few weeks. Otherwise, an underdeveloped villain (Eric Stoltz) will purchase the property and incorporate it into -• a development. Ben Zalkind Ralph's ventures have depleted Chronicle Asst. A&E Editor their savings, and Alice is starting If ours were a just world, "The to doubt their already precarious Honeymooners" director John marriage. Only his most ludicrous Schultz and his multitude of hack scheme yet can yield enough cash screenwriters would be consigned to pay for the house and thus win to Paramount Studios' crypts indefi- back Alice's favor. nitely, forced to endure hourly bamCedric and Epps must be workboo floggings as punishment for ing with broken comedic metrotheir brain-meltirigly stupid film. nomes—their delivery is about a Nevertheless, at least a roomful of half-beat off. "Honeymooners"' producers and studio execs had to gaggle of writers channels its scanty actually sanction "The Honeymoon- efforts into John Leguizamo's sleazy ers." Hell, a gaggle of moneyed types con man Dodge, and he delivers the threw funding at this thing. At least only funny jokes. one person hired the fraud director, Hall and Union have little to do plucked some amateur writers from throughout the film. Their bland, the streets and used a Ouija board uninteresting characters offer only to cast the film. innocuous background chatter. Ultimately, the joke is on the With the small exception of Lemasses. "Honeymooners"' dream guizamo's seedy character, "Honeyteam has excreted the fattest, rank- mooners" consummates a categoriest cinematic cow pie of the year, cal failure. Its brittle, empty-headed and they know it. story and half-baked, nettling charThe .sick thing is, they're going acters confound as much as into make millions off America's low cense. standards. In other words, the filmmakers Based slackly on the pioneering expended enormous effort to main1950s • sitcom, "The Honeymoon- tain "Honeymooners'" level of craers",-follows a 21st century Ralph pitude. Kramden (played by the inaptly Once again, Hollywood has traded namedXedric the Entertainer) and its soul for capital gain. As moviegohis mindless friend Ed (Mike Epps) ers walk out of "The Honeymoonas they weather the perils of idiocy. ers" 90 minutes older, $8 poorer and Dissatisfied with a lack of financial mildly catatonic, all involved in the success, they repeatedly squan- making of this grade-D disgrace will der their menial salaries (and their double their net worth. wives'), on Ralph's dumb-ass monApparently, justice really is blind. eymaking schemes. bzalkind@chronicle.utah.edu Paramount Pictures Directed by John Schultz Written by Danny Jacobsen, Saladin Patterson, Barry W. Blaustein, David Sheffield and Don Rhymer Starring: Cedric the Entertainer, Mike Epps, Regina Hall, Gabrielle Union, Eric Stoltz and John heguizamo Opened June 10, 2005 Rated PG-13/ 90 minutes Negative one out offour stars How romantic. And now that the Smiths have brutally murdered the population of a small town, their marriage is fixed. Yay! (Marriage counselors ought to take note.) Liman seems to be proclaiming that violence is the answer to any problem, whether it's a marriage on the rocks or a movie with no minutes to fill. Excessive violence is glamorous, sexy, and, in this society, really necessary to make a movie great. Why not glorify it? Hell, why not worship it? As High Commissioner for Refugees on behalf of the United Nations, Jolie ought to be very ashamed of herself. This film IS NOT working to help the world, which she claims is her main motivation in life. If anything, it's contributing to the American cesspool of violence that people are always condemning. Why would Brad leave Jennifer for this hypocrite? He probably just couldn't resist her cold, hard, murderer charm. And when she held that gun in his face... Essentially, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" will satisfy only those Americans who: a. Delight in watching two-hour fight scenes b. Love to ogle Pitt and/or Jolie's smokin' bods c. Thoroughly enjoy terrible stories and scripts brimming with ri-; diculous one-liners, or '. d. Get a huge kick out of knowing every single thing that is going to happen in a film within the first five minutes. If you don't happen to fall into one of these four categories, spare yourself from this travesty. jkoehier@ chronicle.utah.edu The Fletch Fetch RefriedPeas Black Eyed Peas' latest leaves hip-hop traditionalists feeling blue The Black Eyed Peas time-tested rhyme skills, sense stops being made. And when one is dealing with emcees such as The Peas' accredited Will-i-am, Taboo and Apl. de.ap, sacrificing one's style for the ••• sake of a unit-moving jingle is simply Dan Fletcher hip-hop sacrilege. Chronicle Writer Thankfully, Talib Kweli lends a From indie hip-hop rags to pop helping hand on "The Song," dragstardom riches, The Black Eyed Peas ging the Peas back to their roots and have transformed their boom-bop dropping a few lethal rhymes of his basics into TRL-bumping, club-packown. This root-down reminiscing ing, Nickelodeon Award-winning, transcends into the potent passages Pepsi-selling jock jams—and that's of "Ba Bump" and "They Don't Want not a good thing. Music," guest-starring James Brown, The Peas' newest selling point, but simply cannot fight off the loomMonkey Business, capitalizes on the "Pulp Fiction" backbeats and Bill- ing shadows of Monkey Business' crew's recent crossover success and board-bound hooks, promising to mainstream manufacturing—or the crams it down pop culture's throat snare the hearts of homecoming tail- pigment-lightening cameos from with a pinch of hip-hop, a dash of gaters worldwide. Justin Timberlake and Jack Johnson, funk and a heaping helping of pop Now, a good hook is not a bad for that matter. posturing. "Pump It" makes the first thing, but when radio-friendliness dfletcher@ pitch with its production-perfect begins to overshadow an emcee's chronicle.utah.edu Monkey Business A&.M Records Three out of five stars The Ice Calendar Cometh June 14 Tuesday So Calendar recently purchased a new, stateof-the-art private j e t It has 12 bedrooms, five bars, an Olympic-size pool, a dungeon, a fufl staff of Oompa Loom pa flight attendants and a handful of highly trained baboons that collectively fly the thing. The baboons do a good job most of the time-aside from the frequent outbreaks of feces-throwing in the cockpit, we can't complain. There was this one time our jet became ensnarled in a random lightning storm and Calendar was sure it was the end. But just as we were making our peace with the Lord Almighty, Highly Trained Baboon #2 pulled an evasive maneuver the likes of which we hadn't seen since Ice Man did that one thing...with that plane.Jn that one movie...and just like that, we were saved. Yep, just goes to show you-you can never have too many highly trained baboons at your disposal. They do everything! The only downside: They can't spell to save their giant, bulbous, multicolored (though predominantly magenta) asses. We have this dance club on our private jet, where we planned to exploiter, seduce...all the fine young hunnies we could find. Being the oh-so-clever Calendar that we are, we came up with a plethora of brilliant names for the club-so many we had to throw away hundreds of potential titles like "Club 747... Inches," "The Mile High Club," "This Calendar has 8 Days a Week...For F***ing." We finally settled on something we knew everyone and their mother would love: "Club Naked Romantics." We told the baboons of our decision and they seemed to understand (in the sense that they began screeching and scratching their butts on the floor), but when we went to look at the final product, it was totally messed up. Those dumb-ass mammals spelled the damn thing Nekromantics, Tickets at the door. tureheads, tonight at Lo-Fl Cafe (165 S West Temple) at 7 p.m. Velvet Room ( 2 0 0 S 155 West) at 7 p.m." Sadly, after bailing Highly Trained Baboons #3 and #6 out of future jail for soliciting a future officer disguised as a protean prostitute, Calendar decided maybe this wasn't the best place for our monkeys after all. We hopped back into the Dolorean and headed back to the past—this time to the wilds of Africa, where we knew our private-jet-flying baboons could find peace. It was a joyous occasion, complete with lice-picking and tree swinging, but when playing tonight at Club Sound it came time to say our good-byes (Calen(255 S 6 0 0 West) at 7 p.m. dar can't have a band of hairy pink-butts following us around forever or we'll never Damn filthy apes...after such a disappointget laid), things got strange. The baboons ment, Calendar had to show them just what . started crying and moaning and being all separates the real bipedal, hairless chimps (ike, "Calendar, we love you, don't leave from the rest. To showcase our superior us, we'll never make it alone, you are our intellect—as well as to get some use out of everything, blah, blah, blah" and we were that Dolorean that's been sitting in our back- all like, "Nu-uh, this Calendar flies solo-or, yard since it was cool in 1986-we rented all rather, so schizophrenic-and we don't dethe "Back to the Future" movies and made pend on nobody! Not even proper grammar! our own time machine. We're sorry to love you and leave you, but a It was a lot easier than you'd think, but we Calendar has to do what a Calendar has to told those baboons it took forever. Then do. Oh wait, never mind-we're not sorry to we strapped them in and took them to the love you and leave you because we never year 3476. They freaked out! They couldn't really loved you, and now that we're back handle the flying cars and the people with in the past, the future never happened, so three eyes and the purple rivers and streams we're not accountable for anything. Hey, look (pollution turned out to be kinda cool). They over there-it's the Antibalas Afrobeat especially couldn't deal with the The F u Orchestra playing tonight at The |