Newspaper Page Text
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Wednesday
November 2,
2005
TOPTEN
#|3
Top Level, UCC
Top 10
In Theaters
1. Saw II (R) Donnie
Walhberg, Tobin Bell
2. The Legend of Zorro
(PG) Catherine Zeta-
Jones, Antonio Bandaras
3. Prime (PCi-13) Uma
Thurman, Meryl Streep
4. Dreamer: Inspired by
a TVue Story (PCi) Dakota
Fanning. Kurt Russell
5. Wallace & Gromit:
The Curse of the Were-
Rabbit (G) Peter Sallis
6. The Weather Man (R)
Nicholas Cage
7. Doom (R) Dwayne
“The Rock" Johnson
8. North Country (R)
Charlize ( heron
9. The Fog (PG-13)
Selma Blair
10. (PG-13)
Jodie Foster
Top 10 Songs
in America
1. Gold Digger - Kayne
West w/ Jamie Foxx
2. Run It! -
Chris Brown
3. My Humps -
Black Eyed Peas
4. Photograph -
Nickelback
5. Soul Survivor - Young
Jeezy w/ Akon
6. Like You - Bow Wow
w/Ciara
7. Shake it Off
Mariah Carey
8. Because Of You
- Kelly Clarkson
9. Wake Me Up When
September Ends -
Green Day
10. We Be Burnin’ -
Sean Paul
Top 10
Album Sales
1.1 Am Me -
Ashlee Simpson
2. Thanks For The
Memory - Rod Stewart
3. Timeless -
Martina Mcßride
4. All The Right Reasons
- Nickelback
5. A Time To Love - Ste
vie Wonder
6. THII - Bun-B
7. Playing the Angel -
Depeche Mode
8. Monkey Business
- The Black Eyed Peas
9. Unplugged -
Alicia Keys
10. Late Registration -
Kayne West
Top ten movie information is
according to Yahoo.com. Top
ten music information is ac
cording to Billhoard.com.
/irfy&Mmum
'"^upsTiSfflS
By Will Winchester
KilgoreTrout2o(a>aol.com
It is with much sorrow
that we bid adieu to
Modesto, California’s most
innovative of indie-rockers,
Grandaddy, who, for some
12 years, have entranced
music lovers of all tastes
and aesthetic biases with
their deliciously bizarre
brand of giddy, post
apocalyptic pop.
The release of the
band’s latest EP, “Excerpts
From the Diary of Todd
Zilla,” marks the first of
two final offerings from the
cult favorites, the second
being their farewell full
length album due out early
next year.
The split was
ultimately the call of
frontman Jason Lytle,
who will soon be
leaving Modesto for
the bright lights and
putrid materialism of
Los Angeles -a rather
unlikely career move for a
sensitive environmentalist
who’s spent a decade in
subtle protest of industrial
waste and material excess.
But everyone has their
price, right?
But seriously,
scathingly obvious value
judgments aside, Lytle
and the band have churned
PI
REEL DEAL
By George Hawkins
georgejhawkins@yahoo.com
"North Country"
Running Time: 123 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Starring: Charlize Theron,
Frances McDormand,
Woody Harrelson and
Sissy Spacek
Having just met with
acclaim with his New
Zealand folk tale “Whale
Rider,” director Niki Caro’s
new film “North Country”
should be a relatively
smooth transition to a
more mainstream type of
moviemaking.
“North Country” is
the story of Josie Aimes
(Charlize Theron), a
woman working in the
fictitious Pearson Mines of
northern Minnesota. The
movie is “inspired by a
true story,” namely that of
Lois Jensen, who was the
first woman hired at the
Eveleth Mines in 1975.
The movie begins in
1989 with Aimes loading
up her truck and leaving
her abusive husband in the
middle of winter after an
especially harsh beating
and heading north towards
the mining country of her
youth. When she arrives
home, she finds her
parents cold and cynical
of her abuse.
Not wanting to
continue living with
her quiet mother (Sissy
Spacek) and outspoken
father, who apparently
Photo courtesy of playinginfog < <>m
The band Grandaddy recently released their final EP called “Excerpts from the Diary
of Todd Zilla.”
out a pretty decent mini
album with “Todd Zilla,”
and if it’s any indication
of next year’s full-length,
then it looks like the band
is set to go out in classic
Grandaddy fashion.
The sun-drenched pop
of 2003’s “Sumday” was,
no doubt, an infections and
brilliantly conceived foray
into the commercial realm,
but it did leave more than
a few fans with a bitter
taste in their mouths. The
sudden departure from
the band’s signature sci-fi
cxperimentalism was a bit
ux) abrupt for some.
But whatever fans
were put off by “Sumday”
will no doubt be reeled
right back in by “Todd
Zilla,” a collection of
songs which seems to
believes his daughter is
a whore, Aimes takes a
job on the advice of her
highly respected union
rep friend Glory (Frances
McDormand), at the
Pearson Mines.
As one of only a
handful of women who
work there, hired as a result
of government interference,
she isn’t warmly received.
After the first instances
of sexual harassment and
abuse, she reports her
objections to her boss, who
tells her, “I’m not your
friend. No one here is your
friend. You’re taking jobs
where there aren’t any.”
The workplace
abuse continues as Aimes
adjusts to life back in her
hometown. With Anita Hill
testifying in television,
amidst whispers from
her neighbors and actual
confrontations in public,
Aimes realizes that she
must take her fight to the
head of the company in
order to see any results,
but all he tells her is that
he is willing to allow her to
tender her resignation.
At this point, Aimes,
with the help of disillusioned
lawyer Bill White (Woody
Harrelson), she files a class
action. Unfortunately, with
Glory suffering from Lou
Gherigs disease, none of the
women she works with (also
being harassed) will stand
with her.
disregard the previous
album altogether and
pick up where the band’s
classically bent album
“Sophtware Slump”
left off.
“Pull the Curtains”
kicks the album off with
w hat fans w ill immediately
recognize as a self
reflexive jab at the band’s
previous pop efforts. The
generic power-pop guitars
and sappy self-help
lyrics make for a sort of
funhouse-mirror parody of
“Sumday’s” sugar-buzzed
single (and opening track)
“Now It’s On.”
With that out of the
way, the band gets down
to business with the
soaring, atmospheric “At
My Post,” the ballad of a
modem social castaway.
f* - -'*§so& ?M vr
c-uaiut ha.ANtfcS s:ssv WOO'jr ffiSjP
THERON McDORMAND SPACEK HARRELSON BEAN
NORTH COUNTRY
Photo courtesy of northcountrymovie.com
Charllze Theron makes another Oscar run in “North Country.”
The trial is supposedly
the present, the story of the
abuse and her life is exposed
through flashbacks while
she’s on the witness stand.
As the truth emerges and
it becomes apparent that
stranded alone at a post
which seems at first some
lonely outpost in a vacant,
god-forsaken wasteland,
but reveals itself in the end
to be a bustling metropolis
with “more ATMs w ith air
conditioning than there are
birds on the wing.”
The speaker’s sense of
detachment and alienation
from the encroaching
creature comforts of the
computer age is poignant
and relevant, two welcome
qualities fans haven’t seen
in Grandaddy’s work for
some time.
“A Valley Son,”
while inferior to “Post” in
its spare, sometimes ill
thought production value,
has a somewhat ambiguous
autobiographical feel.
The images of
Aimes is not “nuts or sluts,”
referring to the common
courtroom defenses that
a woman either was
“nuts” and imagined the
harassment or a “slut” and
asked for it, some of her
disenchantment and a
kind of forced emotional
closure, along with the sad
and slightly accusatory
refrain “You’ve lost a
valley son,” brings to
mind Lytle’s approaching
emigration from his
hometown of Modesto,
and maybe even offer a
bit of explanation, though
the whole move-to-Los-
Angeles-thing is still a
mystery.
“Cinderland” really
kicks it old school,
harking back to the post
apocalyptic landscapes
evoked in such older songs
as “Broken Household
Appliance National
Forest.” On “Remember
Cinderland once was our
town?” Lytle sings in his
sweet, brittle voice.
“Florida” provides
a downright comical
diversion from the album’s
mostly bleak and fatalistic
leanings. It’s pop hooks are
intelligent and infectious,
without coming off for an
instant as trite and the lyrics
- about an afternoon in
the life of a total jack-ass,
sitting around at the bar in
the mall and bragging with
a slur about all of the oh
so-important friends he has
in Florida - are jam-packed
with as much wit and satire
as they are with simple
inane hilarity.
The final track is
something of a mystery, wifh
■... i
See ZILLA. page H
other workers eventually
stand with her and they win
their class action.
“North Country”
had some great potential.
See NORTH , page 9