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Wednesday
April 12,
2006
TOPTEN
Sponseredb^'-Store
J _UCC___
Top 10
In Theaters
1. Ice Age: The Melt
down (PG) Ray Romano
2. The Benchwarmers
(PG-13) Rob Schneider,
David Spade
3. Take the Lead (PG-13)
Antonio Banderas
4. Inside Man (R) Denzel
Washington, Jodie Foster
5. Lucky Number Slevin
(R) Josh Hartnett, Bruce
Willis
6. Failure to Launch
(PG-13) Matthew McCo
naughey
7. ATL (PG-13) Tip “T. 1.”
Harris
8. V For Vendetta (R)
Natalie Portman
9. Phat Girlz (PG-13)
Monique Imes
10. Thank You for
Smoking (R) Aaron Eck
hart, Robert Duvall
Top 10 Songs
in America
1. Bad Day -
Daniel Powter
2. Temperature -
Sean Paul
3. You're Beautiful -
James Blunt
4. What You Know - T.I.
5. Be Without You -
Mary J. Blige
6. Unwritten - Natasha
Bedingfield
7. So Sick - Ne-Yo
8. Lean Wit It, Rock Wit
It - Dem Franchize Boyz
feat. Lil Peanut & Charlay
9. Ms. New Booty -Bubba
Sparxx feat. Ying Yang
Twins & Mr. ColliPark
10. I’m N Luv (Wit a
Stripper) - T-Pain feat.
Mike Jones
Top 10
Album Sales
1. King - T.I.
2. Greatest Hits Vol 2:
Reflected - Tim McGraw
3. High School Musical
(Soundtrack)
4. Fish Scale - Ghostface
Killah
5. Educated Horses - Rob
Zombie
6. Oral Fixation Vol. 2
- Shakira
7. Back to Bedlam •
James Blunt
8. 3121 - Prince
9. A Death-Grip On
Yesterday- Atreyu
10. Precious Memories
- Alan Jackson
Top 10 movie information is
according to Yahoo.com. Top
10 music information is ac
cording to Billboard.com.
Arts(& ENIHWWENT
.Reel deal
By George Hawkins
georgejhawkins@yahoo.com
"The Hills Have Eyes”
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 107
minutes
Starring: Aaron Stanford,
Ted Levine, Kathleen
Quinlan,
Vinessa Shaw, and
Emilie De Ravin
The recent remake
of the 1977 Wes
Craven classic “The
Hills Have Eyes” is
definitely disturbing and
frightening. But certainly
not in the ways director
Alexandre Aja intended.
It is disturbing that
someone would think that
remaking a cult classic in
this fashion would work
and it’s frightening so
many people have wasted
their time watching it.
Although produced
by Craven, who wrote and
directed the original, this
recent version is slightly
tweaked. The typical
American family, virtually
the same in 1977 as today,
is traveling across the West
in a motor home on their
way to vacation destination
San Diego. California.
When they stop at
a dilapidated gas station
"^tIPSTMM.
By Will Winchester
An Interview with Death
Cab for Cutie
I was to meet Nick
Harmer, bassist and
founding member of
Grammy-nominated
alt-rock giants (and
recent favorites of rock
journalism’s fashionably
oblivious, ADD-afflicted
hype machine) Death Cab
for Cutie, in a dilapidated
building that sits like a
seed wart on the back of
the elegant Tabernacle.
Roadies and techs, maybe
even a band member or
two, played pool in smoke
filled rooms along the
littered hallway.
The tour manager
led me into a small room
toward the end of the hall,
about fifty feet deep, maybe
the same across; almost
barren, save for a slightly
tattered thrift-store sofa at
the far end and, facing the
sofa, an old wooden chair.
The walls were painted
black, the floors were
stripped concrete; I was
told that all interviews are
filmed, and sure enough,
adjacent to the sofa was a
camera. And for an instant
I couldn’t help but wonder
if I had stumbled onto the
set of a David Lynch film.
Any moment a scary midget
in a top hat would dart
through the room speaking
backwards English.
I was taking my seat in
the rickety wooden chair,
in the middle of the New
Mexico desert, the grizzled
owner (Tom Bower)
advises them to take a
scenic side road that’s “not
on the map.” Sounds like a
great idea, right?
After the family turns
onto the desolate road
to admire the scenery,
each and every one of the
tires on their Suburban
and Airstream trailer
mysteriously blow out.
As the family is deciding
what the best course of
action is, the audience
becomes aware that
someone, or something, is
watching the family from
the surrounding hills.
Because it’s just
the middle of the day,
the father Big Bob (Ted
Levine) decides that he
will walk back to the gas
station and his son-in-law
Doug (Aaron Stanford)
should follow the road,
supposedly to the interstate.
The two men of the group
depart, leaving the rest of
the group, which includes
mother Ethel (Kathleen
Quinlan), and her three
children: Bobby (Dan
Byrd), Brenda (Emilie De
Ravin) and Lynn (Vinessa
getting into character for
my bit part in Twin Peaks
3: The Reckoning, when
Nick bounced in and
plopped down on the sofa.
As the infamously hyper
bassist (something of a
rock n’ roll oxymoron)
settled into his seat, I
realized that at some point
I was going to have to open
my mouth. Being a huge
Death Cab fan for years
now, there was the very real
possibility of this interview
turning into The Chris
Farley Show (“Remember
when you played that
song on Saturday Night
Live? Yeah...that was
awesome.”)
But there was plenty
to talk about—-with the
latest album, the tour, the
major record deal, the
Grammy nomination, and,
most recently, the release
of Directions, a DVD of
independently produced
short films inspired by
Plans tunes, previously
available only as internet
streams —and anyway
Nick isn’t exactly a closed
mouth kind of guy. So I
decided to let him do most
of the work.
WW: So let’s talk
about Directions. My
understanding is that
this was more or less
your brainchild.
Shaw). Lynn has a newborn
baby with her.
The eyes that have
been watching the family
actually belong to a group
of mutants whose DN A w as
ravaged by government
nuclear testing. The mutanls
had been miners who
hid in the mines instead
.
The hills may have eyes, but the mutant has an ax.
of evacuating when the
government began testing.
Now they lurk in the desert,
attacking passersby and
NH: Yeah. My friend
Aaron | Stew art-Ahn|. who
directed "Stable Song”
as part of the Directions
project, and 1... it was sort
of our brainchild together,
but I'm certainly kind
of the key person in the
band. 1 guess. But he and
1 kind of came up with the
concept and the execution
and all that.
WW: How did the idea
come together?
NH: Pretty organically.
Aaron and I had been
■' .
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Photo hv Sarah Hahn
Death Cab for Cutie, performing a sold out show March 5 at The Tabernacle.
making some movies and
films and stuff like that,
just fun stuff, for a long
time. We grew' up together.
And then he directed the
video for the Decemberists’
“16 Military Wives” and
I produced it, and from
there we were just batting
around the idea of directing
living on whatever they can
get, presumably raw flesh.
Anyway, immediately
following Big Bob and
Doug’s departure, the
family’s two German
Shepherds run off in pursuit
of something unseen and
the mayhem begins. Big
Bob is attacked at the gas
station and burned alive.
Meanwhile, Doug returns
to the family after finding
the road ends in a giant
a video just for Death Cab,
so we could have it online.
So we just asked the head
of marketing at Atlantic,
“Wouldn’t it be cool if we
made one video for a song
off Plans that isn't going to
be a single or anything?”
And she just sort of
offhandedly said, “Yeah, I
wouldn't care if you made
a video for every song on
the record." So I went back
to Aaron and we kind of
batted it back and forth and
we went back to Atlantic
and said “We’ve got this
idea—what do you think?”
And they said sure.
VVW: What docs the
project mean to you and
to the band?
NH: When I was growing
up as a kid. MTV kind of
had no rules and you never
really knew what you were
going to get because they
crater. Bobby finds one of
the dogs ripped apart and
gnawed on. As if all of this
wasn't bad enough, the
nighttime mutant raid on
the exposed family results
in Ethel and Lynn being
killed try ing to fend off the
mutants, who eventually
rape young Brenda and run
off with the baby.
As the sun comes
up. Bobby and Brenda
try to fortify the trailer
and campsite. Doug (who
had been a pacifistic.
Democratic, cell phone
selling nerd) takes the
remaining German
Shepard and goes on the
offensive to find his baby.
He journeys into
the mutants’ mine and
makeshift town and
battles multiple mutants
and eventually triumphs,
reclaiming his daughter
and returning to camp. As
the film ends, the audience
realizes that there are still
eyes in the hills.
There’s not much in
this remake that's worth
seeing. For the most
part, the film turns into a
gore-filled snoozer that
evokes more laughs and/or
frustration than fright. The
appearance of the mutants
varies from extremely
mutated and barely able to
function to simply a little
odd looking (what you
might see at a rural Wal-
See REEL, pa t>r 7
weren’t quite sure what the
video form was all about.
Now it's all a lifestyle
channel and they just do
shows and that kind of
stuff. So for us it was kind
of a return to that creative
spirit that a lot of videos
had in the early part of it.
1 mean, that's certainly not
an original idea or any thing
like that, but I think what’s
fun for me is when you see
all the different videos,
all the different styles, the
different mediums people
are working in. It’s pretty
exciting because it kind of
captures that spirit, too. I
mean, you’re not really
sure what you’re going to
get.
WW: How did you get you
get such a diverse group
of directors together?
Were they acquaintances
See SLIP, page 9