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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 1, 2004)
with QUASI McDonamTheater Tuesday, May 25 tickets at | Jicketswest.com 503.224.TIXX monqIlcom . WIN PIXIES TICKETS ® WWW.MONQUI.COM • TICKETS SUBJECT TO SERVICE CHARGE UO School of Music Fr Department of Dance APRIL CONCERTS For more information on School of Music events, call 346-5678. Thur. 4/1 Sat. 4/3 TOBY KOENIGSBERG, Jazz Piano UO Faculty Artist Series 8 p.m., Beall Hall Also featuring Tyler Abbott and Jason Palmer. $9 General Admission, $5 students & senior citizens KOOL KEYBOARDS Children’s Concert Series 10:30 a.m., Beall Hall $3 adults, $2 students & children, $5 for a family Sun. SHOGHAKEN: Armenian Folk Ensemble 4/4 UO World Music Series 8 p.m., Beall Hall $10 General Admission, $8 students & senior citizens Mon. 4/5 Tue. 4/13 Tue. 4/13 Thu. 4/15 April 16-17 Sat. 4/17 Sun. 4/18 DANCE AFRICA Dept, of Dance Ensemble 8 p.m., Dougherty Theatre $10 General Admission, $5 students & senior citizens LES BALLETS AFRICAINS Guest Dance Ensemble 8 p.m., Dougherty Theatre $20 General Admission, $10 students & senior citizens GARY LEWIS, Flute UO Faculty Artist Series 8 p.m., Beall Hall $9 General Admission, $5 students & senior citizens ETHOS PERCUSSION GROUP Guest Ensemble 8 p.m., Beall Hall Performing “Music of the Americas." Reserved seats $20, $15 ($12 students). Call Hult Center (682-5000) or EMU (346-4363) UO REPERTORY DANCE CO. UO Dance Ensemble 8 p.m., Dougherty Theatre $10 General Admission, $5 students & senior citizens MASTERS OF INDIAN MUSIC with ETHOS PERCUSSION GROUP Guest Ensembles 8 p.m., Beall Hall Reserved seats $20, $15 ($12 students). Call Hult Center (682-5000) or EMU (346-4363) UO SYMPHONY: Concerto Concert UO Ensemble & Soloists 3 p.m., Beall Hall $5 General Admission, $3 students & senior citizens o UNIVERSITY OP OREGON For our complete calendar, check: music.uoregon.edu You're always close to campus. --» www.dailyemerald.com ‘Dead' revives horror flicks ‘Dawn of the Dead’ works well as a zombie movie meant to scare audiences By Ryan Nyburg Senior Pulse Reporter Zombie movies hold a special place in the canon of horror and tend to have an aesthetic quality of their own. There are numerous reasons for this. One is that zombies are essentially blameless automatons, operating on a simple line of logic without moral con siderations. Another reason is that, of all the stock villains in horror films (vampires, werewolves and the like), zombies are the only ones that do not come from European folklore. Probably the most significant as pect that sets these films apart is the ease with which they can take on seri ous social issues. This is where George A. Romero and his "Night of the Liv ing Dead" trilogy fits into the picture. In his films, Romero used the horror genre to comment on a wide range of social issues, including materialism, militarism and the ever-present theme of human nature under extreme pres sure. It was partly because of Romero's influence that, for a while at least, horror was taken seriously as a form of cinematic expression. Now we are presented with the sec ond remake of one of the "Dead" films ("Night of the Living Dead" was remade in 1990): Zack Snyder's "Dawn of the Dead." While it would be unfair to expect the remake to be as good as, or to touch on all the same areas as, the original film, the differ ences between the two are telling. Gone is the sly social commentary about consumer culture, gone is the character development, gone is the sustained sense of dread. What re mains is a purely visceral horror film, concerned only with what can scare people moment to moment. But on that level, the film works. The plot follows the general outline, if not the exact details, of the original film. A plague overtakes the country, causing all of those infected to die and then rise up again as vicious zombies. The infection is spread through bites and soon the whole country, maybe the world, is in shambles. A group of sur vivors hole up in an abandoned shop ping mall and manage to fend of the hordes of undead. The survivors are pretty much just stock characters who exist mostly just to squabble, keep se crets from one another, rescue one an other and occasionally kill one anoth er. With the exception of the Sarah Polley character — whose escape from a suburban area provides the film's opening sequence — none of the char acters are really explored in any depth. 1116 lack of character development could have been taken care of if a few characters would have been eliminat ed with a little more haste, thus giving room to focus on just a few key peo ple. But this would be beside the point, since more characters means more people killed by the zombie horde, which is the sort of visceral thrill the film is aiming for. It's enter taining, if not particularly thoughtful. But unlike the original, this film is not about abstractions or commentary, just pure entertainment. As escapism, it's well worth the ticket price. That said, there are a few aspects of the film that could have been smoothed out. First are the references to Sept. 11. While the event is never ex pressly mentioned, the imagery and language make it pretty obvious. The filmmakers seem to be making some statement about survivors in a world rocked by tragedy, but the idea is never fully formed and seems rather beside the point especially given the nihilistic ending. These references and attitudes should have been made either more or less prominent rather than left to sit in the film without purpose. Another area that could have used Courtesy Sarah Polley and Ving Rhames fight back a horde of zombies in “Dawn of the Dead." some work is the lack of emphasis on cannibalism among the zombies, something which played so promi nently in the Romero films and just about every other zombie film in re cent memory. The filmmakers might have been too squeamish to add it (or more likely too worried about trying to get an R rating) but it's the cannibalism that makes zombies such powerful images in the first place, and the symbolic importance of the act could have added some substance to the film. But this would be imposing sym bolism where it is clearly not wanted. If you're looking for something to thrill you for 97 minutes, this is the film to see. Just don't expert it to do anything for you once you get out of the theater. "Dawn of the Dead" is currently playing at Cinemark 17, lo cated at 2900 Gateway St. in the Gate way Mall and at Regal Cinema World, located at 10887 Valley River Way. Contact the senior Pulse reporter at ryannyburg@dailyemerald.com. ARTWORK continued from page 7 these are the recurring images of the human body. These include disem bodied ears and hands, as well as more subtle additions. "There are groups of balls placed around the piece, 23 black and 23 white," Walsh said. "They represent the two sets of chromosomes in the human genetic structure." Other objects in the piece address the subject of AIDS more directly. "Near the front of the exhibit there is a box that contains 4,000 names of people who have died of AIDS," Walsh said. "I've also written names of AIDS victims on oak leaves hanging on the walls. The idea there is that leaves are objects without identity, much like many victims of AIDS. I've given them an identity by putting names on them." Walsh says he hopes the exhibit will inform people that AIDS is still an important problem around the world. "I like how the piece com memorates the victims of AIDS," post-bachelor student Vince Artman said. "Personally though, it's not to my taste." The Adell McMillan Gallery is lo cated in the EMU. There will be a re ception for "Link" in the gallery at 5:30 p.m. tonight. Contact the senior Pulse reporter at ryannyburg@dailyemerald.com. For the week of April 2nd! Sign-up for our weekly WebPage Update! www.bijou-cineTnas.coi 'A swooning love letter tTTarTsT,IB,ll""IBB""l,,BI,B", to cinema and to love." EVENING STANDARD A New Film by i-P,. r Bernardo I M t Bertolucci :45,7:U5&9:2C Sun Mat 2:25 pm Michael Caine Tilda Swinton THE STATEMENT Directed by Norman Jewison (THE HURRICANE, YOONSTRUCK) 5:00 Nightly Sun Mat 2:45 O^Neve Campbell Malcolm McDowell IpsTsI W A Robert Altman Film ZaTHE COMPANY 7:1b i 9:30 Nightly Sun Mat 2:45 pm BIJOU LATEN1TE Fr-Sat $5 Su S4 STANLEY KUBRICK'S CLASSIC: 12001; A SPACE ODYSSEY Fri, Sat, & Sun 11:40 pm Sat Mat 1:50 pm Nirvana: Live in Concert 1994 Fri, Sat, & Sun 11:45 pm tmimuDsu&uMcm Oregon Daily Emerald. A campus tradition-over 100 years of publication.
