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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (July 22, 2004)
019235 ARE YOUR WEEKENDS MISSING SOMETHING? + + + + Join us on Sundays for worship services featuring Holy Communion. We have traditional services on Sunday mornings and Marty Haugen services on Sunday evenings. Sundays 9:00 am and 6:30 pm Central Lutheran Church Corner of 18th &. Potter • 345.0395 www.'.velcometocentral.org All are welcome. • Homemade Soups • Fresh Salads • Fresh Pizza • Hamburgers Fish & Chips • Pastas • Ribs Microbrewed Beer and full bar (nr.?? Plus 2 W5S& ‘“t*^5888 E*f*es 8/3*00* Qff6r Medi, *uiutn 1 it •• i^SESS*?®®® E^s6/3y^ offer ALICE continued from page 7 "Every year the performances be come bigger and more popular," Gilg said. "Each production draws a couple of thousand people, with about 250 to 280 attending each performance. A performance of "Charlotte's Web" earlier this month drew 378 people, which was our largest audience ever." "Doing these performances makes you feel good ...It feels like you 're doing a community service. It's also so much more imaginative than adult theater. " — Elizabeth Helman Director, Alice in Wonderland Though the productions and audiences have both increased in size, the need to keep things entertaining has stayed withthecastand crew of "Alice" "Doing these performances makes you feel good," Helman said. "It feels like you're doing a community serv ice. It's also so much more imagina tive than adult theater." "Alice in Wonderland" will be per formed from July 27 to 31 and August 3 to 7. All performances are at 11 a.m. ryannyburg@dailyemerald.com Director Elizabeth Helman looks over a dress rehearsal for the Mad Duckling Children’s Theatre production of 'Alice in Wonderland.’ Erik R. Bishoff Online & Photo Editor 1 f j ; Courtesy Universal Studios Jason Bourne finds himself in several exciting car chases in The Bourne Supremacy.' IDENTITY continued from page 7 working on an information purchase in Berlin and frames Bourne with a single faux thumbprint. When the same assassin comes looking for Bourne in paradise, he packs up, assuming the killer is with the CIA, and heads off to Europe. At the same time hard-nosed CIA agent Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), who was in charge of the botched Berlin mis sion, traces the fingerprint to Bourne and gets busy scrabbling together old cast members from "Identity" who worked on "Treadstone," the now-de funct CIA project that trained Bourne. As Bourne is drawn closer to Berlin while tracing Landy he comes closer and closer to uncovering the truth about part of his past that has been haunting him in his dream montages: a gruesome assassination he commit ted that has been blocked out. The film moves quickly and tries hard to live up to the studio sequel mantra of bigger, better and faster, but sometimes this formula doesn't cut it. "Supremacy" moves very fast compared to the relatively slowly unraveling that "Identity" used for suspense and this is perhaps its greatest undoing. The plot, for all its carefully wrought clockwork intricacies, seems to unwind uncontrollably, peaking long before the end of the movie and -providing too few surprises. After the case of mistaken identity is resolved, the whole film goes utterly limp, de spite an unresolved subplot. Surprisingly, especially for an ac tion film, one of the bright spots in "Supremacy" is the acting by a well chosen ensemble cast. While Damon comes across as proficient at playing the sensitive, quick-witted Bourne, it is the supporting cast that shines. Brian Cox returns, reprising his role as Ward Abbott, the corpulent shad owy government man with sinister in tent (he played the same role in "Identity," literally, and similarly in "X2" as well). Despite the fact that his lines are horribly cliche, Cox is mas terful in walking the line of good and bad and knocks it out of the park with a great performance. Allen shows her talent once again for enriching any film; she successful ly sculpts some semblance of a char acter out what would otherwise be an action movie cardboard cut-out with any other actress. Julia Stiles returns too for a few brief scenes as Nicky, who turns out to be more than the secretary for Bourne's old assassin troupe, but her time on the screen is so limited that it feels like a cop out. Delightfully, "Supremacy" is packed with gee-whiz spy moments where Bourne dazzles the audience with some cool new trick: A personal favorite was opening the gas main in a house and then putting a magazine in a warming toaster to create a time fuse for a bomb. These moments, along with Bourne's ability to startle the seemingly unflinching Landy, are some of the best in the film. However, the look of the film seems to fall short of expectations. Di rector Paul Greengrass has opted to use ultra-fast editing combined with steadicam shots that peer through curtains and door cracks throughout the movie. The technique gives "Su premacy" a distinctly voyeuristic feel. It suggests the notion of surveillance very effectively, but during the intense action sequences the camera becomes a shaky mess that looks more akin to the movies kids make at home with their parent's camcorders, and leaves the audience feeling queasy. Despite the jiggling perspective, the car and foot chases and fight scenes are technically brilliant, zip ping along at excessive speeds and with brutal force; the realism is dash ing. Yet they don't always seem to fit with the pacing of the rest of the film. Both Berlin and Moscow are shown either streaking by at 95 mph or in long, slow pan shots that revel in the cites' architecture. This does seem par for the course, because "Su premacy" seems to be channeling both "The French Connection" car chase ethic and "The Ipcress File's" European spy shtick. Steven Neuman.is a freelance reporter . for the BmeM'di f_
