The Pendulum
A & E
Thursday, November 6, 2003 •Page 17
Coming
Httractions
Now Playing;
Friday
Matrix Revolutions (R)
Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Ann
Moss, Laurence Fishburne
Saturday
The Elf (PG)
Will Ferrell, James Caan
Love Actually (R)
Hugh Grant, Colin Firth,
Emma Thompson, Rowan
Atkinson
Concerts
Thursday
Ziggy’s - Winston-Salem
(Millennium Center)
O.A.R./Virginia Coalition
8 p.m., $20 adv.
Friday
Cat’s Cradle - Carrboro
Weekend Excursion
9 p.m., $8 adv.
In the Bubble
Thursday
McCrary Theater
“Anything Goes”
Nov. 7 - Nov. 10
$12 or free w/ Elon ID
West End Station- Elon
Lloyd Doppler Effect
9:30 p.m. $5 cover
Tuesday
Koury Center
Adeline Yen-Mah
7:30 p.m.
Open to public
‘In the Cut’ is a weird sexual nightmare
Blake Hinton
Reviewer
In a way, the new Meg
Ryan film “In The Cut” is the
complete opposite of Woody
Allen’s masterpiece
“Manhattan.” While Allen’s
film celebrated the city of New
York, “In The Cut” seems to
revel in its decay. “Manhattan”
is a love letter to the city while
“In The Cut” is a nightmare
about the city. It’s just too bad
“In The Cut” had to be oppo
site in quality too.
Much like the recent and
infinitely better “Mystic River,”
this a character study mas
querading as a murder mystery.
Meg Ryan plays a sexually
repressed and lonely college
professor in New York named
Frannie. When the film starts,
she’s going to a bar to have a
student-teacher conference of
sorts. The film wants the audi
ence to believe there is a bud
ding sexual relationship here,
but that angle is barely and
clumsily explored. Wanting to
get away from the student, she
goes down to the basement try
ing to find a rest room. While
down there she witnesses a
man and woman in a sexual
act. She can’t see the man’s
face, but can see a distinct tat
too on the arm.
The next day Frannie gets a
visit from Detective Malloy,
played by Mark Ruffalo. The
woman she saw in the base
ment was murdered and part of
her body showed up in
Frannie’s garden. Immediately,
Frannie notices the same tattoo
from the mystery man on
Malloy’s arm. They begin a
dangerous relationship with each
keeping secrets from the other.
This sounds like the plot
line of a potentially interesting
movie. It never happens though.
There are so many things
wrong with this film, but the
biggest problem is character
motivations. None of the char
acter’s actions make sense.
Frannie has good proof that
Malloy is a psychotic killer, but
she doesn’t do anything about
it. When the killer’s finally
revealed, Frannie is shocked
while the audience can only
say “duh.”
Frannie also has a psychot
ic ex-boyfriend played by the
unbilled Kevin Bacon. This
character really has nothing to
do with the plot, but keeps
popping up for some reason.
He also shows many times that
he is quite dangerous, but
Frannie couldn’t care less.
Later, her student Cornelius
assaults her, and she takes that
in stride too. By the end, one
keeps waiting for a subtitle that
would say this is an alternate
Slamming poetry In the Zone
Senior Daniel J s selection from his favorite
story at the first Alpha Pi Alpha Poetry Slam Thursday night
during Midnight Mea s in the Zone. Sophomore Laurentia
Richter (right) read from her own work.
Photo courtesy of movies.com
l\/leg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo and Kevin Bacon star in the sexually-
charged character study film“ln the Cut. ”
reality; at least that would
make sense.
All these unclear motivations
would have made sense if we
were given insight into the
characters. Obviously, this film
wanted to be an important
character study. The film
expresses this through ludicrous
self-conscious dialogue laced
with issues. The dialogue is
awkward and weird. Do people
talk like this in real life?
Frannie and Malloy, much like
the performances behind the
characters, remain static and
boring. Much of the movie is
plodding and will put anyone
to sleep.
“In The Cut” wants to say
something about sexuality, or at
least would have to think so
with its many sex scenes. In
the end though, its message
gets muddled through a boring
and awkward script, plodding
pace and plain performances.
Contact Blake Hinton at pendu-
litm@elon.edu or 278-7247.
Join Chorale this Spring
and sing one of the great
m asterpiece s—
Carl Orffs
Carmina Burana.
Become a part of one of
the largest student
groups on campus and
make new friends.
Since our current ratio of
women to men is 5; 1, we’re
especially interested in
MORE MEN
joining Chorale.
No audition required
Just sign up
during pre-registration.
Eien univER^itY
CHORilLE, nus I02A
for more infonnation contact Dr. Stephen A. Putrell, x5681
sfu trell@elon .edu www. elon. edu / choral