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www.guilfordian.com
When din
Kevin Smith | Staff Writer
"I thougjit that rode was extinct but actualfy it was
just frozen in an iod>erg to be thawed by gjd?al warm
ing and awesomeness/' said Laura Blythe-Goodman
affe attending the recent Saurus concert on Feb. 16 on
S. Elam Street
Saurus is a new trio that has two motives when
playing — to dnake the walls with prehistoric rode and
to ^ucate the audience about dinosaurs.
Saurus told the story of the Avimimus and the
Deincnychus, the last two dinosaurs on Earth, by hit
ting the audience with loud, carnivorous lyrics like an
apocalyptic meteorite. The dinosaurs were frozen on
both poles of the Earth until global warming thawed
toemout
The IDeinanychus, mistakenfy known as the vdod-
raprtor, is a menacing, killing machine that wants to rule
worid The Avimimus, Evie, is a turkey-sized, cjuick-
legged dinosaur with a heart of gold.
The concert was complemented by a PowerPoint
presentation that illustrated the storyline.
At the end of the show, the two dinosaurs duke it
out and the outcome of the conflict is up to the audi
ence.
If the crowd cheers for the Avirnimirs, then the world
becomes a utopia, and every problem that ever was van
ishes. If the D^onychus daims victory in the applause,
then he becomes a demonic force of d^kness.
At the Feb. 16 show, the Avimimus stole the crowd's
FEATURES
heart and took the win. Members of the band had
mixed feelings about the crowd's decision.
"For the sake of humanity. I'd rather have the
Avimimus win, but to be perfedly honest I fhink that
the Deinonydius' ending scxig is a lot more rocking,"
said lead singer and Guilford alumnus Daniel Bullard-
Bates.
Aside fixon a story line, the band also offered the
audience opportunities to answer trivia ejuestions about
dinosaurs. Blyflie-Gocxlman was impressed hy the
creative fusion of turbulent music and informative
dinosaur facts.
'Teople had to know about dinosaurs in order to
answer the questions, and one person knew enough to
win a book ... the juxtaposition of education and rxxk
made the rock even beto."
The unrque sound of the band kept patrons guess-
ing.
'T didn't know whether to associate them with the
'80s or the cretaceous pericxl," said senior Lisa Jaeggi.
Despite the highly developed dinosaur theme,
Saurus was formed randomly in January.
"We always wanted to be in a bad indie rock band,
so one day we formed one, and it was originally ratlfd
Whale," said band member and senior Andy Savoy. "At
our first jam, I pulled out the only lyrics I had ever writ
ten, 'velirapiraprapitaptor shot my soul' Then we were
like 'why don't we sing about dinosaurs?"'
Saurus currently plans to play more shows. More
information can be found at myspaoe.com/saurusrock.
Woodson
Charlie Clay/Guilfordian
Saurus band members delivered the story of the ulti
mate DINO SHOWDOWN TO A SELECT GROUP IN DOWNTOWN
Greensboro, Friday Feb. 16
“Hannibal Rising” falls short of its predecessors
Ben Dedman | Senior Writer
When "Silaice of the Lambs"
was released in 1991, it brought
Dr. Hannibal Lecter, then played
by Anthony Hopkins, to the silver
screen for a second time, after Brian
Cox played Lecter (spelled Lecktor)
in "Marihxmter" in 1986.
"Silence" won five Oscars,
including Best Picture and Best
Supporting Actor for Hopkins.
Since then, Lecter has been consid
ered one of the greatest film charac
ters of all time.
Because of the greatness
achieved by its predecessors, it is
a pity to see what has become of
the Lecter franchise in its newest
installment, "Hannibal Rising."
"Hannibal Rising" was written
by Thomas Harris, who has writ
ten all four books concerning the
life of Hannibal Lecter, including
"Hannibal Rising," which came out
less than two months before its film
counterpart.
Because of Harris' script, his first
attempt at a screenplay, and Peter
Webber's direction, his second
attempt at a feature film, "Hannibal
Rising' falls flat after only a few
minutes, leaving the audience con
stantly glancing at their watches
and wondering just how long it
will all drag on.
The film begins with Lecter as
an innocent ei^t-year-old child in
Lithuania in die winter of 1944.
Alongside his family, he is trapped
in the violent eastern front of World
Warn.
After escaping to a small cabin
in the woods, Hannibal and his
younger sister, Mischa, are
orphaned when a firefight between
a Russian tank and a Nazi plane
kills both of their parents.
Later, a group of Nazi thugs
stumbles across the cabin and soon
find themselves stuck with the two
children and no food or escape
from Soviet forces.
Mischa soon comes down
with pneumonia and, desperately
himgry, the soldiem kill her, cook
her and eat her, a horrific experi
ence that transforms Lecter into a
mute and violently insubordinate
orphan.
The rest of the film explains how
Lecter grows from this lost boy into
the famous, monstrous cannibal on
the prowl in Canada and searching
for the men who ate his sister. He
is ultimately transformed into the
same thing he is out to kill — a bad
guy who eats people.
The film is, in all, nothing more
than decent. Peter Webber's OK
direction and Harris' OK writing
is combined with OK actors and
an OK plot and, of course, the final
product amounts to nothing better.
After Hannibal digs into his
final feast of the film, an act nearly
two long hours in the making, the
only question I could think of was,
"Why?"
Why was this movie made, and
why did I pay to go see it?
Both questions have the same
answer: Hannibal Lecter is one of
the best and most popular movie
or novel characters of ttie last three
decades and is even ranked by
Premiere magazine as the 15th
greatest movie character ever.
The premise seemed promising.
Just as I was duped into seeing
Darth Vader's (ranked all the way
back at number 84) fall to the dark
side, I once again fell into the trap
expecting something high-quality
in return.
All I got was something decent,
and soon I realized why I was real
ly disappointed in the movie.
Instead of the elegant Chianti,
liver and fava bean dinner I had
expected, I was forced to settle for
a mimdane cheek-and-mushroom
shish kabob in the woods.
The film is showing in Greensboro
at the Carousel Grande on Battleground
Ave. For times see www. guilfordian.
com.
Feb. 23, 2007
Greensboro. N.C.
'Father’ of
Black History
Month
Adrienne Israel | Contributing Writer
As the annual celebration of
Black History Month has come to
an end, it seems appropriate to
focus on the life of its "father,"
Carter G. Woodson, who promoted
Negro History
week as part
of his work as
founder of the
Association
for the Study
of African
American
Life and
History.
From the
Coal Mines
to Harvard
Born in Virginia in 1875,
Woodson worked as a sharecrop
per and was taught to read and
write at home. When his family
moved to Huntington, WVa., he
went to work in the coal mines.
At age 20, he enrolled in
Huntington's segregated Frederick
Douglass High School. He gradu
ated in two years and was admit
ted to Berea College in Kentucky
where he earned a bachelor's
degree in 1903, a year before
Kentucky outlawed integrated
education.
He returned to Huntington and
taught at Douglass High School
until the U.S. War Department (later
renamed the State Department)
offered him a teaching post in the
Philippines, where he took cor
respondence courses in Spanish
from the University of CWcago,
where he formally enrolled in 1907
and earned a master's degree in
European history. In 1912, he was
awarded a doctorate in history
from Harvard.
Promoting Scholarship
Woodson settled in Washington,
D.C., where he briefly taught at
segregated Dunbar High School
and served as professor of history
and dean of College of Liberal Arts
at Howard University. In 1915, he
withdrew from full-time work in
higher education when he found
ed the Association for the Study of
Negro Life and History (ASNLH).
Under Woodson's leadership,
ASNLH published The Journal of
Negro History (later renamed The
Journal of African American Life
and History), a scholarly journal,
and The Negro History Bulletin,
which is geared toward general
readers.
Although his own prolific pub
lications include both African and
African-American history, his most
widely read book is "The Mis-
Education of the Negro" (1933),
which was recently reprinted.
Woodson died in 1950 at his home
in Washington, D.C.