Newspapers / The Guilfordian (Greensboro, N.C.) / Feb. 18, 2000, edition 1 / Page 8
Part of The Guilfordian (Greensboro, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
February 18, 2000 IRe ark Skfe lake IRis [We 4 ShoVe It" By Laurah Norton FEATURES COLUMNIST So I hate Valentine's Day. Who decided that there should be a day when we're obligated buy our girl/boy/friends/ponies a bunch of chocolates and stuff to express A) undying love or B) desire to get laid? It's stupid. Except for the pony part. Cause if you're in love with a horse. . . well, I won't criticize your lifestyle choice. Keep on rock ing, cowboy. I know the fact that I, like, hate Valentine's isn't a shock. But I actually do like some stuff (I just can't recall what any of it is right now). Keep in mind this anger is all an act. This stupid column is a ruse, man. A cunning attempt to trick you. I'm a sad little fluffy puppy-wuppy dog inside. Woof. Woof. I've got a special kind of loathing for February the 14th, and not just because I'll probably die alone and loveless with only bitterness and lung cancer to keep me warm at night. Valentine's Day is a tool of the Man, man. Corporate romance ain't no kinda "free." I thought you hippies dug the whole free love thing. Or maybe it was the whole free-sex thing. It's hard to keep up with kids and their crazy trends. In my day, if you dug some guy you slammed into him into the pit until he got the hint or kicked your teeth out. Catholicism, Guinness, Cliche By Chris Brown STAFF WRITER Angela's Ashes is Alan Parker's somber look at an Irish- Catholic family deal ing with poverty, alco holism, abandonment, and disease. That said, not a minute of the movie was origi nal, profound, or en tertaining. The story follows the true-life story of Frank McCourt, a young Irish American immigrant, whose family returns to Ireland. What follows is a string of tragic pa rental and societal neglect lead ing to infant deaths and malnu trition, and, of course, loud drunken Irish singing. Robert Carlyle plays B NR —C —W S! —WK ""*• .■*> T~T —BMRV WSM. ' —" I ■ MIUM >Mjl / , ljHp4iS # -■ 3F HN^HH^^^KggpriP*^ I iH| icsl B I^XH y JB *f* ■ Hp \ r 1 m Wt^^M H * "■ '■ w i||H j : FL| ■mo** m '"" """p** fl ■ESL. „ _JB / went to band camp In any case, there's some thing truly and innately wrong with Valentine's Day—or, as I like to call it, the old VD. It is sort of like a venereal disease, after all. Nobody wants to be involved, and the smarmy bullsh*t sentiment is as communicable as genital warts. That's just gross, friends. Do you want your relationship to re semble a bubbling, pus-filled sore? (Actually, that'd be kind of cool never mind.) At least penicillin will clear up a rash, and you don't have to bring your doctor friggin' flowers for the privilege. Wf\ - - 1 * ii|B ~, r |^9wU|:^ ■jfffe', y Mk'tfk* *■ * .H^BBBBH Frank's father, an alcoholic who can't hold down a job and fails to provide for the family. His mother (Emily Watson) is left to beg for charity and feed a family with virtually nothing. Naturally everyone around them hates the English and is wonderfully poetic in their use of the word, "Arse." The Guilfordian Features This holiday causes bouts of a really specialized, stupid form of insanity that doctors and other smart people refer to as "Hey We Fight All the Time But the Cal endar Says I'm Supposed to Act Like I Like You Now as Much as I Did When You Weren't So Fat." Mature adults buy teensy-eensy pink teddy bears that have deeply philosophical phrases like "I Wuv You" scrawled on their swollen faux-fur bellies. And then give them to other people. With a straight face. Possessing obnox ious stuffed animals is a felony in Unless you've been totally isolated from every media im age of Ireland pub lished in the last 50 years, absolutely none of this will be new to you. With the excep tion of a colorful essay on Christ, this movie utterly misses the tar get. Which is disap pointing, considering the wealth of human experience and in- WWW.ANGEIASASHES.COM sight it draws from. The transi tion from novel to movie left the adaptation flat. Its not that you don't care about the characters. In fact if you are easily swayed by mov ies, you might find yourself cry ing. Its problem is simply a lack of reason to be watching this movie. Watching Frank's rela- several states; I'll have you know. Achtung, teddy-buyers. Your season of tyranny is over. We will not be oppressed by your godd*mn bears. Shows of love should involve torturous pain; that way they know you really mean it. Screw construc tion paper hearts with sissy Commie lace trim. Give her a gift that keeps on giving, like a still-warm aorta ripped from the chest of your mortal enemy, wrapped in the stinking infidel's steaming entrails. Hell, I'd be impressed. tionship with his father develop even as his father slips further into his alcohol driven rut is heart-wrenching. The rigid in terpretation of Catholicism and its inherent hypocrisy is screamingly clear. Any sense of poverty and its statement about a society is un derdeveloped. Those of you looking for an analysis of Euro pean urban poverty and family structure (or lack thereof) would well be advised to skip the movie in favor of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. In a final analysis, Angela's Ashes is just another attempt to produce an instant success with a proven story. Perhaps, the pro ducers should have spent less time pillaging the literary world for story ideas and gotten off their respective "Arses" and ac tually have worked to make a quality movie. Page 7 AARON THOMPSON
The Guilfordian (Greensboro, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Feb. 18, 2000, edition 1
8
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75