Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / April 15, 1993, edition 1 / Page 14
Part of Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, 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
Page 6 • DTH • Omnibus Thursday • April 15, 1993 WXYC 1. Madder Rose sweet voiced pop 2. Digable Planets jazzy hip hop 3. Fatala West African percussion 4. Kronos Quartet neo-classical string quartet 5. New Bomb Turks punk rock 6. Calypso Carnival 1936-1941 archival recordings 7. The Goats political rap 8. Nasrat Fateh Pakistani folk music 9. Janes Booker New Orleans pianist 10. Graeme Jefferies New Zealand 10-fi songmeister Singles 1. Saew Informer 2. Sift Freak Me 3. Dr. Bre Nuthin'ButA "6" Thang 4. Whitney Houston I Have Nothing 5. Jade Don't Walk Away 6. Ugly Kid Joe Cal's In the Cradle 7. Spin Doctors Two Princes 8. Vanessa Williams and Brian Me Knight Love Is 9. Arrested Development Mr. Wendal 10. Boa Ami Bedof Roses —BUtbawd Director proves he isn't afraid to show the world as it truly is Bad Lieutenant directed by Abel Ferrara Harvey Keitel •••• Bad Lieutenant's reputation, its star and its NC-17 rating pre cede the movie. There’s noth ing like a little controversy to make anti-establishment, disenfran chised baby busters want to buy any banned book, get any banned tape or see any risque, underground movie. Just ask 2LiveCrew, Madonna or the mak ers of Last Temptation of Christ. The problem is that the audience soon realizes they’re being treated as consumers rather than art connoisseurs and dollar signs instead of human be ings interested in something different. They stop trying to be hip and end up watching Indecent Proposal along with the rest of us. So when something that really is demanding or artistic comes along, it slips through the cracks. I hope that doesn’t happen to Bad Lieutenant. Abel Ferrara’s new movie is a won derful break from the staple fare of Os car reruns currently doing the circuit. It’s a big, tough, mother of a movie just Aspiring artists release musical erections Tongue Tied Open Me original production by UNC students •••• Writer’s Note: Since the “Tongue Tied” soundtrack is guided by Marlin the DJ, 1 have allowed Marlin the DJ to guide this article, with quotes from the soundtrack mixed in here. “Consider the notion of invisible air waves flowing through the land and pour ing the music out of a small metallic box directly into your brain ...” Perhaps you’ve never really thought about the magic of sound travelling to your ears before, but Marlin the DJ has. Marlin (Trenton McDevitt), just one of the wild and wacky characters of Tongue Tied, the student-produced film and the soundtrack, invites you into his erotic world. “It’s an audio hard-on,” said junior Jason Boyd, creator of Tongue Tied, referring to the nine-song soundtrack. “We wanted it to be a journey, and Marlin is the captain of the journey,” Boyd said. “Let’s see ... what am I going to do to you? ... “ “We wanted to add a whole new dimension with the [cassette] insert,” Boyd said, “in addition to what was already there in the show and the mu sic.” Indeed, one glance at the cassette cover was enough to arouse my curiosity as to what this soundtrack would be like. “Open Me,” it said. A tongue is thrust out, almost touching a smiling girl’s forehead. Hmmmmm ... Inside, dreamy and sleazy quotes from movie ALEX FREW MCMILLAN like its star, Harvey Keitel (Reservoir Dogs, Point of No Return, Taxi Driver). Its NC-17 rating, though, means its potential audience is cut by an esti mated 50 percent (many movie the aters refuse to show NC-17 movies), so Chapel Hill’s art cinemas are one of the few places this film will be released. While Bad Lieutenant probably won’t totally rearrange your life, it asks some interesting questions to ponder over a beer in the Hardback afterwards (pre tend you’re in Paris drinking strong coffee and absinthe). So it’s definitely worth five bucks. One word of advice: this is one of those movies that should have a “Don’t see this on a first date” sign outside the theater. Bad Lieutenant doesn’t embrace the same form of realistic hyperviolence that Reservoir Dogs does. The violence is more emotional than physical, but always looming in the background as Keitel’s NYPD character goes on his drug, alcohol, sex and money-driven spree. The movie is like a cinematic rap song, brooding and full of pent-up ag gression, and the lieutenant’s inner album KRISTI TURN BAUGH the show’s characters fall under the song titles. Marta, one of the show’s stars, asks: “Have you ever been drunk or high ? Then you know what it’s like to be with me" Marlin says: "When you’re in thepink, remember that every thing you say or do can come back to you.” Boyd said that the insert is to be read cover to cover along with the tape. “You ’re speeding downhill and you hear yourself screaming and you don’t know whether to stop or go faster. Doyou wanna go faster ? I should say you do. ” Boyd said he originally thought of having one song to accompany the 30- minute show Tongue Tied, which de buted April 8 at Hanes Art Center. (Boyd has called the show “a cross be tween Twin Peaks and Northern Expo sure.”) But after he proposed the idea to composer Drew Ludlow, “it just snow balled,” Ludlow said. Ludlow,a 1992 UNCgraduate,com posed seven of the nine songs on the soundtrack. He’s been composing for about five years, and he said he com posed for Tongue Tied “for experience and fun of it.” His songs are a combo of pop, techno, acoustic and new age, Ludlow said. “There’s something for everyone,” said Ludlow, who cites Depeche Mode, Yanni, George Winston, 808 State and Entertainment Tonight’s own John Tesh (“He’s awesome,” Ludlow assured) as influences. Tongue Tied vocalists include Ludlow, former Lorelei Melanie Wade, Katie Kasben and Betsy Oliphant. Boyd wrote all the lyrics, except for the two tunes Chames Chiu and the battle is utterly in keeping with the battle that goes on in the soundtrack, between a rapper’s version of a Led Zepplin song and a country love ballad. The lieutenant (he is never named) is in a position of authority but blurs the line between good and bad. He ignores crimes, does as much coke as anyone and generally makes an ogre of himself. Just about the only no-no he doesn’t get into is sharing his needles with his drug connection (played by co-writer Zoe Lund). But when he’s faced with an utterly degraded crime in which a nun is raped on an alter with a crucifix, his Catholic faith begins to resurface and he begins a hefty duel with himself. His urges tell him to find the rapists and wreak his own form of “real jus tice,” but when the nun (former model Frankie Thom) tells him she forgives them in an effort to “turn bitter semen into fertile seed,” he begins to worry about his own depravity, weakness and inability to forgive. His battle to forgive not only the rapists but also himself is played out before the dramatic backdrop of the World Series. The lieutenant shows his perverse need for self-destruction as he bets more than SIOO,OOO to a deadly bookie, against his own advice and on the Los Angeles Dodgers instead of his own New York Mets. The Mets, 3-0 down in the series, attempt an unprec- MUSIC/MOVIE Tongue Tied Tongue Tied Of^Hc Blackjacks contributed, which are the only guitar-driven tunes on the tape. “Remember, you invited me into your body. So now lie back and enjoy...” The press release states that the soundtrack “is designed to be listened to while sitting alone in the dark. It is an exploration of sexual fantasies ...” 1 don’t even like techno usually, but the songs are mesmerizing and sooth ing. 1 pictured them being played in dance clubs, not at home on the stereo. In fact, one of Ludlow’s instrumentals, “Gemini” is being mar keted and played in New York dance clubs. “Gemini” and “Dakota” were in heavy rotation at WXYC for a few months, Boyd said, and “Res Erection” and “In the Pink” have been played as well. “You’re starting to feel drowsy ... Time slows down and does somersaults in your mind ... The huge vastness of space is just about to break and let in M ’ 'J Sf: * | Wandering through a deserted alley is a great way to lose your mind edented comeback from a situation just as hopeless as the lieutenant’s. Bad Lieutenant is as interesting stylis tically as it is content-wise. Ferrara (King of New York, Ms. 45) chooses virtually a stream-of-consciousness approach that has the camera wobbling wildly as the lieutenant begins to get paranoid and high on crack, and the scene shifts in He wonderful dreams ...” The overall effect of the soundtrack is supposed to be “like a curve,” Boyd said, “to make you drift off.” With the help of headphones, the soundtrack did lull me into a dreamy state. Not what you’d expect from the guy who’s produced noisemakers Polvo and Superchunk: Jerry Kee at Duck Kee Studios in Raleigh. The crystal clear production on “Tongue Tied” was especially impor tant, Boyd said, to produce that ulti mate “audio hard-on.” Which brings Boyd to say that people have accused “Tongue Tied” of being, well ... perverted. Boyd smiles as he tells me the reason behind that: “Per version is in the mind of the beholder.” The “Tongue Tied” soundtrack can be purchased while the tapes last at Schoolkids’ Records in Chapel Hill or from “Tongue Tied” cast and crew mem bers. and out of focus as he loses and regains his senses. Some scenes, such as that of Keitel shooting up or his abuse of two teenage girls in front of whom he masturbates, go on so long it’s tough to stomach. But you’ve got to admire Ferrara for not being afraid to show the world as it really is, not as it should be.
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
April 15, 1993, edition 1
14
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75