■H Calling All Bachelors... Singer/Songwriter Aimee Mann releases her long-delayed
■i album, Bachelor >l, hot off the heels of the "Magnolia" soundtrack. ... page 7
Writer Hits Hollywood,
Lets Loose With Stars
By Justin Winters
Staff Writer
“Hey dude, are you feeling a little under the weather this
morning?”
That was the wake-up call I got the morning after a late
night party at a South-Cali brewery with the cast of the new
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PHOTO COURTESY OF DREAMWORKS SKG
MTV mainstay Tom Green demonstrates proper
means for mouse-eating in "Road Trip."
'Road Trip'
Offers Lewd
Comedy
litest Dreamworks
production stretches the
boundaries of bawdy
humor and collegiate antics.
By Justin Winters
Staff Writer
• For the older folks who remember
seeing “Porky’s” and “Animal House”
o{i the big screen and the younger ones
wfio loved .
“American ||| MOVIE REVIEW
Pfe,” the latest RoadTri
r aunch test,
“Road Trip,” m' jm' Sm'
promises to § § §
impress those
looking for a minimal plot with maxi
mum laughs.
! Director/screenwriter Todd Phillips,
iii his feature film debut, has joined
forces Voltron-style with executive pro
ducer Ivan Reitman (“Ghostbusters”) to
bsng the college-age crowd a movie that
will surely offend many.
■The flick revolves around the flimsy
story of a group of guys from Ithaca
College who venture on a 1,800-mile
rt&d trip from New York to Austin,
Infltaow
college movie “Road Trip” and a
few other Hollywood bigwigs.
“Uh, yeah, I’ll be up there in a
second," I said, as I meditated
upon how my California pseudo
road trip had delivered me a
severely funky case of jet lag/hang
over.
How did I end up thousands of
miles away from the safe confines
of UNC-Chapel Hill, in a posh
LA. hotel room the first weekend
of April?
Dreamworks SKG, the movie
studio partly owned by some guy
named Steven Spielberg, had
offered to pay my airfare, room,
food and drinks for a press junket
for the new flick starring Tom
Green. How could I disappoint
Steve and not go? It was my
jounalistic duty.
So, with my suitcase, some read
ing material, a handheld recorder,
and some snazzy California-look
ing gear, I set out on an early
morning plane ride to L.A., via
Adanta. I had even bought a pair
of wide-frame glasses to show California I wasn’t afraid of
being hip.
Fast foward 24 hours later, to my hotel bedroom and an
unwelcome call interrupting my beauty sleep. I had somehow
braved a screening jam-packed with college-age journalists
and one kickin’ late-night party with an open bar provided by
Mr. Speilberg. As my best friend Tim used to say, “You, man,
will be feelin’ the hurt.”
The studio had furnished breakfast, but I had convenient
ly missed it. The roundtable interviews had begun. A round
table interview, in junket jargon, means that each star of the
movie is seated at a table with five or six journalists as they ask
him/her poignant questions like “How was making the
movie?” “Have you been on road trips?” “How cool was Tom
Green?”
PHOTO COURTESY (>1 DREAMWORKS SKG
Testing their knowledge of the physics of speed and trajectory versus a collapsed bridge,
the film's adventurers take a leap of faith in Dreamworks Pictures' "Road Trip."
Texas, in hopes of retrieving a video that
one of them (Breckin Meyer of “Go”)
had accidentally mailed to his girlfriend
(Rachel Blanchard of TV’s “Clueless”)
after taping a late-night tryst with a
blond co-ed (Amy Smart of “Varsity
Blues”).
The protagonist (Meyer) tows three
of his buddies along for the ride: D.J.
Qualls, the nerd with the car; Paulo
■ Brazil via Chapel Hi 11... On his new EP as Portastatic, Mac McCaughan of Chapel Hill's
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PHOTO COURTESY OF DREAMWORKS SKG
College guys with raging hormones and a penchant for pilsners try to live out their fantasies in "Road Trip,"
Dreamworks Pictures' 1,800-mile-long comedy featuring Tom Green.
Constanzo, the stoner-intellectual and
Seann William Scott of “American Pie,"
the smart-aleck ladies’ man.
While some might see surface com
parisons to last summer’s hit “Pie” right
away, “Trip" succeeds somewhat in dis
tancing itself from that as a movie that
holds nothing back in its attempt for a
higher laugh ratio.
The actors, the funniest of which are
She Daily Sar Heel
Thursday, May 4, 1999
“Have you ever been on a road trip?” the loud guy next to
me asked as he shoved his intricate microphone-doohicky into
actor DJ. Qualls’ face. “When I first had to come to L.A, I had
to get from my hometown to here in two days and it sucked,"
he said with a smile. “I pretty much had my car packed, I
wouldn’t sleep but for 5 hours at a time.”
After 15 minutes of quizzing Qualls on his next movie,
“Cherry Falls,” and his recent Prada modeling campaign, he
was whisked away by his publicist and replaced with the film’s
roguish director Todd Phillips.
“It’s great that y’all get to come out here,” he said. “I did
n’t know they did this kind of stuff for movies.” Phillips, rela
tively new to the Hollywood scene, created the controversial
HBO documentary “Frat House” a few years back.
After divulging the secret that Tom Green (who did not
newcomers Qualls and Scott, show
vibrant chemistry in scenes which
include humorous stops at a black fra
ternity house, the home of one guy’s
grandparents and a sperm bank.
The movie even features a drop-dead
funny turn by MTV’s Tom Green as the
story’s narrator (still in college after eight
See ROAD TRIP, Page 6
■ Viva Rock Vegas Bet you always wanted to find out
how the Flintstones and the Rubbles got together.
The new live-action Flintstones prequel 'The Flintstones
PAGE 5
attend the junket) is not as crazy off-camera as he is on, a jour
nalist from Florida University asked, “Do you feel that peo
ple might just see your movie as another ‘American Pie’?"
“I thought ‘American Pie’ was more of a romantic comedy,”
Phillips said with a laugh. “Everyone is trying to push the
envelope in some way, but I like real comedies.”
As Phillips graciously thanked us again for coming out to
California, the protagonist of “Trip” walked into the room with
a swagger that implied that he might have attended a late-night
party of his own the night before.
“Test, test, one-two-three,” Breckin Meyer (“Clueless”)
joked as he lined up all the microphones in front of him.
“Whoa, what if I just switch them all around so y’all don’t
See INTERVIEW, Page 6
On the Road
Got some spare time on your hands this summer? Try taking a road trip to one of these exciting
destinations, all within a few hours drive of Chapel Hill.
Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, Tenn. lt's like Myrtle Beach in the
mountains neon lights, kids cruising the strip, outlet shopping, miniature
Bolf and of course, Dollywood,
listance from Chapel Hill: 5 hours.
Natural Bridge, Va. Home to Natural Bridge, one of the seven Natural
Wonders of the World. Enjoy the accompanying cave and historical wax
museum.
Distance from Chapel Hill: 3.5 hours.
South of the Border, S.C. Off 1-95 in South Carolina. A monument to
aggressive advertising and bad taste. A self-contained village of fiberglass
animals, cheap souvenirs, giant sombreros and the most neon this side of
Las Vegas.
Distance from Chapel Hill: 3 hours.
Mystery Hill and Tweetsie Railroad, Blowing Rock —A
railroad, a petting zoo and a houseful of physics mysteries. Bea kid again.
Get excited about stupid stuff.
Distance from Chapel Hill: 3 hours.
World's Largest Chest of Drawers, High Point A highboy chest 85
feet high ana 40 feet wide. In front of the Fumitureland Soummart.
Distance from Chapel Hill: 1.5 hours.
The Andy Griffith Museum, Mt. Airy The world's largest collection of
Andy Griffith memorabilia, plus the Snappy Lunch and its world-famous pork
chop sandwich.
Distance from Chapel Hill: 2 hours
City Stages Music Festival, Birmingham, Ala. A music festival with
250 acts performing at Linn Park June 16-18. The event will include bands
playing rock, R& B, country, urban, alternative, gospel,jazz, bluegrass,
classical and local. Performers include Chicago, Jethro Tull, James Brown,
Collapsis and the Supremes. Weekend tickets are $25 if purchased by May 17.
Distance from Chapel Hill: 11 hours
in Viva Rock Vegas' will fill you in on the scoop.
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