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'Wedding Planner 1 Drips With
Cheese and Predictable Cliches
By Allison Rost
Staff Writer
For as long as I’ve been writing
movie reviews, my friends have rarely
wanted to come with me on account of
the movies I’ve had to see.
But this time, the promise of Matthew
McConaughey, a light romantic come-
dy and the
scenery of San
Francisco inspired
everyone to
accompany me to
the theater to see
“The Wedding
Planner.”
,
/review/
"The Wedding
Planner"
★ 1/2
While the movie delivers on those
promises, the stupidity of the plot was
quite successful at making us swear off
any form of romantic comedy for a long
time.
If you didn’t quite gather the entire
story from the trailers, here’s a quick
retread. Jennifer Lopez plays Mary, an
unlucky-in-love wedding planner who
unknowingly falls for McConaughey’s
Local Label Keeps With Indie Tradition
By Jason Arthurs
Staff Writer
Passions don’t always pay the bills, as
James Rhodes knows all too well. The
24-year-old founder of Moment Before
Impact, the latest addition to Chapel
HiU’s roster of rock labels, hasn’t quit his
day job yet.
But if there were doubts about the
health of the indie spirit in Chapel Hill,
Rhodes and his “Rock Mafia” prove
them wrong.
Rhodes, who graduated from Virginia
Tech with a mathematics degree, moved
to Chapel Hill only two years ago. It did
n’t take long for Rhodes to get bored
with his day job as a Web designer and
decide to start putting out records.
“I just had the idea to start off small
and learn,” he said.
Starting off small for Rhodes meant
releasing seven-inch singles by local
bands like Sorry About Dresden and
Three Stigmata.
He even moved in with two of Sorry
About Dresden’s members.
“It’s cool, but they practice there and
it’s kind of loud,” he said. “It makes it
hard to do stuff when you have a drum
kit outside your room.”
Things got off to a rocky start when
Rhodes, who originally called his label
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Steve, the groom in the most important
wedding of her career.
She tries to swallow her feelings, but
a chance encounter sets the emotional
floodgates open. Will Steve and Mary
end up together? Was there really ever
any doubt?
One bright spot in the film comes
from the two leads. Lopez was robotic in
“The Cell,” but here she shows some
true potential for Julia Roberts-style
comedic talent. McConaughey is charm
ing and plays all the right nuances for
his part. They also share a dance
sequence that is easily the highlight of
the movie.
Bridgette Wilson also does a sufficient
job as Steve’s soon-to-be-jilted fiancee
but smartly stays clear of turning her
into the unlikable cardboard character
that is stereotypical of the genre.
But the lines they all have to say are
so ridiculous that my friends and I were
giggling throughout the serious parts
and cringing at the lame jokes.
In the attempt to create something
different from the run-of-the-mill chick
Tri-Tone Records, got word that that
name was already token.
“We got a letter from a lawyer at Tri-
Tone Records,” he said. “I brainstormed
for a long time with what I wanted to
name it. I wanted to pick something I
thought no one in the world would have.”
Since picking up the name Moment
Before Impact, the label has released
material from area bands the White
Octave, V. Sirin, Fin Fang Foom and
Strunken White.
Two of the label’s bands in particular
have received some attention from fans
and other labels nationwide. The White
Octave recently released a full-length
album (recorded by legendary producer
Bob Weston, who has worked with
Archers of Loaf and Polvo) on
Charlotte’s Deep Elm Records. Sorry
About Dresden has also received atten
tion from larger labels.
But Rhodes said he has no hard feel
ings when his bands release material on
other labels; rather, he’s happy for them.
This reflects the strong sense of com
munity that has developed among the
bands on Moment Before Impact,
despite its short existence.
“Everybody has a good relationship
with everyone else, and they are very
supportive,” he said. “If someone is
playing a show, everyone goes. It’s our
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flick, writers threw in everything from
wacky match-making relatives to wacky
wedding planner assistants to wacky
European suitors.
All of that is on top of the cheesiness
inherent to a movie like this. When
Steve professes his love for Mary, it’s
painfully apparent that no guy would
ever talk like that.
Mary and Steve meet when she gets
her shoe stuck in a manhole and a
dumpster comes hurtling toward her,
but the audience is supposed to believe
that once she frees her foot she is stupid
enough to risk retrieving her shoe.
The movie is fraught with this sort of
farfetched plot device. The fact that
Lopez’s character is Italian just scratch
es the surface.
As one friend said as she leaned over
to me, “This isn’t even close to being
believable. And you can quote me on
that.”
So I did.
The Arts 8 Entertainment Editor can
be reached at artsdesk@unc.edu.
own little scene.”
And Rhodes is content with having
his own “little scene” with just a few
bands. Although he said he would like
for the label to at least be self-support
ing, he said he does not want to force it
to grow too fast
“If it happens it happens,” he said.
“I’m going to take my time and see
where it leads. I think everything works
out in the end, and I have faith it will.”
Rhodes doesn’t take himself or the
label too seriously, adding that he and
the bands on Moment Before Impact
would challenge any other-label in town
to a game of basketball.
“I think we can take Merge
(Records),” he joked. “They’ve got to be
hitting 30 or 35, and we’ve got some
size.”
The Arts 8 Entertainment Editor can
be reached at artsdesk@unc.edu.
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Pop Culture Parties Like It's 1989
We may be through with the
past, but the past is not
through with us.”
This quote, token from a marvelous
little movie by Paul Thomas Anderson
called “Magnolia,” kept popping into
my head as I lis
tened to the
newest radio sta
tion to emerge in
my hometown: a
(pjoyVQ/)
Justin Winters
24-hour all-’HOs music leviathan of
nostalgia.
How is it that we just barely get the
1990s behind us, and now suddenly
the not-too-distont prior decade has
become hip? From music and clothes
to movies and attitude, the years that
spawned Spadau Ballet and “Silver
Spoons” have seeped into our next
generation’s septic tank of pop culture.
OK, the trend that includes wearing
slap bracelets and tom sweatshirts (ala
“Flashdance”) did not totally take us by
surprise. After thousands of years of
humankind, originality has gone the
way of Hypercolor shirts. Americans
love to dig up the past, especially the
’Bos. It started relatively early, almost
as soon as we turned the calendar year
to 1990, and has not slowed down
since.
Music has been the biggest culprit of
not letting Americans let go of the past.
Hell, VHI forbids you to forget the
’Bos. “Behind the Music” and “Before
They Were ...” make singers like Leif
Garrett and bands like Steppenwolf
more accessible to impressionable
young viewers than their parents when
they were teens at the time. Not that
it’s a bad thing ... but how long can
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where are we? 2 fiSMViIIB 5
chapel hill: right across the street ~
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Garrett last?
TV heralds the umpteenth collec
tion of hits (including those from
Wham and Tears for Fears) from the
’Bos which have been assembled for
your listening pleasure (errr... discom
fort). But seriously, music back then
was not so bad. I cringe at the fact that
our music today lacks of originality so
much that we either have the choice of
“oldies” from the ’Bos, the latest
N'Sync song, or the latest carbon-copy
mailed-in release from the Cash
Money Millionaires.
Fashion is the last trend that I ever
notice. Leave that to the stylish. But
every time I go home, my mother/ sis
ter/ aunt claims that something is going
back into style, which translated means
that I have something very old in my
closet that I can now wear again with
little to no embarrassment.
Just thinking back to elementary
school, when your mom bought your
clothers, gives me an overwhelming
sense of fright and joy. On one hand, I
was always clothed (even though
streaking was an insanely common
occurrence in a male-dominated house
hold). Consequently, my mother never
went to school with me to see how
“behind the times” I actually was.
Thick skin is grown at a young age, and
1 was the main one suffocating.
But, with a smile on my face and a
glint in my eye, I welcome all ’Bos
movies with open arms. Recent films
such as “The Wedding Singer” and
“American Psycho” were wonderful
reminders of how funny our culture
was back then, even though the latter
did include ritual killings. Movies
Thursday, February 1, 2001
made during my elementary school
years seemed to be less about money
and more about making my grandpar
ents laugh. It worked and I laughed
because of it
With the looming Hollywood strike
that will surely be affecting all that
comes to our local multiplexes, I chal
lenge every studio to dig deep into
their coUective vaults of celluloid and
bring to us the finest morsels of ’Bos
you have to offer.
Bring us “The Goonies” and
“Sixteen Candles” with improved and
reworked prints. Unleash the fury of
“Back to the Future” and “Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom” in
DTS (otherwise referred to by a close
friend as Damn Tight Sound). It
worked for “The Exorcist” and those
George Lucas sci-fi flicks. Trust me, do
it and peeps such as I will line up with
money in hand. Screw the new block
busters.
Attitude is what ultimately defines a
decade. The ’Bos were years soaked in
attitude. Everyone had it, even Michael
Jackson, who thought he was bad and
told people to beat it The ’Bos reared
Generation X, a certain group that we,
as college students, either are grouped
into or share many values and sensibil
ities with. Young children have begun
to discover the lost decade of the 1980s
through the wonderful invention of
cable TV. They like it and we need to
come to grips with the fact that it isn’t
going away. Peace out, word to your
mother.
The Arts 8 Entertainment Editor can
be reachedatartsdesk@unc.edu.
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