(Ehr BaUy (Ear Hrrl MUSIC SHORTS BIIRDIE it >v *g *• jKeW£*e* ijt CATHERINE AVENUE POP/ROCK Combining refrains more mas sive than the Los Angeles hills with hooks as sunny as a Southern California summer, Biirdie is a band that exudes California. The band's debut LP, Catherine Avenue, is essentially an ode to the Golden State, inserting innumerable geographic references in the lyrics. But the more interesting refer ences come in the instrumentation. The band combines surf rock with Bakersfield country in a way that makes the bands influences immediately recognizable. Biirdie is never able to rise above them, and that's OK. The band knows it won't be The Byrds or The Beach Boys, but it still manages to create an enjoyable record, proving once again that it never rains in Southern California. -Jamie Williams HEY WILLPOWER P.D.A. POP The bizarre and cheeky Hey Willpower’s full-length debut P.D.A. brings back electro-pop bet ter than Justin brought back sexy. The duo of Will Schwartz (Imperial Teen) and Tomo Yasuda (Thssle) creates a uniquely plea surable album with a “dance now, think later' attitude that shines in mischievous lyrics, such as “You . Carolina Sports i Menu \m Ik WOMEN’S BASKETBALL #3 UNC vs. #4 Maryland Saturday, Jan. 26 at 1 p.m. Carmichael Auditorium Top 5 Nationally Televised Showdown! Free Turn It Blue T-shirts for EVERYONE In attendance! Great giveaways including a brand new PLAYSTATION3 to one lucky student in attendance! Come try tbe new grass-fed boot b surger in tbe Carolina Kitcben in JLenoirJffainstreetf Carolina DINING SERVICES said you needed physical therapy/ Keep it in mind when you give me the extra key." Overtly sexual innuendos between the two boys continue throughout the album, making it a laugh from start to finish. It’s impossible not to snicker when hearing lines like ‘Wanna see me flex?/Then put me in your Rolodex." P.D.A. wasn't meant to be a novelty album, but it was meant to be fim. Some of the weakest moments, however, come when the laughs fall stale, and the duo ends up sounding more like a has-been '9os boy band with breathy, exaggerated sighs. But those moments are few, and this album will bring anyone to the dance floor its ultimate intention in the first place. -Melissa Brown THE AUDITION CHAMPION ROCK On its sophomore LP, Champion, Chicago pop/rock outfit The Audition tries hard to please. So hard, in fact, that it becomes downright painful. Combining blatant Warped Tour copycat-ism with backwards post grunge mentalities, the group tries to paste together as many drab ele ments of Top 40 rock as it can. It's as if each song on the record was made in a process like this: Well, who's popular right now? Fall Out Boy? Daughtry? OK. let’s make a song that sounds like Daughtry singing Fall Out Boy. Champion isn't just unoriginal but so obvious in its theft of other artists' techniques that listeners are likely to wonder why the band hasn’t been arrested for copyright infringement. Indeed, the only tiling the record could be good for would be as evi dence in The Audition's plagiarism trial. -Jordan Lawrence Diversions ‘Money steals viewers’ time and cash BY RACHAEL OEHRING STAFf WRITER “Mad Money” is the story of Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes and how they “beat the system’ by stealing out-of-cir culation money set to be shredded from the Federal Reserve bank where they work. Too bad it feels more like your money has been stolen instead. As unfunny as it is uninspired. ‘Mad Money" tries to teach us all a lesson about how even though the economy kinda sucks right now, we should all work real hard and not resort to crime to solve all our money problems. Aw, shucks. Though, to its credit the movie does skim some real issues which have yet to be explored in the movie realm. It is nice to see that Hollywood does realize that things like layoffs exist and that rich peo ple are suddenly becoming poor. LIFE OF THE PARTY Mia/ ’ wppl ', / % DTH/BRYAN REED Chapel Hill indie-rock foursome The Honored Guests rocked Cat’s Cradle in support of The Rosebuds with its textured rock sound, providing a welcome treat for those who made it out early. By injecting energy and emotion into its songs, THG outshone the headliners at times. DELIVERY -iggSg 919-968J278 HOURS 4pm-3m Thursday 4pm-3 30am 306A W. Franklin St. Fri & Sat 11am-3 30am 3C 49 Mk I Sun: 11m~2am I" 53.00 ~OHH i I HOME ALONE LREOULARJIENUPRICEj SMALL 1 -ITEM MZZA ANY SPECIALTY PIZZA "uSnsma or ANY 2-ITEM PIZZA BELLY BUSTER all-eixed-up” - ■ CHOOSE I EOF 17. M LAME 1 -ITEM PIZZA CHOOSE ) 'Of '28.98 + LAKE POKEY STIX CHOOSE 1U 8 89 99 . lOWmKm < F.ff l ? S imß 'WI-WPOI -7PEPPEMNIWMSS 111. iSSaa •tSHFHUMNS ’ISMRESWMS Alia = ca.aa ~ •m-nktitu •h-cmnamwiuml Offers may expire without notice fOLR CORNERS 175 E. Franklin St. • 919-968-3809 MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL $6 Import Pitchers TUESDAY 35c Wings $2.50 Jager Bombs $4 Miller Lite Pitchers WEDNESDAY 35$ Wings S3 * 34 oz. Miller Lite & Yuengling THURSDAY $2 Miller Lite Bottles $5 Moose Juice FRIDAY AND SATURDAY $2 Bud & Bud Light Bottles N.F.L. SUNDAY $3 * 34 oz. Domestic Drafts $5 • 34 oz. Import Drafts Serving food til 2:30 am every night Specials subject to change on Carolina Home Game Days FREE PLAY on our 2 Beer Pong Tables! But it's also a little offensive that we’re supposed to feel sorry for upper-crust Diane Keaton and the fact that she has to bite the bul let and get a crappy job as a jani tor at the Federal Reserve bank in order to get health insurance ben efits after her husband gets laid off. Wow, people doing what they need to do to survive! Where is this lady’s medal of honor? Instead of changing her lifestyle to match her income, this insipid woman decides to steal millions of dollars and rope two other perfect ly honest people into her ridiculous scheme in order to maintain a way of life that few viewers of the movie will sympathize with. If this movie had followed the British example and been released as a made-for-TV movie, it might be slightly more forgivable, but putting it in wide release just seems like such a waste of money and of MOVIEKFWFW MAD MONEY the time of everyone involved. Keaton and Latifah play cari catures of the same people they’ve always plaved. Keaton, a shrill, neu rotic upper-middle class woman. Only this time she plays the voice of recklessness instead of the voice of reason. So she’s a shrill, neurotic, reckless upper-middle class woman this time. Latifah plays the same sassy, strong-willed lady she always plays. Granted, it’s never bad to see strong-willed ladies on-screen, but at this point it seems to be a shell she applies before going on camera, and even she seems bored with all the saucy quips she’s forced to spout endlessly. The real problem lies within Holmes. Not in her performance, really, just in her presence. She’s become such a tabloid fixture, and her marriage to Tom Cruise such a curiosity, that her per formance (if you can call it that) is completely overshadowed by the cognitive dissonance of seeing her on Letterman with her bobbed hair and baby, trying to act like an articulate MEXICAN RESTAURANT ffllviccen (?