[email protected] Technique Entertainment Editor: Jennifer Aldoretta 9 Friday, Entertainment July 10, 2009 Inferior plot defeats Transformers DEATHTRAP FILM story could have been carefully Also, Petra is not visible from designed to engross the audience. the Great Pyramids, so there is Transformers: Revenge of But instead, it is action followed no way the heroes ran from one the Fallen by explosions followed by yell- to the other. And if there is a GENRE: Action, Adventure ing, running and explosions. mythical gun, why not use it on !ere was no way for it to end more than one thing? KILLS STARRING: Shia LaBeouf and well because absolutely nothing Shia isn’t given much to do Don’t miss Megan Fox had been done over the course and only really has one moment DIRECTOR: Michael Bay of the movie. It just ends, the to shine. It’s about four seconds DramaTech’s credits roll and then the audience long and then something ex- RATING: PG-13 wonders what just happened. plodes or invades earth or bursts Deathtrap RELEASED: June 24, 2009 !is movie is too big for its through a wall. Furthermore, own good. !ere are too many Shia is in one of the robots when tonight and OUR TAKE: "!!!!! "ghting robots and not enough it transforms. I thought there reason for them to "ght. Every- might be a cool control room, tomorrow at By Chris Ernst thing was very epic, but for no Shia driving a huge robot, but Sta! Writer reason. What was not epic was instead he is just running on the 8 p.m. the ending. ground a shot later like nothing Transformers: Revenge of the For being so grandiose, there happened. Somehow he trav- Fallen is a hot, hot mess. It’s so should have been multiple di- eled several hundred feet to the hot it should be on a tin roof, or mensions in peril, not just some ground safely, quickly and with- be dropped. But however bad machinery, or aliens, or Megan out a hitch step. any review may be, people will Fox’s empty head or whatever As a "nal note, someone needs still go to see this movie. Noth- it was. !is script is so incred- to be either "red or promoted re- ing can stop the power of sex ap- ibly terrible and cut and pasted garding these “racist robots.” It peal and robots together. together there was no way it is a steaming pile of controversy It earned $16 million on its wouldn’t be one of the worst that could have been avoided Wednesday night premier alone, movies of 2009. To be fair, it is easily, but then GM would have which is a record. It earned al- a causality of the writers’ strike. to be plugged elsewhere in the most $600 million in two weeks. !e plot holes are jarring, movie. !e robots add nothing to Photo by Kelvin Kuo/Student Publications !is movie is so shiny that people distracting and confusing. !e the movie and could be excluded THEATER I will point out that the play’s will stand everything else that is heroes walk out the back door of entirely, but instead I guess it was ending is a bit strange and was a terrible about it the Smithsonian Air and Space supposed to be funny. Deathtrap muddle of actions that weren’t !e story makes no sense and Museum, which is located in But the movie is just so shiny. GENRE: Comedy thriller substantiated by any kind of real the way it is presented in the plot downtown Washington, D.C., It’s so pretty. It’s so pretty it hyp- characterization. But besides the is chaotic at best. !ere were so they are suddenly in a "eld with notizes the audience into apathy. STARRING: Brittany Roberts ending action of two of the char- many action scenes the dialogue the majestic Rockies in the back- !is is its only redeeming factor. and Tamil Periasamy acters, everything else was well punctuated the "ghts … not the ground. !ere were no apologies !e robots are pretty, Megan is DIRECTOR: Melissa Foulger thought out. !e main characters other way around. For being two or attempted Lucille Ball style pretty and the $600 million isn’t PLAYWRIGHT: Ira Levin weren’t static, and two of the sup- and a half hours, a great, complex explanations. It just was. arguing. porting cast members were hilari- OUR TAKE: !!!!! ous foils for one another and the main characters. One such char- acter, Helga ten Dorp, was played By Alexandria Stephenson by a man dressed as a woman–an LP fails to rival members’ previous work Contributing Writer eastern European woman, com- MUSIC conception. plete with accent and all. Matt “Orange Shirt” and “Osaka Deathtrap, the longest running Carroll did quite a good job "lling Discovery Loop Line” kick o# the record comedy-thriller on Broadway, those womanly shoes, not to men- LP and coincidentally were the two boasts twists and turns enough to tion that his accent was fantastic. LABEL: XL Records songs that made rounds on the make any audience member dizzy Carroll wasn’t the only superb Internet long before the album and doesn’t disappoint. !e style actor in Deathtrap. !e entirety GENRE: Indie Rock was released on Tuesday. Syn- of the play, especially the writing, of the troop was quite impressive. TRACK PICKS: “Orange thesizers pulse, glitter and climb is very indicative of the period in Brittany Roberts tackles her por- Shirt,” “So Insane” & “Carby” on “Osaka Loop Line,” and we which it was written. Some word trayal of Myra’s internal struggle get our "rst taste of vocal looping choices and references are so obvi- between condoning and con- RELEASED: July 7, 2009 and tempo shifting. Auto-Tune ously from the seventies that one demning Sidney’s murder of Clif- is briskly used to touch up the can’t help but chuckle. ford beautifully. Tamil Periasamy OUR TAKE: !!"!!! ends of phrases, and the sound Sidney Bruhl, a playwright as Sidney does an enchanting job is genuine given the limited in- Image courtesy of XL Records most famous for the longest run- with the antihero, making the By Mark Jackson strumentation. Hi-hat ticks are Most of these songs are hit- ning play on Broadway, has re- audience both root for and revile Contributing Writer also a Discovery favorite and they or-miss, and when they miss it treated to his home in Westport, him. show up on “Orange Shirt.” can be quite painful. “I Wanna Connecticut in order to work on Brian Webber’s turn as an in- !e duo consisting of Vam- Ra Ra Riot’s “Can You Tell” Be Your Boyfriend,” featuring a new play after all of his most genuous "rst time author rings pire Weekend’s keyboardist, is remade and dubbed “Can You Angel Deradoorian of Dirty Pro- recent ones have $opped. He is true, and the latter parts of his Rostam Batmanglij, and Ra Ra Discover?”, and in all its Auto- jectors, is especially bad. Loop joined by his wife of eleven years, performance are pitch perfect. Fi- Riot’s singer, Wes Miles, makes Tune glory, it’s not all that bad. It Deradoorian’s polished vocal o# of whose trust fund he is liv- nally, Johann Margulies as Porter a lot more sense than you may just doesn’t match up against the scales with glitchy drum ticks ing. Milgrim, the Bruhls’ lawyer, is think. !ey were friends even record’s best tracks. I say leave it and stalkerish lyrics and you After receiving a superbly fantastic. before their respective bands up to other people to remix your have yourself the worst song on crafted manuscript from one of !e writing and the act- blew up, Batmanglij has produc- other band’s songs. I guess they the record. his students at a seminar he led, ing weren’t the only exceptional tion cred with VW and Miles came to the realization that no- As a whole, LP is a mixed bag Sidney jokes to his wife Myra that things in this production. !e set has a voice that would suit al- body was going to inject Auto- of summery, synth-drenched he should kill the boy for it–espe- and costume design were superb. most any moderately paced pop Tune into a Ra Ra Riot song any pop songs that draws less from cially since the manuscript’s au- !at is the thing that most im- instrumental. When I found out time soon. Vampire Weekend and Ra Ra thor Cli#ord Anderson has made presses me time and again when I they were making an electronic !e trio of “So Insane,” Riot than expected. A few tracks only two copies and no one knows see DramaTech productions. !e album together (one that has “Swing Tree” and “Carby” (fea- bring down the overall quality of his work. craftsmanship that goes into cre- been in production since 2005), I turing Ezra Koenig of VW) and replayability. Myra is naturally quite dis- ating the backdrop for the actors wondered what exactly they were is quite impressive, and it’s on !e problem here is what’s turbed by this prospect, and when is fantastic and engenders com- aiming for. songs like these where Discovery under the surface. At times it Sidney invites Cli#ord up to plete immersion in the story. In a Pitchfork.com interview seems to "nd their niche in the seems like the hooks are the Westport from New York, Myra It is a joy to go to DramaT- they revealed some of their origi- sea of synthesizers.