She’s back. The grotesque little girl known as Samara, whose image still haunts those who saw The Ring, has returned to the big screen in The Ring Two. But this time, the chills sent up and down viewers’ spines come from the theater’s air conditioning, not fear. The Ring Two was released last Friday. Despite all the hype, it fell short of everyone’s expectations and had viewers complaining about how their money could have been spent more wisely. The movie picks up with Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) and her son Aidan (David Dorfman) as they attempt to build a new life for themselves in Astoria, Oregon, away from Seattle. All is well until the body of a murdered young man is found with the same horrifically deformed facial features that have become all too familiar to Rachel. After break-ing into the victim’s house to steal the deadly tape, she burns it in hopes of ending the “Ring” fiasco forever. Strange things start to happen to Aidan not long afterward, and Rachel realizes that she has

made a terrible mistake. When Aidan’s temperature drops almost six degrees below normal and she finds frightening pictures of him and Samara (Kelly Stables) on his digital camera, it becomes clear to her that it is not just her little boy that she is seeing when she looks at him. Rachel frantically tries to free her young son from Samara, seeking help from others along the way. She even risks her own life at the end of the movie to save Aidan’s. Watts delivered a fairly good performance throughout the film, never falling short but never exactly going above and beyond. She effectively disguises herself as the “damsel-in-distress” yet again and seems to have perfected the looks of fear, terror and shock throughout her acting days. With a more interesting plot, she could have taken the movie to a new extreme. And who could forget the weird and wonder-

ful Dorfman as Rachel’s peculiar son Aidan? The kid’s image says it all. Just looking at him can give you the heebie-jeebies. Both his eerie disposition and creepy quiet voice keep the film from being a complete flop. The plot was slow-moving and had a lot of scenes that the film could have done without. For instance, the scene that featured a pack of deer attacking Rachel’s car was a little too extraordinary to be believable. The bathroom scene also proved over the top, as water flew around Aidan and to all parts of the room while a disgustingly discolored Samara emerged from the bathtub. If you’re looking for a good scare, I suggest you try the next theater over because you won’t find it here. You could even save your money by going home and watching the Michael Jackson trial, now that’s scary.

Never before have the Rider lights come up on a group of young men, decked out in gor-geous gowns and glittering jew-elry, belting the song, “I Enjoy Being a Girl.” Until now, that is. The TerabaC CabareT, an Alpha Psi Omega production, will allow performers a chance to take on roles they could never play because of gender and race. It will take place on Friday, April 1, and Saturday, April 2, at 8 p.m., in the Fine Arts Studio Theater. Junior Amy Toporek and sophomore David Yashin teamed up to co-direct the show. “It’s basically a role reversal themed Broadway review. It’s age, gender and race reversed as well,” said Toporek. “TCNJ did some-thing like this a couple of years ago and I thought, ‘Wow, what a cool idea!’” Audience members will not have to use their imaginations

while watching performers take on unexpected roles, according to Toporek. “Plan on seeing girls dressed as guys and guys dressed as girls in full-out dresses, heels, boas, makeup, eyelashes and wigs,” she said. “The show is going to be as fun for us to perform as it will be for the audience to watch.” Rent, Hairspray, Footloose, Avenue Q and Wicked are among the shows that will lend songs to The CabareT, Toporek said. “It’s really important because it’s not that often that we get to perform these amazing songs that are written for men,” she said. The evening will feature co-hosts Kerry Bowers and Casey Jost, both sophomores. Their roles will be to provide entertain-ment between each number. “During one part [Jost] rep-resents tragedy and I represent comedy. I’m laughing hysterically and he’s serious and ready to cry his eyes out. Then, all of the sud-den, we just start making out.” Freshman Christina Farruggia

will perform two songs includ-ing “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” from Dream Girls. Singers were given the liberty to choose their own songs with only helpful suggestions from the directors, according to Farruggia. “It’s going to be every-thing,” she said. “It’s going to be sad, hysterical, weird and even shocking.” Those who are not Broadway buffs will still be able to enjoy The TerabaC CabareT, said Yashin. “It’s not like your seeing a Broadway show,” he said. “You’re just going to be seeing people who are talented performing.” Amidst the seriousness of other productions that have taken place this year, The CabareT will provide humor without requir-ing much interpretation from the audience, said Bowers. “It’s going to be glitter and pizzazz and better than the Easter Day parade at some points,” she said. “I think the audience is going to leave shocked at what Alpha Psi can pull off.”

G-Unit’s General 50 Cent finally released the egotistical and immature CD The Massacre in which he commits career suicide by taking shots at some of the best hip-hop artists, pushes the same gangster image everyone already recognizes and features some of the longest outros ever. The record that was originally sched-uled to drop in early February with the title St. Valentine’s Day Massacre fails to offer hip-hop fans anything new and proves that 50 Cent might not be the apparent heir to Eminem’s throne as hip-hop’s most popular artist. Based on the success of other G-Unit members, he may not even be the best act in his clique. Sure, fans have fallen in love with club favorites “Candy Shop” and “Disco Inferno,” but most of the other songs on the album sound exactly the same. Dr. Dre and Eminem tried too hard to outdo each other with their beats and their efforts go to waste thanks to 50’s slow delivery and his lack of either depth or originality. Once again 50 Cent tells the world about his money, guns and drugs. His head became a bit too enlarged after sell-ing 11 million units on his last album, due to the public’s sympathy for his near-death experience and Eminem’s promotions. Listening to ridiculous songs like “Get In My Car,” “I’m Supposed to Die Tonight” and “Gunz Come Out,” we see that 50 is still as juvenile as ever. He thinks he can kill all his enemies and he challenges them. How much more can listeners take of his gats, vests and hollow tips? The various colored bullet-proof-vests 50 Cent supposedly owns may come in handy after all the time he spends on call-ing out some of the most popular artists in New York. Ja Rule is spared this time around, but Jadakiss, Nas, Shyne and Fat Joe are all dissed on the track “Piggy Bank.” How convenient for 50 Cent to release this track after all of these artists

recently came out with albums of their own. The only way that 50 will get the retaliation he’s looking for is either on mix tapes or through violence. That’s exactly what a guy who has already survived multiple gunshot wounds needs. There hasn’t been a rapper so brash in the face of danger since Tupac. The attack of such pronounced hip-hop icons comes as a surprise. Eminem recently released a single “Like Toy Soldiers,” where he discourages violence and bad blood between artists, yet 50 Cent goes on to produce this album any-way. 50 Cent takes his mentor’s single and makes it null and void with his own “My Toy Soldier.” On the track, 50 describes his army of soldiers who are going to ter-rorize the streets and protect their leader against all enemies. Some of the songs worth listening to on the 22 track album include “Outta Control,” “Ryder Music” and “Just a Lil Bit.” The G-Unit Remix to “Hate It or Love It,” a song that featured 50 Cent on ex-G-Unit member The Game’s album The Documentary, also appears on The Massacre. 50 must have been thinking that each and every song would be played on the radio at some point because the outros are all close to a minute long. For the most part, the CD includes either club bump-ing music or ridiculous songs preaching violence and objectifying women. Millions will still purchase this album because 50 Cent is already a legend. True fans should, and will, be disappointed. This is almost as big a letdown as Nelly’s sophomore album Nellyville and Eminem’s Encore. 50 Cent will soon be overtaken by his young protégé Lloyd Banks if he keeps attacking other rappers and doesn’t mature by the time he releases his next album. He should focus more on developing as an artist instead of staging shoot outs in front of Hot 97 studios to help boost album sales.

8 9

‘I believe that if I reach for Pluto, I might reach the moon.’

- Discella LarusdottirWestminster student

Friday, March 25, 2005

Fear fails to come full circle

By Joe Haubrich

By Nicole Southern

By Lacey Korevec

Photo by Al Viciedo

Sophomores Kerry Bowers and Casey Jost rehearse as hosts of Alpha Psi’s The TerabaC CabareT, a show that will introduce popular Broadway music sung by performers of the opposite sex.

‘Massacre’ half-dollar short

Photo Copyright Aftermath Records

50 Cent released his new album entitiled The Massacre on Wednesday, March 3.

Photo copyright DreamWorks SKG

The Ring Two hit theaters on Friday, March 18. The film was directed by Hideo Nakata, the director of Ringu 2, the film on which the movie was based.

After an especially intense few days caused by technical voting difficulties, graduate Anwar Robinson has safe-ly moved forward among the top ten American Idol finalists. On Tuesday, March 22, Robinson performed the Chaka Khan song “Ain’t Nobody.” According to Fox, the wrong telephone numbers were displayed for the final three contestants, including Robinson. All of that evening’s votes were disregarded. The same performances were re-aired on Wednesday, March 23 and new ele-ments were included. Viewers were able to re-vote. Robinson received more than enough votes to keep him on the show. Next week, Tuesday, March 29 the 10 remaining contestants will sing. Viewers can vote as many times as they choose for two hours after the show has aired.

Anwar jumpsinto top 10

Disappoints fans, ‘Clone Wars’ does

BROADWAY A NEW WAY

Surprising as it is in a series titled Star Wars, few actual battles are ever really depicted in the films. Needless to say, in the 1977 film A New Hope, when several characters make mention of the great Clone Wars without ever going into detail about them, curiosity amongst fans was piqued. Years later, the prequel trilogy brought hope that these monumental battles would be depicted, bring-ing faith to fans who had always wanted to see them. Unfortunately, as it would play out, among the vast collection of great disappointments the prequel trilogy has to offer, is the beginning of the Clone Wars at the end of Episode II and the conclusion of it in the begin-ning of Episode III. To bridge this gap, Lucasfilm teamed with Cartoon Network to tell the story in Star Wars: Clone Wars, a cartoon series that, like the prequel trilogy itself, tan-talizes and intrigues, but ultimately disappoints. The series, which draws heavy inspiration from the Matrix tie-in The Animatrix, concludes tonight at 7 p.m. with its final chapter. Made by the creators of Samurai Jack, their influence is very obvious as many of the Jedi, particularly Mace Windu, have martial arts skills they never exhibited in the films. With its format of three minutes per episode in vol-ume one, it seems as though Clone Wars uses its short time-span as an excuse to produce lackluster action sequences with little-to-no character development. However, even the second volume, which upped the length to a comparatively epic 12 minutes, has been a let down. The current season has only accomplished being an animated version of the Episode III opening scroll, which is typically only done in text because wast-ing time bringing it to life would be unnecessary and boring. The “stories,” despite their length, are difficult to fight through as the first ten episodes consist of little more than the stormtroopers fighting the battle

droids from The Phantom Menace. The final episodes of volume one are better, as they depict a nine-minute lightsaber duel between Anakin Skywalker and Sith-apprentice Asajj Ventress, however, with little time to develop the villain it’s hard to care when Skywalker finally delivers her the final blow. If it’s hard to care about the bad guys, it’s even more difficult to attach one’s self to the heroes, who are all (literally) the Jedi from Episode II who warmed the bench in the background shots to fill space. In this series they are invincible. They can fly and take on thousands of opponents at once all by themselves, which beckons the question if the Jedi Knights are this godlike, why are they only extras in the films? In addition, much of the dialogue is stolen directly from the movies as to make comical reference, but it occurs far too often. For example, the line “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” which pops up subtly at least once a film in the movies, turns up at least three or four times in this series and is always greatly enunci-ated for effect. While The Animatrix exists as an intriguing way of bridging the gap between the Matrix films, Clone Wars will do nothing of the sort for fans of the galaxy far, far away. The DVD, released this week, couples these tedious episodes with few special features and an unbelievably boring audio commentary making Clone Wars an impossible recommendation, even for fans.

By Vincent Civitillo

Alpha Psi presents ‘The TerabaC CabareT’

Photo copyright Lucasfilm Ltd.

Photo copyright Fox

By Lacey Korevec