Diversions

Scorsese’s spin on cops and robbers

Emily Hoferer
Diversions Editor

Newswire Official Rating:

A good director shines even more when they mold a film into a piece of work that speaks about themselves and tells the story as well. Martin Scorsese does just that in his new film about gangsters and crime, “The Departed.” The movie follows two men as they climb the ladder and work in the Boston State Police Department.

Warner bros.

Costello (Nicholson) gives Costigan (DiCaprio) a piece of his mind.

Scorsese has two things down perfectly in this film, the first being that he cast an amazing list of actors. That includes Massachusetts natives Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg as well as Scorsese’s favorite leading man Leonardo DiCaprio.

Those are some pretty young and hot actors, but the movie also includes some great veterans such as Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen and the ever unique and marvelous Jack Nicholson.

The second thing he did perfectly was take the amazing script, filled with some raunchy and racy dialogue, and make it fit perfectly into the setting of the story.

Although the words may come off as vulgar, they are funny and clever. The plot is intricate, but not too confusing, and it leaves you with some twists and turns that are sure to bring an element of shock to the story.

“The Departed” tells the tale of Colin Sullivan, played by Damon, who successfully climbs the ladder to the status of detective at the BSPD. But his intentions may not be entirely good, as he still remains close to his childhood “mentor” Frank Costello, played by Nicholson.

Costello is the man whom the BSPD is after, wanted for crimes of murder and drug trafficking. He and his gang of loyal henchmen are notorious throughout Boston and they are first on the list of most wanted criminals.

The head detectives, played by Sheen and Wahlberg, hire Billy Costigan, played by DiCaprio. Costigan has crime in his family tree, and some of his relatives have been notorious for wreaking havoc in Boston.

That leads them to offer him the job of being an undercover detective in Costello’s inner circle. From there, chaos unfolds and the plot branches out into unfamiliar territory.

The acting is this film is top-notch. DiCaprio honestly becomes his character and delivers an intense performance that is sure to get the Hollywood honchos talking again. DiCaprio is almost as famous for getting snubbed for awards as Scorsese. This film may help break their losing streaks come Oscar time.

“The Departed” is THE movie to see right now. The plot, characters and dialogue are worth the price of admission alone. The thing about Scorsese’s film is that it runs in the genre of some of the other films he’s made, but it is nothing like his previous efforts.

“The Departed” has now set the bar for future mafia/crime movies. Not only is it a good cops and robbers film, it is a good film. Period.

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Fighting The Information age

John Lafollette
Sports Editor

Newswire Official Rating:

The album begins with a studio MC counting down the beat to Beck, “One, two… you know what to do!”

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Beck is an intense solo act that has been around for years.

Beck’s new record, The Information, not only recalls the days of Mellow Gold and Odelay, it also sounds like the gripping samples and clanging poetry from his first and most loved albums could have been pulled straight from those recordings. Beck’s latest project is a mix-and-match construction, like a Lego masterpiece built without any instructions.

“The idea was to get people in a room together recording live, hitting bad notes and screaming,” Beck says. “The whole feeling of the record was putting pieces together.”

“Elevator Music” is a blues infused, rhythm heavy ramble (“Gutbucket and a bottle of paint/It’s like the schoolhouse lights will never turn on again”) that braces you for a nostalgic trip through mid-90s hipster-folk culture.

But there’s something more at work here: an introspective layer of Beck that we have yet to see him couple with turn table flavored funk.

“Been a long time/Since a federal dime/Made a jukebox sound/Like a mirror in my mind,” Beck sings on “Cellphone’s Dead,” the record’s catchiest and most sample-fueled song. These heavier lyrics were written with a wiser hand than the one that penned Beck’s earliest, funkiest,and most unforgettable music.

The Information is indeed a heavier album than Odelay, and it is the product of an older, more self-aware Beck, but at times he sounds downright weary.

“I’m a seasick sailor/On a ship of noise/I got all my maps backwards/And my instincts poisoned,” he laments on “Nausea,” whose looping rhythm and dense compu-beats overcome the lyrics’ bleak mood and make even a lame sports editor want to get up and dance.

He gets pleasantly ironic in “No Complaints” when he coolly sings,“No complaints, but it’s harder to believe in the truth.” The gravity of that statement is heavily diluted in Beck’s comfortably affable melody; he sounds genuinely happy-go-lucky to sing it.

This Beck reminisces on the good old days of “Where It’s At” and “Loser,” but he also reflects on whatever good or ill has happened since, and he seems to rewrite the pre-Information Beck’s style in the context of passed time: “No Complaints.”

In keeping with the mix-and-match flavor of this album, Beck filmed low budget music videos for each of the songs using friends like Spike Jonze as the cast. Each store copy of the CD comes with a matching DVD with all the videos (some of them are pretty funny, and all of them are goofy as hell).

In addition, the cover art is entirely up to the buyer. The CD comes with blank graph paper and a booklet containing about 50 stickers that you can use to make the CD your own.

We’ve seen funky Beck (which is great), and we’ve seen heavy Beck (which is good), and now we’ve seen what happens when the two meet mid-album. The Information is proof that Beck indeed knows what to do when he gets in the studio, and it’s entirely possible that he might be the only one who knows just what he’s doing.

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An awkward blend

Brandy Williams
Asst. Diversions Editor

Newswire Official Rating:

Xavier Players presented “Derek Walcott: Caribbean Blend,” a play by Nobel Prize winner and author Derek Walcott in the GSC Theater October 5-8. The two-act play was a collection of scenes and poetry combined with Walcott’s unique storytelling, singing, dancing and calypso rhythms.

Walcott took the audience back through time on a historical journey as the cast depicted the conflict between the heritage of the European and West Indian culture as they went from slavery to independence.

The 14 member cast showcased their skills at original Caribbean dancing and even tried their tongues at Caribbean accents. At times, this posed a problem for many members of the audience because it was hard to understand some of the cast members as they worked to remember lines and make their Caribbean accents sound convincing.

For many of the cast members, this play was one of the first productions that they had engaged in since high school. Xavier Players pride themselves on being a versatile group who offers the experience of theater to students with any major or background.

This was obvious throughout the play because at times it felt as if I was watching an elementary school skit. The play, however, was saved by the few seasoned actors and actresses who demonstrated stellar theatrics.

For those in the audience who were unfamiliar with Walcott’s work, the dialogue and scenes were hard to follow and understand. Walcott attempted to jolt the audience back to the mind frame of the Europeans of that time through their racism toward people of color and the characters’ repeated racial references.

The play gave the audience an intimate front row peek into the atrocity that the African culture went through as they struggled to keep their identity in the face of the European god, culture and society.

Walcott’s play dealt not only with the horrific ridicule and passage that the African slaves underwent, but it also dealt with the healing process that they went through and are still going through.

The basic message of “Derek Walcott: Caribbean Blend” is that we are all brothers and sisters no despite our color, religion, politics or philosophies. The ideology behind the play is very admirable, but the amateur cast may have prevented it from reaching its full potential.

Published since 1915 by the students of Xavier University

Scorsese’s spin on cops and robbers

Fighting The Information age

An awkward blend

Noises Off