Word: masks
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Harper computerizes Walker's voice as she reads the choral odes, and the effect (an intense metallic breathiness) is reinforced by a tandem live recitation from two hypostylized eastern figures (Alice B., who gets to sport that big trippy mask, and Daniel Sussner '00, whose turn here doesn't compare to his work in Baal last year). The three-part slam definitely commands attention (and the poetry is gorgeous), but too often has to compete with the dancing Maenads for our attention...
Newcomers will find G. Love & Special Sauce's sound refreshing and fun. But Yeah, It's That Easy, instead of building upon and refining the successful elements of his first two albums, introduces unsuccessful new ones that mask the old. This is not to say that G. Love should stick to a formula; any good artist must try new things and unsuccessful attempts will often precede successful ones. Yet his self-titled debut, or--if hearing a white guy rap badly but charmingly is too much--his sophomore release, Coast to Coast Motel, would be a more fitting introduction...
Similarly, the scene in which the ghost of the murdered Bhangane appears at Mabatha's coronation feast remains extraordinarily powerful in translation: wearing a huge, white wooden mask and long twists of rope representing his "gory locks," he is a terrifying apparition as he stomps ominously across the stage, pointing at the murderous King and intoning "Mabatha! Mabatha! Mabatha!" This is one of the joys of watching Umabatha: it succeeds in creating an alchemical marriage between the old story and the new setting...
...started out ghouling at Horror-wood with a black robe and a black faceless mask," she said...
...form new sexual partnerships, the hostess presents them with the bowl and says, with a devilish smile, "new this year!" It's too new for the Hoods, who don't quite know how to handle free love. Meanwhile, precocious Wendy Hood insists on wearing a Richard Nixon mask during foreplay with Mikey Carver (Elijah Wood). These details, however uncomfortably amusing, put the very local action of the film into a larger context. If the film's goal is to get at the depressing root behind all the ridiculous muck that clutters up their lives, then it is an unqualified success...