Month: October 2001

‘N Sync’s Lance Bass ‘On the Line’ in his first film

Jae-Ha Kim

Envy me, girls. I am in Lance Bass’s hotel room and guess what? He happens to be here, too.
Never mind that we’re surrounded by his assistant, makeup artist, a handful of publicists and a photographer. I think I saw love in his eyes. OK, maybe it was just the sunlight reflecting from the windows of the W Hotel on Lake Shore Drive. But the point is, Bass–one-fifth of the phenomenally popular boy band ‘N Sync–is so charming he can even make cranky reporters smile.

‘Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade’ a war movie without any heroes

Jae-Ha Kim

What if Japan had been occupied by Nazi Germany after World War II? “Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade” explores this possibility by presenting an alternative nation. In this Japanese animated film, Tokyo is dark, bleak and industrial. The city is a war zone, with the police and military battling a small but well-trained group of elite terrorists who negotiate their way through the city’s sewer system. They employ women and children to act as decoys. They have all been trained to believe there is honor in dying for their cause.

Can you steer clear of the SAT? Some students work around a test many deplore

Jae-Ha Kim

Here’s how Katharine Callard outsmarted the SATs: She chose a college that didn’t require them. That’s right: She didn’t sweat those SAT prep classes, and she got into Hampshire College anyway. Of course, as a straight-A student at the top-notch Latin School of Chicago, Callard had a pretty good idea of her ability to do well in college.

Michael T. Weiss pulls weight in ‘Bones’

Jae-Ha Kim

As the star of “The Pretender,” Michael T. Weiss grew accustomed to wearing natty designer clothes. For his role as a corrupt, corpulent cop in the film “Bones”–which opens Wednesday–Weiss wore a different kind of suit: a fat suit. “People who haven’t seen me since ‘The Pretender’ are going to think, ‘Boy, he really let himself go,'” says the ordinarily lean 6-foot-3 actor.

Cleopatra: The beauty myth

Jae-Ha Kim

When Cleopatra is mentioned, beauty, sex and seduction are three words that almost immediately spring to mind. But what about brains? More than 2,000 years after her death, the Queen of Egypt still reigns as one of history’s most famous and mysterious women. There’s a new exhibit about her that hopes to clear up some points. A year after premiering in Rome, “Cleopatra of Egypt: From History to Myth” opens Saturday at the Field Museum–the only North American venue for the expansive project.

“Lisa Picard is Famous”

Jae-Ha Kim

A t the end of “Lisa Picard Is Famous,” Griffin Dunne says, “Sometimes reality just needs a little push.” Apparently, that’s what the filmmakers were trying to accomplish with this mockumentary. Dunne portrays a filmmaker named Andrew, whose goal is to document a person on the brink of fame. But fame is a nebulous thing, and trying to anticipate who will become famous enough to sell his documentary is a crapshoot. He thinks he has found a winning subject in Lisa Picard, a Penelope Miller look-alike who has won some notoriety for starring in a suggestive cereal commercial.