Courtesy photo
The Eyeliners break the mold when it comes to all-girl punk bands.
Their second CD, “Here Comes Trouble,” is out now.
Letterman, ‘America’
achieve higher ratings
NEW YORK (AP) - The return of
heart patient David Letterman and an
appearance by the reluctant bride of a
multimillionaire steered two perennial
second-place TV shows to ratings
milestones last week.
Letterman’s CBS “Late Show’”
had its best ratings in five years and its
largest margin of victory over Jay
Leno’s “Tonight Show” on NBC since
the week of July 7, 1995, Nielsen
Media Research said Thursday.
Meanwhile, ABC’s “Good
Morning America” had its highest rat
ings since 1997, a suige solely attribut
able to its coup in booking “Who
Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire”
bride Darva CorigSfir.
On Monday, Feb. 21, Letterman
made his first appearance on “Late
Show” since his January heart suigery.
The show drew an estimated 12 mil
lion viewers. He appeared again on
Wednesday and Friday.
The homecoming enabled
Letterman to average 7.13 million
viewers last week; compared to Leno’s
5.86 million, Nielsen said. It was
Letterman’s best week since 1995.
The true test is whether Letterman
r
can carry over the audience’s warm
feelings. In weeks without special
events, Leno consistently beats him.
Letterman is working three days
again next week, with Janeane
Garofalo filling in on Tuesday and
Dana Carvey on Thursday.
“Good Morning America” aver
aged just more than 5 million viewers
last week, still behind NBC’s first
place “Today” show, which had 6.1
million. But it was the closest those
two shows have been in the ratings
since December 1996, and “GMA’s”
most-watched week since the week
after Princess Diana died.
The ABC morning show beat its
rival with Conger’s heavily-promoted
first interview after her honeymoon on
Feb. 23. That show drew an average
audience of 6.1 million people,
Nielsen said.
Conger didn’t appear on the
“Today” show until the next day.
More important for ABC, it kept
some of that audience the next two
days, averaging 5 million viewers on
Thursday, when Conger’s husband,
Rick Rockwell, appeared, and 5 mil
lion on Friday.
W
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Eyeliners defy tradition,
lash out with new album
By Jason Hardy
Staff writer
When it comes to all-girl poppy
punk bands, it’s pretty easy to be
cliched.
Key requirements include leopard
skin stuff, leather stuff, songs about
guys named Johnny and songs about
parties.
( Considering all the aforemen
tioned criteria directly apply to the
Eyeliners, an Albuquerque, N.M.
three-piece, they appear to be pretty
average bubblegummers on the sur
face.
Unlike other three-chord girl-punk
groups, like the Donnas, the Eyeliners
are what happens when bubblegum is
done right. They keep it fast, fun and
interesting, succeeding in a genre
marred by stock bands and tired,
overused song structures.
On their second full-length
release, “Here Comes Trouble,” the
Eyeliners combine standard pop-punk
elements with unexpected tempo
shifts and vocal breaks to create a
cohesive and energetic album.
Probably the most notable charac
teristic of the band is the voice of
singer-drummer Laura.
Her throaty and pleading vocal
style has enough gravel and umpf to
command attention over the crunchy
guitar riffs while maintaining a nice
tonality.
Despite starting off a bit lacking,
“Here Comes Trouble” arrives in full
force by the fourth song, “See You
Tonight,” which is a powerful show
case of the band’s best traits.
Interesting bridges and drum work
help this song blast fast and punchy
and slow and melodic without losing
the established energy.
From there, the gr<5up continues to
experiment with similar musical ele
ments but does so in a way that estab
lishes an individuality with each song.
By and large, the album rarely strays
from a three-chord format, and the
tempo, while shifting at times, can
become a bit repetitive.
However, there are moments in
The Eyeliners
TITLE: Here Comes
Trouble
LABEL: Panic Button
GRADE: B
v , f FIVE WORDS: Group
defies punk-rock
stereotypes.
songs, such as “That’s The Way It
Goes” and “Rock ’N’ Roll Baby,”
where Gel’s guitar work breaks from
the song’s format and keeps the album
from being just another stock and
monotonous Ramones rip-off.
Last summer, the Eyeliners played
at Knickerbockers, Ninth and O
streets, and put on an intense show.
Their energy didn’t let up for an
instant, and the only thing crazier than
Gel’s guitar playing was the fact that
she was blowing bubbles at the same
time.
As with any good live band, the
goal of the ajbum is to capture what
makes the band so great live.
With “Here Comes Trouble,” the
Eyeliners come pretty close to pack
aging the destruction they emit live
and, despite being a little more pol
ished and slick-sounding than their
live show, the album is still a fun rep
resentation of their attitude and style.
‘Planet’ script alienates audience
■ Director Mike Nichols
doesn’t meet standard of
earlier efforts.
By Samuel McKewon
Senior editor
Want a real life version of the
Grady Tripp character in “Wonder
Boys”? Try director Mike Nichols.
After making two of the finer
films of the 20th century, “The
Graduate” and “Who’s Afraid of
Virginia Woolf?” in the middle
1960s, Nichols settled for the main
stream. And he’s never eclipsed (or, in
my opinion, even approached) the
standard of those first two efforts.
Is it an unfair assessment? Maybe.
But his first movie of the 21st century,
“What Planet Are You From?,” fits the
bill as well as anything else.
There’s a touch of class to the pro
ceedings, and enough humor to go
around, too. It’s a nice movie starring
Garry Shandling, Annette Bening and
John Goodman. But in terms of origi
nality and directing, it’s so far below
the bar Nichols set for himself years
ago.
What Planet, trom a story that
Shandling developed himself, plays a
familiar comedic riff: A distant
colony of aliens wants to conquer
|| Earth and must impregnate a native to
accomplish its goals.
The aliens have lost their repro
ductive organs, and so the lead alien,
Harold Anderson (Shandling), must
have a penile attachment, which,
when aroused, hums. It provides the
set piece for 20 minutes worth of
humming penis jokes and an off-color
joke in the middle of the movie that’s
so off-color, the audience might go
silent.
Harold, posing as a banker, finds a
potential mate in Susan (Annette
Bening), a recovering alcoholic.
Meanwhile, a Federal Aviation Agent
(Goodman) is hot on the alien’s trail.
Some of it’s funny. But beneath
the surface are some strange revela
tions. Bening’s character is so
strange, almost eerily irresponsible, it
borders on ridicule of women.
Her rationale for getting married
after one date with a man whose penis
Courtesy photo
Garry Shandling and Annette Bening star in Director Mike Nichols’ new film
“What Planet Are You From?”
hums: “I’m running out of time.”
Uh-huh. And for as much as this
movie makes fun of Harold’s underes
timating women, Susan jumps over
board awfully quickly.
So do most of the women in the
movie. In fact, every one of them is a
foolish, overreacting, jealous, sad
creature in some way - not one of
them seems capable of being any
thing but a catcher’s mitt for male
genitalia.
Maybe Nichols didn’t mean it that
way. In the past, especially with
Elizabeth Taylor and Anne Bancroft
in “Woolf” and “The Graduate,”
Nichols displayed a deft hand at
revealing subtleties. With Shandling’s
script, Nichols reveals depth by giv
ing Bening a mussed-up hairdo and
campy clothes.
Shandling is out of his element
here in a straight comic role. He’s per
fectly cast for “The Larry Sanders
Show,” but most of his lines in “What
Planet” fall flat or don’t soar as high
as they should.
Steve Martin takes this role, and it
flies. You keep expecting Shandling
to talk about his ass. And then, he
does.
The movie is pretty - not perfect,
but pretty - and supposedly takes
place in Phoenix. It wouldn’t really
matter, because all we see is the inside
of a bank and Susan’s home. All
scenes shot on the alien planet are
What Planet Are
You From?
STARS: Garry Shandling,
Annette Bening
DIRECTOR: Mike Nichols
RATING: R (language,
nudity, humming penis)
GRADE: C
FIVE WORDS: Nichols
going through the motions.
stock remakes of better-looking pic
tures.
Which makes me wonder what
Nichols is doing in a project like this.
He has his pick of actors; the clout is
there for serious (or at least intelli
gently funny) pictures.
Any director could have put this
together.
Unfortunately, Nichols is starting
to develop an unhealthy habit for
choosing strictly orthodox movies.
His previous effort, “Primary
Colors,” was a fine movie, too. But
utterly forgettable in the scheme of
things.
There are laughs in “What Planet
Are You From?” Even a few hard
ones.
But it’s sad to see a talent like
Nichols going through the motions. It
wasn’t always like that.
