by RAF KATIGBAK

If you've been following the news lately, you know that soon there will be very important decisions to be made, decisions that may change the world forever. I'm talking, of course, about Oscar night. Who will win best picture? What about best supporting actress? And most importantly, what will they be wearing?

Last week I had the good fortune of checking out the film with the most nominations this year, Chicago. It was dope. I mean really dope. Then suddenly it dawned on me, why doesn't someone make a Broadway musical about raves? Hollywood has already recognized the value of the rave dollar with such masterpieces as Groove and Human Traffic, so why doesn't Broadway wake up and smell the Vicks Vaporub? At home, I quickly Googled "rave musical" and clicked on the first page I saw. What I found was much more than I bargained for. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you… Rave Macbeth!

Shot in Munich, this full-length feature film is touted as "Shakespeare's Macbeth goes rave" - check the trailers at www.2k-film.de/hp2/ravemacbeth.htm. Through various channels of questionable repute, I recently got my hands on a bootleg copy and watched it. If you want an idea of what this film is like, first picture your average Shakespeare play, complete with turbulent historical backdrop and clever dialogue, then take the "turbulent historical backdrop" and replace that with "rave" and replace "clever dialogue" with lines like "It had all been a bad dream. She and I had broken all the rules, the only rules - peace, love, unity and respect." Add to that the worst-acted characters of all time (e.g. the three party sluts in the role of the three witches) and you're halfway there. In the end, it was not so much a true "rave musical" as it was a bad rave movie underscored by "heavy techno and house beats" (which is too bad because I was hoping for a real heart-wrenching grand finale performance of "Goodbye Serotonin").

Although the film left me feeling sicker than last week's bag of "mystery powder" that turned out to be some kind of dried food preservative, I was left with the hope that someone, somewhere will make this rave musical dream of mine come true. Until then, let's all keep reaching for the stars - the rave stars!

Oh yeah, go check out Slovenia's Umek at Aria on Friday or Japan's Satoshie Tomie at Stereo, also on Friday. There's also In Da Jungle 1.1 on Saturday (DJs include Dylan D, PDP and Corey K). Info at 401-6774.:

Out, out damned spot! Begone from the fur pants my mother hath so lovingly sewn for me! Diskoakimbo@sympatico.ca

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