Christmas Crazy: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus – L. Frank Baum (1902)
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus isn’t a movie, but it damn well should be. From the mind of L. Frank Baum, creator of a place called Oz, comes this sweeping, lithe take on the Santa Claus mythology that, for reasons I still can’t wrap my head around, has never really caught on with…
Florida Film Critics Circle awards The Descendants best picture
This was my first year voting, and it was a pleasure and a forehead-to-desk act of frustration. So many good films, so few categories. But the mighty have triumphed – here they are: FFCC Winners Announcement – 2011 December 19 – Alexander Payne’s touching drama “The Descendants” was the big winner at the Florida Film…
Sunday Film News Roundup — December 18th, 2011
We’re taking a break from Christmas Crazy today, but it’ll be back with a vengeance tomorrow. But the first thing we need to do this weekend is pause to say RIP Bert Schneider, the man who gave us Head. Okay, I should explain that. When Schneider and his partners Bob Rafelson and Steve Blauner went…
Christmas Crazy: The Muppet Christmas Carol — Brian Henson (1992)
The success of Jason Segel’s Muppets reboot rests in part on the accepted wisdom that the three Muppet features made after Jim Henson’s death are inferior to the three that were released while he was still alive. And that’s essentially true. But the best of the second trio is clearly The Muppet Christmas Carol, an…
Selection Reminder: Simply Streisand… Holiday Memories at Wayne Densch!
Saturday, Dec. 17 – Simply Streisand… Holiday Memories We can’t help but wonder what happened first: Did Carla DelVillaggio look in the mirror one day and realize that she bore an uncanny resemblance to Barbra Streisand, then hone her singing voice to mimic that of Babs, or did she realize she sounded like Streisand so…
Selection Reminder: AKC/Eukanuba National Championship
Saturday, Dec. 17 – AKC/Eukanuba National Championship “What do you want? What do you want? What do you want more than anything in the world? Do you want the big blue ribbon?” Somewhere in Orlando right now some neurotic dog owner is giving his dog this pep talk, just like in the movie Best in…
Christmas Crazy: The Man Who Came to Dinner – William Keighley (1942)
Monty Woolley stars as an unwanted house guest who comes to take over the lives of his hosts, and Bette Davis as his put upon assistant in William Keighley’s The Man Who Came to Dinner, a testament to the kind of quick-paced one liner that only the British (and really only Armando Iannuchi & Co) seem…
Selection Reminder: Marc With a C’s Annual Holiday Show!
Friday, Dec. 16 – Marc With a C’s Annual Holiday Show Local troubanerd Marc Sirdoreus (and we are always so tempted to spell that “Mark” just to eff with him) gives back to the fans with a free!free!free! all-request holiday show. The Monkee-loving proprietor of “The Real Congregation” radio show on Rollins student station WPRK…
Selection Reminder: The 12 Bars of Christmas Pub Crawl!
Friday, Dec. 16 – The 12 Bars of Christmas Pub Crawl We’ve never really understood the song The 12 Days of Christmas. (One day is plenty, thanks.) But it’s one of those longtime holiday traditions that everyone has to embrace each year without ever asking why, like opening tiny squares on the Advent calendar or…
New Sleigh Bells Track + a Ton of Florida Tour Dates
Spin has an exclusive new track from Sleigh Bells forthcoming second album, Reign of Terror. It basically sounds like they’re picking up right where they left off with their odd, nuttily brilliant mix of hardcore and mainstream pop style. The beat for the track, Born to Lose, is huge, naturally, though a comes at you…
Occupy the occupiers
This is the first in a possibly-occasional series where we provide you with updates on Occupy movements across the country, courtesy of a weekly conference call that we somehow got invited to take part in. About to enter its third month, the Occupy movement has spread from beyond its original home in lower Manhattan to,…
Gov. Rick Scott calls for suspension of FAMU board president
Gov. Rick Scott is, uh, badgering FAMU’s Board of Trustees chairman, Solomon Badger, to suspend James Ammons, the university’s president, in light of “investigations,” according to a fancy press release that just came flying across our wires (or by e-mail, whichever image you prefer). This naturally comes on the heels of the Tallahassee school’s troubles…
Christmas Crazy: Die Hard – John McTiernan (1988)
*Originally published in Orlando Weekly Holiday Guide 2010* (So we cheated, sue us.) I love Christmas. My wife and kids really love it, and at the risk of chest puffery, we’ve gotten pretty good at delivering the fairy dust. Not that we always come by it the same way as other households. You’re far more likely…
Selection Reminder: Savannah’s Black Tusk tonight at Back Booth!
Thursday, Dec. 15 – Black Tusk For countless reasons, it’s a great thing that the heavy metal of the South has vaulted into the vanguard with intellect and experimentalism. Georgia, in particular, has been some of the region’s richest soil with wave-making genre expansionists like Mastodon, Kylesa, Zoroaster and Baroness. But before we get too…
Selection Reminder: Aegeansfest film fundraiser tonight at Urban ReThink!
Thursday, Dec. 15 – Aegeansfest Last week, we told you about a couple of web series (Husbands, for example) that are more than worth your time, because believe it or not, the fledgling new outlet, post-Dr. Horrible, is all grown up and almost totally self-sufficiently valid. So we’re ever-so-slightly less eye-rolling when local filmmakers take…
Selection Reminder: Central Florida Community Arts’ Joy to the World concert!
Thursday-Friday, Dec. 15-16 – Joy to the World Here’s your opportunity to preclude your traditional waxy-fingered giggle fits of a drunken Christmas Eve midnight service (Silent Night isn’t funny; too much wine is) with a trip up to pastor Joel Hunter’s Longwood global-warming mega-church to bathe in the harmonies of the 170-voice Central Florida Community…
Raising the steaks
Meat House 669 N. Orange Ave., Winter Park 407-629-6328 themeathouse.com $$ Before the Meat House opened on Orange Avenue in Winter Park, carnivores wanting to purchase a steak cut to their liking had limited options. Now they have their own temple of animal protein and specialty items; the Meat House is a gourmet’s go-to. It’s…
There’s something fishy going on
Seafood takes a back seat to straight-up Italian staples at this oddly named College Park eatery
Meet your makers
The “every-so-often” Grandma Party Bazaar showcases Orlando’s tight-knit community of artists
Live Active Cultures
Ocean cruise versus theme park – let the best tourist trap win!
Elmo’s world
A profound look at Kevin Clash, creator of one very important puppet
Rotation: What local artists are listening to
This week: Purple Kloud
Happytown
The week in which the mayor got all crabby with Florence Henderson, The Daily Show got all pissy in Tallahassee and Santa got all drinky in front of the kids. Everything itches!
The Politics of Nature
Sanford nature writer Bill Belleville’s latest book of bittersweet essays wins National Outdoor Book Award
Free Will Astroalogy
ARIES (March 21-April 19) Jim Moran (1908-1999) called himself a publicist, but I regard him as a pioneer performance artist. At various times in his colorful career, he led a bull through a china shop in New York City, changed horses in midstream in Nevada’s Truckee River and looked for a needle in a haystack…
DVDs Nuts!
Lesser-seen OW approved titles
The Are We Sunk? Index
How quickly is Florida sinking into the ocean this week?
This Little Underground
Bao Le-Huu takes on Follow That Bird, Ceremony, Thou, Fire in the Cave and Demoter’s final show
The younger games
Charlize Theron is a marvel in this Jason Reitman-Diablo Cody reunion
Council Watch
Billy Manes paying attention to local government so you don’t have to
It’s not all sugarplums and mistletoe: Orlando theater through the end of the year
As the year winds down, theater options tend to narrow down to Christmas-themed pageantry or parody, and lots and lots of Dickens. Here’s a list of Orlando’s remaining December playgoing options – it’s not all sugarplums and mistletoe, after all; there’s a sprinkling of puppetry, Cole Porter and Disney princesses to be seen. For more…
Under the radar
The daring normalcy of hip-hop artist Blueprint
Endless bummer
Style prevails over substance in frustrating skate-punk doc
Savage Love
I’m a man who recently started seeing a wonderful woman. Like me, she’s divorced.
Christmas Crazy: The Ref – Ted Demme (1994)
Once again, we find our story beginning on Christmas eve as jewelry is stolen from the rich, but what was a beautiful dame purloining a single bracelet in Mitchell Leisen’s Remember the Night becomes a home burglary by a surly, black-clad, Van Dyke-sporting Denis Leary in Ted Demme’s Christmas caper film. In it, Kevin Spacey…
Video: Preview of new Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus “Dragons” & Interview with director Shanda Sawyer
If, like me, you grew up as a fan of the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey circus, Central Florida is a great place to be. Not only has the state served as the traditional winter home of the circus, but our region is ground zero for new productions of the century-plus-old show. On Monday Dec…
Occupy Florida is featured in The Nation
Yesterday, the Nation profiled the Occupy movement that has taken shape in Florida, as a commenter on one of our previous blog posts pointed out. The story focuses on many of the issues and concerns raised during the recent People’s Convention of Florida in Orlando, including voting issues, cuts to social services and the desire…
Selection Reminder: Moon Duo play Will’s Pub tonight!
Wednesday, Dec. 14 – Moon Duo One of the more intriguing touring bands to come through in a while, this San Francisco-born guitar-and-keyboards duo is the union of Sanae Yamada and Wooden Shjips principal Ripley Johnson. On paper, their blend of psychedelia, drone and krautrock looks a lot like Johnson’s other band. And although the…
Always a Bridesmaid — hopefully
So all of a sudden, the big story is Bridesmaids’ chances of getting an Oscar. Like Rick Perry, I’m not a betting man, so I won’t venture a guess as to its chances. All I’ll say is that, if the movie does end up earning a little golden statue, I’m going to chalk it up…
Christmas Crazy: Babes in Toyland – Clive Donner (1986)
Victor Herbert’s 1903 operetta Babes in Toyland has a rich history over the last century; initially commissioned to capitalize on the Wizard of Oz craze at the turn of the century, the story of a magical world of fairy-tale and nursery-rhyme citizens ruled by the evil Barnaby first opened at the Grand Opera House in…
Selection Reminder: Fedde Le Grand tonight at Roxy Nightclub!
Tuesday, Dec. 13 – Fedde Le Grand Now that the Netherlands has effectively killed America’s love affair with the Dutch by forbidding any non-natives (read: tourists) from smoking the sticky in their hash bars, we’re going to have to make due with the country’s few awesome exports – namely Rutger Hauer and house DJ Le Grand,…
