KEEP THE FAITH
Multicultural menu attracts vegetarians and diners who keep kosher
The Savages
The Savages Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures Rated: R Cast: Philip Seymour Hofman, Laura Linney Director: Tamara Jenkins WorkNameSort: Savages, The Our Rating: 4.50 Even with incredible performances in Charlie Wilson’s War and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s underplayed turn in The Savages may be his most impressive yet. It took 10…
ONCE MORE, WITH FEELING
Some fine outtakes before the big show
NEEDS SEASONING
For the most part, Shakespeare’s As You Like It is a straightforward play. Although the plot can be somewhat circuitous and the language rather arcane, the play’s action is relatively uncomplicated. Two “evil” brothers, Duke Fredrick and Oliver, banish their “good” counterparts, Duke Senior and Orlando, from court, forcing them to seek safety in the…
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
Opponents of the Orange County School Board’s plan to move the dilapidated Maynard Evans High School from its current location on Silver Star Road to a new spot four miles away, just outside the city limits of Ocoee, voice many objections. They worry about increased noise and traffic. They cite “safety concerns” related to new…
HIDDEN PIECES OF WALT’S GOLD
In March 2005, Disneyphiles everywhere breathed a sigh of relief when Michael Eisner announced that he would be stepping down from his position as CEO of the Walt Disney Co. The man that Roy Disney said had turned the Walt Disney Co. into a “rapacious, soulless” corporation had been held responsible for many of the…
THE END OF PRIVACY
Someone may be watching. Speak into your cell phone, use a computer connected to the Internet, or walk through an area monitored by video cameras attached to a data network, and be prepared to interact with a global electronic surveillance apparatus that knows whether you’re happy, horny depressed or enraged. Government agencies on the lookout…
BLISTER
I am never drinking again. Suitably sloshed up by the post–New Year’s digestive mop, a cold-compressed fetal position is just about the only posture my imaginary doctor – the one who writes my imaginary prescriptions – will allow. Twenty aspirin, call, morning, repeat. “Cum out with me and Taylor,” twitters my vibrating pocket of textual…
SAVAGE LOVE
While visiting my family for the holidays, my 72-year-old father informed me that a 29-year-old Russian woman was coming to America to be with him. He could hardly contain his excitement. I asked if he had sent this woman any money. He insisted that he had not. Over the next couple of days, I got…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
ARIES (March 21-April 19) I urge you to spend 2008 turning all of your pretty good but half-developed notions into a few brilliant, fully formed ideas. While you’re at it, melt down your hundreds of wishy-washy wishes and recast them into three driving desires. This is the Year of Pinpoint Aim, also known as the…
THIS LITTLE UNDERGROUND
Now, funk’s not exactly my thing – which is weird, I know, since I’m pretty much the funkiest mofo in town. In practice, it’s a notion that excites me about as much British cuisine. It’s not that anything’s intrinsically wrong with the genre – actually, I’m all for the concept – it’s just that it’s…
I LOVE TELEVISION
Let’s establish one thing here and now: The new American Gladiators show is the greatest thing that has ever happened to humankind. Yes, even better than hand jobs. Perhaps it’s because this seemingly endless writers’ strike has turned the TV landscape into a bleak, colorless desert of abject ; misery … or perhaps it’s just…
HAPPYTOWN
One of the more charming effects of a good hit of crystal meth is the constant urge to run to your windows, peek out the blinds and scan the streets for unmarked white vans. So it’s only appropriate that the Orange County Health Department – with funding from the Orange County Drug Free Coalition –…
COUNCIL WATCH
a The presence of a multitude of concerned-neighbor types who don’t usually “do” these meetings implied some sort of fist pounding on the polemics that bind our spinal cords to the societal sphere like trees to the living earth. Whatever would the issue be? Dust and noise. Not unlike Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind,” only…
POLICE BEAT
JAN. 2, 7:16 A.M.: Good news! The new year is one day old and we already have burglars plundering day-care centers. Under the cover of darkness, our perps pried their way into such a facility in the 2000 block of West Washington Street. They emptied out the contents of the fridge onto the floor, but…
MAIL SACK
Hardcore, not punk Nice piece `“Dance the pain away,” Jan. 1`! One correction: “Flogging Molly” have never been used on The Wire (I had never heard of them until reading the article). It’s the Pogues. That’s hard-core Irish bar music, not “frat-boy punk”! Blake Leyh, via the Internet Do not anger him Dear Bao `Le-Huu, author of…
AMERICAN VINTAGE
Kanye West does it. Ditto Christina Aguilera. Going retro is nothing new. Musicians are always channeling artists from the past or sampling beats in order to furnish their latest singles with that extra swig of credibility. Soul singer Sharon Jones is no stranger to vintage reverberations – not because she’s a throwback artist, though she…
HOP ON POP
Cease your frenzy, O governors. I am St. George on this day and I’ve invited the dragon to my lair. I clutch my ballpoint weapon, ready for anything. It makes its move. A furnace of death wells up in its nostrils, prepared to unleash blazes, as I make my move and – did the dragon…
There are people who have actually, literally died laughing.
For your entertainment and amusement, an extremely well-written investigation of laughing: “Though the episodes are usually transitory, they will occasionally erupt as intense, prolonged outbursts where bodily fluid containment is placed in jeopardy as the hapless victim collapses into a moist, quivering, rhythmically-vocalizing mass. Alarmingly, the phenomenon is highly contagious, and in extreme cases, it…
