Movie: 13 Going on 30
Our Rating: 2.50 You saw the trailer, and you figured you were probably in for a latter-day “Big” with a female lead and less brains. And you were right. But what you couldn’t have anticipated is how foggy the movie’s memory is: When we first spy suburban washout Jenna Rink at the age of 13,…
Movie: 13 Going on 30
13 Going on 30 Studio: Revolution Studios Website: http://sonypictures.com/movies/13goingon30/ Release Date: 2004-04-23 Cast: Jennifer Garner, Judy Greer, Andy Serkis, Christa B. Allen, Sam Ball Director: Gary Winick, Donna Roth Screenwriter: Cathy Yuspa, Niels Mueller Music Score: Theodore Shapiro WorkNameSort: 13 Going on 30 Our Rating: 2.50 You saw the trailer, and you figured you were…
Review – To Force a Fate
Artist: The Reputation
Review – Stevie
Artist: Yesterday’s New Quintet
Sliding chadors
Movie: Osama
Review – To Force a Fate
Artist: The Reputation
Movie: Man on Fire
Our Rating: 2.00 How long it can take to realize you’re in the company of Satan. This unspeakably vile actioner effectively impersonates a respectable drama for a good hour or so, delineating with great care the growing bond between a self-loathing former government operative (Denzel Washington) and the likably precocious tot (Dakota Fanning) he’s been…
Movie: Aileen: The Life and Death of a Serial Killer
Our Rating: 4.00 A useful supplement to the watershed drama “Monster,” Nick Broomfield’s documentary about the final days of condemned murderer Aileen Wuornos fills in the gaps of her lifelong descent from one level of hell to another. All the usual Broomfieldian tics are here, from the willy-nilly pacing of the investigative segments to the…
Continental drift
Movie: Japanese Story
Review – Stevie
Artist: Yesterday’s New Quintet
Review – To Force a Fate
Artist: The Reputation
Movie: Goodbye Lenin!
Our Rating: 5.00 Pure magic. In director/co-writer Becker’s wry, incisive comedy — seen here during last month’s Florida Film Festival — the life of East German youth Alex Kerner (Daniel BrŸhl) is turned upside-down by the fall of the Berlin Wall. OK, so that could describe just about anybody on the European continent, but Alex…
Sliding chadors
Movie: Osama
Movie: Aileen: The Life and Death of a Serial Killer
Aileen: The Life and Death of a Serial Killer Studio: Lantern Lane Entertainment Release Date: 2004-04-23 Cast: Nick Broomfield WorkNameSort: Aileen: The Life and Death of a Serial Killer Our Rating: 4.00 A useful supplement to the watershed drama “Monster,” Nick Broomfield’s documentary about the final days of condemned murderer Aileen Wuornos fills in the…
Continental drift
Movie: Japanese Story
Movie: Man on Fire
Man on Fire Studio: 20th Century Fox Release Date: 2004-04-23 Cast: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Christopher Walken, Marc Anthony, Radha Mitchell Director: Tony Scott Screenwriter: Brian Helgeland, A.J. Quinnell WorkNameSort: Man on Fire Our Rating: 2.00 How long it can take to realize you’re in the company of Satan. This unspeakably vile actioner effectively impersonates…
Movie: Goodbye Lenin!
Goodbye Lenin! Studio: Sony Pictures Classics Website: http://www.good-bye-lenin.de/ Release Date: 2004-04-23 Cast: Daniel Bruhl, Katrin Sass, Maria Simon, Chulpan Khamatova, Alexander Beyer Director: Wolfgang Becker Screenwriter: Wolfgang Becker, Bernd Lichtenberg Music Score: Yann Tiersen WorkNameSort: Goodbye Lenin! Our Rating: 5.00 Pure magic. In director/co-writer Becker’s wry, incisive comedy — seen here during last month’s Florida…
Review – Stevie
Artist: Yesterday’s New Quintet
Two projectors and a microphone
Haack … the king of techno 3 stars (NR) Breath control: the history of the human beat box 3 1/2 stars (NR) Experimental music and independent film go together like … well, like a degree in either of those things and unemployment. So it’s only logical that the D.MAC media center has programmed alternating showings…
Take the black-bean challenge
No matter who’s at the top of your black-bean list, if you try the family recipe at Rincon Criollo, downtown, you may never go back. Since they opened in 2000, owners Reynold and Linda Acosta have relied on his father’s recipe (which dates back to roots in New York and Cuba) to keep the people…
Florida Hospital ads and gardening
We were watching the local news the other night when an interesting ad caught our attention. Perhaps it stood out simply because it wasn’t a car ad. Have you ever seen so freakin’ many car ads in your life? Who is buying all those cars? Anyway, we digress. The ad in question wasn’t for anything;…
Stuff me up
Peaches’ music is all sex, but it isn’t sexy. Her live show is performance art that isn’t artful at all. The beats are minimal and grating, but the attitude is hormonally indulgent. It’s the sort of paradox that can only exist functionally in the absence of avant-garde pretenses. And to that end, Peaches is pure…
Delicious southern sleaze
Punked-out rockabilly has always been more about attitude than substance. It’s about your swagger and your panache; your coif and your glare. So it makes sense that a band called Pussy — who, coincidentally, balance attitude with substance — would rock every rock-punk’s cock off and free the word from FCC purgatory. Pussy advocates —…
Back up train
As you’re well aware from articles in just about every newspaper and magazine out there, 2004 marks the 50th anniversary of the “birth” of rock & roll. Although not as easy to pin down as the day that Hendrix choked on his vomit or the day that Elvis joined the Army, it’s generally accepted that…
You will never be no good
Arriving in the mid-’80s on the heels of Paddy McAloon (Prefab Sprout) and Roddy Frame (Aztec Camera), Lloyd Cole & the Commotions were immediately hailed as part of a U.K. jangle-pop movement headed by The Smiths. A philosophy student in Glasgow, Cole had a literate style that was compared (like those others) to Elvis Costello’s,…
Big screen tv
A 2003 British documentary, “Fat Girls and Feeders,” debuting on Australian TV in April 2004, profiled an Arizona couple, “Gina” (once one of the world’s largest women) and her husband, “Mark” (who desires her to be ever larger). Because Gina is apparently comfortable with her role, Mark is merely an “enabler” in the “fat administration”…
SLUG 1, LYNUM 0
Far be it from me to come off arrogant, but a Slug does have to pat itself on the back every now and again, especially if no other media outlet is willing to do it. I mean, hell, this is a market where you can write a 3,500-word story on the wrongs of a certain…
“Prank Yankers”
Ocoee police have announced that they will not file charges against city commissioner Danny Howell, who was found sleeping in his car with his shorts down in John Vignetti Park on Sunday morning, April 11, 2004. Howell’s longtime friend, Tony Cristelli, has assumed responsibility for the incident, saying that his pal was dead tired on…
The pitchmen
As Jolene Youngster steps away to adjust her microphone, the four-man production crew snickers about the sound-deflecting quality of her ample cleavage. Then it’s back to work taping TV commercials for Central Florida Chrysler Jeep Dodge. First up are a series of spots that will air before the green flag drops at the start of…
Memo from Iraq
As the situation in Iraq grows ever more tenuous, the Bush administration continues to spin the ominous news with matter-of-fact optimism. According to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Iraqi uprisings in half a dozen cities, accompanied by the deaths of more than 100 soldiers in the month of April alone, is something to be viewed…
Farewell, fight night
OK, so maybe I’ve finally hit rock bottom. In all of my years of slugging it out in the ring of low-market pseudojournalism, memoiring my own mishaps in a manner far more destructive than literary, I have heretofore avoided this particular level of strip-mall populism. Until now I have not scraped my Lee press-ons beneath…
Ashram to ashes
Cosmopolitan 3 stars (NR) If nothing else, “Cosmopolitan” deserves kudos for granting work to two actors always welcomed by discriminating viewers: Carol Kane, who sadly doesn’t seem to end up in much of value these days; and Roshan Seth, who you’d swear is in just about everything, but only because you’ve stuck your snout so…
