Homage on the Strange
Movie: The Saddest Music in the World
For Those Who Think Young
Movie: Greendale
Movie: The Stepford Wives
The Stepford Wives Length: 1 hour 33 minutes Studio: Paramount Website: http://www.stepfordwivesmovie.com/flash/index.html Release Date: 2004-06-11 Cast: Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Christopher Walken, Faith Hill, Bette Midler Director: Frank Oz Screenwriter: Ira Levin, Paul Rudnick Music Score: David Arnold WorkNameSort: The Stepford Wives Our Rating: 2.50 How silly fans have been in worrying about the "remake"…
Review – The Eye of Every Strom
Artist: Neurosis
Review – From the Double Gone Chapel
Artist: Two Lone Swordsmen
The Future of American Food
Recently, I heard these startling words: "The future of American food lies in the strip mall." These words did not escape from the mouth of a Midwestern tourist on a Disney vacation, nor a fast-food junkie or any other kind of junkie. They are the opinion of Tyler Cowen, a well-respected economist and dining critic.…
Review – Love and Distance
Artist: Helio Sequence
Review – The Eye of Every Strom
Artist: Neurosis
Review – From the Double Gone Chapel
Artist: Two Lone Swordsmen
Review – Love and Distance
Artist: Helio Sequence
Movie: Around the World in 80 Days
Our Rating: 2.00 To make it through this one, you'll have to keep reminding yourself that you really, really like Steve Coogan - and not just because he looks a lot like Justin Hawkins of The Darkness. The limey mischievousness that sparked 24 Hour Party People and Coffee and Cigarettes struggles to break through Disney's…
Movie: The Stepford Wives
Our Rating: 2.50 How silly fans have been in worrying about the "remake" of the 1975 psycho thriller based on Ira Levin's best seller - especially considering the differences almost 30 years have made in gender politics. Turns out, the new movie isn't really a remake; it's an over-the-top comedic invention all its own. There…
Homage on the Strange
Movie: The Saddest Music in the World
For Those Who Think Young
Movie: Greendale
Review – The Eye of Every Strom
Artist: Neurosis
Review – From the Double Gone Chapel
Artist: Two Lone Swordsmen
Review – Love and Distance
Artist: Helio Sequence
Movie: Around the World in 80 Days
Around the World in 80 Days Length: 2h 0m Studio: Walt Disney Release Date: 2004-06-16 Cast: Jackie Chan, Steve Coogan, Jim Broadbent, Kathy Bates, John Cleese Director: Frank Coraci Screenwriter: David Titcher, Michael D. Weiss, David M. Goldstein WorkNameSort: Around the World in 80 Days Our Rating: 2.00 To make it through this one, you'll…
BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris (Little, Brown, 272 pages, $24.95) It’s hard to pin down precisely the feeling that you get while indulging in the works of David Sedaris. There’s that slight discomfort caused by his almost intrusive honesty. Then there’s the smoothed-over grin resulting from a certain black-sheep objectivity…
A ROLLING PARTY
Used to be that heading out for a night on the town meant six hours or so of tedious preparation. There was the obligatory phone call to a friend-with-benefits, the growing momentum of some kind of buzz, odd discussions of venue size and/or, err, spinning, hair, and then the shoeless trip-and-stumble over to said friends…
Culture
Spiral by Koji Suzuki (Vertical, 281 pages, $24.95) The tape is back. The spooky-ass, virus-of-afterworld-death-encoded-onto-VHS that creeped everyone out in Ring returns in Suzuki's sequel. Titled Rasen when it was first published in Japan in 1995, this story was made into a movie concurrently with Ringu, the film that spawned the Americanized version, The Ring.…
Culture
Little Black Book of Stories by A. S. Byatt (Knopf, 256 pages, $21) Though best known to the reading public for Possession, the Booker Prize-winning novel that was massacred by Neil LaBute in its film adaptation, A.S. Byatt has lately begun to work in shorter, more symbolic forms (her first excursion into fairy tales was…
“Weekend At Dutchie’s”
Think what you will of Dog Playing Poker, but you can't call this column insensitive. OK, maybe you can - but you can't say that it's insensitive consistently. Unlike some other sections of Orlando Weekly (hello, Mr. Slug), we voluntarily backed off from saying anything negative about Ronald Reagan while the guy's body was being…
THE BIG PURGE
Jon Stewart of The Daily Show said it best: "If Florida continues to botch the election process, the country may have to consider having the state amputated." After endless arguments about recounts and hanging chads in 2000, many share Stewart's sentiment. So what exactly is Florida doing to prove that it isn't the nation's diseased…
THE HIP-HOP AESTHETIC
Marya Summers has a lot of exposed flesh and most of it is covered in Sharpie marker. Poetic phrases like "Words begin the ending they began" and "My children will be named things like Fucknut" adorn her extremities. As we speak, a man, who happens to be her boyfriend, has her bent over a chair…
THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT
Does anyone remember Matt Groening’s early books of comic strips Life is Hell, Love is Hell and Work is Hell? Well, he missed one: teaching. And trust me, it was. I’m talking about almost every aspect of teaching: the pay, the administrators, the parents, the lunch. To work in a public school, a teacher must…
No need to fear the flavor at downtown smoothie spot
I've always been a bit fearful of the health-food moniker. Even as a vegetarian whose lunchtime options can be a bit limited, that genre of restaurant can be synonymous with blandness, if done improperly. The Smoothie Korner, located near Pine Street and Orange Avenue, inside the State Discount grocery store, doesn't have that problem at…
Protesting and changes for Back Booth
What makes this a happy town, as opposed to a just another repressed, conservative, Southern town? Protesters, baby, protesters. We love 'em, bless their little bleeding hearts. Anybody who would stand on the concrete outside City Hall at noon on a Saturday in June to tell passersby that Bush is a poopy president and Rummy's…
OLD MEN, THE SEA (& CAKE)
At that time in the ’80s when loud, guitar-driven postpunk acts such as Naked Raygun and Big Black defined what was then known as the “Chicago sound,” four guys from Illinois started an unassuming band called Shrimp Boat: singer/guitarist Sam Prekop, guitarist Ian Schneller, bassist David Kroll and drummer Eric Claridge. The quartet fused elements…
BEAUTIFUL CONFUSION
Yes, Sonic Youth has a new album out (Sonic Nurse) and yes, the group is still surprisingly vital in their old age. But looking at their concurrently released Corporate Ghost DVD – a collection of all the videos SY has made while signed to Geffen – it becomes clear just how old they really are.…
SKULL DUGGERY
In January, University of Utah hospital surgeons removed half the skull of Briana Lane, age 22 and unemployed, in order to save her life after an auto accident; but because putting the skull back in place was not quite an emergency, it was delayed by negotiations over cost. The skull remained in a freezer for…
HIDDEN TROTHS
Think of it as a Rorschach test for theater patrons. As directed by Katrina Ploof at Mad Cow Theatre, Spanish playwright Federico Garcia Lorca’s The Love of Don Perlimplin and Belisa in the Garden is a beautifully performed, completely inexplicable story. Whatever you think it’s about, that somehow reflects your inner mind – and whether…
LESS THAN TENN
Theatre Downtown has cast an impressive lineup of some of its regular thespians for an evening of one-acters by Tennessee Williams: The Long Goodbye, The Lady of Larkspur Lotion, The Last of My Solid Gold Watches and 27 Wagons Full of Cotton. Although it’s generally well acted, the major problem with the evening’s collection is…
