Soft Dangerous Shores
Soft Dangerous Shores Label: Messenger Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Soft Dangerous Shores At the onset of the 1990s, Chris Whitley was promoted by Columbia Records as a shirtless, longhaired modern-day Texas bluesman, as someone who might pick up the audience share left behind by the passing of Stevie Ray Vaughan. Except Whitley wasn’t that kind of…
21ST-CENTURY BLUES
Bucovina Club Label: Essay Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Bucovina Club Bucovina Club is the boisterous sound of Eastern Europe’s folk music bands arranged for consumption by resourceful Balkan electronic producer Shantel. But this is no block-rocking beatfest. Shantel leaves the original recordings of Macedonian brass bands and flaming Gypsy swing units intact save a few subtle…
Self Help Serenade
Self Help Serenade Label: Capitol Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Self Help Serenade Recorded over the past few years and recently released to critical acclaim in the U.K., Marjorie Fair’s debut album, Self Help Serenade, is finally seeing U.S. release. One can assume its rich mix of rock-critic influences (Brian Wilson, Badfinger, Red House Painters, Minibar) will…
The Complete ESP-Disk Recordings
The Complete ESP-Disk Recordings Label: ESP-Disk Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Complete ESP-Disk Recordings, The Ready for rediscovery by sampler fetishists and retro folkies alike, The Complete ESP-Disk Recordings of North Dakota’s Pearls Before Swine is both precious and perverse. The product of singer, scribbler and songwriter Thomas D. Rapp, PBS’s hippie instrumentation, airhead vocals, and assertions…
TUXEDO JUNCTION
March of the Penguins Studio: Warner Independent Pictures Rated: G Website: http://wip.warnerbros.com/marchofthepenguins/ Release Date: 2005-07-22 Cast: Morgan Freeman Director: Luc Jacquet Screenwriter: Michel Fessler, Luc Jacquet Music Score: Alex Wurman WorkNameSort: March of the Penguins Our Rating: 5.00 Yes, Virginia, there really is a movie out there replete with all those details we film snobs…
RHYMIN’ AND SCENE STEALIN’
Hustle & Flow Studio: Paramount Classics Rated: R Website: http://www.hustleandflow.com/ Release Date: 2005-07-22 Cast: Terrence Dashon Howard, DJ Qualls, Ludacris, Anthony Anderson, Taryn Manning Director: Craig Brewer Screenwriter: Craig Brewer WorkNameSort: Hustle & Flow Our Rating: 3.50 For a movie so frequently slapdash, Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow boasts an embarrassment of Bests. Best garage-band…
Bad News Bears
Bad News Bears Studio: Paramount Pictures Rated: PG-13 Website: http://www.badnewsbearsmovie.com/badnewsbears.php Release Date: 2005-07-22 Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Greg Kinnear, Marcia Gay Harden, Timmy Deters, Sammi Kane Kraft Director: Richard Linklater Screenwriter: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa WorkNameSort: Bad News Bears Our Rating: 3.00 Reteaming star Billy Bob Thornton with the writers of Bad Santa and putting…
The Devil’s Rejects
The Devil’s Rejects Studio: Lions Gate Films Rated: R Website: http://www.thedevilsrejects.com/ Release Date: 2005-07-22 Cast: Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon Zombie, Matthew McGrory, William Forsythe Director: Rob Zombie Screenwriter: Rob Zombie Music Score: Tyler Bates WorkNameSort: Devil’s Rejects, The Our Rating: 2.00 Like a trash-kitsch Rousseau, Northeastern ghoul-metalist-turned-auteur Rod Zombie lusts for the naturally…
Heights
Heights Studio: Sony Picture Classics Rated: PG-13 Website: http://www.sonyclassics.com/heights/ Release Date: 2005-07-22 Cast: Glenn Close, Elizabeth Banks, James Marsden, Jesse Bradford, George Segal Director: Chris Terrio Screenwriter: Amy Fox, Chris Terrio Music Score: Ben Butler, Martin Erskine, Marc Ribot WorkNameSort: Heights Our Rating: 3.50 On paper, this Manhattan-based ensemble drama is a laundry list of…
MENTAL BLOCK TANGO
Doing Time, Doing Vipassana Studio: Karuna Films Rated: NOT RATED Website: http://www.karunafilms.com/Dtdv/Dtdv.htm Release Date: 2005-07-22 Cast: Kiran Bedi Director: Eliona Ariel, Ayelet Menahemi WorkNameSort: Doing Time, Doing Vipassana Our Rating: 3.00 It’s an infomercial, but that’s no reason to dismiss it out of hand. A 52-minute documentary designed to promote the rehabilitative properties of an…
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures Rated: PG Website: http://chocolatefactorymovie.warnerbros.com/ Release Date: 2005-07-15 Cast: Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, David Kelly, Helena Bonham Carter, Deep Roy Director: Tim Burton Screenwriter: John August Music Score: nny Elfman WorkNameSort: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Our Rating: 2.50 I’ve never seen a movie win me over…
MISSION ABORTED
The Island Studio: Dreamworks SKG Rated: PG-13 Website: http://www.theisland-themovie.com/ Release Date: 2005-07-22 Cast: Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Djimon Hounsou, Sean Bean, Steve Buscemi Director: Michael Bay Screenwriter: Caspian Tredwell-Owen, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci WorkNameSort: Island, The Our Rating: 2.00 I hadn’t realized it until now, but one of the worst aspects of the fundamentalist right’s…
BEST OF BEST OFS
Hair-flattening humidity? Check. Innate sense of mentally sublime pretentiousness? Check. Stomach-gurgling fit of digestive instability peculiar to moments that start with “mo” and end with “ment”? Yep, that too. By all indications, this must be the evening of all evenings, that which spits up humility and calls it top-shelf vodka, then ties reason around its…
News of the Weird
INFANTILE BEHAVIOR Willie Windsor, 54, of Phoenix has for several years lived as a full-time baby, wearing frilly dresses, diapers and bonnets, sucking on a pacifier, eating Gerber cuisine, and habitually clutching a rag doll, in a home filled with oversized baby furniture. According to a long Phoenix New Times profile in June, the diaper…
Rob Brezny’s Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19) Nitrogen comprises 80 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere, but plants can’t access it in its gaseous form. That’s a problem, because plants need nitrogen to live. Luckily, there are five million lightning strikes on our planet every day. The fierce heat they generate compels nitrogen to blend with oxygen, thereby forming…
TLC KNOCKOUT
“If there’s a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.” – George W. Bush, Feb. 11, 2004 Hiya, there, Karl. How you doin’, old buddy? You comfortable? Anything I can do for ya? Recline that Barcalounger, maybe?…
ROSÉ EXPOSÉ
If you think that pink wine is déclassé, think again: The sleek blush beverage is making a comeback in American markets. Going against all notions that rosé is a gauche wine choice, a local wine dealer describes his pink quaffers as “enlightened drinkers who have traveled abroad and know more about it.” And another little…
ONE MONTH STAND
“We’ve been trying to get this fountain moved for a few days now, but … well, you know how it is.” The fountain that Brian Chodorcoff, guitarist of The Legendary J.C.’s, is referring to is a two-story, pseudo-Italianate monstrosity that greets visitors to the Monte Carlo Resort & Casino. It’s the first thing people see…
Happytown
Central Florida’s most notorious case of racial violence is getting another retelling, whether residents want it or not. “All the old-timers in Lake County, they don’t pass the story along to young people,” says Gary Corsair, a journalist from The Villages. “I think there is a collective shame.” The story, detailed in Corsair’s book The…
DEAD PEOPLE ROCK!
Oh, what I wouldn’t do to be dead! Perhaps then people would finally learn to appreciate my brilliance. Yet, here I am, wallowing away in anonymity, simply because I don’t have enough sense to become dead. In fact, being not dead is killing my career! Let’s face it, people: Being “dead” is HOT! Just think…
Notable Noise
I’ve seen a few shows over the past couple of weeks, but nothing can compare to the all-out awesomeness of Dinosaur Jr.’s reunion-tour kickoff at House of Blues July 7. Almost completely uncommunicative (as usual) and deafeningly loud (as usual), J Mascis reminded me why indie rock used to be good: because it rocked. No…
HAPPINESS IS A BUCKET OF NAILS
Let’s be honest – you’re probably not going to like Bucket of Nails. What’s more, they don’t want you to. A duo consisting of brothers Patrick and Mike Bell, ages 15 and 19, the Bucket has perfected the art of pissing people off while still making people laugh. And the best – or perhaps only…
SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKUPS
We see the ’50s as a sexually repressed era of ideal family values, but more than a few of us came from the back seat of a secondhand Dodge. Grease – currently enjoying a revival at Theatre Downtown – reflects this gritty reality with a fluidly drawn battle of the sexes hemmed into the hermetic…
WHERE HAVE ALL THE WOMEN ARTISTS GONE?
It’s a challenge indeed in these fast-moving times to generate a genuine buzz for events like the upcoming national board meeting of the Women’s Caucus for Art that’ll take place here in town, along with ancillary exhibits organized by WCA’s Florida chapter. Ask anyone who tried to light a fire under our city’s dwellers over…
CRIME DOESN’T TAKE A HOLIDAY
JULY 5, 1 A.M.: Two 18-year-old men were getting ready to cruise home from a trendy nightclub in the 700 block of Bennett Road after an evening likely packed with too many fake teen tans and overpriced Jäger bombs. If the duo had plans to sober up by grabbing a Chalupa Supreme en route, however,…
LOVE SICK LADY
I have a question I don’t think you’ve ever addressed in your column. I’m a 32-year-old heterosexual female who was stricken with near-terminal cancer eight years ago. I’ve gone through every sort of treatment known to mankind (and had the gross misfortune of going through menopause at 27 years old). I was sort of a…
THIS LAND WAS YOUR LAND
The right went apoplectic June 23 over an issue that most of America knew nothing about. This wasn’t one of the usual things that set conservatives off; it wasn’t abortion, gay marriage or the Pledge of Allegiance. This was Kelo v. the City of New London, Connecticut, a case decided on a 5-4 split vote…
Letters
A dive, not a dump I am less than happy with the editorial write-up given our bar in the “Drink” supplement [June 9]. Wally’s has been awarded Orlando’s best dive bar year after year. However, the term “dive bar” does not, in my opinion, translate into a place ” … for the truly washed-out and…
