American Dreamz
American Dreamz Studio: Universal Pictures Distribution Rated: PG-13 Website: http://www.americandreamzmovie.com/index1.html Release Date: 2006-04-21 Cast: Hugh Grant, Dennis Quaid, Mandy Moore, Willem Dafoe, Chris Klein Director: Paul Weitz Screenwriter: Paul Weitz WorkNameSort: American Dreamz Our Rating: 2.00 Distasteful though it may sound, there’s strong comedic possibility in grafting suicide-bomber politics onto the warbling self-promotion of the…
The Sentinel
The Sentinel Studio: 20th Century Fox Rated: PG-13 Website: http://www.sentinelthemovie.com/ Release Date: 2006-04-21 Cast: Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Eva Longoria, Martin Donovan, Paul Calderon Director: Clark Johnson Screenwriter: George Nolfi, Gerald Petievich WorkNameSort: Sentinel, The Our Rating: 2.00 The famously chaste Michael Douglas reaches deep into his craft to portray a bigamist in a progressively…
Adam & Steve
Adam & Steve Studio: TLA Releasing Rated: NOT RATED Website: http://www.adamandstevemovie.com/ Release Date: 2006-04-21 Cast: Craig Chester, Malcolm Gets, Chris Kattan, Parker Posey, Melinda Dillon Director: Craig Chester Screenwriter: Craig Chester Music Score: Roddy Bottum WorkNameSort: Adam & Steve Our Rating: 4.00 There are as many honest laughs in writer/director Craig Chester’s wild, queer romcom…
DIZZONER THE MAYOR
Street Fight Studio: POV Films Rated: NOT RATED Website: http://www.marshallcurry.com/ Release Date: 2006-04-21 Cast: Sharpe James, Cory Booker Director: Michael Curry WorkNameSort: Street Fight Our Rating: 5.00 Keep telling yourself: It’s really happening in America. That’s the necessary response to some of the more outrageous perversions of the democratic process captured in Street Fight, Marshall…
SHOCK AND AWWWW
Joyeux Noël Studio: Sony Pictures Classics Rated: PG-13 Website: http://www.merrychristmas-themovie.com/ Release Date: 2006-04-21 Cast: Diane Kruger, Benno Fürmann, Guillaume Canet, Gary Lewis, Dany Boon Director: Christian Carion Screenwriter: Christian Carion WorkNameSort: Joyeux Noël Our Rating: 3.00 Its basis in historical fact doesn’t preclude Joyeux Noël (a 2006 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film) from…
Friends With Money
Friends With Money Studio: Sony Pictures Classics Rated: R Website: http://www.sonyclassics.com/friendswithmoney/ Release Date: 2006-04-21 Cast: Jennifer Aniston, Catherine Keener, Frances McDormand, Joan Cusack, Jason Isaacs Director: Nicole Holofcener Screenwriter: Nicole Holofcener WorkNameSort: Friends With Money Our Rating: 3.50 Nicole Holofcener’s most mature work to date, Friends With Money concerns four friends (Catherine Keener, Jennifer Aniston,…
Scary Movie 4
Scary Movie 4 Studio: The Weinstein Company Rated: PG-13 Website: http://www.scarymovie.com/ Release Date: 2006-04-21 Cast: Molly Shannon, Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Craig Bierko, Leslie Nielsen Director: David Zucker Screenwriter: Craig Mazin, Jim Abrahams WorkNameSort: Scary Movie 4 Our Rating: 3.00 The shielding of this unspectacular but hardly disastrous comedy from critics shows that the studios…
The Hardest Way To Make an Easy Living
The Hardest Way To Make an Easy Living Label: Vice Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Hardest Way To Make an Easy Living, The Redundant sonic sterilization undercuts The Hardest Way To Make an Easy Living, and its seething silliness and watery, light structures are far more offensive than any of the content that The Streets’ Mike Skinner…
Refused Are Fucking Dead
Refused Are Fucking Dead Label: Burning Heart/Epitaph Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Refused Are Fucking Dead Through a lens that’s as darkly austere as an Ingmar Bergman flick (think long, contemplative shots of bearded drummer David Sandström in a Mennonite hat walking near a river at dusk), the Refused Are Fucking Dead DVD documents the dying gasps…
Birdy Nam Nam
Birdy Nam Nam Label: Uncivilized World Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Birdy Nam Nam French turntablists Birdy Nam Nam are done scalping other DJs for the world title; they’ve been there, and they’re over it. For their crafty album, the four DMC World Team Champions traded competition rehearsals for studio time, building mini-symphonies from their integral stacks…
Around
Around Label: Thrill Jockey Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Around Grateful as Television fans may be that Tom Verlaine has broken his recorded silence after a 14-year lull, they should be more thankful that the graying guitarist saw fit to release the instrumental Around in addition to the more trad-rock Songs and Other Things. Because Verlaine’s creaky…
Happytown
When first alerted via a phoned-in tip that Winter Park is pondering shortening the city’s bar hours, we were pissed; even had the headline picked out: “Blueblood bastion bans booze.” Nice, eh? But it turns out Winter Park isn’t seeking to reinstate Prohibition; it just wants a bigger stick with which to whack bars that…
I Love Television
Technology! Some people despise it, others love it! Me, I desplove it. For example, those Bluetooth headsets? If you’ve got one in your ear right now, take it out. You look like an IDIOT. If you’re really intent on looking stupid, why not put a car air filter over your eyes and call yourself Geordi…
A HIGH AND THREE LOWS
When the grand pooh-bahs of the motion picture academy decided to present 81-year-old director Robert Altman with an honorary award at this year’s Oscar ceremony, they had to be thinking that they had failed, time and again, to give him awards for such masterworks as McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Gosford Park, Nashville, The Player, The…
Dangling Conversation
Like many Americans, I shed a tear last week when I read the transcripts from United Flight 93. But I may have been the only one weeping over lousy grammar. What put the mist in my eye was an introductory speech attributed to one of the hijackers. He was presumably impersonating a pilot when he…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES “When the only tool you have is a hammer,” said psychologist Abraham Maslow, “you tend to treat everything as if it were a nail.” It will be crucial for you not to regard everything as if it were a nail in the coming weeks. I suggest you make sure your toolbox is filled with…
Savage Love
I was in a relationship in high school with a girl from the time we were 14 until we were 16. During that time we made a lot of sex tapes together. We are in our late 20s now, and she recently asked if I could burn copies of our tapes onto DVDs on my…
Blister
Oh. My. God. Tonight is going to be so much fun. Not only do I have a Plan A, but I also have a Plan B that precedes my Plan A, meaning that I am perhaps the most gifted columnist on the “nothing” beat currently twiddling one thumb in this burgeoning metropolis. A new air…
Police Beat
April 7, 8:23 p.m.: Etiquette tip: When offered crack cocaine while having sex with a prostitute and her pimp, it’s just rude to say no. Officer Keller was dispatched to the 7-Eleven on the 1500 block of West Smith Street in reference to a robbery. He met with the 28-year-old victim who “advised he picked…
Letters
Morality play I must applaud James Carlson and the Orlando Weekly for your feature article, “How to end up in prison” `April 6`. It was really well-written and interesting. It is wonderful that this level of journalism is available here locally, and for no cost as well. I’m not sure what the moral of this…
Notable Noise
My quest for quality metal continues. Unfortunately, I drove into a quite unpleasant brick wall last Monday (April 10) when I went down to Will’s Pub for a show headlined by Indorphine. I like these guys and they tend to have decent taste in music, so I was hoping that at least one of the…
HARD TO HANDLE
Just a month before the release of Shooter Jennings’ sophomore album Electric Rodeo, inspiration struck in the middle of the night, so Jennings and his band, the .357s, went back into the studio to bang out a brand-new track, “It Ain’t Easy.” The gangly, scruffy son of an outlaw legend worked over the piano keys…
HOLLOW IDES
The Orlando-UCF Shakespeare Festival closes its 2005-2006 season with a streamlined and fast-paced production of Julius Caesar, the Bard’s historical tragedy about the assassination of the great Roman emperor and the bloody civil war that transpired in its aftermath. Director Dennis Lee Delaney has combined some characters, eliminated others, transposed lines and chopped out whole…
URBAN DEVELOPMENT
It may require a confluence of events more unlikely than the creation of a human being, but the birth of an indie label that actually makes an impact is always special, and always a surprise. From Sub Pop’s validation of a generation of slackers in the late ’80s to Death Row’s über-gangsta of the ’90s…
HERE WE GO AGAIN
I know Patrick,” Orlando city commissioner Daisy Lynum declared at the April 3 Council meeting. “I know him personally. I knew his wife. I knew his momma. I know all of them.” The Patrick in question is Patrick Aliu, president and CEO of PSA Constructors Inc. And, as that Council meeting demonstrated, it pays to…
THE POWER WORTHY
That other newspaper, the name of which escapes us at the moment, publishes an annual list of the 25 most powerful people in Central Florida that is, frankly, depressing as hell. It’s as chockablock with developers, politicians and high-level business execs as you’d guess such a list might be in a town constantly criticized for…
Tosca, Grandma Party Bazaar, Appleseed Cast, 2006 Fringe Preview and more
Thursday • 20 CENTRAL FLORIDA FAIR The carnies are back! Tonight is opening night, but if you head out Friday, you’ll witness the Sunburst Beauty Pageant, where you can see babies wrapped up in bows like Christmas presents. Saturday plays host to a Guinness World Record ice cream-eating contest. On Sunday, the fair makes its…
