Ding Dong, the bitch is dead…
Not to make light of the life of a drag queen who was never a man, but the lovely trainwreck known as Leona Helmsley — she of the old Harley Hotel fame — has cracked its final rail. Let’s have a lipstick moment of silence for a true American hero. “We don’t pay taxes. Only…
What you’re doing this weekend
Friday Jason Isbell (Drive-By Truckers), Will Hoge and the ever-lovely Centro-Matic are playing the Social. Kottonmouth Kings and some other awful blunted rap-rockers are playing what amounts to an afternoon show at Firestone. This, of course, is the weekly winner of “If you go to this, you’re retarded.” But, there’s also Disney’s Aladdin Jr. at…
Arctic Tale
Arctic Tale Studio: Paramount Classics Rated: G Cast: Queen Latifah Director: Adam Ravetch WorkNameSort: Arctic Tale Our Rating: 1.00 Child-pandering and overly anthropomorphized, Arctic Tale is a blatant cash-grab by National Geographic Films. Apparently, Nat Geo thought that by repeating the exact formula of their March of the Penguins ‘ but making it even dumber…
Interview
Interview Studio: Sony Pictures Classics Rated: R Cast: Steve Buscemi, Sienna Miller Director: Steve Buscemi WorkNameSort: Interview Our Rating: 3.00 Steve Buscemi wrote, directed and starred in this remake of Dutch director Theo Van Gogh’s 2003 original. Buscemi plays a mildly disgraced political writer who’s being forced to write a puff piece on an actress…
Brigitte Bardot Collection
Brigitte Bardot Collection Studio: Lionsgate WorkNameSort: Brigitte Bardot Collection In the late 1950s and 1960s, Brigitte Bardot was the definitive sex symbol, her popularity spanning all cultures and media. In the film world, she’s known primarily for two roles, both available on excellent Criterion transfers: â?¦ And God Created Woman, which made her an icon,…
Performance
Performance Studio: Warner Home Video Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Performance Back before Mick Jagger was a geriatric millionaire, he was the Byzantine sylph of the psychedelic era, a rock incubus whose unsettlingly androgyne beauty clenched tight the knees of both scandalized mothers and phobic he-men unaccustomed to red lips and come-hither eyes on a guy. It’s…
Sojourner
Sojourner Label: Secretly Canadian Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Sojourner Four CDs, a DVD, a poster, postcards and a medallion in a boxed set. These things are usually reserved for artists who sell records. Neil Young may never get around to emptying his vaults, but Jason Molina ‘ who’s recorded as Songs: Ohia…
Handful
Handful Label: Shadoks Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Handful The ass-grabbing cover art and a band name like ‘Bettyâ?� would lead one to expect Handful to be some sort of long-lost funk masterpiece. In truth, this latest find from the treasure-hunting folks at Shadoks isn’t funky and it’s far from a masterpiece. While…
Everyone’s In Everyone
Everyone’s In Everyone Label: Curb Appeal Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Everyone’s In Everyone Thankfully, touring with My Morning Jacket and Grandaddy didn’t toughen up Patrick Park’s sound. The unhurried introspection of this Colorado-to-L.A. songwriter’s 2003 debut, Loneliness Knows My Name, is maintained throughout his subsequent release, Everyone’s in Everyone. That consistency is…
Ditherer
Ditherer Label: Lex Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Ditherer This is Fog’s first album to feature a full-time band, and the depth shows. Otherworldly and tuneful, it whirs with a thrilling, perpetual sense of caprice and dynamism. Embracing lo-fi, folk, noise and glitch, their liberated, avant-rock sound is almost beyond genre. But, for…
To Be Loved
To Be Loved Label: Justice Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: To Be Loved Ian Moore’s a formerly Texas-based blues guitarist who relocated to the Northwest and discovered his songwriting muse, a move that greatly expanded his sound in unexpected ways. Moore’s music now sounds like what might happen if the latter days of…
The Invasion
The Invasion Studio: Warner Bros. Rated: PG-13 Release Date: 2007-08-17 Cast: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel WorkNameSort: Invasion, The Our Rating: 2.00 Just like the glass-eyed, emotionless victims of the space virus that has infected Earth in The Invasion, this latest remake of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is heartless, predictable and…
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
Persian plates go beyond kebabs
EVERYBODY’S DOING IT
Superbad briefly resuscitates the teen-sex comedy
The Last Legion
The Last Legion Studio: The Weinstein Co. Rated: PG-13 Release Date: 2007-08-17 Cast: Colin Firth, Aishwarya Rai Director: Doug Lefler WorkNameSort: Last Legion, The Our Rating: 2.50 As a formulaic sword-and-sandal flick, The Last Legion succeeds as much as one can expect from a late-summer studio cast-off. The story finds a dedicated Roman soldier (Colin…
Death At A Funeral
Death At A Funeral Studio: MGM Rated: R Cast: Matthew MacFadyen, Rupert Graves Director: Frank Oz WorkNameSort: Death At A Funeral Our Rating: 3.50 In contrast to all the cutesy Full Monty’esque and Billy Elliott’inspired British comedies with peach-cheeked children and working-class louts overcoming adversity to soaring violin scores comes this old-fashioned slapstick comedy that…
SAVAGE LOVE
;I am a single guy … never good with women … I didn’t have sex till I was 31 … but all my life I’ve had this strange fetish … I love to be shampooed with lots of lather and suds, suds in my eyes, nose, and mouth. I have been trying to find a…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
ARIES (March 21-April 19) “Dear Rob: Have apprentices been composing your column lately? Or have you outsourced the writing to fortunetellers in Calcutta? The horoscopes don’t sound like you. They’re, I don’t know, goofier or something. Have you been smoking more dope than usual? — Lonely for the Old Rob.” Dear Lonely: I always write…
THIS LITTLE UNDERGROUND
;Hipsters, prepare yourselves. The uncleansed mainstream is about to get an official guided tour into your ivory tower. August 21 will see the launch of This Is Next, a compilation series created by heavyweight indie distributor Alternative Distribution Alliance. The fount of the concept is the popular Now That’s What I Call Music series that…
EAT COOL, BE COOL
When summer heat parches, a cup of frozen sweetness from Jeremiah’s Original Italian Ice soothes like medicine, but the outdoor temperature is irrelevant when it comes to craving the slushy concoctions of entrepreneur Jeremy Litwack. Patrons of Jeremiah’s flagship location, opened in 1996 in Winter Park (6864 Aloma Ave., 407-679-2665) continue to flock there. The…
CULTURE TO GO
Camp counselor My Pal Bette Through Sept. 1 Footlight Theatre, The Parliament House $10; 407-540-0317 www.wanzie.com/boxoffice Film critic David Kehr has said that true camp can never be manufactured, only discovered. He’d get the fight of his life from My Pal Bette, a work of flamboyant contrivance perfect for both the Orlando Inter-national Fringe Theatre…
HAPPYTOWN
Say you’re the Orlando Police Department, and the Citizens Police Review Board that oversees your internal affairs investigations asks you to reopen a case because you half-assed it the first time. What do you do? Not a goddamn thing. In December, the CPRB asked OPD to re-examine allegations against James Carlies and James McGriff, two…
MAIL SACK
HELPING THE VULNERABLE I serve as the executive director of Family Services of Metro Orlando and recently read the article “The Least of Us” in the July 26 issue. I felt compelled to contact you for an introduction to FSMO and the local child welfare system as well as to clarify roles. First, I appreciate…
ANGELS AND DEMONS AT PLAY
Justin Skipper claims to have seen God at Back Booth one night. He credits his vegan diet with curing his adolescent schizophrenia, manic depression and alcoholism. He says a mysterious friend introduced him to the Nonsense Records family, a friend he didn’t see or hear from again for years and whose existence at one point…
THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF MADDEN
;On Aug. 14, thousands of Orlando gamers shredded the shrink-wrap on their shiny new copies of Madden ;NFL 08, popped them into their Xbox 360s and PlayStation 3s and started smashing away on a new season of virtual football. Chances are, less than half of them realized that one of the world’s most popular video…
ORLANDO’S WIRELESS FRONTIER
;What’s not to like about free wireless Internet? Regardless of pursuit, public Wi-Fi users look immeasurably more urbane. The service itself is like a gun under the pillow – its availability just makes things seem good and possible. Any muculent cesspit is that much more attractive if you can do a Google images search for…
POP GOES TO WAR
Next time you put on the new Spoon single to make that I-4 drive go by a little faster, or turn up Gnarls Barkley on your iPod to drown out the background noise at the office, consider what musical escapism means to troops in Iraq. Think of them blasting whatever CDs they can find on…
I LOVE TELEVISION
You know, some people have the gall to accuse ME of not knowing how a television show actually works. Well, as it turns out, I do know how a television show “works.” First of all, you get a bunch of retarded monkeys to bang out a script. Then you get a bunch of community-theater actors…
POLICE BEAT
;JULY 31, 7:16 A.M.: Not surprisingly, this week’s report begins with a bunch of burglarized metallic scrap. It’s become something of a recurring theme in this space, in case you haven’t noticed. ; ;The suspect or suspects chose to taint an awning business in the ever-so-groovy 500 block of Ferguson Drive. After cutting the lock…
BLISTER
Is it possible that time has forgotten me, or is it that I have forgotten time? I’m smacked up against the prospect of another Monday night of lifting the old bag of bones and liquor from Couch Point A and dropping it uncomfortably like a bilious (and slightly poky) water balloon into its thematically challenged…
