Guiliani agrees – freedom really IS slavery
C’mon Republicans, you’re making it WAY TOO EASY! “Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.” via…
Film Noir Collection, Vol. 4
Film Noir Collection, Vol. 4 Studio: Warner Bros. WorkNameSort: Film Noir Collection, Vol. 4 There were so many good films noir in the ’40s and ’50s that Warner Bros., in its fourth installment of noir classics, still hasn’t run out of deceitful floozies and street-lit hoodlums to reexplore. If anything, the interest in packaging these…
Cashback
Cashback Studio: Magnolia WorkNameSort: Cashback Possibly the nadir of that post-Trainspotting, British pseudo-hipness category, Cashback feels like a kinetically stylized memoir but with none of the distinction. We’re supposed to feel sorry for Ben Willis (Sean Biggerstaff, a porno actor’s pseudonym if there ever was one), an amateur artist who’s just been dumped by his…
Steve McQueen: Legacy Edition
Steve McQueen: Legacy Edition Label: Legacy Length: LP Rated: NONE Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Steve McQueen: Legacy Edition Perfect pop is not easy pop, a fact manifested in every difficult second of Prefab Sprout’s timeless 1985 sophomore release, Steve McQueen (released as Two Wheels Good in the U.S. due to a legal conflict with…
Misbegotten Man
Misbegotten Man Label: I and Ear Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Misbegotten Man At its best, art is transcendental. At its worst, it’s a shield for bullshit. Enter this guitar/drum duo from New York. With guitarist/singer Mary Halvorson of Trevor Dunn’s Trio Convulsant in the fold, they carry credentials. Still, no matter the…
Falu
Falu Label: Monsoon Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Falu Bombay-born Falguni Shah (aka Falu) was trained as a vocalist in Indian classical music, but there is nothing on this album of polished, adult-alternative pop that evokes the centuries of tradition that went into her musical education. Nothing, that is, save her richly expressive…
Structure and Cosmetics
Structure and Cosmetics Label: Sub Pop Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Structure and Cosmetics As a rule, chamber-pop acts and other merchants of hipster nostalgia are nothing if not straightforward. On their first release for a U.S. label, this fetching ’60s pastiche band from New Zealand proves far less predictable than they appear…
Chak De India
Chak De India Studio: Yash Raj Films Rated: NOT RATED Release Date: 2007-08-10 Cast: Shahrukh Khan, Vidya Malavade Director: Shimit Amin Music Score: Salim-Sulaiman WorkNameSort: Chak De India Our Rating: 3.00 Every cliché one could expect out of a movie about a women’s hockey team from India and their world-championship dream is present in Chak…
Paprika
Paprika Studio: Sony Pictures Classics Rated: R Cast: Megumi Hayashibara, Toru Furuya Director: Satoshi Kon WorkNameSort: Paprika Our Rating: 2.50 Ever have a friend who’s always vividly detailing the content of his dreams? Those conversations are ‘ wouldn’t you agree? ‘ narcissistic and one-sided discourses. While the flying coffeepot and never-ending escalator of your friend’s…
GRECIAN FORMULA
Creperie injects food-court fare with Parisian flair
Broken English
Broken English Studio: HDNet Films Rated: PG-13 Cast: Parker Posey, Gena Rowlands Director: Zoe Cassavetes WorkNameSort: Broken English Our Rating: 2.50 Broken English is the latest vehicle built for Parker Posey to look radiant and feel grim, but it’s her recent Hal Hartley collaboration (Fay Grim) that should win her honors, not this unlucky-in-love catch-all…
Becoming Jane
Becoming Jane Studio: Miramax Rated: PG Cast: Anne Hathaway, James McAvoy Director: Julian Jarrold WorkNameSort: Becoming Jane Our Rating: 2.00 It’s hardly sporting to complain that a film about Jane Austen doesn’t measure up to the author’s classic class-war romances. But it’s far less easy to be sympathetic when that film tries to pass itself…
Rush Hour 3
Rush Hour 3 Studio: New Line Cinema Rated: PG-13 Cast: Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan Director: Brett Ratner WorkNameSort: Rush Hour 3 Our Rating: 1.50 Brett Ratner began his feature-film career as quite possibly one of the worst directors to come out of the ’90s; he was (and is) the complete opposite of the indie rebels…
Stardust
Stardust Studio: Paramount Rated: PG Cast: Robert De Niro, Sienna Miller Director: Matthew Vaughn WorkNameSort: Stardust Our Rating: 3.50 I wasn’t sure about this one at first. From the opening narration, spoken with Ian McKellen’s booming British lilt, Stardust has an air of majestic self-importance. A few out-of-left-field moments later and you’ll be wondering just…
COUNCIL WATCH
;Now for something completely ;different! The mood around the pale wood and starburst tile of Orlando’s precious governance – of late so far up its own boosterism bottom that the lights could have gone out and nobody would have noticed – had all of a sudden gone from that of a gated community association meeting…
HAPPYTOWN
Remember that time when Grandpa, imbued with patriarchal guilt and Old Harper, tried to play with you? You didn’t care for his model Edsels and his crayons were blunted, so out of desperation he made believe that he was a Foot Clan underling so he would be included in your fun. Remember how, instead of…
POLICE BEAT
;JULY 23, 9:59 A.M.: Some O-town prowling suspect(s) chose to visit an apartment complex in the 5740 block of Gatlin Avenue. The “storage unit full o’ crap” that burglars love so well would fall victim once again.; ;The perpetrator(s) gained entry to the locked but unalarmed unit by prying open the bottom of a window,…
MAIL SACK
DEAR JESUS, PLEASE MAKE THE MUSLIMS KILL EACH OTHER Your “review” of the film Islam: What the West Needs to Know `July 19` reminds me of those who pooh-poohed Adolph Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf. Are you aware that both “mein kampf” and “jihad” mean the same thing? “My struggle.” This is why Hitler found the…
BACK TO BASICS
“With this band, it’s not gonna be thinking man’s music, it’s gonna be drinking man’s music.” With that statement, vocalist Charlie Bender draws a sharp line between the past that many Orlando punk fans may associate him with — the frenetic frontman for now-defunct “punk band with horns” Spitvalves — and the present. Bender’s current…
IN CASE YOU MISSED HIM
;”Just holla back, I see ya, Sarge. I’m so motherfuckin’ high I could eat a star.” ;;If John Lennon were alive today, he might have made a mix tape like Lil Wayne’s latest opus, Da Drought 3. OK, maybe not exactly like it, but the Great One surely would have approved of the New Orleans…
WHO KILLED BRAD WILL?
;Those of us who report from the front lines of the social justice movement in Latin America share an understanding that there’s always a bullet out there with our names on it. Brad Will traveled 2,500 miles, from New York to a violence-torn Mexican town, to find his. ;;Throughout the summer and fall of 2006,…
SLAPP HAPPY
On Feb. 23, real estate development company Veranda Partners LLC delivered a stern warning to Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy and MetroWest resident Larry Giles: Take down his two-week-old website, www.verandaparknews.com, by 11:59 p.m. on Feb. 24, or Veranda Partners would sue. “Your website is a campaign designed to disparage and injure `Veranda Park’s` reputation and…
LADY KILLERS
Gabrielle is gorgeous: tall, sleek and powerful. Too much woman for me, though. A little on the heavy side. Bridget is more my speed. Short, compact, lightweight — she lasts a whole lot longer. In addition to these beautiful guns, the girls working at Hard Knocks Orlando aren’t bad-looking either. The arsenal of weapons that…
BLISTER
“You need to learn C.P.T.,” Eddie late-drips in the drizzle of another trivial Wednesday night. “Is that a pregnancy test?” I pursue. “No, it’s colored people time.” See, Eddie’s black, which means that he shits the obvious before anybody else on the demographic rainbow curve can play it to their advantage. It’s harmless, really, like…
GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT YOU WANT
With sequels, threequels and movies based on cherished childhood properties ruling the box office, Hollywood is falling back on the trusty apologia that it’s merely catering to the public’s predetermined tastes. “The marketplace decides,” Tom Ortenberg, president of theatrical films at Lionsgate, told the Associated Press (in advance of his own studio’s upcoming franchise releases…
SAVAGE LOVE
;I am a 25-year-old bi female with a bi male partner the same age. My boyfriend really likes stuff up his butt. Not being someone who enjoys anal, I am continually shocked by his ability and willingness to … uh … take on new challenges in this department. After a few months of playing with…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
ARIES (March 21-April 19) “The face is the most erotic part of the body,” says fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. Try out that perspective for a while. Your assignment in the coming week is to enjoy getting excited by faces that captivate your imagination. This isn’t just about pure physical beauty, of course. You should also…
THIS LITTLE UNDERGROUND
;There are several philanthropy-minded music acts in our scene, but none walk the walk like hip-hop group Sol.illaquists of Sound. Beyond mere rhetoric, they have a history of triggering tangible change in their immediate physical reality. The latest endeavor by the veteran activists is the Solilla Center 4 Creative Kids. The brainchild of vocalist Alexandra…
SNAPPER TIME
;What are the three magic words when it comes to sourcing food? Local, local, local. And what are Florida waters full of this time of year? Snapper, snapper, snapper. There are 17 types of snapper harvested in Florida, according to FL-Seafood.com, a website published by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. ;;Mangrove, vermillion,…
I LOVE TELEVISION
First things first: My car will blow the freaking DOORS off your car. It’s packing a 430 four-barrel, and it’s so monstrously fast I have to repaint it every week — because the paint burns off, Count Bee-yotchula! That’s right, I love to race. And it doesn’t matter if I’m on the drag strip, the…
CULTURE TO GO
;Genki geeks ;;Anime Festival Orlando VIII www.animefestivalorlando.com; ;;It doesn’t really hit me until I am in the ladies room. There’s just me, a ninja and a girl that looks like Alice in Wonderland combing her bobbed blue wig. A “normal” has crashed Anime Festival Orlando VIII (Aug. 3-5 at the Wyndham Orlando Resort). After 10…
Big Gay Debate
This is fascinating. But not so much for the spinnerifica coming from the camps about queer friendship bracelets and/or actual equality. It’s the last sentence. Who is Matt Barber a policy spokesMAN for?
Florida is infested with Samsquanch!
The Long Island Press has a blog post today about the so-called “Skunk Ape” found in the Everglades! With interview of a “victim!” “It didn’t look fleshy. It looked like it had a beard or something. It had hair on its face. It had a big head. It was probably, I don’t know if it…
