TOO MUCH MONKEY BUSINESS
King Kong Studio: Universal Pictures Rated: PG-13 Website: http://www.kingkongmovie.com/ Release Date: 2005-12-16 Cast: Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Andy Serkis, Thomas Kretschmann Director: Peter Jackson Screenwriter: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens Music Score: James Newton Howard WorkNameSort: King Kong Our Rating: 2.50 Decades from now, Peter Jackson will remember 2005 not as the…
STAYING ON POINT
Ballets Russes Studio: Zeitgeist Films Rated: NOT RATED Website: http://www.balletsrussesmovie.com/ Release Date: 2005-12-16 Cast: Ann Barzel , Irina Baronova, Yvonne Chouteau, Yvonne Craig, Frederic Franklin Director: Dayna Goldfine, Daniel Geller Screenwriter: Dayna Goldfine, Daniel Geller, Gary Weimberg, Celeste Schaefer Snyder Music Score: Todd Boekelheide, David Conte WorkNameSort: Ballets Russes Our Rating: 4.00 The fun and…
The Dying Gaul
The Dying Gaul Studio: Strand Releasing Rated: R Website: http://www.thedyinggaul.com/ Release Date: 2005-12-16 Cast: Patricia Clarkson, Peter Sarsgaard, Campbell Scott, Robin Bartlett, Ebon Moss-Bachrach Director: Craig Lucas Screenwriter: Craig Lucas Music Score: Steve Reich WorkNameSort: Dying Gaul, The It was only a matter of time before Campbell Scott, Patricia Clarkson and Peter Sarsgaard shared the…
TORN AND FRAYED
Forty Shades of Blue Studio: First Look Pictures Rated: NOT RATED Website: http://www.fortyshadesmovie.com/ Release Date: 2005-12-15 Cast: Rip Torn, Dina Korzun, Darren E. Burrows, Paprika Steen, J. Blackfoot Director: Ira Sachs Screenwriter: Ira Sachs, Michael Rohatyn Music Score: Dick Hinchliffe WorkNameSort: Forty Shades of Blue Our Rating: 4.00 Alan James (Rip Torn) is a middle-age…
IMPROPER RELATIONS
The Family Stone Studio: 20th Century Fox Rated: PG-13 Website: http://www.thefamilystonemovie.com/ Release Date: 2005-12-16 Cast: Dermot Mulroney, Diane Keaton, Sarah Jessica Parker, Claire Danes, Rachel McAdams Director: Thomas Bezucha Screenwriter: Thomas Bezucha Music Score: Michael Giacchino WorkNameSort: Family Stone, The Our Rating: 3.00 That movie poster with the big, extended middle finger would seem to…
STAYING IN TOUCH
Ramblin’ Man EP Label: V2 Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Ramblin’ Man EP It’s been some time since duets were what they used to be. Not to come off as old-fashioned and pining for the days of the ol’ Victrola, but I do believe in a certain amount of personal chemistry when two people are singing to…
Nous Non Plus
Nous Non Plus Label: Aeronaut Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Nous Non Plus The members of NNP have funny French pseudonyms and they met at the Rhode Island School of Design. (Although I’m just assuming that they’re pseudonyms, the odds are pretty good that the singer was not born with the name Céline Dijon, nor do the…
Go Commando
Go Commando Label: Defend Music Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Go Commando James F!@#$%^ Friedman’s varied spread is striking enough to please overnight soiree guests, even those who normally end up vomiting on the front lawn. Including some of the acts that have graced Friedman’s well-known DJ residencies at New York City’s APT and Tribeca Grand Hotel,…
Where Is Brooklyn?
Where Is Brooklyn? Label: Blue Note Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Where Is Brooklyn? This session is one of the highlights of Blue Note’s mid-’60s foray into “The New Thing,” as it once again put Cherry into a studio with his regular group (Henry Grimes and Ed Blackwell) augmented by Pharoah Sanders. This quartet had previously worked…
NOT JUST A GIRL
It’s hard to get a handle on Gwen Stefani. With a ubiquity paralleling only Madonna in her heyday, the red-lipped, white-haired propagator of the Orange County warble-whine has achieved a certain distance from standard industry criticism. Instead, the whole world politely watches as she parades her signature just-shy-of-smug smile down red carpets, from the covers…
BEE’S KNEES
Now I know just how sweet Van Morrison’s girl, his angel of the first degree, was to him. Although as a youngun I thought she was as sweet as stupid ol’ honey,” I’ve long since understood the correct lyrics, but hadn’t tasted the real thing until very recently. She must have been one sweet mamma-jamma.…
MILLION-TO-ONE SHOT
With all the hype the recent release of the Star Wars DVD has received, silver-screen fanatics might have missed more pressing sixth-installment news: Rocky VI began shooting in December. Rumors of the film, which will officially be titled Rocky Balboa, have been floating around Hollywood for years, and now that the 59-year-old Stallone has officially…
Happytown
If we were to summarize the Florida Democratic Party Convention in one line, it would be thus: Next year will be different, we swear. State Dems have taken a beating the last several elections, and despite a massive get-out-the-vote campaign last year, the Republicans still kicked ass statewide. “We are going to take back Florida,”…
Notable Noise
I hope everyone is having a great holiday season. I totally mean that. Even the guy that sent me an anonymous e-mail and told me I was “worse than Ira Robbins.” What was weird about that, by the way, is that this guy didn’t mean I was a worse writer than Ira Robbins – which…
Book Review
Just flipping through the splendid pages of this 4.3-pound tome dedicated to salsa music by Orlando author Mary Kent, I learned more than I ever knew – though admittedly I didn’t know much. In one of the early parts of the book, Kent asked some of the 42 well-known salsa celebrities (Celia Cruz, Marc Anthony,…
Book Review
The 13 men and women featured in this oral history were sent to prison for crimes they did not commit. Some languished for years on death row. Others were sentenced to life in prison. And yet they consider themselves fortunate. Thanks to their own calls for help and sheer dumb luck, the judicial system grudgingly…
Book Review
John Hodgman is a man of great knowledge. Most of it is false, but all of it is hilarious. In fact, Expertise manages to be a most perplexingly funny read. Hodgman’s extremely dry style and his sly combination of “information” that, at first glance, could be legitimate – “Prohibition-Era Euphemisms for Alcohol” – with things…
WHAT WOULD WILLIE DO?
You’ve heard this before, derived from a similar banality about celebrities: Music and politics don’t mix. And yet, to claim an art form should remain spotlessly nonpartisan defies logic and history. Even if love songs will always outnumber “Fight the Power,” music has pushed everything from “give peace a chance” to a foreign policy of…
PLAYING AROUND
By 1957, the year he published On the Road, Jack Kerouac was at the end of his rope. He had written 11 books in six years, and gotten just one of them published. In order to buy Christmas presents for his family, he borrowed $40 from his agent Sterling Lord, and needed another loan –…
NUMBERS RACKET
The country is going hog wild for Sudoku, the number-placement puzzle game that’s done more to stimulate the sale of erasers than all of Florida’s “F” schools put together. But as the popularity of the activity has skyrocketed, players have begun clamoring for helpful shortcuts that can help them crack Sudoku quicker – the same…
Rob Brezny’s Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19) It’s possible there’s still enough oil buried in the earth to sustain our exorbitant appetite for material comforts for another 100 years. Or it may be true, as some researchers suggest, that global reserves of black gold are rapidly dwindling, and 20 years from now we’ll all be farmers and hunters…
HE WORKS HARD
Here’s my problem: I got fired from my job at the beginning of the summer and, long story short, ended up escorting to pay the bills. Being a callboy turned out to be not nearly as bad as I expected. In fact, it was fun. I was safe (condoms, worked through a web listing, always…
DEATH BY PARTY
“I just don’t want you to have to go alone,” BlackBerries Savannah from some bleachy perch in Winter Park. “Because if I would have had to last night, I think I might have died a horrible death!” Such is the wealth of antipathy typically associated with the company holiday party that even my superfriend twin…
SORRY, GOD (HAPPY?)
Apparently, I’m an asshole. In last week’s I Love Television™, I angered a lot of people when I hinted that God might be: (1) dumb, (2) gay, (3) sexist and (4) a hater of underpants and fun-bags. (I’m not going to repeat what I said. When you miss I Love Television™, you deserve every ounce…
SCORE WITH THE FISHES
While Canadian “global warming” protesters express alarm at the dwindling outdoor hockey season (fewer months with ice, fewer days cold enough for hard ice), a growing number of “hockey” players are taking the game underwater, according to a November Associated Press story. Six breath-holding players per team pass a puck with sticks at the bottom…
PUT ON THE (S)POT
DEC. 7, 1:46 A.M.: Two men were walking through an apartment complex parking lot in the 4500 block of Thoreau Park Drive. It should be noted, however, that strange and violent happenings sometimes occur during late-night, parking-lot strolls. A man approached the duo asking where he could “buy some weed,” police reports state, whereupon the…
Letters
Pro-naked guy Bravo! I would like to extend my gratitude for your support of the Orlando artist’s community. Your follow up commentary of Adam Nehr’s current Orlando Museum of Art exhibit was greatly needed `”Happytown,” Dec. 8`. Publishing one of his omitted works, "Fairy Dust," was a bold stroke against the area’s puritanical tendencies. Being…
ALL HAIL SWEEPS!
I love November. The summer heat relents. Daylight shortens. Leaves turn (not here, but somewhere). Football season heads toward its climax. The weeks of vacation I’ve hoarded lie just around the corner. But that’s not all. November offers an almost perverse thrill for watchers of local television news. It’s sweeps month, the period during which…
Princess Superstar, The Audition, Jay Anthony and more
Thursday • 15 JAY ANTHONY It’s a fact that there are not enough public spaces around town to expose the talents of local artists. So it’s no wonder that art exhibitions pop up in out-of-the-ordinary venues such as AKA Lounge, where Anthony’s “erotic art” will be celebrated with a public reception (along with works by…
