Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Studio: Warner Bros. Rated: R Cast: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter Director: Tim Burton WorkNameSort: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Our Rating: 5.00 That Sweeney Todd exists on the stage is still something of a marvel of artistic autonomy and the most unlikely of…
Atonement
Atonement Studio: Focus Pictures Rated: NONE Cast: Keira Knightley, James McAvoy Director: Joe Wright WorkNameSort: Atonement Our Rating: 4.50 This film is most interesting because it’s presented as the traditional British epic, complete with a foray into World War II (including what might be the most stunning Steadicam shot in movie history). Yet the only…
Juno
Juno Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures Rated: PG-13 Cast: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman Director: Jason Reitman WorkNameSort: Juno Our Rating: 4.50 In Juno, Ellen Page plays feisty Juno MacGuff, an overly articulate teenage girl who discovers she’s preggers after having sex just once with her geeky maybe-boyfriend, Bleeker (Superbad’s Michael Cera). After…
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story Studio: Columbia Pictures Rated: R Cast: John C. Reilly, Jenna Fischer Director: Jake Kasdan WorkNameSort: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story Our Rating: 4.50 Is it possible for a film to have jokes about exposed penises and chopping people in half with machetes, yet still be too smart for…
Charlie Wilsonâ??s War
Charlie WilsonÃ’s War Studio: Universal Pictures Rated: R Cast: Tom Hanks, Amy Adams, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman Director: Mike Nichols WorkNameSort: Charlie WilsonÃ’s War Our Rating: 4.00 The same snappy wit that Aaron Sorkin brought to his prime-time TV shows is effortlessly transferred to the big screen in Charlie Wilson’s War, a breezy political…
P.S. I Love You
P.S. I Love You Studio: Warner Bros. Rated: PG-13 Cast: Hilary Swank, Gerard Butler, Lisa Kudro Director: Richard LaGravenese WorkNameSort: P.S. I Love You Our Rating: 0.50 Middlebrow mediocrities like You’ve Got Mail look like canonized masterpieces next to P.S. I Love You, a romantic dramedy that stumbles through its excruciatingly Oscar-padded 126-minute running time…
FEEL-GOOD STAR FALLS FLAT
I am Legend Studio: Warner Bros. Rated: PG-13 Cast: Will Smith, Alice Braga, Dash Mihok, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Charlie Tahan Director: Francis Lawrence WorkNameSort: I am Legend Our Rating: 2.00 Don’t get me wrong. I like Will Smith. I mean, who doesn’t? Not liking Will Smith would be like not liking ice cream. Or kitties. Or…
The Definition
The Definition Label: E-klectrik Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Definition, The You’d be hard-pressed to find a soul in Central Florida who doesn’t know what embattled suburb Pine Hills is about: Ravaged by gentrification, “Crime Hills” is often discussed in the same sentence as “annexation” by City Beautiful officials who would rather not…
Supawoman
Supawoman Label: Saregama Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Supawoman As a member of rising U.K. desi hip-hop crew the Sona Family, MC Hard Kaur made major waves with her turn on “Glassy,” a club-banging bhangra anthem devoted to the pleasures of getting paralytically fucked up. While nothing on Supawoman rises to the heights…
We Will Gently Destroy You
We Will Gently Destroy You Label: Clairecords Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: We Will Gently Destroy You All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors was a well-regarded but horribly monikered group that unabashedly reveled in their shoegazing influences. The swooning miasma of sound they created during their half-decade run garnered them something of a…
Nighttiming
Nighttiming Label: Young Baby Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Nighttiming Actor and former Phantom Planet drummer Jason Schwartzman’s latest solo endeavor is a masterful blend of indie rock melody fused with dance-pop sensibilities. The title track, “Nighttiming,” features a catchy chorus served with a side of ’70s-inspired beats, while the beautifully crafted, piano-driven…
A KICK IN THE HEAD
Vegan-friendly cafe serves righteous jolts for the urban herbivore
BLISTER
“I just backed over something,” Jessica’s teeth grit through her portable pod of cellular communication. “And it wasn’t good.” This kind of frustration and beeping, rear-happy mechanical backward motion can only mean one thing: It’s time for the annual Orlando Weekly liquored salute to the holidays, wherein careers are made or broken between the open-bar…
SAVAGE LOVE
I’m a 21-year-old woman and I know the my-boyfriend-has-a-diaper-fetish thing has been done to death, but …. When he told me about his fetish, I was supportive. To be completely honest, he’s so good-looking and such a wonderful guy that I was worried about losing him if I seemed less than ecstatic. Flash forward a…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
ARIES (March 21-April 19) “Ambition is a bad excuse for not having enough good sense to be lazy,” my ex-girlfriend used to say. She claimed to be a Zen master whose duty it was to deprogram me out of my absurd striving to make something of myself. “You’re egotistically attached to your identity as a…
THIS LITTLE UNDERGROUND
Besides tucking a sprig of mistletoe in the waistband of my underwear, y’know what my favorite holiday trick is? Spinning deviant Christmas music. Before sitting down to dinner with your fam, try switching out your parents’ tired Mannheim Steamroller album with any disc in Christmas Rock Records’ Wreck the Halls series. Sure, “Master of Puppets”…
EASY AS PIE
Amongst the mall-battling, tree-trimming and gift-wrapping, making your own crust for the perfect holiday pie is probably last on your to-do list this year. And it should be. With all the packaged options for pie crusts in grocery stores, making pastry dough in Florida’s December humidity is an unnecessary migraine. We tested three of the…
COUNCIL WATCH
The Phantom of the Opera was there, or at least the man who played him – Orlando spawn and Broadway warbler Davis Gaines – which meant a top-heavy awards presentation. The mayor and commissioners honored Gaines with a proclamation of his very own “day” (payback for his agreeing to sing at the Orlando Opera’s New…
HAPPYTOWN
We thought the event Dec. 12 at Room 3-Nine was going to be a crisp-collared, Patrick Bateman, coke & choke affair. After all, it was cleverly billed as Obamarama, which invoked the added bonus of Bananarama jokes, and was being put on by the Young Lawyers for Obama, who surely know a few Huey Lewis…
MAIL SACK
Why so anti-UCF? I must say the article was well-written `“Force-fed,” Dec. 13`. That is the only thing good I can say about it. For one thing, you only used the people that were against the stadium. You didn’t allow any alumni to have a single quote or anything that appeared to be balanced reporting. You…
SWEET DREAMS
Curled into a ball on a living room couch that dwarfs her, Tonya Combs is more animated than I’ve ever seen her offstage. The 26-year-old Ithaca, N.Y., native usually appears pleasantly content. Rarely do her lips uncoil themselves from their perma-smile, and, when providing vocals for local hip-hop legends Sol.illaquists of Sound, she tends to…
ROOM FOR JELL-O
It’s that time of year when our most childish impulses get projected onto a certain avuncular fantasy figure – that jowly, genial old coot who lives only to satisfy our innermost wants and needs, no matter unrealistic they might be. But enough has been written about Fred Thompson, so I’m going to talk about Santa…
CHEAP SHOTS
It never fails. Every year as the calendar winds down, our blood pressure inches up. The aggregate effect of 12 months of chronicling the doings of scumbags, nincompoops, mountebanks and fools takes its toll, and we find ourselves feeling … less than charitable. And that’s no way to roll into the new year. So we’ve…
CULTURE TO GO
Very Carrey Christmas Grinchmas Through Jan. 1 at Islands of Adventure Included with admission 407-363-8000 www.universalorlando.com After a year’s absence, popular demand has brought Grinchmas back to Universal’s Islands of Adventure. In honor of the 50th anniversary of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the seasonal celebration of Dr. Seuss’ most memorable misanthrope has received a…
LAND USE FOR DUMMIES
There’s a battle raging over what remains of the Florida frontier. Citing the steamrolling tendencies of big development – and the city and county governments’ rubber stamps that typically defer – Palm Beach attorney Lesley Blackner (along with Tallahassee lawyer Ross Burnaman) crafted a constitutional amendment called the Florida Hometown Democracy Act that would require…
Blue Man Group auditions
Here’s the press release: Blue Man Group is best known for their inventive theatrical productions and concerts combining music, comedy, and multimedia theatrics to produce a totally unique form of entertainment. As the company grows, it remains true to its vision of providing exciting experiences in a variety of media, which appeal to a broad…
