Our readers rock
OK, this may be made up, but I don’t care. From the comments section on our Best of Orlando 2006 article comes this madcap tale of OW love: Anonymous said: I just flew to Orlando from DC last week on business and picked up your mag on the street. I checked into my digs on…
WASTED
Canadian think tank turns its hive mind on what we leave behind
Mission: Impossible â?? The Complete First TV Season
Mission: Impossible Ã’ The Complete First TV Season Studio: Paramount WorkNameSort: Mission: Impossible Ã’ The Complete First TV Season You may know the Mission: Impossible movies, but if you haven’t seen the Cold War-era TV series that launched the mega-franchise, you’re missing something very cool. It’s time to catch up, because the first season is…
Maxx
Maxx Studio: IRFilms.com/Facets WorkNameSort: Maxx Though frequently corny, Maxx tells its mistaken-identity tale with loads of situational humor. The gag here is that a goofy L.A. nightclub performer (Maxx, played by Farhad Ayish) gets an invite to play a prestigious cultural festival in Tehran, but, of course, he wasn’t the Maxx the Ministry meant to…
Tracks
Tracks Studio: Paramount WorkNameSort: Tracks Ahead of its time in ways both good and bad, this 1976 film stars Dennis Hopper as a shell-shocked Vietnam vet tasked with transporting the body of his dead friend across America via a train journey. Predating the wave of PTSD movies that broke on screens in the late ’70s…
BLISTER
“Don’t threaten me. DON’T YOU THREATEN ME!” My inner Sharon Stone chafes a crotch feather while kicking through her Casino powder-room door. I’m writhing out my histrionic calisthenics in the front seat of Alan’s giant gold Cadillac in preparation for the worst. Somebody better call FEMA because I’m about to flush. Having recently spit up…
SAVAGE LOVE
This isn’t the sort of question you usually answer, but I hope you will consider it anyway. I was in a good relationship with a guy, Enis for naming’s sake, for three years. About a year ago, Enis asked me if we could have anal sex. I might lose your sympathy here, but I have…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
ARIES “When the first settlers arrived in the New World, they were terrified by the vast open spaces,” says Peter Anastas in the film Polis Is This. “They wanted to remake this unkempt paradise into a big English garden.” This is a scenario you should NOT imitate in 2007. Wander out into the unknown with…
THIS LITTLE UNDERGROUND
;Here we are, on the edge of the cliff again. Before stepping off into the great unknown of a new year, let’s take one last loving look back at 2006. But really, it’s been quite a year for this little underground. There’s vigor, community and optimism to a degree not seen since the dance boom…
I LOVE TELEVISION
Like a particularly itchy case of B-hole scabies, it’s back! Yes, it’s the “Best TV Character of the Year” Awards, wherein I watch a year’s worth of television, and choose which character really gets my hormones hoppin’. And here are the nominees! “FAT” MAJ. APOLLO (from Battlestar Galactica): If you’re familiar with Maj. Lee “Apollo”…
ARTS & CULTURE TO GO
;Intrepid Traveler ;; An Orlando vacation is a bit like invading a foreign country: If you don’t go in with good intelligence, you’re going to leave broke and bleeding. Stepping forward to be your Baker-Hamilton commission is Intrepid Traveler. (Full-disclosure alert: Years ago I was a research assistant on a book from this publisher; none…
HAPPYTOWN
;It’s Happytown™’s last;episode of 2006, and you know what that means: slow news week. You know what ;else that means? Our annual Year in Review in 353 Words™. And what a year it’s been. You ready, kids? ;;The war in Iraq continued its precipitous plunge into failure. The Republicans faced a pantload of scandal. South…
POLICE BEAT
DEC. 7, 7:54 A.M.: An unknown suspect or suspects broke into a glass business in the 1100 block of South Rio Grande Avenue this December morn. Point of entry: a window along the building’s north side, which our perplexing perp(s) crawled into with the help of a boosting chair. Inside the evildoer(s) spotted a $2,400…
LETTERS
;Good Grace ;I must say your newspaper seems to have a lot of very strange writers [“Cheap Shots,” Dec. 21]. This constant attack on Nancy Grace is pathetic and boring, and the only thing I can say is that you seem to be part of the crowd who probably cries when any child murderer or…
SELECTIONS
Thursday•28; ;Lost Surfboard Painting There’s not much written about surfboard artist Sean Spoto, but plenty of his work has been ridden. (Sorry.) Spoto is one of the artists at Lost Enterprises and a browse through the online gallery of his surfboards (www.lostenterprises.com/prod/spoto.php) shows that he’s busy and keen on colorfully aggro scenarios. If that surfboard…
IN THE SLIPSTREAM
Being a Van Morrison fan is a frustrating business. It’s hard to believe that more than half the world knows him only as the guy who sings “Brown Eyed Girl” and “Moondance,” as well as “Into the Mystic” because it was in some movie. Granted, none of those are egregious tunes. (Not nearly as bad…
YEAR OF REVIEW … IN REVIEW
;We just ended the year of The Long Tail. The publication of that trend-defining book crystallized the notion that there is a vibrant cultural scrum going on well past the bottom of the best-seller list, much of it coming from material that was originally released long ago. Combined with other approaches like Idolator.com’s semi-regular “Coulda…
KILL THE BEAST
If you get a chance, send political gadabout Doug Guetzloe a thank-you card. Were it not for Guetzloe’s blunder, the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority’s soft skin might never have been peeled away to expose its rotten innards. Had Guetzloe attached a required disclaimer to a political mailer he sent out earlier this year attacking Winter…
ALL BUTTERED UP
The taste of natural butter never went out of style, though the health quotient of the stuff has been bashed about for decades now. Short and sweet, here’s the deal: Butter is full of fat, but it’s digestible and has food value, particularly calcium and vitamin E. It’s never a bad choice to slather butter…
THE YEAR THAT SAVED ITSELF
;The Academy Awards grow increasingly irrelevant each year, but they still seem to be the best barometer we have of measuring greatness in cinema. It doesn’t matter how many reputable critics put The World or Tropical Malady in their top 10 lists of 2005; the films will be out-rented by excessive spectacles like Memoirs of…
