Must-know terms for the 21st Century intellectual
Just got an email pointing out this excellent article on the Sentient Developments blog. Here’s some of my favorite entries: Fermi Paradox: The FP is the disturbing realization that, given the extreme age of the galaxy and the radical potential for post-Singularity intelligences (including their ability to disseminate Von Neumann replicators), our galaxy should be…
Bridge to Terabithia
Bridge to Terabithia Studio: Buena Vista Pictures Rated: PG Website: http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/terabithia/ Release Date: 2007-02-16 Cast: AnnaSophia Robb, Josh Hutcherson, Zooey Deschanel, Lauren Clinton, Bailee Madison Director: Gabor Csupo WorkNameSort: Bridge to Terabithia Our Rating: 4.00 Directed by Rugrats creator Gabor Csupo, this adaptation of Katherine Paterson’s excellent children’s book is firmly within the (seemingly lost)…
Factory Girl
Factory Girl Studio: The Weinstein Company, MGM Studios Rated: R Website: http://www.factorygirlmovie.net/ Release Date: 2007-02-16 Cast: Guy Pearce, Sienna Miller, Hayden Christensen, Jimmy Fallon, Meredith Ostrom Director: George Hickenlooper WorkNameSort: Factory Girl Our Rating: 1.50 The vibrant 1960s New York art scene has never seemed as boring and programmatic as in George Hickenlooper’s Factory Girl,…
Music and Lyrics
Music and Lyrics Studio: Warner Bros. Distribution Rated: PG-13 Website: http://musicandlyrics.warnerbros.com/ Release Date: 2007-02-14 Cast: Hugh Grant, Drew Barrymore, Kristen Johnston, Jason Antoon, Billy Griffith Director: Marc D. Lawrence Music Score: Adam Schlesinger WorkNameSort: Music and Lyrics Our Rating: 4.00 When it comes to self-deprecating humor, it doesn’t get much better than Hugh Grant. In…
The Bloody Child
The Bloody Child Studio: MenkesFilm Rated: NOT RATED Release Date: 2007-01-30 Cast: Tinka Menkes, Sherry Sibley, Russ Little (III), Robert Mueller, Jack O’Hara (II) Director: Nina Menkes WorkNameSort: Bloody Child, The The most shocking aspect of this DVD can be found not in the film itself but in the pages of Facets’ included booklet. The…
Bicycle Thieves
Bicycle Thieves Studio: Criterion Rated: NOT RATED Release Date: 2007-02-13 Cast: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola Director: Vittorio De Sica WorkNameSort: Bicycle Thieves One of the best and most influential films ever to come out of Italy, this Oscar-winning 1948 masterpiece tells its heart-rending tale with an unadorned elegance. Everyman Antonio gets a precious job pasting…
A Summer Place
A Summer Place Studio: Warner Bros. Distribution Rated: NOT RATED Release Date: 2007-02-06 Cast: Richard Egan, Dorothy McGuire, Sandra Dee, Arthur Kennedy, Troy Donahue Director: Delmer Daves WorkNameSort: Summer Place, A More people remember Max Steiner’s immensely popular score to A Summer Place than they do the film, and for good reason. Sinuous cinematography and…
The Bombay Connection: Funk From Bollywood Action Thrillers, 1977-1984 / Bombshell Baby of Bombay: Bouncin’ Nightclub Grooves from Bollywood Films, 1959-1972
The Bombay Connection: Funk From Bollywood Action Thrillers, 1977-1984 / Bombshell Baby of Bombay: Bouncin’ Nightclub Grooves from Bollywood Films, 1959-1972 Label: Bombay Connection Length: LP Rated: NONE Website: http://www.bombay-connection.com/ Release Date: 2007-01-23 Media: CD Format: Compilation WorkNameSort: Bombay Connection: Funk From Bollywood Action Thrillers, 1977-1984 / Bombshell Baby of Bombay: Bouncin’ Nightclub Grooves from…
Reinventing the Orange
Reinventing the Orange Label: Polyvi.be Records Length: LP Rated: NONE Website: http://www.garbailey.com/ Release Date: 2007-01-20 Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Reinventing the Orange Reinventing the Orange is electronic music by a single artist ‘ Central Florida’s Gar Bailey ‘ that synchronously champions primitivism and abstraction. Without lyrics to lead a listener down any specific emotional…
Writers Block
Writers Block Label: Almost Gold Length: LP Release Date: 2007-02-06 Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Writers Block The clichés about Scandinavian cleanliness and order apply to much of the music emanating from northern Europe, and Writer’s Block, Peter Bjorn and John’s third album, won’t dispel those perceptions. Further, like many young Nordic musicians, these Swedes…
THE MAN WHO WON’T BE KING
The world knows about George, but journalist S.V. Dáte wants you to know the darker Bush sibling
THIS LITTLE UNDERGROUND
;Wow, tongues on the scene have been wagging overtime about where I left off last week — that is, the disastrous abortion of the Floridas Dying CD release party at the Social that sent Fashion! Fashion! and the Image Boys frontman Erik Grincewicz and Fred Mullins (ex-Fantasie) to the clink. Grincewicz was slapped with a…
BITES OF SPRING
; Orlando seems to have settled into something like the spring weather experienced north of here (though a few months early): off-and-on drizzle, days that are warm in the sun but chilly in the shade, and cool, breezy nights. This mixed-up climate is perfect for the most civilized of Italian treats, affogato. ;; It’s the…
I LOVE TELEVISION
;Remember the old days when the Super Bowl was about semiretarded loaves of meat running around a field playing keep-away with a pig’s bladder? Well, thanks to Janet Jackson’s titty-popping shenanigans back in aught-four, those days are gone! The modern Super Bowl is all about CONTROVERSY, baby, and this year’s game was no different. For…
ARTS & CULTURE TO GO
Darlyn Finch The setting should be as memorable as the words when writer Darlyn Finch reads from her newly published book, Red Wax Rose (Shady Lane Press), on the patio of the Cornell Fine Arts Museum, under the stars and/or clouds. For a taste, here’s the poem that gave the book its title. After the…
TOLD YOU SO, PART 2
;At the risk of sounding ;petulant, we told you so. We told you so, we told you so, we told you so. Nah nah nah nah nah, nah. ;;All this breathless coverage of Lou Pearlman’s crumbling empire you’ve been reading in the Orlando Sentinel of late? Old news, amigos. We told you three years ago…
HAPPYTOWN
Did you notice that the large, freaky-ass rabbit sculpture in the courtyard of the Bank of America building — the one that always reminded you of Donnie Darko — is gone? Neither did we, until our astute copy editor pointed it out. Then we wondered: Was that thing just a bad acid trip, or did…
POLICE BEAT
;JAN. 31, 8:10 P.M.: A 45-year-old man ran errands tonight, but not by himself. A 20-year-old stranger he had previously met at a bus stop kept him company. Let’s consider that mistake No. 1.; ;The duo began the day by hitting a local pharmacy. After shopping, they headed over to the 20-year-old’s condo. But they…
LETTERS
Tryin’ to get with Manes Billy “my man,” I just wanted to remind you that if I were not a happily married man, if I were not a self-assured male, if I were not confident in my own straight sexual orientation, you would be my toy `Happytown™, Feb. 8`. Thanks for all the press/publicity and…
WHO’LL STOP THE WAR?
;The name Vietnam is back in our vocabulary, as we seem to be developing an interest in history — or at least in the history of wars that just would not end. The problem is that when we ignore history, we’re condemned to repeat it.; ;The unfortunate reality is that people aren’t suddenly interested in…
WHAT WOULD AL GORE DRINK?
“Global warming beer made from melting ice caps.” I read the headlines scattered around the Internet: Some Danish guys are making beer in Greenland — from Arctic ice that predates the Industrial Revolution, ergo, pollution — and the buzz is huge. When I first heard about Greenland Brewhouse’s new beer, I was ready to give…
SELECTIONS
Thursday•15;;;; ;Hitler’s Courts: The Betrayal of the Rule of Law in Nazi Germany It’s scary to watch this historical documentary, which sharply captures the evil reality that resulted when a country’s laws were deliberately perverted by its leader, right under the noses of the lawmakers themselves. Tackling Holocaust subject matter has been a mission for…
IN A FAMILY WAY
With the sly Lothario swagger informing their debut, Some Midnight Kissin’, one might expect to make interview acquaintance with Lakeland’s Dark Romantics on a stained mattress in the middle of some condemned L.A. studio in the mid-’80s: cigarette butts and spilled wine included. “We were in the middle of practicing,” says vocalist Eric Collins over…
LET THERE BE LIGHT
“It’s go time,” boast the banners flapping in the breeze outside Star Mazda on South Orange Blossom Trail. But at this time — 7:45 p.m. on a Tuesday night — there apparently isn’t much going on. New vehicles sit on the lot while not a soul pays them any mind. But Star Mazda is the…
BLISTER
Way back when I was a broken straw in plastic pants digging with my pinkie nail for the meaning of life at the bottom of dollhouse-sized Ziploc bags, each substance I piled into my nose, my mouth and my posterior (really) operated as its own kind of emotional, pop-cultural spackle: a gram of cocaine for…
ALTERNATE UNIVERSES
Despite the fact that more Americans know the names of characters created by DC Comics (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman), Marvel Comics, home of Spider-Man, the Hulk and X-Men, continues to own the cineplex as one big-screen adaptation of its titles after another is released. In fact, Marvel will drop four new movies this year: Spider-Man…
SAVAGE LOVE
;Hey, everybody: Because it’s Valentine’s Day — or it just was, depending on when you’re reading this — and to counter the impression that fetishes and impulsive hookups always lead to conflict and heartache, I asked vanilla types contentedly partnered with kinky motherfuckers and vice versa, along with anyone who ever took a chance on…
CINEMA GRANDE
;Though it boasts a full range of non-cinematic events, ranging from graffiti art displays to street theater and musical performances, the Orlando Latin American Film & Heritage Festival (aka OLA Fest) remains at heart an exposition of Latin filmmaking. Only in its third year, OLA Fest has expanded from its inaugural slate of five films…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
ARIES “Dear Rob: Could you tell me how I can get men to remove me from the pedestals they put me on? If something doesn’t change soon, I’ll have to call down the lightning and obliterate their delusions. Sorry if that sounds violent, but storms start building when I feel cramped by demands disguised as…
Strike one, Tony
Local 6 finally aired the first segement of their much-hyped “Guetzloe Files” last night and it was â?¦ pretty damn unimpressive. In what I imagine was Tony Pipitone’s MOST IMPORTANT TV NEWSMAN VOICE (I didn’t watch it, I caught the web version), he announced that â?¦ are you sitting down? â?¦ a political consultant was…
