Such a deal
Prior to last Friday, I knew exactly two things about opera: 1) When the fat lady starts singing, it’s time to grab your coat; and 2) Never, ever sit under the chandelier. Thank you, Andrew Lloyd Webber. I can’t honestly claim that the Orlando Opera’s production of Faust at Carr Performing Arts Centre made me…
Works for laughs
Movie: Office Space
Shticky situation
Movie: Affliction
Rocket plot follows formula
Movie: October Sky
Head of its class
Movie: Rushmore
Sour bite
Movie: Jawbreaker
Works for laughs
Movie: Office Space
Shticky situation
Movie: Affliction
Rocket plot follows formula
Movie: October Sky
Head of its class
Movie: Rushmore
Sour bite
Movie: Jawbreaker
Jazzy but just preservation
Hollywood is built on illusion. So it’s no surprise that much of CityWalk, the new non-gated entertainment attraction at Universal Studios Escape that is anchored by Hard Rock Live, is as artificial as the movies that financed the creation of the entire tourist-trampled theme park. Pat O’Brien’s, a replica of the French Quarter watering hole,…
Behind the oddball
Welcome to the wondrously warped landscape of Rushmore, a world driven by the whims of Max Fischer, a 15-year-old prep-school student who not only views a sad-sack steel tycoon as his peer but engages in a pitched battle with him for the affections of a widowed schoolteacher. On paper this might sound hopelessly ludicrous, but…
A concerted effort
It’s my goal from a business standpoint to employ musicians so they don’t leave Orlando,” says Mark Fragos. He’s the president and CEO of the loftily named company Imaginary Frontier, which is presenting a classical concert this Sunday titled “Portrait of an American Composer.” Along with works by Bernstein, Copland and Berlin, the concert will…
Hospital cure?
Harris Rosen, the owner of the Omni Rosen and Clarion hotels, is looking to buy the bankrupt Princeton Hospital. “The key is to acquire the hospital for a price that will enable us to do innovative things and cut the hospital’s expenses and costs dramatically and then generate a positive cash flow,” he told the…
McCollum on fair play
There was a scene, during a memorial service in the U.S. Senate for former Gov. Lawton Chiles, in which President Clinton’s many tormentors made nice as Clinton back-slapped. Off to one side, Bill McCollum shot angry stares into the back of Clinton’s head. Tandy Chiles urged the assembled guests to put aside partisan rancor and…
Spring action
Night and day won’t balance each other out until next month, when winter and spring officially collide and trade places. But here the season of renewal is already blossoming. Festivals, fairs, art shows and other outdoor events are tumbling forth in their rush to beat the heat that arrives well before the summer solstice. What…
Natureâ??s call
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,” wrote Henry David Thoreau in “Walden.” Surely Thoreau retreated to the woods of Concord, Mass., to live a simple life immersed in what inspired him most — outdoor beauty. Then again, he also wanted to avoid paying taxes. But you needn’t be a civil-disobedience…
Marking change with ritual and belief
I’ve never been a good candidate for any established feminist group. Growing up in the 1970s, the women I idolized were sexy, tough, unapologetic — and fictional: Foxy Brown, Cat Woman, Charlie’s Angels. By the time I entered college, I felt more aligned with sex worker/activist Annie Sprinkle than with anti-porn crusader Andrea Dworkin. I…
Purple passion
On the eve of the Senate vote over whether to impeach the president, the most talked-about news story in the country was about a guy who got all freaked out because he thinks this one character’s a queer. The only person who could get their hackles raised over the sexuality of felt is holy roly-poly…
Screen saver
Roman Catholic Monsignor Ignatius McDermott, 88, blessed a Dell laptop computer in December at his headquarters in Chicago, which he believed to be a first (though priests have blessed animals, houses, Harley Davidsons and other things). “Maybe this will get `the younger generation’s` attention,” he said Government waste After a two-week hearing in January in…
Middle class misses the boom
These are the best of times — all the politicians, media sparklies and Wall Street analysts tell us so. Stock prices are soaring, jobs are being created by the zillions, people are buying fabulous new homes, and there’s caviar in every pot! Unless, of course, you live in the real world. Out here, you can…
Selective outings
Here’s a selective survey of outings. Go — before it’s too damn hot February February 18-April 1 Atlanta Braves Spring Training “America’s team” gets in shape to regain its world championship title of two seasons ago. Practice sessions (8 am-noon) begin with Thursday, Feb. 18, pitchers’ and catchers’ workout; the slate of afternoon and night…
Marking change with ritual and belief
Ah, spring, when a seed, suddenly sleepless, sends a shoot into the yielding earth. Even if it finds a Disney parking lot blocking its last thrust, it will, as poet Theodore Roethke wrote, keep hunting for chinks in the dark. The event that heralds this imperative is the vernal equinox, the first day of spring.…
Poetic license
The fate of the sensitive singer-songwriter is no longer as certain as it was a few years ago, when grunge’s gritty overstatement gave way to the kinder, gentler pastures of a VH-1-oriented Prozac honesty and the world listened attentively. Jude (Michael Jude Christodal) is one of the more peculiar outgrowths of the Jewel-ized folk resurgence.…
Into the woods, if you dare
Florida is full of dark woods, decayed groves and anonymous lakes, all easy places to “lose” unwanted company forever. It seems like the place we most often hear associated with strange vanishings, however, is the Ocala National Forest. Track the strange doings inside the 440,000-acre southernmost national forest, centered about 40 miles north of Orlando;…
Dining to support the written word
Back in the summer of 1957, Jack Kerouac paid $45 a month to rent the cottage that still stands at 1418 Clouser Ave. in College Park. With no air conditioning, the days were stifling. But at night, the street echoed with crickets’ chirping and the click-clack of typewriter keys, as he pounded out “Dharma Bums.”…
