The Astronaut Farmer
The Astronaut Farmer Studio: Warner Bros. Rated: PG Website: http://theastronautfarmermovie.warnerbros.com/ Release Date: 2007-02-23 Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Virginia Madsen, Bruce Willis, Bruce Dern, Tim Blake Nelson Director: Michael Polish WorkNameSort: Astronaut Farmer, The Our Rating: 4.50 Old-fashioned American movie optimism collides with the grim realities of a post-Sept. 11 world in The Astronaut Farmer, a…
Reno 911!: Miami
Reno 911!: Miami Studio: Paramount Pictures Rated: R Website: http://www.reno911movie.com/ Release Date: 2007-02-23 Cast: Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon, Niecy Nash, Mary Birdsong, Cedric Yarbrough Director: Ben Garant WorkNameSort: Reno 911!: Miami Our Rating: 2.00 Overlong and unimaginative, this inflammation of the usually hilarious Comedy Central show goes to great lengths to justify its extended running…
Steve Martin – The Wild and Crazy Comedy Collection
Steve Martin – The Wild and Crazy Comedy Collection Studio: Universal Studios Rated: R Release Date: 2007-02-13 WorkNameSort: Steve Martin – The Wild and Crazy Comedy Collection These days, we don’t think of Steve Martin as an innovator. Not when he’s starring in standard family fare like the Cheaper by the Dozen and Pink Panther…
Hostage
Hostage Studio: Koch Lorber Films Rated: NOT RATED Release Date: 2007-02-13 Cast: Stathis Papadopoulos, Theodora Tzimou, Yannis Stankoglou, Minas Hatzisavvas, Arto Apartian Director: Constantine Giannaris WorkNameSort: Hostage Based on a 1999 Greek bus-jacking by an Albanian man ‘ not the 2004 Greek bus-jacking by two Albanian men ‘ Constantine Giannaris’ Hostage is one of the…
The Johnny Carson Show
The Johnny Carson Show Studio: Shout Factory Rated: NOT RATED Release Date: 2007-02-20 WorkNameSort: Johnny Carson Show, The Before Carnac the Magnificent and Stump the Band defined Carson’s tenure on NBC’s Tonight Show Johnny Carson hosted a variety show on CBS. Called The Johnny Carson Show, it ran for a single season, 1955-56. Ten episodes…
HUNGRY FOR MORE
A whole lotta soul, but not much food at Mama Nems’
Out of the Blue: 30th Anniversary Edition
Out of the Blue: 30th Anniversary Edition Label: Sony Length: LP Release Date: 2007-02-20 Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Out of the Blue: 30th Anniversary Edition Say what you will about the music of the late ’70s, there’s no denying how great a musical year 1977 was. Besides stunning punk debuts like Never Mind the…
TecharÃ
TecharàLabel: Diquela Length: LP Website: http://www.ojosdebrujo.com/ Release Date: 2006-03-20 Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: TecharàBy naming their latest release TecharÃ, or ‘freeâ?� in the Gypsy dialect Caló, Barcelona’s neo-flamenco musical cooperative Ojos de Brujo (Wizard’s Eyes) summed up the essence of its latest release with one word. The clan’s third album is more…
Soft Skeletons
Soft Skeletons Label: French Kiss Length: LP Website: http://www.callmelightning.com/ Release Date: 2007-02-20 Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Soft Skeletons Chief among a frontman’s many responsibilities is selling the band’s drama convincingly, conveying the impression that everybody means business or at least is having so much fun pretending to mean business that everybody else buys into…
Amazing Grace
Amazing Grace Studio: Walden Media Rated: PG Website: http://www.amazinggracemovie.com/ Release Date: 2007-02-23 Cast: Ioan Gruffudd, Albert Finney, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Gambon, Romola Garai Director: Michael Apted WorkNameSort: Amazing Grace Our Rating: 2.00 Just in from the Liberal Guilt Bureau, Historical Division, is this overstuffed tale of William Wilberforce (played by Ioan Gruffudd), a British MP…
THIS LITTLE UNDERGROUND
;The pairing of think-rap troupe Sol.illaquists of Sound and y’allternative band the Heathens at the Social last Friday seemed a stretch, despite them being two of the best acts in town. A cool idea, yes, but a long shot nonetheless. Rather than a polarized ;middle-school dance, however — or worse, a barroom brawl — it…
BALKAN EXPRESS
A Bosnian, a Serb and a Croat walk into a cafe. No, really — during my first visit to Irma’s Cafe Europa, a trio of seemingly adversarial Slavs were gathered around the bar enjoying espressos and beer while shooting the breeze, not each other. The welcoming Adriatic charm of the place may have had something…
I LOVE TELEVISION
QUESTION: How come you never see any memorials to dead TV shows on the side of the road? Dead people get roadside tributes all the time … crosses nailed to trees, flowers on lampposts, shrines on hairpin curves — yet not one is dedicated to MacGyver! I need to express my grief, too! (Sniff.) If…
ARTS & CULTURE TO GO
;Nude Nite ;; There was much ado about Nude Nite Feb. 15-17 in the old Cruises Only building on Colonial Drive. It’s an Orlando tradition that has left some wondering if the originally “underground” concept has outgrown its audience: an exhibition of titillating artworks timed to coincide with Valentine’s Day. Turns out that peeking at…
HAPPYTOWN
We’ve been thinking way too much about Orlando’s coming Creative Village — the planned redevelopment of the Centroplex — mostly because it’s just outside our window; if we press our fingers to our eyes and will the Amway Arena away, that is. Well, alas, the city wants you to think about it, too, west downtown…
POLICE BEAT
;FEB. 7, 1:47 P.M.: A popular cell phone store in the 2500 block of West Colonial Drive was raided tonight by an unknown person or persons. After craftily slicing the lock off a roll-up side door, the suspect(s) slipped inside, but not with plans to pocket an undetermined amount of Nokias, headsets and car chargers.…
LETTERS
Loner I spend a lot of time in bars alone. As sad as that seems (and is) it gives me plenty of time to read Orlando Weekly as I sip my favorite brew. “Blister” has given me a reason to continue living (well, that and Percocet). We’ve even given you a shout-out, as the kids…
DILTZ FLASHBACK
Henry Diltz was one of them — a hippie musician high on the California counterculture scene, style and music created by the leading edge of the boomer generation as it came of age in the ’60s. He rode a new wave of peace, love, rock & roll and life-and-mind-blowing drugs and experiences to the fore,…
GOLD-PLATED PENS
;It’s hard to take seriously any institution that purports to be an awards show for the best of anything, like screenwriting, when it can’t even manage to nominate the best screenplay of any kind this year, Stranger Than Fiction by Zach Helm. This isn’t an exaggeration either. Helm’s masterpiece was the hottest property around Hollywood…
SELECTIONS
;Thursday•22 ;;Ron White Even if you can’t fix stupid, you can make a fairly lucrative career out of pouring Scotch whisky on it. Or at least Ron White can. As the still-palatable piece of corn in the Blue Collar Comedy Tour shitpile, White, with his smiling-raconteur take on all things liquored and ludicrous, blithely transcends…
MOVIE-MAKING MUSIC
A couple of years ago, West Coast turntablist Mike Relm made it fairly easy to have some people into your living room and turn a low-key social outing into a depraved, beer-ridden music trivia match. Anyone who procured Relm’s Radio Fryer mix tape could have accomplished this, and if you didn’t, well, you’re just too…
IMMIGRANT SONG
;At first glance, Los Tigres del Norte are to norteño music what Elvis is to rock & roll. One writer for the Los Angeles Times Magazine, after attending a Los Tigres concert in their home state of Sinaloa, Mexico, even likened the experience to seeing Elvis play in Memphis. Down to the penchant for kitschy…
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
;After 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford’s 2005 murder, Florida politicians reacted as politicians do. They made a law. They made it tough. They rammed it through the Legislature at warp speed. No one voted against it. ; ;The Jessica Lunsford Act not only stiffened penalties for sexual predators and tightened the state’s oversight of sex offenders, it…
BLISTER
And we’re just so busy. Busy, busy. Busy scissors, oh-oh, oh-oh. “You’re a hairdresser on fire!” Taylor snips and swishes as we gather in anticipation of what might just be the best, most ridiculous night ever. “No, you are!” I twist and pout. Morrissey’s coif is holding asexual sonic court in my gracious drawing room…
ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST
On Feb. 12, an icon of the Orlando tourism industry passed into history. Skull Kingdom, the massive walk-through haunted house near the corner of International Drive and Universal Boulevard, closed its doors in November. Last week the building and all its contents went up for auction. But it appears the auctioneer’s gavel was unable to…
SAVAGE LOVE
;Last week, we heard from straight readers; this week, gay, lesbian, bi and trans readers share their happy endings. Enjoy.;; ;I was an inexperienced 19-year-old girl from the suburbs. After dating for a few months, my boyfriend told me that he was bi. I freaked out. I struggled with the normal question: Is he gay?…
THE WAR AT HOME
;Weaving through the back roads of the Central Florida Research Park, beyond the eastward conclusion of State Road 408, it’s difficult to get a sense that you are in the heart of Orlando’s military machine. A right on Ingenuity Drive, a left on Science Drive, a right on Technology Parkway, another on Research Parkway and…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
ARIES Have no fear of the damp and the dark and the cramped. In a place fitting that description, you can track down clues to a mystery that will inflame your curiosity and educate your soul; you can tap into a fresh surge of courage that’ll render at least some of your suffering irrelevant. Expect…
America’s screwed-up priorities, Pt. 847
Really? ST. PETERSBURG – The notes under the door. The incessant phone calls. The impassioned pleas, all begging for a piece of the story. It wasn’t reporters in search of secret intelligence involving the war in Iraq. The subject: St. Petersburg’s Jennifer Mee, a 15-year-old who started hiccuping four weeks ago today and has yet…
