Jan 19-25, 2011

Jan 19-25, 2011 / Vol. 27 / No. 3

Confirmed film openings for Friday, Jan. 28

Remember how Sofia Coppola’s divisive Somewhere opened here last weekend without hardly a TV spot (or press screening)? I’m gonna try to help fix that – besides, y’know, reviewing the films, which you should still totally look for every week in print Wednesdays and online Thursdays – by posting confirmed bookings here as I get…

Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind finally coming out? Hmm.

It was during the 2007 Florida Film Festival when Peter Bagdanovich made an announcement that the deal for the world might finally see The Other Side of the Wind was “99.9% finished.” It was an exciting moment for film fans everywhere. Orson Welles and John Huston together! And then nothing happened. The story has popped…

Chocolate + film = gooey disaster. Or $500.

Hey you crazy kids out there, with your camcorder around your neck and a dream in your heart: The Festival of Chocolate (March 4-6) wants you! The annual(?) chocofest at the Orlando Science Center is opening up their festivities to wannabe filmmakers. The mission:”create a unique ‘chocolate’ twist on a classic fairytale or develop an…

South Florida farmworkers’ victory in pages of New York Times

In November, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers – a group of activists and farm workers struggling for higher wages and better working conditions for South Florida’s migrant tomato pickers – signed a historic agreement with the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, marking the pinnacle of a decade and a half campaign filled with actions ranging from…

Local filmmakers to attempt endurance drive to the Arctic

Inspired by Top Gear, two local filmmakers – David Kaine and Charles Corbett – are hoping to set out on an expedition of their own this winter. They’re going to attempt to drive from the southernmost point in the U.S. (“Mile Zero” in Key West) to the northernmost, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. It’s 5,500 miles and…

Matthew Shipp to be artist-in-residence at Atlantic Center for the Arts

As you may or may not know, the Atlantic Center for the Arts in little ol’ New Smyrna Beach hosts Artist-in-Residence programs, bringing in noted musicians, visual artists, and writers for a three-week period, during which the artists collaborate on new works with those “associate artists” talented enough to hang (and learn). Those works are…

Southern Fried Sunday needs a new home

It looks as though the January edition of Southern Fried Sunday – a very special fifth anniversary edition, at that – will be the monthly event’s last appearance at Copper Rocket. According to organizer Jessica Pawli, the owners of the Rocket “have decided it’s no longer financially feasible to host the event.” Although SFS has…

Rahat Fateh Ali Khan coming to … Kissimmee?

Central Florida is soooooo weird. Legendary Qawwali singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan is coming to the area and doing a concert on April 1. That’s not what’s weird. What’s weird is that it’s at Silver Spurs Arena, out in Kissimmee’s Osceola Heritage Park. Yeah, where the rodeo is. Not some intimate performance hall at Rollins.…

Ebert Presents At the Movies? Not in Orlando. (Updated w/ Stream)

Over the upcoming weekend, most of the top 50 markets will be greeted by two new faces on their televisions as Christy Lemire of The Associated Press and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of Mubi.com take over on the balcony made famous by Siskel and Ebert. Not Orlando, though. Not anywhere in Florida, for that matter, despite having…

Finish January with some primo screenings

UPDATE: I’ve just learned from OMA that the For the Bible Tells Me So screening has been postponed. I’ll keep you posted when/if it’s rescheduled. A confluence of great film screenings is upon us, and what better way to ring out this crappy start to 2011. Venues: We need more of these. For our sanity…

Live Music Tonight [Soft Rock-a-palooza]

Man, if you are a fan of smooth sounds, tonight is a great night for you to bust out the rosé.  To wit: Barry Manilow at the Amway Center. Kenny Loggins and Christopher Cross (HOLY SHIT!) in Melbourne at the King Center. Ottmar Liebert and Luna Negra at the Plaza. A Journey cover band –…

Are you ready for the International Noise Conference?

It’s getting to be that time of year, when Florida is awash in noise of varying violence and beauty … yup, it’s almost time for the International Noise Conference. Florida’s iteration of the Conference is again taking place in Miami at Churchill’s, with the dates set as February 10-12. And, as usual, the Conference follows…

New music from Edgar Jr.

Homemade is the first CD from local acoustic musician Edgar Jr. You may have seen Edgar playing the standard coffeehouse gigs around town – Stardust, Natura, and the like – and you probably noticed that he’s a little … different from your typical earnest coffeehouse fare. (Like, sure, you’ve seen a dude play a Radiohead…

Staying In Touch With Orlando Weekly’s Music Coverage

Just a friendly reminder that we’re all over this whole Internet thing. Of course, you’re on our very own website right now, so that’s great. But maybe you might want to bookmark the music section because it’s awesome? We always want to hear what you’ve got going on, so hit us up on email at…

Live Active Cultures

I’m no basketball booster, and Mayor Buddy Dyer didn’t invite me to flush toilets with him and Dwight Howard. So it took until last week, when Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus came to town, for a clown like me to inspect the newly opened Amway Center, aka Orlando’s gold-plated gift to multimillionaire multi-level…

Comments

Who’s watching Copwatch? George Crossley (who also was a friend of mine) was NEVER the “head” of Orlando Copwatch, although he certainly did everything humanly possible to foster that belief. (“Orlando’s Copwatch brought back to life by Libertarians,” Bloggytown, Oct. 20, 2010). Mark Schmitter (a participant in the new “Orlando Copwatch”) is wrong when he…

A bar is reborn

Drake’s Bar
 565 W. Fairbanks Ave.,
Winter Park
407-513-4815
www.boathouseofwinterpark.com
$ Drake’s Bar is a throwback of sorts. The French-parlor-meets-Old-West style keeps the saloon from veering too far into trendy territory, but restaurateur Craig Tremblay also made a concerted effort to restore 
aesthetic elements from Harper’s Tavern. Harper’s, the original bar at this address, stood here from 1930 until…

Culture 2 Go

Ever wonder how the city of Orlando selects the artwork that hangs on the walls and in the galleries of City Hall, or the sculptures found in public spaces around town? Then it might interest you to attend a meeting of the city’s Public Art Advisory Board, a nine-member panel that helps the city decide…

Free Will Astrology

ARIES (March 21-April 19) The age-old question comes up for review once again: Which should predominate, independence or interdependence? The answer is always different, of course, depending on the tenor of the time and the phase of your evolution. But in the coming weeks, at least, my view is that you should put more emphasis…

This Little Underground

A good friend from a prestigious, historically black college once called me the blackest Asian he ever met. Maybe it was my politics. Maybe it was the music I was listening to. Or maybe it’s my enthusiasm for stepping, the dance tradition of African-American fraternities and sororities. The coordination, the cadence, the sheer physical force…

Happytown

We should have seen this
coming. Well, actually we did, but we chose to cover our eyes and blissfully whistle along to our own imaginary theme song (like that one from television’s Bosom Buddies ) as we watched the ascension of our new favorite power couple, CannonHair. Florida Speaker of the House Dean Cannon was clearly…

Brian Feldman Marries Anybody: Part III (The Annulment!)

Last February, this paper reported on “Brian Feldman Marries Anybody,” the latest in a long line of absurdist art experiments from Orlando’s most prolific (or at least most self-publicizing) performance artist. Most of Feldman’s projects – from leaping off ladders to dining onstage with his family – have been surreally stripped of any identifiable purpose,…

New EP available from MRENC

A couple of weeks ago we told you about the giddy wonderfulness of MRENC’s “Everything Is So Great” getting some blog love (and it just got some more too, this time from What I Heard Today). Well, apparently Mr. Enc has been on a bit of a prolific bender lately, as he’s just posted a…

New John Coltrane tracks unearthed

Forgive me while I go on a tangent for a moment. I usually try and keep this blog content hyperlocal and about people who are actually, you know, alive, but please allow me this indulgence. Three new John Coltrane tracks were recently dug up, and for some folks (like me!) this is pretty big news.…

American-born homeless database is heading to Canada

As the more patient folks in the audience may already know, my lengthy feature article this week charts the growth of the Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) database, a federally-mandated registry of homeless and economically disadvantaged people which has been growing both in size and scope over the past decade. Here in Central Florida, the…

Happy Birthday, Brian Chodorcoff … you suck!

OK, first, there is at least one thing wrong with that headline. Mainly that local guitarist Brian Chodorcoff’s birthday isn’t until next week. But, he is celebrating his birthday a little early, thanks to a pretty fantastic birthday show that’s been set up at Will’s Pub this Saturday in his honor. And that, my friends,…

New CD release highlights for the week [Jan. 18]

It looks like the Tuesday release schedule is slowly shifting back into gear for 2011, and with that in mind, I thought I’d resurrect an old idea of running down a few highlights of the week’s release schedule. This isn’t everything, but just a handful of the better and more interesting items. Braids – Native…


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