The players’ club
The stereotypical film school is an incubator for hatchling Kurosawas, amateur directors desperate to make grand statements before the realities of the business force them into turning out commercial works to pay their bills. At Valencia Community College, they’ve cut directly to the chase, cultivating a production program that’s unabashed in its intent to prepare…
Romance without a climax
Movie: Playing by Heart
Romance without a climax
Movie: Playing by Heart
A one-sided conversation
Sanford Cloud Jr. seemed to have radical ambitions. “Our focus honors Dr. King’s effort just before his death to assemble the ‘Poor Peoples’ March’ for economic justice,” the president and CEO of the National Conference for Community and Justice said. “We must start with a dialogue that brings to light the role of racism in…
Telling a tale of two cities
Russ Rymer called his new book “American Beach.” But its subtitle — “A Saga of Race, Wealth, and Memory” — cuts to the heart of the dilemma that the book traces, and sharpens the distinctions it draws between Disney’s Celebration and Eatonville. That contrast makes the volume particularly apt reading this week, as Eatonville stages…
Sweat suit gets short shrift
Surprisingly, Disney was not among 18 companies sued last week in a series of $1 billion racketeering suits charging sweatshop abuses. The suit claims retailers including The Gap, The Limited, Sears and Tommy Hilfiger engaged in a conspiracy with Saipan-based sweatshop owners to use indentured servants to produce clothes that were then labeled “Made in…
Parramore gets a plan
A planning and review board has set a timetable for Parramore’s revitalization: By March 31, the volunteer panel, which Mayor Hood convened in August to help plan a redevelopment effort in the blighted area, says it will have reviewed all of the neighborhood’s crime-control programs. The crime profile will be the first step in turning…
McCollum playing favorites?
Bill McCollum, the House hard-ass on drugs and immigration, has a heart after all. He has introduced a bill that would allow the 32-year-old son of a local couple to return to Florida, even though he’s been deported to Canada after serving time for drug-related charges. “The foundation for those private bills is something exceptional,…
Riding shotgun
According to police in Boca Raton, Fla., pedestrian Kenneth DeLeon was accidentally hit by a curb-jumping car in August, driven by Adam Blumhof, 22, and fell through the windshield, landing headfirst in the passenger seat. Blumhof drove on for about a mile, punching DeLeon and screaming at him to get out. He eventually stopped and…
Dow Jones gets on welfare
The politicians of both political parties are bragging that they’ve “reformed” welfare by kicking the most egregious moochers off the dole. But here’s a shocking new report of massive welfare abuse and scandal in New York City. This particular nest of welfare grubbers is not located in a slum tenement, though it’s no less addicted…
Bound for glory
Someone has said that to those who cannot hear the music, the dancers are mad. Similarly, to those whose lives are digitalized with books-on-tape, articles online, laser copies and cyber verse, artists devoted to publishing art books are in denial. Flying Horse Press, a small, elite, in-house art press run by the University of Central…
Review – The Oranj Album
Artist: Oranj Symphonette
Review – Big Johns
Artist: Jennyanykind
Review – Up Up Up Up Up Up
Artist: Ani DiFranco
Review – Docâ??s Da Name 2000
Artist: Redman
Review – The Oranj Album
Artist: Oranj Symphonette
Review – Big Johns
Artist: Jennyanykind
Review – Up Up Up Up Up Up
Artist: Ani DiFranco
Review – Docâ??s Da Name 2000
Artist: Redman
Review – The Oranj Album
Artist: Oranj Symphonette
Review – Big Johns
Artist: Jennyanykind
Review – Up Up Up Up Up Up
Artist: Ani DiFranco
Review – Docâ??s Da Name 2000
Artist: Redman
Review – Up Up Up Up Up Up
Artist: Ani DiFranco
Review – The Oranj Album
Artist: Oranj Symphonette
Review – Docâ??s Da Name 2000
Artist: Redman
Review – Big Johns
Artist: Jennyanykind
Black still sprinkled with Pixie dust
“He don’t need the power/ just to make a sound/ He is not the man that he used to be/ oh, no, the man who was too loud,” sings Frank Black on the closing track of his latest album, “Frank Black and the Catholics.” “I will play softly/ I will play softly/ I will play…
Indie vets show theory of evolution
Since forming in 1989, Superchunk have toured and recorded relentlessly, weathered personnel changes, formed their own successful indie label and evolved from a decent punk-rock outfit into one of the indie world’s most assured purveyors of sunny guitar-pop. Frontman Mac McCaughan is refreshingly matter-of-fact regarding the Chapel Hill, N.C.-based band’s progress. “When we first started…
Lenz crafting
Texas rockabilly queen Kim Lenz won’t say she’s on a mission from God. But her particular line of work as an over-the-top evangelist of the music of Carl Perkins and Gene Vincent is closer to a religious calling than the former psychology student once might have imagined. The native of Southern California was a music…
Pick off the litter
Anne Geddes is a photographer who takes treacly pictures of babies dressed as flowers and vegetables, and her photos enjoy phenomenal success. And why not? Everyone loves babies. They produce smiles as instantly as music or a smartly placed vibrating pager. They’re adorable and innocent and don’t fight back or become sullen when you dress…
Clinging to cultural identity
While the media has focused on the coming of the year 2000, the organizers of the 10th annual Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities are paying special attention to how Y2K will affect African-Americans. The resulting panel that kicks off this year’s festival on Wednesday, Jan. 27, will focus on concerns about…
Bridging the silence
Art Garfunkel, singer, actor, poet and proud father to 8-year-old James, doesn’t devote long hours to reflecting on the monumental success achieved in collaboration with Paul Simon three decades ago. He’s too busy touring in support of his Grammy-nominated 1997 album “Songs From a Parent to a Child,” working on material for his 12th solo…
Spicy retreat
It was 8:45 p.m. and the jokes were flying at our table. “You know you’re at a restaurant on I-Drive when … A) You wait an hour for a drink refill. B) You seriously consider going to the restroom for a glass of tap water. C) You actually do this, and the staff doesn’t notice.…
Expanding the pesto palette
How many ways can you have pesto with your pasta? The answer is eight, if you head over to MeLe Di Bari, a cute little Italian kitchen in Winter Park. There’s pesto with artichokes and cashews; with roasted sweet red peppers and toasted almonds; and with Spanish olives, habañeros and walnuts. There’s even pistachio pesto,…
