Hell yeah
As of this second, I’m officially in the Barack Hussein camp. And here’s why: A speech he gave calling for national health care. Read it below (warning: it’s really long). It’s optimistic and realistic at the same time. And that this came on the heels of a meeting wherein we at OW were told our…
Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? Label: Polyvinyl Length: LP Website: http://www.ofmontreal.net/ Release Date: 2007-01-23 Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? According to the latest bio, Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes has been through some difficult personal times ‘ and if one’s inclined to focus on the lyrics herein, one might…
This Bliss
This Bliss Label: Dial Length: LP Website: http://www.panthaduprince.com/ Release Date: 2007-01-29 Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: This Bliss Sometimes it’s all in a name. This Bliss is built of bright, headphones-ready tech-house, where decaying bleep spreads and digital synths resound far more prominently than do the gentle beats beneath them. (The Artist Sometimes Known As)…
Learn to Sing Like a Star
Learn to Sing Like a Star Label: Yep Roc Length: LP Rated: NONE Release Date: 2007-01-29 Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Learn to Sing Like a Star Ex-Throwing Muse Kristin Hersh makes weird records. They’re not the kind of obvious, look-at-me-and-how-strange-I-am records that regularly pass through the post-punk art-damage world; they’re quietly and subtly bizarre…
DARE TO PAIR
Wine bar does its part to elevate MetroWestâ??s dining scene
Catch and Release
Catch and Release Studio: Sony Pictures Entertainment Rated: PG-13 Website: www.sonypictures.com/movies/catchandrelease/ Release Date: 2007-01-27 Cast: Jennifer Garner, Timothy Olyphant, Juliette Lewis, Sam Jaeger, Fiona Shaw Director: Susannah Grant Screenwriter: Susannah Grant WorkNameSort: Catch and Release Our Rating: 2.00 Catch and Release opens with a funeral, which is a not-so-funny way for a romantic comedy trying…
Smokin’ Aces
Smokin’ Aces Studio: Universal Studios Rated: R Website: www.smokinaces.net/ Release Date: 2007-01-26 Cast: Ben Affleck, Jeremy Piven, Ryan Reynolds, Andy Garcia, Alicia Keys Director: Joe Carnahan Screenwriter: Joe Carnahan WorkNameSort: Smokin’ Aces Our Rating: 3.50 It’s easy to dismiss director Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces as nothing but brainless violence desperately trying to suck whatever milk…
Sweet Land
Sweet Land Studio: Forward Entertainment LLC Rated: PG Website: www.sweetlandmovie.com/ Release Date: 2006-10-13 Cast: Alan Cumming, Ned Beatty, Lois Smith, Tim Guinee, Elizabeth Reaser Director: Ali Selim Screenwriter: Ali Selim WorkNameSort: Sweet Land Our Rating: 2.50 What we have here is an otherwise respectable period drama that keeps descending to an after-school-special level of bluntness.…
Welcome to Durham
Welcome to Durham Studio: Defend Films Rated: NOT RATED Website: www.welcometodurhamusa.com/ Release Date: 2007-01-23 Director: Christopher “Play” Martin WorkNameSort: Welcome to Durham Christopher ‘Playâ?� Martin of Kid ‘n Play fame explores, in this harrowing hip-hopumentary, the slow decay ‘ thanks to an explosion of gang activity ‘ of a once-prosperous, black-owned community in North Carolina.…
Jesus Camp
Jesus Camp Studio: Magnolia Pictures Rated: PG-13 Website: www.jesuscampthemovie.com/ WorkNameSort: Jesus Camp Directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (The Boys of Baraka) take on this film’s hot-button subject matter with as much objectivity as possible. Still, Jesus Camp, like David Kuo’s book Tempting Faith, seems intended for an audience of progressive analyzers of the country’s…
La Moustache
La Moustache Studio: Koch Lorber Films Rated: NOT RATED Release Date: 2007-01-16 Cast: Vincent Lindon, Emmanuelle Devos, Mathieu Amalric, Hippolyte Girardot, Cylia Malki Director: Emmanuel Carrère WorkNameSort: La Moustache So this guy shaves his mustache off, kicking off a slowly unfolding chain of misremembrance, identity crisis and all-around losing his mind. Of course it’s a…
TOP SHELF RIDDIMS
King Jammy gathers up his still-unfolding dancehall legacy
Vietnam
Vietnam Label: Kemado Length: LP Website: http://www.vtnm.net/ Release Date: 2007-01-23 Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Vietnam Snare rolls and guitar wailing mark a lot of the deeply medicated blues on Vietnam’s full-length debut, but don’t discount the colorful portraits of departed friends and simpler times that seem voiced by a man twice the age of…
SELECTIONS
;Thursday•25 ;Indigo Girls It’s almost impossible to believe that it’s been 20 years since the Indigo Girls first struck their folk match to the pop matchbox with their quiet debut, Strange Fire. It’s even harder to believe that — weathering the whiplash of pop music’s forgetful curve — Amy Ray and Emily Saliers continue to…
HOW TO PLAY A RECORD
;As the preferred music-delivery device for most of the latter half of the 20th century, the vinyl LP is nowadays made out by some people — usually obsessive audiophiles — to be the central element in a sacrament, rather than merely a way to listen to some tunes. A complex combination of equipment and a…
WAX ATTACK
Since vinyl LPs all but disappeared from mainstream music stores in the early ’90s, there have been frequent stories trumpeting statistical blips that indicate records are making a comeback. For instance, when the RIAA released midyear sales numbers for 2006, vinyl’s market share had doubled from 2005. (Of course that doubling was from .5 percent…
THE MOST METAL MONTH
;For years, the start of a new calendar has meant one thing for metal fans: an overwhelming barrage of releases from every imaginable subgenre of heavy music they hold dear. Maybe it’s a way to make the heart of winter a little less (or more) gloomy. Or maybe it’s just because independent labels are smart…
INCHING AHEAD
“We all think it’s got to go,” Orlando city commissioner Robert Stuart says. “It’s probably not legal.” Stuart, who heads the nonprofit Christian Service Center, is referring to the city’s 1999 ordinance that forbids social-service groups that help the homeless in Parramore, like his, from expanding or renovating. The city has long felt the presence…
BLISTER
“Hold on,” Tony game-faces his cigarette. “Let’s finish these while cleverly measuring up the competition.” “Ooh, ugly people and children first, I always say,” I don’t. We’re leering at the garage side of the giant chute that connects the Orlando Science Center with its automotive traffic, and while teen hooker JoJo’s (JoJo!) “Too Little, Too…
THE KING OF IRONY
Nearly 25 years ago, a gap-toothed comic with hooded eyes and bushy hair smiled his now-famous insincere smile for the first time on his own late-night talk show. The date was Feb. 1, 1982, and the comedian was 34-year-old David Letterman, fresh from a devastating three-month stint as the host of a hilarious but little-watched…
SAVAGE LOVE
;When I was a promiscuous young man, I had lots of anal sex. I particularly loved rough, unlubricated anal sex with those wonderful women who enjoyed the same. I swore I would never be with a woman who didn’t love anal. But I am now dating a woman whom I love intensely and who is…
IN DEFENSE OF RYAN REYNOLDS
;Ryan Reynolds presents a conundrum: Critics universally loathe every movie he’s been in while simultaneously regarding him as an exceptional comic actor who should already be a member of the A-list. Like disapproving parents, said critics shake their heads every time the actor releases a new pic and fail to deliver the praise he most…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
ARIES In recent years, groups of students at Yale and other Ivy League universities have pioneered a unique cultural trend: naked parties. Those in attendance at one of these invitation-only affairs agree to spend the evening in their birthday suits. “The dynamic is completely different from a clothed party,” reports Yalie Megan Crandell, quoted in…
THIS LITTLE UNDERGROUND
;The latest example of the music industry’s continuing cluelessness is the arrest of DJ Drama and others last week in Atlanta for felony violations of RICO laws. A magnate of the mix tape scene through his “Gangsta Grillz” series, he’s a defining part of the meteoric Southern rap movement. Despite what it’s become under the…
FALL OF THE RAMEN EMPIRE
The man who launched a million MSG headaches died Jan. 5, in Osaka, Japan. Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant ramen, founded Nissin Food products in 1948, and the first iteration of the salty dorm rations appeared in 1958: “Chikin Ramen.” (I guess they tasted like chikin.) But before you dimiss those deep-fried bricks of…
I LOVE TELEVISION
I love kids. In fact, I love kids so much I have roughly 27 of them scattered all over the country. (There could be more … I’m highly regarded for the potency of my seed.) The downside of having spawned so many illegitimate children is having to appear on The Maury Povich Show for one…
ARTS & CULTURE TO GO
;Avalon Island ; Wipe the word DMAC out of your mouth. Ford Kiene’s historic building at South Magnolia Avenue and East Pine Street has a new identity: Avalon Island. Originally known as the Rogers Building, the freshly refurbished two-story eye-catcher is now under the management of Jeff Shonkwiler — the “lord of Avalon” is his…
COUNCIL WATCH
;Just 11 short days since the last contentious meeting of the minds and it was already time to get back to business. But what business could there be, really? Just how fast do the wheels turn in the City Beautiful?; ;Whereas the last city council meeting was ripe with shenanigans and a fiery debate on…
HAPPYTOWN
Not that we like to brag about the number of times that we’ve been in bed with lawyers (at least lawyers whose names we remember the next morning), but it’s entirely possible that we might have engaged in some pillow talk last week. At about the same time we were putting together our cover feature…
POLICE BEAT
;JAN. 8, 10:29 A.M.: A man headed over to an apartment off South Kirkman Road to help his brother pack. The bro was breaking up with his woman and needed outtie, pronto. As he packed goodies into boxes, he suddenly heard what sounded like the wailing of a baby — his brother’s ex’s wee one.…
LETTERS
Bush is no Amin John Thomason: As I was reading, and enjoying, your review of The Last King of Scotland `”Split personality,” Nov. 2` I was disappointed to find that even in writing about a fictional movie you didn’t pass up a chance to degrade our president: “Between his secret murders and mass graves, and…
