PAS DE DUDES
Brokeback Mountain Studio: Focus Features Rated: R Website: http://www.brokebackmountain.com Release Date: 2006-01-06 Cast: Linda Cardellini, Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway Director: Ang Lee Screenwriter: Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana WorkNameSort: Brokeback Mountain Our Rating: 4.50 The runaway success of Brokeback Mountain has been tempered by a certain amount of indignation. To hear some…
New York Doll
New York Doll Studio: First Independent Pictures Rated: PG-13 Website: http://www.newyorkdollmovie.com/ Release Date: 2006-01-05 Cast: Arthur Kane, David Johansen, Sylvain Sylvain, Barbara Kane, Johnny Thunders Director: Greg Whiteley WorkNameSort: New York Doll Our Rating: 2.50 A monkey with iMovie could find drama in the story of Arthur “Killer” Kane, the New York Dolls bassist and…
Casanova
Casanova Studio: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution Rated: NONE Website: http://casanova.movies.go.com/ Release Date: 2006-01-06 Cast: Heath Ledger, Sienna Miller, Jeremy Irons, Lena Olin, Oliver Platt Director: Lasse Hallström WorkNameSort: Casanova Our Rating: 3.00 I’m not sure I understand the wisdom of filming a story about Casanova (Heath Ledger) and then filling its 108 minutes with scenes…
BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG KITTY
Breakfast on Pluto Studio: Sony Pictures Classics Rated: R Website: http://www.sonyclassics.com/breakfastonpluto/ Release Date: 2006-01-06 Cast: Cillian Murphy, Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea, Brendan Gleeson, Laurence Kinlan Director: Neil Jordan Screenwriter: Patrick McCabe, Neil Jordan WorkNameSort: Breakfast on Pluto Our Rating: 5.00 No matter what you hear, Neil Jordan’s wonderful new film isn’t about a glitter-rock-era transsexual…
Pretty Little Head
Pretty Little Head Label: unreleased Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Pretty Little Head Diminutive blond powerhouse Nellie McKay pulls enough weight to lure Cyndi Lauper and K.D. Lang into guest spots on her sophomore album, which is as sweet and strong as a cup of sugar-doused espresso. Unlike the cutesy-pie singers flooding the WB these days, McKay…
With Love and Squalor
With Love and Squalor Label: Virgin Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: With Love and Squalor Albums like With Love and Squalor are prone to bite you in the ass. The tight-pants swagger and pop-hook bombast of a song like “Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt” will make you mutter things like “This is the best single I’ve ever…
What Are You On?
What Are You On? Label: Merge Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: What Are You On? Popular perception is that New Jersey’s a chemical dump, but actually it’s more a corporate theme park where Merck, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson practice chemical improvement for the masses. Add in the illegal contraband that slips through the ports and, well,…
Remembering Today
Remembering Today Label: Mush Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Remembering Today Somewhere in the speedy tape-reel crackles and ambient buzz melodies of Remembering Today actually lies a cohesive album. These recordings represent the period after producer/performer Zachary Mastoon completed work on the 2002 Caural album, Stars on My Ceiling. Less a cohesive album than a collection of…
LOST IN SPACE
First Impressions of Earth Label: RCA Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: First Impressions of Earth The Strokes’ debut album, 2001’s Is This It, sold over a million copies and received rave reviews, making the NYC group a rare modern-day concoction: a critically acclaimed rock & roll band that sells records. But this being the age of instant…
STILL A CUT ABOVE
Sound Mirrors Label: Ninja Tune Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Sound Mirrors The once low-profile Ninja Tune label’s impressive reputation as home to acts like Kid Koala, Amon Tobin and, more recently, jazz-patchworkers Skalpel can be traced straight back to its two high-profile founders: Jonathan More and Matt Black, the DJ duo best known as Coldcut. When…
CRITICS GOT BACK
Brokeback Mountain arrives in Orlando bearing the imprimatur of the Florida Film Critics Circle, which has lavished the film with four of the major accolades in its year-end awards. Brokeback won in the categories of Best Picture, Best Director (Ang Lee), Best Screenplay (Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana) and Best Cinematography (Rodrigo Prieto). Fifteen print…
Aerosmith, Get Him Eat Him, Launch 2006 and more
Thursday • 5 AEROSMITH/LENNY KRAVITZ The promotional materials for this show trumpet “Same stage, same night” as if it’s some miracle of God that we could possibly be blessed with both Aerosmith ’05 and an ironically more-past-his-prime Lenny Kravitz. With tickets starting at $56 (and topping out at $126), it’s obvious that this is less…
Notable Noise
Radio, as we all know, sucks. Right? Even in a midmarket city like Orlando that’s blessed with an astonishing number of stations, sometimes it’s hard to remember exactly which of those numerous stations you’re tuned into. The utter banality and redundancy of what gets played – when music manages to surface through the muck of…
BIGGER, THICKER, LAUDER
A new year is all about fresh beginnings, which is why I was totally jazzed about visiting a local maternity ward last week to get my first peek at a friend’s newborn baby. A real little cutie-pie he was, too, mercifully free of the Alfred-Hitchcock-gone-pygmy look so many of his kind tend to sport. The…
Blister
There’s a certain flavor of personally realized tragedy that I reserve for this time of year, the taint betwixt the ballsack of Christmas and the bunghole of New Year’s. And while I can’t put my finger on it, I inevitably spend most of the hairy week trying to shove that finger in it. There aren’t…
Rob Breszny’s Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19) I’m hoping that in 2006 you’ll work your ass off. Do you have it in you to break all your previous records for brilliant diligence? Are you willing to summon discipline and willpower not only to pump up your career ambitions but also to refine your approach to intimacy and increase…
Savage Love
Recently, my boyfriend and I broke up, one reason being his lack of initiative in calling me. After we broke up, I spoke with several of my girlfriends and found out that they, too, have similar troubles with their boyfriends or guys they are seeing. Some of these women are in serious, long-term, loving relationships.…
I Love Television
Celebrities! Unh! Good god, y’all, what are they good for? Absolutely nothin’ — SAY IT AGAIN! OK, I won’t say it again, but I shall not concede the point: Celebrities are paid waaaaaaaaay too much money for what they actually do. Pick a celebrity at random … OK, Kirsten Dunst. Holy cow, what a sack…
Police Beat
DEC. 27, 4:04 A.M.: A 59-year-old man was slumbering at his home in the 2800 block of West Arlington Street. The morning sun did not awake him at this wee hour; a prostitute did. A series of strange sounds provoked our dormant resident to roll over and open his eyes. Upon doing just that, he…
Letters
Nik to Bruno: No, you suck As it turns out, Bruno, Googling “NYC sux,” “New York City sucks” and a few other reasonable permutations of the sentiment you express `”Letters,” Dec. 29` yields a very similar number of results to “O-Town sux” and other parallel variants (somewhat less than 5,000 for each city). More notably,…
STILL PRODUCING
The first time I laughed after Sept. 11 I was listening to a radio interview with Rudy Giuliani. New York’s then-mayor was trying to persuade tourists to return to the city. As an inducement, he noted that, in the wake of the terrorist attack, it might be a little easier to get tickets to The…
PEOPLE WHO DIED
OK, so it hasn’t been such a great year. Natural disaster, war, pestilence – are those hoofbeats we hear? And in addition to the massive loss of life suffered thanks to catastrophic events such as tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, disease and combat, we’ve lost any number of individual notables – from Johnny Carson to Peter Jennings,…
