Gun owners are doing what the police cannot.
It may not be a particularly popular position amongst some of my more traditionally liberal co-workers, but I am very much in favor of gun ownership and the right of individuals to protect themselves from violent criminals. Last night, three dudes busted into a house, fired off shots, and started ransacking the place. One of…
IRONED OUT
Pressed sandwiches and a little French-inspired savoir-fare
1408
1408 Studio: The Weinstein Company Rated: PG-13 Cast: John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson Director: Mikael HÃ¥lfström WorkNameSort: 1408 Our Rating: 2.00 Not only is the trailer for 1408 oodles more terrifying than the movie itself; worse, for the most part, this pop-horror trifle adapted from a Stephen King short story grows into a formulaic bore.…
Crazy Love
Crazy Love Studio: Magnolia Pictures Rated: PG-13 Director: Dan Klores, Fisher Stevens WorkNameSort: Crazy Love Our Rating: 3.00 Co-directors Dan Klores and Fisher Stevens revisit one of the century’s most compelling, unusual and disturbing love stories for this documentary. The scandalous tale of Linda Riss and Burt Pugach made every news outlet in the country…
Evan Almighty
Evan Almighty Studio: Universal Rated: PG Cast: Steve Carrell, Morgan Freeman Director: Tom Shadyac WorkNameSort: Evan Almighty Our Rating: 1.50 In Evan Almighty, writer Steve Oedekerk and director Tom Shadyac sure do love the poop humor. And with two of every animal making appearances in this modern-day Noah fairytale, there’s plenty of feces to go…
A Mighty Heart
A Mighty Heart Studio: Paramount Vantage Rated: R Cast: Angelina Jolie, Dan Futterman Director: Michael Winterbottom WorkNameSort: Mighty Heart, A Our Rating: 5.00 Riveting for every second, A Mighty Heart is the most commercial film that director Michael Winterbottom has made in the ’00s, but it’s just as uncompromising as his other recent foray into…
The Valet
The Valet Studio: Columbia TriStar Rated: PG-13 Cast: Gad Elmaleh, Kristin Scott Thomas Director: Francis Veber WorkNameSort: Valet, The Our Rating: 2.00 American producers must love French director Francis Veber. A veteran of Hollywood himself, having made Three Fugitives and Out on a Limb, Veber’s farcical comedies offer no distinction from the middlebrow commercial tripe…
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer Studio: 20th Century Fox Rated: PG Cast: Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis Director: Tim Story WorkNameSort: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer Our Rating: 3.00 Having unceremoniously face-raped Marvel Comics’ bedrock mythos with 2005’s Fantastic Four, Tim Story had nowhere to go but up. FF2 proves that he…
Jhoom Barabar Jhoom
Jhoom Barabar Jhoom Studio: Yash Raj Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Preity Zinta Director: Shaad Ali WorkNameSort: Jhoom Barabar Jhoom Our Rating: 2.50 A big-budget, big-hearted old-school Bollywood blockbuster aimed straight at Punjabi NRIs in the U.K., Jhoom is an empty, frivolous and thoroughly calculating bit of fluff; it’s also ridiculously enjoyable. The winking acknowledgment of the…
Silk
Silk Studio: Tartan Asia Extreme WorkNameSort: Silk One of the promotional quotes on the box art for Tartan’s release of Silk, ostensibly in praise of the movie, reads ‘The realism of White Noise with the sheer terror of The Eye.â?� Some pull-quote. Lumping Silk in the category of these two heaps of supernatural swill will…
The Verdict Collector’s Edition
The Verdict Collector’s Edition Studio: Fox WorkNameSort: Verdict Collector’s Edition , The One of three Paul Newman classics reissued in sterling two-disc sets from Fox, this Verdict Collector’s Edition is more than anyone can ask for. It suffers from redundancy, even, with at least two of its five featurettes re-packaging material already available elsewhere. But…
52 Pick-Up
52 Pick-Up Studio: MGM Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: 52 Pick-Up John Frankenheimer skillfully translates Elmore Leonard’s amoral Detroit pulp to an excessive Los Angeles cityscape in 52 Pick-Up, one of the better American thrillers of the 1980s. Frankenheimer evokes the seediest environments of the sex-crazed L.A. underground, navigating his adulterous antihero, Roy Scheider, through a vortex…
Labrador 100: A Complete History of Popular Music
Labrador 100: A Complete History of Popular Music Label: Labrador Format: Compilation WorkNameSort: Labrador 100: A Complete History of Popular Music Sweden knows its pop music. Without the talents of Swedish producer Max Martin, it’s quite likely that the world would have been spared most of the hits of the ’90s tween-pop craze, and the…
In Good We Trust
In Good We Trust Label: Stony Plain Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: In Good We Trust Two Canadian guitarists. Four days of recording. Eleven songs. Their second collaborative effort. A very striking cover of Bruce Springsteen’s (not Dwight Twilley’s) ‘I’m on Fire.â?� A solid tune named ‘Ship of Foolsâ?� that’s neither the Doors’…
We Can Create
We Can Create Label: Mute Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: We Can Create When he crafted the deceptively expansive We Can Create under the name Maps in his bedroom, James Chapman passed up Apple Logic for his 16-track recorder. The woozy, electronically nuanced pop of Chapman’s debut LP boasts a layer of sheen…
Anchored in Love: A Tribute to June Carter Cash
Anchored in Love: A Tribute to June Carter Cash Label: Dualtone Length: LP Media: CD Format: Compilation WorkNameSort: Anchored in Love: A Tribute to June Carter Cash Assembled by John Carter Cash, the only child of Johnny and June, to coincide with the publication of his book, Anchored in Love: An Intimate Portrait of June…
FLYING WITH SCISSORS
True confessions from the super set
BLISTER
What if it had never happened at all? What if a slightly less mucus-drenched take on Jabba the Hutt was never able to land his blimp-like personality square inside the Orlando consciousness to corporatize pedophilia? What if one giant blob hadn’t pulled the International Male mesh over the eyes of the whole world, and pinpointed…
SAVAGE LOVE
I’m a 47-year-old man and my wife is 49. We got married four years ago. Two days ago, she came back from the doctor and told me she has genital herpes. I am floored. She said she just found out. She said she must have contracted it years ago and never had an outbreak until…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
ARIES (March 21-April 19) We’re almost halfway through 2007. It’s time to take inventory of how well you’re capitalizing on this year’s unique opportunities. So let me ask you: Have you been doing reconnaissance in previously forbidden territory? Are you seeking adventure beyond the borders of your known world? I hope so. I hope you’re…
THIS LITTLE UNDERGROUND
Yes, justice — both legal and poetic — has finally started to poke its head out of the shell with Lou Pearlman now apprehended and the carcass of his ill-gotten empire thrown open for the local public to pick over via auction. But really, enough about news (boo, news!). Too much happened on our own…
RAW DEAL
Orlando vegetarians have plenty of restaurant choices; novelty is the problem. The friendly members of Vegetarians of Central Florida address that issue with a weekly dinner meet-up for folks who prefer to eschew meat, not chew meat. VegCF leader Allison D’Anna also organizes special events like the June 30 “Southern down-home” meal. Three courses of…
HAPPYTOWN
Adam Lowery is of the opinion that downtown sucks. Crappy music, lame people, nothing interesting going on. He’s not wrong. Downtown is nothing if not mediocre. Lowery wants to change that. How? Longer drinking hours! It’s not like Lowery’s the first to pitch the idea; hell, even Mayor Buddy Dyer toyed with it a few…
COUNCIL WATCH
There was no way to know what to expect from this week’s dais dalliance, as media trucks lined up in front of City Hall and a zigzag of people stretched halfway through the rotunda awaiting security clearance. Was eternal happiness finally approved? Uh, no, that was a month ago. In fact, most of the tittering…
POLICE BEAT
JUNE 5, 4:07 P.M.: A 61-year-old man lay cozily betwixt bedsheets Tuesday afternoon at his home in the 800 block of Arlington Street when he was rudely awakened. The noon sun, however, was not to blame; the sound of rummaging in his backyard is what disrupted his sweet slumber, and the source of the noise…
MAIL SACK
Need to know I appreciated the in-depth story last week about Orlando’s downtown venues `”One of these things is not like the others,” June 14`. Unlike the Sentinel, Jeffrey Billman really did his research and revealed significant information that taxpayers need to know. Sandy Womble, via the Internet Agreed: Patty should go In her response…
SANE MAN
Here’s a question you’d hope those who appreciate music for its camp or ironic qualities occasionally ask themselves: At what point does appreciating an artist more for his eccentricities than for his craft become an insult? R. Kelly’s obviously got craft to spare, but R. Kelly’s also got eccentricities squirting out of every orifice. And…
SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE
Training Iraqi soldiers in SWAT procedures didn’t seem like mercenary work to Greg, who took a yearlong leave of absence from a Midwestern police department to spend a year in Baghdad as a contract employee with a private military corporation. Sequestered at a guarded training camp near the airport, he and a team that grew…
CULTURE TO GO
On June 15, Universal Orlando Resort debuted the Hydro-Action Ski Show, a temporary draw for summertime crowds at Islands of Adventure. The brief watercraft demonstration, staged several times daily in the park’s central lagoon, is a disappointingly disjointed demo of standard jet ski and wakeboard tricks, saddled with witless play-by-play commentary. Despite a few nifty…
A MIGHTY FILMMAKER
P> Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart launches us into reality in the film’s opening frames. A voice-over reciting text from Mariane Pearl’s memoir leads right into stock footage of the United States’ assault on Afghanistan in the months following Sept. 11, 2001. More authenticity follows: Footage of Colin Powell and a news report about the…
WHO SHOULD RUN
And he’s off. On Feb. 25, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer loaned himself $10,000 and kick-started his 2008 re-election bid. Since then, he’s hosted a few fund-raisers — including one that sought a $250 donation to get through the door — and presumably padded his bank account considerably, though we won’t know how much until the…
