Howl’s Moving Castle
Howl’s Moving Castle Studio: Walt Disney Pictures Rated: PG-13 Website: http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/castle/ Cast: Emily Mortimer, Christian Bale, Jean Simmons, Lauren Bacall, Billy Crystal Director: Hayao Miyazaki Screenwriter: Hayao Miyazaki Music Score: Joe Hisaishi WorkNameSort: Howl’s Moving Castle Films by Hayao Miyazaki, Japan’s most revered anime auteur, tend to use the same basic elements: kickass animation; a…
Bewitched
Bewitched Studio: Columbia Pictures Rated: PG Website: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/bewitched/site/ Cast: Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell, Shirley MacLaine, Michael Caine, Steve Carell Director: Nora Ephron Screenwriter: Nora Ephron, Delia Ephron, Adam McKay WorkNameSort: Bewitched Jimmy the Greek is safe: My prediction for the sleeper hit of the summer has bitten the dust. But really, who wouldn’t have been…
DESERT OF DESPAIR
Turtles Can Fly Studio: IFC Films Rated: NOT RATED Website: http://www.ifcfilms.com/ifcfilms?CAT0=3127&CAT1=6266&AID=10507&CLR=red&BCLR= Cast: Soran Ebrahim, Avaz Latif, Hirsh Feyssal Director: Bahman Ghobadi Screenwriter: Bahman Ghobadi Music Score: Houssein Alizadeh WorkNameSort: Turtles Can Fly Our Rating: 3.00 There are moments in Turtles Can Fly when two youngsters, just barely teens, feel the pull of natural attraction –…
PLAYING THE KRUMP CARD
Rize Studio: Lions Gate Films Rated: PG-13 Website: http://www.rizemovie.com/rize.php Cast: Tommy the Clown, Lil Tommy, Larry, Lil C, Tight Eyez Director: David LaChapelle Screenwriter: David LaChapelle WorkNameSort: Rize Our Rating: 4.00 There are certain subjects that any documentary filmmaker worth his salt has to acknowledge up front as surefire winners. Somewhere near the top of…
Another Day on Earth
Another Day on Earth Label: Hannibal Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Another Day on Earth It’s hard to believe, but it’s been more than 10 years since Eno’s last “pop” album (1992’s Nerve Net). In fact, it’s been so long, and the intervening years have seen so many Eno variations on electronic experimentation, that one easily could…
TheFutureEmbrace
TheFutureEmbrace Label: Warner Bros. Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: TheFutureEmbrace Sure, the Annie Lennox-referencing CD cover photo is excessively – desperately, even – severe, last year’s poetry collection Blinking With Fists was ninth-grade dire, and supergroup Zwan fizzled before it could generate any real sparks. Yet none of those are reason enough to declare ex-Smashing Pumpkins frontman…
Moksha
Moksha Label: Realworld Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Moksha Khan is no stranger to tradition, but here he compresses the slowly expanding dynamics of a traditional raga into tight compositions that are only about a fourth as long. Though these pieces move toward resolution faster – and therefore don’t cast the usual hypnotic spell of improvisation –…
THE DEVIL’S WORK IS GOOD WORK
How To Be Idle Publishing House: HarperCollins Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: How To Be Idle Imagine working three days a week. Now imagine only working three of those weeks a month for, say, nine months a year. Think of all the time for creative pursuits, for family time, for friends, for daydreaming … for naps. Sounds…
FABULOUS DISASTER
Confessions of a Recovering Slut & Other Stories Publishing House: Regan Books Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Confessions of a Recovering Slut & Other Stories It takes a lot of labia to follow up your first memoir, Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch, with yet another titular stab at your self-image, Confessions of a Recovering Slut. Fortunately Hollis Gillespie’s spun-yarn…
Shots: An American Photographer’s Journal 1967-1972
Shots: An American Photographer’s Journal 1967-1972 Publishing House: Earth Aware/Mandala Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Shots: An American Photographer’s Journal 1967-1972 In a book filled with striking and provocative photos, perhaps the most striking and provocative is a shot of demonstrators behind a barricade during Nixon’s 1969 inauguration. A small crowd of smiling, inspired young people is…
This Ain’t No Disco: New Wave Album Covers
This Ain’t No Disco: New Wave Album Covers Publishing House: Chronicle Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: This Ain’t No Disco: New Wave Album Covers Lacking focus, organization and in some cases clean artwork, This Ain’t No Disco comes off more as a pet project undertaken by a New Wave nerd who badly wants to legitimize her 20-year-old…
Letters
Train man fan Thanks for the article on the conversation with John Mica [“Train man,” June 16]. I learned a lot and you did not spray the politics in my face as you normally do (i.e., you presented the facts and let me make my own decision). I, like Mica, feel we need to start…
Happytown
We’ve got to hand it to the fine persons (or person) at Orlando Direct Action; they know how to get in a good jab. For two weeks running ODA has had their “bake sale for the Orlando Magic” table set up outside City Hall. The idea is as brilliant as it is sarcastic: to help…
FLYING HIGH AGAIN
It would be both inaccurate and unfair to describe the sensation engendered by this new Hawke record as “nostalgia,” but one can’t help but be overwhelmed by past glories. The sense of displaced modernity that permeates Love Won Another is not unfamiliar, though; Gavin Hardkiss (aka Hawke) has always been about that particular collision. The…
WAL-MART’S TRUE NATURE
For every acre paved, another will be saved. It sounds like a mantra for green business, a lullaby for the shopper with a troubled conscience. For the first time, a mammoth corporation has pledged to conserve wildlife habitat equivalent to the acreage it develops. But the company launching the program isn’t Patagonia or Greater Goods.…
REAL FOUNDATION
Cannibal Ox’s Vast Aire can be quite the dis-meister. Recall his stinger from “Iron Galaxy,” the opening cut on Cannibal Ox’s now-legendary debut album: “You were a stillborn baby/Mother didn’t want you but you were still born.” Intricate, unpredictable and aggressive wordplay made Vast’s name in Cannibal Ox, and it’s a skill he continues to…
TARGETING NPR
There was a certain been-there/done-that quality to recent reports that public television is under ideological attack from the right. After all, conservatives have been targeting the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) for decades. In the mid-1990s, when Newt Gingrich was in full feather, the right even threatened to cut off all government funding. So even though…
FABULOUS DISASTER
Confessions of a Recovering Slut & Other StoriesBy Hollis Gillespie(Regan Books, 272 pages) It takes a lot of labia to follow up your first memoir, Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch, with yet another titular stab at your self-image, Confessions of a Recovering Slut. Fortunately Hollis Gillespie’s spun-yarn Southern candor holds more than enough spitfire charm to transcend…
THE DEVIL’S WORK IS GOOD WORK
How To Be IdleBy Tom Hodgkinson(HarperCollins, 282 pages) Imagine working three days a week. Now imagine only working three of those weeks a month for, say, nine months a year. Think of all the time for creative pursuits, for family time, for friends, for daydreaming … for naps. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, in Tom…
ASK ADRIAN!
Question: What is cardamom? What is the best way to use it in cooking? Cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) is a member of the ginger family that is used heavily in Indian cooking but often shows up in Scandinavian recipes as well. Rather than using the root, as is done for most spices of the ginger family,…
CRIMINALLY CURIOUS
JUNE 12, 2:30 A.M.: Mark N. was surrounded by the swampy night air outside Hoops Tavern in the 40 block of West Amelia Street when two men approached him. The deviant duo ostensibly wanted a cigarette. Mr. N. never had a chance to offer them one. Â Â Â Â Â Having fooled Mr. N. with their tale of…
Book review
This Ain’t No Disco: New Wave Album CoversBy Jennifer McKnight Trontz(Chronicle) Lacking focus, organization and in some cases clean artwork, This Ain’t No Disco comes off more as a pet project undertaken by a New Wave nerd who badly wants to legitimize her 20-year-old record collection by turning the album covers into objets d’art. That’s…
Book review
Shots: An American Photographer’s Journal 1967-1972By David Fenton(Earth Aware/Mandala, 160 pages) In a book filled with striking and provocative photos, perhaps the most striking and provocative is a shot of demonstrators behind a barricade during Nixon’s 1969 inauguration. A small crowd of smiling, inspired young people is collectively flipping the bird to the President. It’s…
‘Waving your rights
U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., recently pooh-poohed reports of abuse at Guantanamo Bay, bringing meal plates to a televised press conference to show that prisoners enjoy dinnertime amenities like orange-glazed and lemon chicken (each served, he carefully pointed out, with two types of fruit). Rep. Hunter’s presentation was so mouthwatering that the Swanson company rushed…
OLD AND RESTLESS
“I was the first old person here,” mopes my friend Shawn, from some few years beneath me. “And I was afraid they weren’t going to let me in.” So this is what it’s come down to? Perforated but easily discernible lines drawn in the rock & roll sand, separating the relevantly involved from the tragic…
HIDDEN IN PLAIN VIEW
Yamaha Corp. recently introduced the MyRoom, which is a customizable, soundproof, shed-like structure, with 27 square feet of floor space, for installation inside notoriously crowded Japanese homes, so that a resident can get privacy (or be exiled if he or she gets annoying). The company expects a sales surge in 2006, when Japan’s first wave…
