HEAVY REVERSAL
Call of the MastodonThe Workhorse Chronicles Label: Relapse Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Call of the MastodonThe Workhorse Chronicles Studio scouts have assigned movies to directors on the strength of short films that didn’t receive a public showing. While clearly imaginative enough to inspire confidence, these clips lose luster when finally unveiled as DVD extras attached to…
HOOD ORNAMENT
Slowly but surely, the traditionally low-income area between Winter Park Village and Park Avenue is being purged of its less picturesque (read: modest black community) elements and steered toward something more brochure-friendly (read: money). Tolla’s, an Italian deli and cafe, has staked an early claim on this transformation by establishing a beachhead near the corner…
And We Shall Call Him Joseph
And We Shall Call Him Joseph Label: Sad Robot Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: And We Shall Call Him Joseph The conceit with which Hypatia Lake approaches its music proves to be vexing. That a band can be so fraught with “concept” that their very name is that of the fictional town about which they write all…
Mr. Beast
Mr. Beast Label: Matador Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Mr. Beast Mogwai’s ability to sound garden-fresh each time out never ceases to astonish, even a decade-plus into a career spent exploiting rock’s boilerplate soft-loud-soft dynamic as though it were in danger of being ripped from the universal musical playbook forever. Even the tropes these Scottish storm troopers…
The Rough Guide to Urban Latino
The Rough Guide to Urban Latino Label: World Music Network Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Rough Guide to Urban Latino, The The Latin music “explosion” has been years in the making, but it’s only been recently that the momentum has shifted from occasional chart incursions toward a full-fledged presence on the pop-culture menu. What’s most interesting about…
PARTAY MONSTER
Dave Chappelle’s Block Party Studio: Rogue Pictures Rated: R Website: http://www.chappellesblockparty.com/ Release Date: 2006-03-03 Cast: Dave Chappelle, Kanye West, Dante ‘Mos Def’ Smith, Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli Director: Michel Gondry Screenwriter: Dave Chappelle WorkNameSort: Dave Chappelle’s Block Party Our Rating: 3.00 Perhaps only one man could pull off a movie as well-meaningly extraneous as Dave…
GREAT ESCAPE
Through the Fire Studio: Cinema Libre Studio Rated: NOT RATED Website: http://www.throughthefiremovie.com/ Release Date: 2006-03-02 Cast: Sebastian Telfair Director: Jonathan Hock WorkNameSort: Through the Fire Our Rating: 4.00 It’s a cliché: A black kid from the projects sleeps with his basketball and dreams of becoming an NBA star. Then he can buy a house for…
16 Blocks
16 Blocks Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures Rated: PG-13 Website: http://www2.warnerbros.com/16blocks/index.html Release Date: 2006-03-03 Cast: David Zayas, David Sparrow, Bruce Willis, Dante ‘Mos Def’ Smith, David Morse Director: Richard Donner Screenwriter: Richard Wenk WorkNameSort: 16 Blocks Our Rating: 2.00 In the larcenous tradition of The Island’s rip of The Clonus Horror, Hollywood again banks on mass-audience…
Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor)
Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor) Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures Rated: R Website: http://www2.foxsearchlight.com/nwnd/ Release Date: 2006-03-03 Cast: Konstantin Khabensky, Vladimir Menshov, Maria Poroshina, Galina Tyunina, Mariya Poroshina Director: Timour Bekmambetov Screenwriter: Timour Bekmambetov, Sergei Lukyanenko Music Score: Yuri Poteyenko WorkNameSort: Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor) Our Rating: 3.50 The Russian horror blockbuster finally gets a stateside release,…
WHITE LIKE ME
I’m standing in front of a long rack of black boots at the American Army & Navy Store on South Orange Blossom Trail, pondering that age-old question: What should I wear to my first Nazi rally? The National Socialist Movement, one of the best-organized neo-Nazi groups in America, is set to march through Orlando’s Parramore…
Happytown
It ain’t easy being green, especially if you’re a Florida legislator. The League of Conservation Voters has released its voting scorecard for the U.S. Congress in 2005. The report rates legislators on a zero-to-100 scale, a higher number signifying a greener pol. There were 18 votes taken into consideration for the House, 20 for the…
I Love Television
Let’s imagine you’ve got a rare brain disease that makes you spit out obscenities at inopportune moments, strip down to your underpants in public and sleep with people whom you normally consider to be unattractive. (Hmmm … this disease is sounding awfully familiar.) OK, now imagine having the opportunity to take on NFL Heisman Trophy…
News of the Weird
Office doodies Obsessed executives have always taken business home at night, but increasingly they take it into the bathroom, with laptop computers, high-speed connections, flat-panel televisions and speaker phones, according to a February Wall Street Journal report. (Said one, “I’m beside myself when I can’t get my e-mails.”) However, there are problems, e.g., “sound-chamber” sound…
Letters
In Disney’s pocket I am puzzled by your comments in Happytown™ `Feb. 23`. I contacted you to pass a tip about an issue that might be of interest to Orlando Weekly. Instead, you flipped the subject while you wrongly represented my previous city of Orlando concerns. The fact is that I welcome and respect diversity…
SMEAR TACTICS
On Sunday, Feb. 19, 2006, the Orlando Sentinel revealed that Winter Park mayoral candidate David Strong had once been arrested for smearing a neighbor’s shirt and neck with “dog doo.” It happened in 1999, the paper said, when Strong and the neighbor were locked in an ongoing argument over their dogs’ excretory habits. Strong attempted…
Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology
ARIES After viewing Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1662, diarist Samuel Pepys called it “the most stupid, ridiculous play I ever saw in my life.” Philosopher Voltaire had an equally dim view of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. “One would imagine this piece to be the work of a drunken savage,” he wrote in 1768. Pepys’ and…
Savage Love
I am a 26-year-old female, and I’ve been with my boyfriend for almost five years. Our relationship is pretty good, but I’m having a few reservations. I don’t know how to broach this subject; I feel like I’m just being a bratty little princess. But here goes: Every household expense must be split exactly 50/50,…
Orlando Independent Label Showcase, The Warlocks, Reggie and the Full Effect and more
Friday • 3 ORLANDO INDEPENDENT LABEL SHOWCASE Shutting up and doing something about it is a course of action we heartily approve of. In this case, we’re not just impressed by the four local labels who put together this showcase, but also by the completely irrational dedication to local “underground” music shown by the crew…
Blister
My hip hurts. In fact, a fair number of my closest friends crawling through their mid-30s are currently enjoying some degree of dysplasia, hanging a little bit to the left on the concentric circle of life. Sure, we’re a few years shy of a HoverRound, but we can see it there in the corner of…
Notable Noise
I was feeling kinda sorry for Scott Stapp. Here’s a guy who’s a walking punch line, the comic-book version of rock stardom. He clearly has a substance abuse problem and is so desperate for attention that it seems he loosed a sex tape upon the world on the eve of his first national tour as…
Police Beat
Feb. 17, 12:24 a.m.: From the 1500 block of East Colonial Drive, Officer Nazario reports: “The `44-year-old female` victim said that she left her office at approximately 16:30 hours on yesterday’s date and when she returned on 02/17/06 at approximately 1030 hours she noticed that her radio was missing from under her desk.” Some of…
Lulu Eightball
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