Movie: The Last Kiss
Our Rating: 3.00 If you’ve ever sat behind a table trying to force pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together when they just don’t fit, then you might understand something of the characters’ feelings in director Gabriele Muccino’s “The Last Kiss.” Though lighthearted in tone, this contemporary Roman tale weaves the intricate stories of a group…
Movie: The Last Kiss
Our Rating: 3.00 If you’ve ever sat behind a table trying to force pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together when they just don’t fit, then you might understand something of the characters’ feelings in director Gabriele Muccino’s “The Last Kiss.” Though lighthearted in tone, this contemporary Roman tale weaves the intricate stories of a group…
Movie: About a Boy
Our Rating: 2.50 Like “High Fidelity,” About a Boy is based on a slight but effective novel by Nick Hornby that captured the thirtysomething male ethos with surprising accuracy. Unlike “High Fidelity,” “About a Boy” stars Hugh Grant and winds up indulging in insultingly manipulative sentimentality. Superficial Will (Grant) lives a spoiled life thanks to…
High-ho Silver
Movie: Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
Technical difficulties
Movie: Enigma
Waking life
Movie: Insomnia
The name game
There’s only so much you can do with beans, cheese, rice and a tortilla. It might be called by different names — burrito, taco, fajita — but unless the layers are put together well and the ingredients taste distinctly fresh, it’s all pretty much beans, cheese and rice. Seven years ago Atlanta businessman Martin Sprock…
Movie: About a Boy
About a Boy Studio: Universal Pictures Website: http://www.about-a-boy.com/ Release Date: 2002-05-17 Cast: Hugh Grant, Toni Collette, Rachel Weisz, Robert De Niro, Nicholas Hoult Director: Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz Screenwriter: Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz, Peter Hedges WorkNameSort: About a Boy Our Rating: 2.50 Like “High Fidelity,” About a Boy is based on a slight but effective…
High-ho Silver
Movie: Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
Technical difficulties
Movie: Enigma
Waking life
Movie: Insomnia
‘The trick is to put more…
‘The trick is to put more effort into getting into uncharted territory as you get older, rather than more effort into finding the comfort zone,” philosophizes songwriter Neil Finn on the phone from his native New Zealand. “To me, that’s come down to choosing collaborators that have got a lot of their own personality –…
A welcome freeze for summer
I first noticed little refrigerator trucks with a picture of a swan on the side several months ago, the words “ice cream” and “Schwan’s Home Delivery” catching my eye. What genius, I thought, came up with this brilliant idea? Turns out the brain behind the ice-cream delivery, along with a vast multitude of other frozen…
Teacher calls a snow day
An arbitrator ruled in March that Pensacola, Fla., middle-school teacher Robert K. Sites III, 37, was wrongly fired for showing up at work in a cocaine-distracted state (later measured at 50 times the level regarded as a “positive” test). The school has a “zero-tolerance” policy on drugs, but it applies only to students. The arbitrator…
Race time
Pete Barr Sr. spent about 10 minutes in the City Clerk’s Office last week, filling out forms while several family members looked on. Impeccably dressed in a suit, tie and “I Love Orlando” lapel pin, he answered questions from two television crews in the Council Chambers lobby. Then he returned to the Clerk’s office and…
Everybody’s doing it
At 19, Jodi James was told she’d never live pain-free again. Sure, the breathing and relaxation techniques she learned in 18 months of physical therapy and the strong prescription painkillers could dull the pain (and, as she found, her mind), but the freak job accident that left her permanently partially disabled would always haunt her.…
Web radio wins round
Webcasters who feared the worst — that the U.S. Copyright Office would accept an arbitration panel’s royalty-fee recommendations for Internet broadcasting, essentially killing the infantile industry — got a reprieve this week. The office rejected the proposal and opted to set the fees itself in the next month. Congress passed a law three years ago…
Fringe and purge
If ever an event had a black cloud over its head, the 11th annual Orlando International Fringe Festival was it. This year’s forum for the performing arts was in dire financial straits from the outset, and it hardly helped when a March fire destroyed the lion’s share of its official materials. As the proceeds from…
Teach whose children well?
We say we love our children. It’s an accepted shibboleth — a slogan that we all stand by. We are compassionate humans and therefore the notion that we may not, in fact or deed, love our children is contemptuous, even scandalous. But hold on a minute. I didn’t say you didn’t love your own children.…
Taking matters into your own hands
“Individuality is fine,” Major Frank Burns once said on “M*A*S*H,” “so long as we all do it together.” And that pretty much sums it up. As much as Americans are herdlike followers of trends in pop culture, religion and politics, we still celebrate our individualism. We love ourselves and romanticize the image of the lone…
Wrestling with a half-Nelson
“Hello. You’ve reached Gunnar Nelson’s voice mail, but if you leave me a message I’ll be more than happy to get back to you,” tweets the cell-phone holding cell, as I pinch my thigh. “Have a most excellent day!” Eew. That’s right, a true pop nadir for yours truly, as I split the bleached ends…
