Truth & Lies
Truth & Lies Label: self-released Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Truth & Lies Trial lawyer by day, folksinger/songwriter by night. You’re excused if you see that as combination tha bodes for some bad music. But Orlando artist Doug Spears must really be chafing in the courtroom in that suit, because he’s an accomplished songwriter, and his new…
Patterns of War
Patterns of War Label: ROIR Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Patterns of War You’re right. There’s absolutely no need for contemporary – or, especially, future-oriented – reggae artists to be making songs with titles like “Dread Inna Babylon” or “Sensimellia,” unless, of course, they’re updating one of the dozens of earlier songs that carried those exact titles.…
FULL SPEED AHEAD
One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note Label: Impulse! Records Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note It starts out innocently enough. A radio announcer introduces the band, which then eases into a spry and full-bodied improvisation; the tune is built upon a quick-moving bass line and tonal…
THE OLD BLACK
Walk the Line Studio: 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures Releasing Rated: PG-13 Website: http://www.walkthelinethemovie.com/ Release Date: 2005-10-18 Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Patrick, Ginnifer Goodwin, Larry Bagby III Director: James Mangold Screenwriter: Gill Dennis, James Mangold WorkNameSort: Walk the Line Our Rating: 5.00 Years from now, cinema-studies teachers will refer to Walk the Line…
HUSBAND AND STRIFE
Separate Lies Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures Rated: R Website: http://www2.foxsearchlight.com/separatelies/ Release Date: 2005-11-18 Cast: Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson, Rupert Everett, Hermione Norris, Linda Bassett Director: Julian Fellowes Screenwriter: Julian Fellowes WorkNameSort: Separate Lies Our Rating: 4.00 The only sequence in Separate Lies that could be dubbed an action scene occurs in the first minute of…
DIAL M FOR MENSWEAR
El Crimen Perfecto Studio: Vitagraph Films Rated: NOT RATED Website: http://www.clubcultura.com/clubcine/clubcineastas/delaiglesia/ferpecto_index.htm Release Date: 2005-11-16 Cast: Enrique Villen, Fernando Tejero, Guillermo Toledo, MÃ?³nica Cervera, Mónica Cervera Director: Alex de la Iglesia Screenwriter: Jorge Guerricaechevarria, Gustavo Ferrada Music Score: Roque Banos WorkNameSort: El Crimen Perfecto Our Rating: 3.50 Mere minutes into its opening credits, the heated black…
GLEEFUL WEAPON
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures Distribution Rated: R Website: http://kisskiss-bangbang.warnerbros.com/ Release Date: 2005-11-11 Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan, Corbin Bernsen, Ali Hillis Director: Shane Black Screenwriter: Shane Black Music Score: John Ottman WorkNameSort: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang Our Rating: 4.00 At a stage in their careers when most successful…
Flo’Ology
Flo’Ology Label: Geffen Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Flo’Ology Though the third album from Grammy-nominated London duo Floetry is smack full of big-time producers and artists like Common and Raphael Saddiq, Flo’Ology is the undiluted message of Marsha Ambrosius and Natalie Stewart. Hip-hop is largely a producer’s game, the artist often adding a calculated rap to lay…
Silver & Gold 1973-1979
Silver & Gold 1973-1979 Label: Blood & Fire Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Silver & Gold 1973-1979 Listening to Prince Far I is like listening to reggae with your head wrapped in cheesecloth. While the bass disembowels you, fragmented melodies and muffled lyrics filter their meandering way into your ears, and none of it beyond the insistently…
Asian Lounge
Asian Lounge Label: Putamayo Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Asian Lounge For those people unduly burdened with some concern about “authenticity” when it comes to the contemporary electronic lusciousness of the tracks on Putumayo’s Lounge series, allow me to reassure you. The sound on this disc is, in fact, what lounges in Asia sound like. The high-gloss…
Vertically Challenging EP
Vertically Challenging EP Label: Chocolate Industries Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Vertically Challenging EP Lady Sovereign’s “Ch-Ching” might have been one of the UK rat pack’s scorchers on this year’s Run the Road grime compilation, but its place on the Vertically Challenged EP is quite secondary. Though only 19 years old and just over 5 feet tall,…
The Warriors: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
The Warriors: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Label: A&M Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Warriors: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, The Does anyone remember Riggs? Or Trust? No, probably not. But everyone remembers the movie Heavy Metal, a movie that definitely deserved a better soundtrack than the collection of anonymous AOR dreck like Riggs’ anemic “Radar Rider,” Sammy Hagar…
Horses: 30th Anniversary Edition
Horses: 30th Anniversary Edition Label: Arista/Columbia/Legacy Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Horses: 30th Anniversary Edition Patti Smith’s debut album was a seminal contribution to the punk rock timeline upon its release in 1975. “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine” remains the definitive startling opening line to Smith’s mining rock history with Van Morrison’s “Gloria” and…
Slum Village
Slum Village Label: Barak Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Slum Village What happens when a hotly tipped hip-hop group loses nearly everything they had going for them? In the case of Slum Village, you deny everything and do your best to convince the few listeners you’ve managed to hold onto that nothing has changed. The Detroit duo,…
Gilles Peterson Presents the BBC Sessions
Gilles Peterson Presents the BBC Sessions Label: Ether Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Gilles Peterson Presents the BBC Sessions Groundbreaking London DJ Gilles Peterson’s BBC Radio 1 show, aptly titled Worldwide, broadcasts live sessions from artists of all genres. This 2-CD set is a worthwhile mix of these sessions, as each performance traditionally sees the light of…
Symphony No. 6: Plutonian Ode
Symphony No. 6: Plutonian Ode Label: Orange Mountain Music Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Symphony No. 6: Plutonian Ode Ten years ago, the world from American eyes seemed prosperous and peaceful and just a teensy bit progressive; to revisit the potential of nuclear horror via an Allen Ginsberg poem would have been nothing more than a reminder…
IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK LIKE ARMAGEDDON
During holiday season I’ve learned to feel content with all that’s in my life, no matter the true score. How can I not, when my plate is full while millions of people around the world are starving and dying, even as my existence continues on its merry way. But after witnessing the string of apocalyptic…
FEAST OF STEPHEN
This is the first year I’ve been able to muster any sympathy for the pathetic crybabies who always whine about Christmas being ‘depressing.’ Candy, carols, colored lights, celebrating another year in which you managed to not die … what’s not to love? But in the aftermath of 12 months filled with disasters – both natural…
PRINCE OF PEACE
I don’t want anything this year. I’ve been kvetching about the commercialization of Christmas for too long now, and it’s time to do something about it. I’ll take some socks, because I always want new socks, but that’s it. In lieu of flotsam that will only clutter my life before taking up space in a…
CRIME IS UGLY, BRUTAL & RANDOM
NOV. 5, 12:45 P.M.: On this crisp, autumn afternoon, a 19-year-old man marched over to a local check-cashing business in the 5600 block of Curry Ford Road with $98 check in his hand. As he entered the shop, a bewhiskered robber was exiting, cash in hand. Not one to miss an opportunity, the robber pushed…
Letters
That’s the spirit, Aaron! I want to thank you for an enjoyable recap of the Florida’s Dying Rock Fight (or the “Horriblefest,” depending on who was asked) `Notable Noise, Nov. 10`. As a judge, I’m sure you had a good time meeting Rich, a very nice guy indeed. I will be forthright and tell you…
SEOUL FOOD
We are the takeout generation who grew up with Chinese dives on every corner and can now just as easily find sushi, Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesian joints. But there’s still an authentic Asian cuisine that’s exotic to most of our tastes – Korean. The rustic fare of this small country is adventure at its finest,…
Deerhoof, Susannah, Tristeza, Rebirth Brass Band and more
Thursday • 17 DEERHOOF We’re having trouble believing that Deerhoof is already on their seventh officially released CD, since we’re still trying to finish digesting their last two (2003’s Apple O’ and 2004’s Milk Man). Their most recent, The Runners Four, clocks in at nearly an hour, and was even preceded by a wispy EP…
Happytown
Penguins are just so cute! And the fact that they get “married”? If that isn’t an endorsement of intelligent design and the need for a ban on gay marriage, by gosh we at Happytown™ do not know what is. In fact, we’ve been trying to spend as much time with the little tuxedoed critters as…
Notable Noise
I learned a valuable lesson last weekend: Never, ever, ever go to Beerfest. Ever. As my lovely wife, my ever-patient son and I made our way through CityWalk on our way to Hard Rock Live to see David Lee Roth Nov. 12, we had to navigate through some incredibly long lines of people waiting for…
GO, GO GUTTENBERG
Wherever you are, just stop whatever it is you’re doing and – at this very moment! – leap to your feet and scream, “I LOVE STEVE GUTTENBERG!” Do it! Do it NOW! Here I go … I LOVE STEVE GUTTENBERG!! OK … so why didn’t you do it? Now I feel like a complete asshole…
ROLL THE BONES
A newfound ancient sea creature looks to be part crocodile, part T. rex and 100 percent terrifying. The 13-foot long beast, Dakosaurus andiniensis, had a massive 18-inch-long jaw with interlocking 4-inch teeth. It is a long-lost relative of the crocodile, yet it had fins. The sheer strangeness of the Dakosaurus andiniensis, found in South America…
NOT-SO-DUSTY DAMES
When they say that the music industry eats its young, they usually mean its young women. Check out Britney Spears’ slow decline into the baby-daddy trailer park, Christina Aguilera’s difficult foray into Herbie-Hancock-album-guesting and even Mandy Moore’s false rumors of rehab. The brightest stars of five years ago are the punchlines of two years ago,…
Rob Brezny’s Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19) The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty designed to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases and thereby slow global warming. Though 157 nations have ratified it, a notable exception has been the United States, the planet’s leading polluter. Millions of Americans launched a grassroots movement to rebel against the federal government’s…
WHO ARE YOU, REALLY?
Like a memoir versus a short story, it all comes down to tone. Bright Eyes and Bonnie “Prince” Billy tend territory along the same rustic stretch, mining veins of folk, country and blues with aching, emotional paeans that turn on dramatic vocal styles. By virtue of their very different approaches to songwriting, Conor Oberst (Bright…
NOTHING HAPPENS
Rather than scrape the bottom of the barrel (or floor beneath a urinal, for that matter), this week, I’m setting my sights on something altogether higher. No, not designer drugs – although that could certainly be arranged just about anywhere in the meth lab known as Orlando. I’m thinking of peeling a bit of moldy…
OH TRANNY BOY
My boyfriend let me experiment on him with a strap-on. At first he didn’t like it, but now he loves it. Now I want to have sex with another guy and watch him suck a real cock. How can I get him to try this? Pretty Eager Gal Jesus Christ, PEG! I have plowed years…
TAKING ITS TOLL
At 10 p.m. on Oct. 19, Ralph Parker, 93, in his Chevrolet Malibu, eased up to a tollbooth on Interstate 275 in St. Petersburg, Fla., inattentive to the fact that there was a dead body lodged in his windshield (the result of a collision about three miles away). According to police, Parker was off by…
SUBSTITUTION, PLEASE
For The last two years, I’ve used this self-serving space in the paper to painstakingly detail what I would like for holiday gifts. I mean, c’mon, there were pictures and everything, along with websites and prices. Though I did the shopping for you, I still got nothing. Zilch. Zero. Nada. I’m beginning to think you…
GIVE & TAKE
The world isn’t the same place it was a year ago, and we aren’t sure where holiday hullabaloo fits into the confusing global picture. So we asked artist Doug Rhodehamel to create a new world for us, and he did; an underworld – The Village of Smolder – a dark and primal burg where hope…
I’M NOT MARTHA
I swear I’m not trying to be all mature or earthy, but this year I’m going to focus on the “give” instead of the “take” in this holiday equation. Brokey McBrokington here is just freaking out trying to figure out how to come up with gifts for the 15 or 20 people on my list…
FLEXING THAT FAITH
As a recent convert to Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, I was worried that my newfound faith would somehow prohibit me from taking part in the greed-grab that is the United States of Christmas. After all, according to the tenets of my new faith, we have “flimsy” moral standards and I get to claim every Friday as…
AW, SHUCKS
Dear Readers, I want to thank you for inviting me into your homes every week; it has been a nice welcoming gift for me. See, I recently moved here from Missouri (that’s Missour-ah, if you want to sound like a local), and this will be my first Christmas in Orlando – actually my first Christmas…
FREE TO BE NEW AND ME
To quote Kenny Rogers’ and Dolly Parton’s seminal 1980s Christmas masterpiece, the holiday Holy Grail of my life, ONCE UPON A CHRISTMAS (Amazon.com, $6.99): “I believe there’s always hope when all seems lost, ‘cuz I believe in Santa Claus.” But with age, significant age, comes the gift of reinterpretation. It’s not so much that I…
