Dr. Laura’s biological error
Remember Dr. Laura, the ninny who said that homosexuality was a “biological error” and who made a big deal of the fact that her son was going in the military and who spends every day lecturing people on how to be better parents? Well, guess whose son is in trouble with the Army folks for…
RICO ACT
It’s a hit-and-miss affair at this Puerto Rican diner
GETTING THE SCOOP
“Do you want crunchy or creamy peanut butter in your shake?” “I’ll take crunchy,” I said as I watched the man behind the counter at Goff’s Drive In cut up a banana into vanilla ice cream for my peanut butter-and-banana shake ($3). Next time I’ll order smooth, as those nutty bits ended up clogging my…
DIRTY GIRL
Looking back on the first season of The Sarah Silverman Program
The Final Season
The Final Season Studio: Yari Film Group Rated: PG Cast: Sean Astin, Larry Miller Director: David Mickey Evans WorkNameSort: Final Season, The Our Rating: 3.00 The Final Season is the rose-colored flipside to the more cynical high-school sports movie of recent times, Friday Night Lights. Both assert that the game is tantamount to life itself,…
Ira & Abby
Ira & Abby Studio: Magnolia Rated: R Cast: Chris Messina, Jennifer Westfeldt Director: Robert Cary WorkNameSort: Ira & Abby Our Rating: 3.50 An uptight guy with moneyed parents marries a carefree girl on a whim, and culture-clash hijinks ensue as his crabbiness collides with her free spirit. Sound familiar? It should. Ira & Abby is…
King of California
King of California Studio: First Look Rated: PG-13 Cast: Michael Douglas, Rachel Evan Wood Director: Michael Cahill WorkNameSort: King of California Our Rating: 3.00 Personifying the perturbed Everyman of the ’80s and ’90s in films like Falling Down and Fatal Attraction, Michael Douglas has since transformed himself into a versatile actor with the range and…
Michael Clayton
Michael Clayton Studio: Warner Bros. Rated: R Cast: George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson Director: Tony Gilroy WorkNameSort: Michael Clayton Its hero is an amoral “fixer” for a major law firm whose personal life is in shambles. Its whistle-blowing voice of reason is a loony loose cannon who strips naked during depositions. Its representation of corporate evil…
Lars and the Real Girl
Lars and the Real Girl Studio: MGM Rated: PG-13 Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer Director: Craig Gillespie WorkNameSort: Lars and the Real Girl Our Rating: 4.00 Movie studios crave word-of-mouth business as much as they do opening-weekend numbers, but that may be a problem with the charming Lars and the Real Girl, because this is…
We Own the Night
We Own the Night Studio: Sony Rated: R Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg Director: James Gray WorkNameSort: We Own the Night Our Rating: 3.00 Writer/director James Gray is an auteur by thematic preoccupation only. Every six years or so, he’ll eke out an urban crime thriller imbued with tough, street-wise clarity, but his work is…
Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Collector’s Edition
Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Collector’s Edition Studio: Sony WorkNameSort: Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Collector’s Edition In its first act, Bram Stoker’s Dracula teeters so tenuously on the verge of camp that I had to stifle laughter. More than anything Francis Ford Coppola made in the 10-year period following his provocatively plastic One From the Heart, Dracula is…
Chalk
Chalk Studio: Arts Alliance America Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Chalk Although the first thing you’ll probably notice about Chalk is the “Morgan Spurlock Presents” preceding its title, the film is not the same sort of true-life exploit as Super Size Me. But that’s not to say that Chalk isn’t as topical or as realistic as producer…
The Comedians of Comedy: Live at the Troubadour
The Comedians of Comedy: Live at the Troubadour Studio: Image Entertainment Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Comedians of Comedy: Live at the Troubadour, The Earlier this year, this loose collective of “alternative comics” released a DVD that included both the eponymous documentary and footage of a night of performances at San Francisco’s El Rey Theater. This month,…
Cease to Begin
Cease to Begin Label: Sub Pop Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Cease to Begin There’s an easy inference to be drawn from some of Cease to Begin’s themes. “Marry Song,” “Cigarettes, Wedding Bands” and the two songs that meditate on “home, home, home” (“Islands on the Coast” and “Detlef Schrempf”) point to warm…
Comicopera
Comicopera Label: Domino Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Comicopera With Comicopera – as with all of Robert Wyatt’s solo albums – the thing that you notice most is his voice. That warm, wobbly warble masks an astonishing range, and Wyatt’s fluid facility is as engaging as it has ever been. Which is a…
Silver Mountain
Silver Mountain Label: Bloodshot Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Silver Mountain As one of rock & roll’s most enduring legacies, the music of the Rolling Stones attracts armies of imitators, but only a rarefied few can channel their virility. One shining example is this emerging Detroit band that distinguishes itself by turning the…
Basement Bhangra
Basement Bhangra Label: Koch Length: LP Rated: NONE Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Basement Bhangra Rekha Malhotra has been DJ’ing for more than a decade, and she is widely recognized as a prime motivator behind the rising influence of bhangra and Indian music on U.S. club culture. So it’s somewhat hard to believe that Basement…
GETTING THE SCOOP
“Do you want crunchy or creamy peanut butter in your shake?” “I’ll take crunchy,” I said as I watched the man behind the counter at Goff’s Drive In cut up a banana into vanilla ice cream for my peanut butter-and-banana shake ($3). Next time I’ll order smooth, as those nutty bits ended up clogging my…
BLISTER
There’s been a rip in the matrix, and I mean it this time. The sky is gray, then the sky is blue, then the sky is gray again; tiny razor-like drops pelt my cottony head, only to be scorched away by an unforgiving sun that knows nothing of bleach and humidity. Or humility. I can…
SAVAGE LOVE
I’m a 21-year-old woman, and I’ve been going out with my boyfriend for four years. He wants me to masturbate for him, but I don’t feel comfortable doing it. I love my boyfriend and plan on marrying him, but I cannot find a way to do this. I would like to do it. I just…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
ARIES (March 21-April 19) It’s possible that you’ll be helped by a person you’ve been helping or be given gifts by a person to whom you’ve given gifts. Could it be that you’ll be healed by someone you imagine you’re superior to or taught a beautiful lesson by someone you don’t understand? Meditate on the…
THIS LITTLE UNDERGROUND
Radiohead just made their new album, In Rainbows, available for download exclusively through the band’s website (www.inrainbows.com). The best part? You can pay as much or as little for it as you want. In other words, FREE, son! They’re not the first to do such a thing but it’s still a bold embrace of modernity,…
I LOVE TELEVISION
Women: Taken as a whole, they are not retarded. I know this because I have, on occasion, conversed with women – before having sex with them – and can say without reservation that the majority of them are not retarded. However! One would not know this from the television shows proudly promoted on supposed “women’s”…
CULTURE TO GO
Gang mentality Faces of Stardust Through Nov. 1 Stardust Video & Coffee Free; 407-623-3393 Eric Sutton explained to me how, shooting these portraits, he held the camera a foot from each subject’s face and didn’t take the shot until the person reached the point of restless discomfort. The result is the current show at Stardust…
HAPPYTOWN
The Oct. 4 lunchtime State of Downtown Address was as pleasant as a ranch-soaked crouton in your eye. Large people with large bankrolls locked into mingle-step, only occasionally calming their booster cackles for a disingenuous hug or peck on the cheek. You had your City Beverages, your Florida Citrus Sports, your Orlando Magic and your…
POLICE BEAT
SEPT. 24, 11:28 P.M.: This is the tale of one man’s trip to a convenience store gone freakishly wrong. Our 48-year-old victim didn’t even make it inside the store in the 1200 block of South Orange Blossom Trail. What halted him: a whack to the back with something resembling either a “bat or stick,” police…
MAIL SACK
Blame Canada I really enjoyed reading your article on gay marriage `“Keep your matrimony, I’ve got mantrimony,” Oct. 4`. `My wife’s sister`, the youngest of six siblings, lives `in Ottawa`. She was married for over 20 years, but she and her husband divorced several years ago. She has three children (one girl and two boys).…
COLD WATER MUSIC
I can’t speak Spanish, but if I could, I’m positive I would have seen this coming. It’s a blinding Sunday morning and I just realized Milkanette Ramos, the tightly coiled, take-no-shit frontwoman of bilingual fivesome Milka – and my interview subject at the moment – has nearly lost her voice. “I went to the Junkie…
DISCIPLINE AND HUMILITY
In the mid-’90s, hip-hop stood at a crossroads. The mainstream had become acclimated to releases such as The Chronic, Nas’ Illmatic and A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory. But burbling up in the background was a new movement toward a more atmospheric, introspective hip-hop and ambient-inspired subgenre that would become known first as…
MOT’S IN THE MIDDLE
It takes a fierce game to compete with the big-boxes in the declining skateboard industry, and Orlando independents have to hustle to keep the cash rolling. But there’s no easy explanation for the 21st-century-style counterculture growing up on East Robinson Street along the funky shopping strip across from the T.G. Lee Dairy. Say it’s coming…
INVASION OF THE PAUL HEADS
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign. Peppering the Lake Highland Preparatory School stretch of Marks Street – 10 feet up off the ground on wooden power poles – blue-and-white propaganda placards beseech drivers to consider Ron Paul for president. Out by the University of Central Florida, homemade stenciled signs clutter a median, suggesting that passersby “Google…
26 YEARS
The drive to the Hardee Correctional Institution in Bowling Green is a journey through small towns, farms and empty lots. The prison itself is on a road lined with soaring palm trees. There are rows of razor wire covering the tops of the fences, and scores of guards outfitted in combat boots, each carrying a…
OPD: Does God exist? Let’s find out!
Whether you believe in the Big Guy or not, you gotta admire our city’s men and women in blue. Standing (or kneeling) around isn’t enough for City Beautiful cops; they want an answer to the ultimate question, and they want it now, gosh darn it, or at least 40 days from now. So they came…
