The Kingdom
The Kingdom Studio: Universal Rated: R Cast: Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper Director: Peter Berg WorkNameSort: Kingdom, The Our Rating: 1.00 There’s an exchange between Jamie Foxx’s FBI agent and Ashraf Barhom’s Saudi colonel that is emblematic of this film’s biggest misstep. Having been forced to collaborate on finding a terrorist cell following a horrific attack…
Sharkwater
Sharkwater Studio: Sharkwater Productions Rated: PG Director: Rob Stewart WorkNameSort: Sharkwater Our Rating: 4.00 Within the first 15 minutes of this eye-opening documentary, photographer/biologist Rob Stewart stands on the ocean floor in his scuba gear and strokes a 6-foot-long or so shark, which, amazingly, responds like a purring housecat. The film continues not only to…
Putting the Old Horse Down
Putting the Old Horse Down Label: self-released Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Putting the Old Horse Down Former members of area bands A Denver Mile, Band Marino and the Dark Romantics shoot a promising sprout from the local indie-pop crop. Though not particularly original or adventurous in style, they do have a gift…
The Scene of the Crime
The Scene of the Crime Label: Anti- Length: LP Rated: NONE Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Scene of the Crime, The The Scene of the Crime, the follow-up to Bettye LaVette’s 2005 comeback album, I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise, is a great concept itself. Thirty-five years after LaVette recorded her 1972 album Child…
Maskarada
Maskarada Label: Crammed Discs Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Maskarada Taraf de Haïdouks’ attempt at role-playing on their fifth album, Maskarada, results in confusion, not the exhilarating new-folk cabaret romp that we would expect from this troupe of Roma (aka Gypsies) from the village of Clejani, in the Walachian countryside. Neither is it…
Panamericana
Panamericana Label: ESL Music Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Panamericana After five years of living and touring abroad, Argentinean songwriter Federico Aubele looked to reconnect with the Americas, where his inspirations have always thrived. Named after the Pan-American Highway that stretches from Alaska to Argentina, Panamericana is meant to be diverse to capture…
Boss
Boss Label: Ecstatic Peace! Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Boss Judging by this release, the Magik Markers are finding that no wave has its limits. In shrinking from a trio down to a duo, their sound has evolved from sewer Rorschach blots to scuzz blues with unusually coherent foreground vocals. It’s just singer/guitarist…
Across the Universe
Across the Universe Studio: Sony Rated: PG-13 Cast: Evan Rachel Wood, T.V. Carpio Director: Julie Taymor WorkNameSort: Across the Universe Our Rating: 2.50 Here’s an interesting failure: a collection of strung-together music videos – scored with Beatles tunes – that have plenty of Broadway pizzazz but no emotional resonance, a lot of visual distractions but…
CLUB MED
Mediterranean meals in a Dionysian setting
The Game Plan
The Game Plan Studio: Walt Disney Pictures Rated: PG Cast: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Roselyn Sanchez Director: Andy Fickman WorkNameSort: Game Plan, The Our Rating: 2.00 Pro wrestling is more or less football plus ballet plus drama. In The Game Plan, former WWE wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson gets to do all three, and it’s…
In the Shadow of the Moon
In the Shadow of the Moon Studio: ThinkFilm Rated: PG Director: David Sington WorkNameSort: In the Shadow of the Moon Our Rating: 3.50 In the Shadow of the Moon tells a riveting story, even if we know how it ends. A reflection on the ’60s space race and the almost insurmountable setbacks it took for…
SHADES OF GRACE
It’s one of life’s great ironies that peaceniks make attractive lightning rods, but there’s something about charismatic hippies that’s a beacon for haters. When Common Sense dropped hip-hop’s thieves-in-the-temple moment with “I Used to Love H.E.R,” foretelling the genre’s disintegration into materialism and death over a decade ago, the harmonious rhetoric did not go unpunished.…
THE WHITE STUFF
In case the name didn’t give it away, Tooth and the Enamels is not a deep band. They are themed around the singer’s famously busted grill, which was the result of a confrontation with a childhood bully that earned Tooth (aka Paul Kemp) a broken maxilla – sweet! He and the rest of the group…
AROUND THE WORLD IN FIVE DAYS
In its fifth year, the Global Peace Film Festival continues to impress. Less concerned with hammering home dogmatic messages of “peace-making,” the five-day cinematic tour presents an eclectic array of international movies to broaden horizons and open eyes, and it’s full of surprises this year. As usual, founder and guru Nina Streich selected a roster…
ALONE IN A MERMAID LAIR
It’s high noon on a Wednesday, and I stand virtually alone in what was once (pre-Disney) a premier Florida tourist attraction, Weeki Wachee Springs. As in, the place where mermaids perform for you in a natural freshwater spring turned underwater theater. By my unofficial count – made even less official by the beer I promptly…
HIGH STAKES ON ROUGH SEAS
Even as scores of day-trippers boarded Sterling’s hulking casino cruise ship, the party had already begun. The ship’s dimly lit lounge was swinging with a live band fronted by a Big Bopper impersonator. There was a dazzling array of tacky Hawaiian shirts and a sprinkling of trend-busting fanny packs, many of them accompanying the retirees…
BLISTER
Sometimes you don’t need the whole manually labored roll out of a red carpet to get the comfort you crave in your imaginary living room. Sometimes just a swatch will do for the violent punching of the face, burning of the knees and urination upon that you require. “Shut. Up. We’re on the red carpet,”…
CROSSING THE RAILS
The train is late. The train is always late. That characteristic turns out to be something that choo-choos and this traveler have in common; no wonder my first excursion aboard the rails since I was a child turned out to be so comfortable and familiar. Let me qualify “late,” however, to clarify the timing of…
SAVAGE LOVE
I am happily married to a girl in her mid-20s. She recently brought home a Shetland sheepdog that she excitedly explained she had saved from the local pound. Three weeks later, I was in our neighborhood on business and decided to stop by the apartment to save the money I would otherwise spend on lunch.…
CHECKING THE PERIMETER
It was somewhere around Holopaw, around the edge of the swamps, when the dung began to take hold. The smell of the reclaimed water hydrating the golf courses and manicured lawns of instant communities with names like Harmony and Lake Nona had given way to the loamy musk of vast cattle ranches and sod farms.…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
ARIES (March 21-April 19) Your first assignment: Practice feeling that everywhere you go you’re standing on holy ground. Capitalize that phrase in your mind – “I AM STANDING ON HOLY GROUND” – as you move through the world. Your second assignment, which may at first seem unrelated, is to kick your evil twin’s ass. Do…
SIGNS OF EARLY CIVILIZATION
With its warm climate and easy lifestyle, Florida seems like the perfect location for modern architecture: those long, low, horizontal lines and glass walls open to nature, perfect for framing waterfront vistas. It’s puzzling, then, that we live in an agglomeration of condo towers, maze-like shopping plazas, plastic hotels and fake-stucco McMansions. For all the…
THIS LITTLE UNDERGROUND
’Member that shit-hot fall concert schedule I was talkin’ about? Well, it’s on, ’cause this week was preggers, big-time, and it was the openers who meant business. THE BEAT Take the John Vanderslice bill at the Social Sept. 17, for example. Brooklyn’s Bishop Allen owned it. Their spry pop is exceptionally likable, but they don’t…
STRANGE AMUSEMENTS
Any amusement park experience that is initiated by an eye-roll from a toothfully challenged metal-detector attendant – one who explains that the unexpected security is the fault of the “lead singer from Styx; he was a paranoid schizophrenic,” not Sept. 11 – is obviously to be relished. The Cypress Gardens Adventure Park sojourn doesn’t begin…
MOUSSAKA IN MAITLAND: 2007 ORLANDO GREEK FEST
Live music, good wine, flaming cheese. That’s what you’ll find at this year’s Orlando Greek Fest at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Maitland Friday, Oct. 5 through Sunday, Oct. 7. Saganaki, the soft goat’s milk cheese set aflame with a shot of brandy, is just one of the authentic dishes offered: Friday’s takeout…
MESSAGE IN THE WATER
There are only two federally designated “wild and scenic” rivers in Florida: the Wekiva, which is close to home and familiar, and the Loxahatchee, about 150 miles south, near Jupiter. If you like the Wekiva, you’ll love the Loxahatchee. It’s worth the drive. The “wild” section of the river is actually quite short, about a…
I LOVE TELEVISION
First, I’d like to apologize for last week’s column in which I annoyingly implored you at least 37 times to watch Bionic Woman (9 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 26, NBC). It’s not that the show isn’t awesome (IT IS!! SUPER-DUPER AWESOME!!), but you’re probably interested in other shows as well, right? Even shows considerably dumber and…
MORE THAN MASALA
The tagline for the 13th annual South Asian Film Festival is “Beyond Bollywood.” Though organizers have long sought to highlight films of South Asian origin that offer more than song-and-dance routines, the 2007 selection of films is – despite the presence of Bollywood’s biggest female star as a lead in one movie – very much…
DPAC PLANNERS DELIBERATELY OVERLOOK THE OBVIOUS
On Aug. 31, the Downtown Arts District (DAD) board held an “information gathering session,” billed as a chance for members of the arts community to give input on the city’s master plan for a “thriving” arts district. If you’re unclear on what the DAD is, or how it relates to the proposed Dr. P. Phillips…
FALL GUIDE AND THE EXCAVATION OF OLD FLORIDA
The code is buried in our DNA: When the sweltering heat starts to subside, feelings of friskiness make our feet itch and our minds wander. Adventure is what we seek to throw off the numbing chill caused by too much exposure to canned, air-conditioned air. Refuse to be a captive of indoor life and step…
HAPPYTOWN
U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez sure does love our troops. He loves them so much, he thinks they should stay in Iraq forever and never come home, not even for vacation, because they’re tough. And to suggest otherwise is insulting. Vacation? Vacation is for terrorists. Martinez is not only our war-loving, Bush-suckling Florida senator; he’s also…
POLICE BEAT
SEPT. 12, 7:43 P.M.: People sure can be stubborn. Having a revolver pressed against your skull, however, helps loosen them up sometimes. This evening’s case takes us to the 100 block of West Compton Avenue, where a 23-year-old girl relaxed in her bedroom until she noticed an old amigo hanging outside her homestead. She wandered…
MAIL SACK
Keep it local I’m with you on the idea that the local stations should put less emphasis on crime and instead focus more resources on local politics and investigative reporting `“Be afraid. Be very afraid,” Sept. 20`. But when you make mention of at least two national news items that you said went unreported, I…
FALL GUIDE CALENDAR
Wondering how to have some adventures of your own this fall? Here’s our handy list of autumnal events to keep you occupied until you hear the jingle bells ring! (Remember, this information might change, so double-check our online calendar to verify the information, and to see more events. www.orlandoweekly.com/calendar) Fall Guide Events Calendar Jump to:…
