SAIGON BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Winter Soldier Rated: NOT RATED Release Date: 2005-09-29 Cast: John Kerry WorkNameSort: Winter Soldier It’s almost impossible to review a film like Winter Soldier in the traditional sense of the verb. Released to the festival circuit in 1972 and virtually unseen ever since, the movie looms so large as a cultural document that evaluating its…
Serenity
Serenity Studio: Universal Pictures Rated: PG-13 Website: http://www.serenitymovie.com/ Release Date: 2005-09-30 Cast: Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Adam Baldwin, Summer Glau, Chiwetel Ejiofor Director: Joss Whedon Screenwriter: Joss Whedon WorkNameSort: Serenity Furiously paced and packed with delightful characters, Hawksian banter and oft-deft action, Joss Whedon’s adaptation of his “failed” TV SF Western, Firefly, is almost embarrassingly…
The Greatest Game Ever Played
The Greatest Game Ever Played Studio: Walt Disney Pictures Rated: PG Website: http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/greatestgame/ Release Date: 2005-09-30 Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Stephen Dillane, Justin Ashforth, Peter Firth, George Asprey Director: Bill Paxton Screenwriter: Melissa Carter WorkNameSort: Greatest Game Ever Played, The The prospect of yet another uplifting, history-based Disney sports drama sounds like enough to make a…
DON’T GIVE A DAMN
The Ministrel Show Label: ABB/Atlantic Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Ministrel Show, The “If you were an alien that lived on another planet and you came here and watched BET, you would think that all black people got gold in their mouth,” MC Phonte, one-third of the hip-hop trio Little Brother, quips via cell phone. “I ain’t…
Portrait-Robot
Portrait-Robot Label: Tricatel/Hit Thing Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Portrait-Robot There are moments on Portrait-Robot – near the end of “Ma Boîte à Musique,” for example, or at the beginning of one of this deluxe edition’s bonus tracks, “Colour Wheel” – that find French electronicist Bertrand Burgalat locking into a beat-centric Euro-funk that could have been nicked…
The Land We All Believe In
The Land We All Believe In Label: North East Indie Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Land We All Believe In, The From its title down to the lyric sheet, The Land We All Believe In is a political album. Yet the determined, easygoing eccentricity of septet Cerberus Shoal places this curio squarely outside of the protest-rock crop…
Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues, 1945-1970, Vol. 2
Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues, 1945-1970, Vol. 2 Label: CMF/Lost Highway Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues, 1945-1970, Vol. 2 Once again, the folks at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum prove that their little facility in Nashville is way more informative than…
BEATIN’ OF THE WEEK
A History of Violence Studio: New Line Cinema Rated: R Website: http://www.historyofviolence.com/ Release Date: 2005-09-30 Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris, William Hurt, Ashton Holmes Director: David Cronenberg Screenwriter: Josh Olson WorkNameSort: History of Violence, A David Cronenberg would no sooner judge a character’s morals than an entomologist would condemn a predatory insect. The…
GRUEL INTENTIONS
Oliver Twist Studio: Columbia Pictures Rated: PG-13 Website: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/olivertwist/ Release Date: 2005-09-30 Cast: Ben Kingsley, Barney Clark, Jamie Foreman, Frank Finlay, Harry Eden Director: Roman Polanski Screenwriter: Ronald Harwood WorkNameSort: Oliver Twist Well, he’s got the dinginess down. In Roman Polanski’s interpretation of Dickens’ Oliver Twist, the London streets see hungry, unwashed masses taunted by…
GO FIGURE
Proof Studio: Miramax Films Rated: PG-13 Website: http://miramax.com/proof/ Release Date: 2005-09-30 Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, Jake Gyllenhaal, Hope Davis, Colin Stinton Director: John Madden, James D. Stern Screenwriter: David Auburn, Rebecca Miller Music Score: Stephen Warbeck WorkNameSort: Proof A filmed adaptation of a four-character play about math wizardry seems doomed to wallow in esoterica,…
WHAT AND WHERE IS PONCE INLET
In the early 1500s, Ponce de Leon came here in search of a boat that had been separated from his fleet by strong currents. He named the area Bay of the Cross and set forth exploring. By 1569, thanks to what is now our state insect, the colloquial name became Mosquito Bay, which stuck for…
Letters
Everyone’s a critic Honestly, I love your publication. I enjoy the articles, the perspective, the movie times … but I gotta say, this week’s cover sucks! `”Uncle Sam really wants you,” Sept. 8.` The artists in the past have had great style, great composition; your papers are eye-catching, interesting; they compel nonregular readers to pick…
MORE THAN MOSQUITOES ARE BITING AT PONCE INLET
The town of Ponce Inlet, long ago called Mosquito Inlet, wouldn’t exist without its lighthouse. Named for Ponce de Leon, the first explorer to record a visit to the area, the lighthouse stands as a 175-foot-tall marker of this treacherous inlet pass where many boats perished throughout the years. Today, when you drive over from…
Notable Noise
Criteria has a new record out, and what was once a solo project (for ex-Cursive guitarist Stephen Pedersen) that expanded into a four-piece band is now a four-piece band that’s damned impressive. Their new album – When We Break – notches surprisingly high on the rockin’-out meter, and when they roll into town on Saturday,…
LET’S HEAR IT FOR VICODIN
Screw television. I’m renaming this column “I `heart` Vicodin.” Normally, I’m not a big fan of dental work – but if it inspires my dentist to ladle out bottles and bottles of these wonderful pills? Sign me up for root canals for the rest of the year! You know, a lot of people complain about…
HURRICANE BILLY
Far be it from me to equate the regularly scheduled swirls of my own marinated mind with anything that actually kills people, but for some reason this week I’m churning up a storm surge of salty vodka that threatens to wipe me out entirely. Somewhere between the botched aftermath of New Orleans’ devastation and the…
BOB MORRIS: DEAD BUT NOT DONE
When people say they don’t give a “flying fuck,” typically it’s just an expression. But it’s explained plausibly as a water-slide activity in Jamaica Me Dead, the second installment of Bob Morris’ Caribbean mystery trilogy, which hits bookstores Saturday, Oct. 1. There are even a couple of pages involving Viagra-like symptoms caused by chewing on…
Rob Brezny’s Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19) In Madison magazine, William Stadiem described Aries actress Robin Wright Penn as “the most beautiful surgically unenhanced woman on screen.” I nominate her to be your role model. May she inspire you to reject the pressure to be anything other than exactly who you are. May her example give you the…
WHIZ KIDS
Mad Cow Theatre has opened its ninth season with a terrific production of the Mark Hollmann/Greg Kotis musical-theater phenomenon, Urinetown, a strangely titled work dedicated to the dismal proposition that we are all living in a world of unsustainable infrastructure and are hurtling toward a future of environmental disaster and societal collapse. How a show…
UNFORTUNATE EPISODES
“This family drama contains images of a fictional hurricane and its aftermath. Due to recent events, viewers may be sensitive to some of the following images.” – Disclaimer that preceded ABC-TV’s Invasion, Sept. 21, 2005 So why not … ATTENTION: The family-oriented drama Invasion contains brief images of a hypothetical hurricane and its aftermath. In…
Music
Sept. 30 CHARLIE SEXTON This show sold out in summer, but it’s not because Charlie Sexton’s on the bill. Some guy named John Mayer is headlining. Whatever. Though idolized in his native Texas and respected among small cults of people who still understand that it’s possible to be a guitar-slinger and a good songwriter, Sexton…
Film
NOTE: This selective, wholly subjective overview of some of the season’s most notable flicks and festivals is as accurate as the movie business permits – which means that opening dates and other details may change drastically in the weeks to come. Keep checking our Movie Times and The Week listings for final and complete screening…
Cooler
Ah, fall in Florida. The leaves not changing colors, the temperatures not getting crisp, the grass not turning brown. At least your social life starts picking up. Steve Schneider writes about fall film and theater, Jason Ferguson’s got a bitchin’ commemorative poster full of good tunes, Jessica Bryce Young has cultural happenings to help feed…
Recreation
WOODS HAL SCOTT REGIONAL PRE-SERVE AND PARK Out in east Orange County, near the intersection of State Road 528 and Dallas Boulevard on a chunk of land owned by the St. Johns River Water Management District, is this 8,400-acre wetland that’s seldom completely wet. What you’ll find instead of a swamp, usually, are four- and…
Happytown
When is a Wal-Mart less than a Wal-Mart? When it’s a “Neighborhood Market,” the Big W’s effort to muscle its way into the grocery-store biz. There are a couple of Neighborhood Markets already in Orlando, and a new one is planned for the intersection of North Pine Hills and Clarcona Ocoee roads. Oftentimes a new…
Stuff
BEAD AND ART GLASS FEST, Sept. 29-Oct. 2 It might sound hokey, but take a look at some of the classes on offer: Advanced Borosilicate Sculpture? Etching With Dichroic Glass? Compositions in Felt and Glass? This is serious stuff, not just a bunch of bead-stringing, though the exhibition hall will offer loads of pretty trinkets…
PETTY THEFT
SEPT. 18, 1:45 A.M.: After a punishing day of pizza-dough-kneading and marinara-sauce-scooping, the expert folks at a local pizza buffet chain in the 5700 block of North Orange Blossom Trail called it a day. Their work had ended, but somewhere a criminal was just clocking in. A burglar or burglars gained entry to the house…
Civics
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF ORANGE COUNTY Plenty of self-proclaimed progressives like to bitch about the alleged ineptitude of the local Democratic party. But consider this: In a state that is increasingly swinging red, Orange County is still blue, and the Dems control five of the seven seats on the Orlando City Council and four of…
NOISE ANNOYS
Wolf Eyes is noise, to be sure. But it’s a beautiful and hazardous noise. For nearly a decade now, this rotating cast of Detroit-bred electronic wizards has been adding to the nation’s vinyl tally through countless numbers of small-run releases, appearing on innumerable cassettes, compilations and singles, finally landing a deal with Sub Pop records…
CHERRY: THE PITS
I’m a straight male in my early 20s who has so far chosen to remain a virgin. I’m attractive enough and never had a problem getting offers, but I’ve always held out because I was obsessed with the idea of not fucking until I was in love or until the “perfect” girl came along –…
Alasdair Roberts, Sarah Chang, Veg Fest and more
Thursday • 29 ALASDAIR ROBERTS In the mid -’90s, Alasdair Roberts recorded and released some records under the name Appendix Out. They were sort of folky, sort of weird and fairly accessible. Yet, once he began releasing records under his own name, the truly weird and truly folky undercurrents of Appendix Out came to the…
Sports
PROFESSIONAL FLORIDA SEALS Hockey is catching on – what can you say? People love violence on ice. Home games are played at Silver Spurs Arena at Osceola Heritage Park, Kissimmee; tickets $10-$25, with passes available; 321-939-2465; www.orlandoseals.com Oct. 21 @ Knoxville, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 2 @ Jacksonville, 7:05 p.m. Oct. 28 @ Pee Dee, 7:05…
Culture
50 BOOKS/50 COVERS, Sept. 29 Go on, judge books by their covers at AIGA’s traveling exhibition of the year’s best in cover design. Mingle with the hipsterati at Lure Design’s Virginia Avenue studio, and enter to win a copy of Felice Varini: A Different Point of View. (6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Lure Design;…
Arts
THE AMERICAN COLLECTION, continuing This exhibition has been at the OMA for years, and it will be for many more. But what if it weren’t? Some of the names of artists in the collection are recognizable from those long-ago humanities classes – Georgia O’Keeffe, Ansel Adams, Dennis Oppenheim. Still, few people can readily conjure the…
Theater
URINETOWN Mad Cow Theatre continues the season-opening run of its Broadway-derived musical parody, set in a future in which even the simple pleasure of relieving oneself carries a price. The five-week span of the Cows’ production may seem like a long time to hold it, but don’t forget how big those bovine bladders can get.…
