Thursday, August 12 A letter circa the late ’70s (some content altered for improved readability): Dear Rodgers & Hammerstein, Thank you. I was really discouraged about my spelling, but thanks to the rousing “Oklahoma!” I am able to spell the state’s name aloud and with a damn catchy melody. I…
Mothers are the worst people in the world. Sure, some moms aren’t so bad, like the ones on Jerry Springer or the mother of JonBenet Ramsey, but they pale in comparison to mothers who don’t throw their kids’ comics in the trash. See, in our youth, we built up a…
8/16 He was the first-born son of Ewell and Lena Holston Pope, small and imaginative but racked from an early age with diphtheria that spread from his skin to his throat. And as he lay dying, Lena asked her son Conrad what she would do without him. Conrad took a…
8/14 There are those who believe that Elvis Presley did not, in fact, die on August 16, 1977. These are the people who decorate their houses (trailer or otherwise) with velvet paintings of the once and future King. They’ve seen Graceland more often than they’ve seen their in-laws’ home, and…
8/16 We echo the Pulp Fiction-engendered disgust of the idea of Dutch people slathering french fries in mayonnaise. And, unlike our father, we have never been inclined to drown our pinto beans in ketchup; nor will we allow Tabasco sauce to touch any food we plan on consuming. The simple…
8/13 Ever-advancing years don’t make this any easier to admit: My first exposure to a Broadway show was Disney’s Beauty and the Beast almost a decade ago…and it was fairly awesome. No offense meant to fans of the story or the production; it’s just that a high school senior typically…
You’re not likely to hear this critic utter the phrases “American remake” and “good idea” in the same breath. Godzilla, anyone? La Femme Nikita bastardized into Point of No Return? The Ladykillers? Just say no! Yet when Hidayo Nakata’s shocker Ringu was remade successfully as The Ring by workmanlike Gore…
Sheathed in a custom-tailored gray suit and sporting expensively barbered silver hair, Tom Cruise looks like an older, harder version of the self-absorbed L.A. sharpie he played 16 years ago in Rain Man. But in Collateral, a frenetic Michael Mann thriller that runs up a Baghdad-level body count, Cruise’s character…
Little Black Book, with its Carly Simon soundtrack all but daring you to tune it out before it begins, is being marketed as a daffy romantic comedy in which a woman plows through her boyfriend’s Palm to uncover his past relationships. In truth, the movie’s anything but light and frothy;…
There is nothing mysterious or subdued about Stacy Peralta’s enthusiasms. A product of Southern California’s vivid beach scene, he’s been a surfer since boyhood and was a professional skateboarder in the ’70s before he started making documentaries about the defining moments of those sports. The phenomenally successful Dogtown and Z-Boys…
As a reviewer, it can be very tempting to want in on the ground floor of a phenomenon, to say you were there first when some low-budget feature with a nifty premise made its festival debut, only to be picked up by a big studio and become a national phenomenon…
There is a phrase bandied about that other film industry–“gay for pay”–that means exactly what it says. The queer thing is, this switch-hitting work ethic obviously applies to the “straight” industry as well, since actors not infrequently launch their careers, or rev ’em up, by playing gay. Witness recently Heath…
Ellsworth Kelly in Dallas This show should be called “Dallas Collects Ellsworth Kelly.” It would be more honest, not to mention more intriguing. This dainty collection of top-quality painting and sculpture by the mid-20th-century artist does little service to the importance of Kelly. Kelly’s brightly colored and experimentally shaped opaque…
Porn for Puritans In just over an hour of sketches and songs, writer-performers Leigh Tomlinson and Tim Wardell attempt to show the funny side of wooing and winning the opposite sex. If only they weren’t afraid of the topic. Instead of driving their audience to ecstasy with saucy observations and…
You’ll come for the title. You’ll stay for 70 minutes. And you’ll go home thinking of punch lines infinitely funnier than the ones coming from the stage in Porn for Puritans, the comedy revue now playing in the little theater at The MAC. Written and performed by Leigh Tomlinson and…
While the matrimonial antics of thick celebrities may be fun to read about if there’s a dearth of painfully embarrassing anecdotes in your own life, most of the time they’re just a source of humor. But rather than bemoaning the day that Britney Spears was issued her first marriage license…
Thursday, August 5 Along with guidelines on where to park, what to pack and how to dispose of “personal toilet” output, the Burning Man Festival Web site offers this wisdom: “Trying to explain what Burning Man is to someone who has never been to the event is a bit like…
Our research has proven our theory: There is no breakfast food (Cookie Crunch notwithstanding) that is less nutritious than the toaster pastry. But that doesn’t make them any less desirable or tasty. What is interesting is that, while two pastries come in one pouch, the serving suggestion is a single…
8/6 If you want to leave the cineplex this weekend with that feel-good vibe–love solves everything and good always triumphs over evil–you should buy a ticket to Spider-Man 2 or A Cinderella Story. Stick to your family-friendly fare, and at all costs avoid the Inwood Theatre’s midnight movie–don’t you know…
8/7 Something happened to Daryl Sprout that day in the fifth grade when he found a speckled king snake in his grandmother’s back yard. That something was icky and alternately sweet: a lifelong affection for snakes of all kinds. By the end of the fifth grade, Sprout already knew far…
8/5 You probably prance to the thunderous, rolling boil of copper-clad kettledrums. Your drummer’s different. You’re curious about, interested in or at least tolerant of all sorts of art forms from cultures far and near. Of the performing arts, dance is the most inscrutable. To do it well requires mastery…
8/10 Things We Love About Little Shop of Horrors: a randomly appearing trio of backup singers. The dynamic between a sadistic dentist and a masochistic patient. A gigantic soul-singing alien plant-beast. In all honesty, our Little Shop experience is largely based on the 1986 Frank Oz movie musical, but seeing…
