The Wackness
Jonathan Levine’s semi-autobiographical flick takes you into the life of Luke (Josh Peck), a recent high school graduate spending a sweltering summer dealing drugs in order to get by. He’s an “unofficial” virgin and loyal listener to cassette tapes who describes himself as one of the “most popular of the unpopular” people. At 18 years…
Wall-E
For 700 years, WALL-E — a Waste Allocation Load Lifter robot, Earth Class — has been doing the job he was programmed to do. Left behind on an earth no longer inhabitable by humans, the solar-powered WALL-E gathers and compacts garbage, stacking the cubes in skyscraper-sized towers, over and over, all day long. But he’s…
Henry Poole Is Here
When he can’t purchase the home he grew up in, Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) settles for the next best thing — a place on the same block. But why he’s come back to his old Southern California ’hood is a bit of mystery for the first half of this slow-moving film. Things start to come…
Bottle Shock
Directed by Randall Miller, Bottle Shock tells the story of the event that put California wines on the map: the 1976 Judgment of Paris, a blind tasting in which California wines unexpectedly prevailed over some of France’s finest vintages. The film focuses on Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman), a struggling vintner who gave up his law…
Fly Me to the Moon
Made exclusively in 3-D, this feature film tells the tale of three ordinary tween-aged flies — Nat, I.Q. and Scooter — who courageously decide to hitch a ride aboard Apollo 11 after being inspired by heroic stories told by Nat’s well-respected grandfather. After successfully stowing away in the helmets of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and…
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
In the Star Wars universe, the Clone Wars were a three-year skirmish involving the Republic and the burgeoning Empire that filled the gap between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Back in 2003, Dexter’s Laboratory mastermind Genndy Tartakovsky created a 25-episode series that became a cult hit and remains a more satisfying…
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Vicky Cristina Barcelona finds director Woody Allen in a lighter mood, telling the story of two friends: dark-haired, sensible Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and blond, impulsive Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), who share a summer vacation — and a lover, Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) — in Barcelona. After a weekend trip to Oviedo, Juan Antonio, to Vicky’s disappointment,…
Baghead
Baghead is a clever, funny and suspenseful film about a group of low-level actors who decide to write their own movie in the hope of getting some attention. Chad (Steve Zissis) wants to use the movie to get closer to Michelle (Greta Gerwig), but Michelle has the hots for Matt (Ross Partridge), even though Matt’s…
Mirrors
Mirrors starts off promisingly enough, with Kiefer Sutherland as a recovering alcoholic ex-cop forced to take a job as a security guard in a creepy, burned-out department store. The first third of the movie may be fairly standard-issue ghost-story stuff, but it creates an effectively creepy atmosphere. As the movie goes along, however, the viewer’s…
Man on Wire
On the morning of August 7, 1974, New Yorkers watched in awe as an unstoppable Frenchman by the name of Philippe Petit pirouetted on a tightrope between the magnificent Twin Towers without a net. Inspired by an article about the towers when they were still under construction, Petit, a juggler and tightrope walker, made it…
Elegy
Philip Roth’s novella The Dying Animal is a strange choice for a movie adaptation. A brief coda to Roth’s Professor of Desire series about the sex-obsessed David Kepesh, it’s basically a monologue in which college professor Kepesh recalls his affair with a Cuban American student 38 years his junior. Director Isabel Coixet apparently saw a…
The Rocker
In his first starring role, The Office’s Rainn Wilson plays Robert “Fish” Fishman, a drummer in an awful ’80s hair-metal band who gets the boot right before the group strikes it rich. Twenty years and many crappy cubicle jobs later, Fish joins his teenage nephew’s pop-punk band and finally realizes his rock ’n’ roll dreams.…
Swing Vote
Bud (Kevin Costner) is your everyday delinquent single father. Most of the time, he’s so hungover, he can’t even get his daughter Molly (Madeline Carroll) to school on time. But in a presidential race where the outcome rests on a single vote, he becomes the center of national attention after his ballot is negated by…
Dining Bites
Few liquors possess the mystique of absinthe. The legendary "Green Fairy," which was believed to produce hallucinogenic effects, was required drinking in 19th-century France. Vincent van Gogh is said to have sliced off a portion of his ear during an absinthe-induced buzz. Of course, it is stories such as these that add to the booze's…
Hurrahs And Bugaboos
Five times a week for what seemed an eternity, Walter Cronkite closed The CBS Evening News with his trademark sign off, "And that's the way it is, this [fill in the month, day and year]." He positively glowed with assurance that the previous half-hour had precisely summed up the day's important events and their ramifications.…
The Reluctant Mouseketeer
We slide the Disney World vacation-planning DVD into the iMac. My kid and I watch over my husband's shoulder as a diverse group of people talk about their dreams amid the flitterings of Tinker Bell. "I grew up wanting to be Cinderella," says a skinny blond chick. "I grew up wanting to change my name…
He’s A Mad Man
By now we should expect an ample dose of the absurd from Stone Mad owner Pete Leneghan. After all, who else would invest untold dollars and countless hours erecting a "legacy bar" on an out-of-the-way block in an "up-and-coming" neighborhood? Who other than eccentric "American Pete" would forbid the installation of TVs or jukeboxes, so…
Short Takes On What’s Playing In The Theater
Baghead – Baghead is a clever, funny and suspenseful film about a group of low-level actors who decide to write their own movie in the hope of getting some attention. Chad (Steve Zissis) wants to use the movie to get closer to Michelle (Greta Gerwig), but Michelle has the hots for Matt (Ross Partridge), even…
Artscape: Your Weekly Arts Calendar
Not Dead Yet City Xpressions, Saturday, August 23 You can't find it on the radio or in the suburbs, but if you don't have the curfew or knowledge to find true hip-hop, you can get it safely and on schedule by heading down to the West Side Market this Saturday and crossing West 25th Street.…
Out Behind The Shed
On certain nights, at certain times, on certain blocks, Detroit Avenue between West 28th and 32nd is a smorgasbord of vice. The Second Police District's Vice Squad keeps tabs on the area, suppressing drug sales and prostitution as best it can. But weekends are busy, and with more than 25 burned-out streetlights and an after-midnight…
Around Hear: Block Party
The new DVD Live From the Block: Cleveland documents Cleveland hip-hop culture in the clubs, studios and streets. Filmed during 2006 and 2007, the disc features appearances by Cleveland stars, including Al Fatz, Chip tha Ripper, Young Trelle, Ray Cash, Corey Bapes, the Kickdrums and more than a dozen others. "The DVD's about the urban…
Your Weekly Concert Previews
Steve Lukather at the Winchester on Friday, August 22 Today, guitar heroes are mostly just for videogames. The iconic axemen of the mega-bands of the '70s and '80s (from Jimmy Page to Eddie Van Halen) have been replaced by lesser power-chord rockers and kids with expensive game systems. "Where's the flash guitar player of today?"…
Let It Rainn
The differences between Dwight Schrute – the self-centered cubicle drone Rainn Wilson plays on The Office – and Robert "Fish" Fishman – the self-centered wild-man drummer Wilson plays in The Rocker – are in the details. One lives on a beet farm, likes Star Wars and is thisclose to embracing fascism; the other lives in…
Culture Jamming: Rock Stan
TOP PICK South Park: The Complete Eleventh Season — Uncensored(Comedy Central/Paramount)This three-DVD set includes all 14 episodes of the cartoon cutups’ 11th season, along with mini-commentaries by creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. “Le Petit Tourette” (where Cartman fakes an ailment so he can swear as much as he wants) and “The Imaginationland Trilogy” (a…
Dreams Of Obama
Barack Obama, it is true, is a transformational leader. But he needs a transformational movement to become a transformational president. He is transformational not only by his charisma and brilliance, but by embodying the possibility of an African American being chosen president in the generation following the civil-rights movement. Whether he wins or loses, the…
Shock Rocer: Alice Cooper
The just-released Along Came a Spider is shock-rocker Alice Cooper's 25th album, and it harks back to his past in that the songs revolve around a concept. For Spider, Cooper takes on the persona of a serial killer who can't be stopped, boasting "They tried so hard to bury me, but I survived it every…
Letters: 08-20-2008
YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING I was very troubled to read "I Know the Truth: Who Really Killed Lisa Pruett?" (August 6). You'll be happy to know that your article is being read across the country and perhaps even across continents, as Lisa's friends forward on the appalling and upsetting articles that the local weekly papers…
The Girl Can’t Help It
It's the same ol' story: Cute, feisty female singer pulls attention away from the rest of her male band. One of the guys gets pissed and whines about cute, feisty singer's spotlight-hogging. Eventually, he realizes he'd be stocking shelves with Sue Grafton's latest novel at Borders, if it wasn't for that cute, feisty singer in…
Turd’s The Word
The Motion Picture Association of America ratings board doesn't get a lot of compliments, but give them some respect for wisdom and restraint this week. In a Homeland Security/Janet-nipple era in which the terrified ninnies and metrosexuals at PBS panicked that Ken Burns' documentary The War would have actual Army guys swearing, the MPAA slapped…
Bears Will Be Bears
Reached via phone as he was about to meet the rest of his bandmates and head to Pittsburgh, where he was playing the inaugural New American Music Union Festival, Bears singer-guitarist Charlie McArthur admits the group has hopes of doing more touring in support of its new album, Simple Machinery. 'We talk about [touring]…
Arts News
It's far too early to be thinking about the holidays – unless, of course, you're an orchestra, TV programmer or some other company that's booking talent and making arrangements for that Most Lucrative Time of the Year. That's the situation for the Cleveland Pops orchestra, which has just signed a deal to be part of…
Mad Jam Man
After he finished his damaged-biker Back to Ohio Blues LP in 1975, the man known as Raven gave away most of the few hundred copies that were pressed. The little-heard album was both of its time and timeless. Today, after it's reached a wider audience, mostly via record nerd/hipster word of mouth, it seems to…
Your Complete Concert Calendar
THIS WEEK THURSDAY, AUG. 21 The Greencards/Jedd Hughes/Chris Castle: Tavern, 8 p.m., $12 ADV/$14 DOS. Beachland, 15711 Waterloo Rd., 216-383-1124. Paleface/Bombadil: 9 p.m., $8. Grog Shop, 2785 Euclid Hts. Blvd., 216-321-5588. Psyopus/War From a Harlot's Mouth/Fuck the Facts: 7 p.m., $10. Pirate's Cove, 2083 1/2 E. 21st St., 216-776-9999. FRIDAY, AUG. 22 Bleed the Sky/Straightline…
Nine Inch Nails
What a difference sobriety makes. Throughout the '90s, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor lived a tumultuous life. His industrial rock band was hugely popular, but he didn't do many interviews and engaged in very public feuds with everyone from Marilyn Manson to Courtney Love. It took five years for NIN to follow up 1994's…
Get Out!
Friday 8.22 CLEVELAND CHALLENGE CUP OF BOCCE A sports club from upstate New York defends its title against 83 other teams at this weekend's Cleveland Challenge Cup of Bocce in Wickliffe. But to knock the Rochester squad from the top spot, competitors need to master the art of rolling balls. "Some of these guys never…
Local Disc Reviews
The Deacons Evolution of a Soul (self-released) www.thedeacons.us Evolution of a Soul, the Deacons' debut, incorporates soul, jazz, R&B and a little old-school funk. "Homeboy" is a seven-minute instrumental introduction to an album filled with dazzling guitar riffs, classy jazz boards and cool sax solos topped with inspirational vocals. "Talk About It," "Mamma Told Me…
Your Weekly Concert Review Wrap-up
Oneida Beachland Tavern, Thursday, August 14 The monstrously invigorating Brooklyn-based psych band Oneida entrances crowds with its orgiastic earthquake of heavy rhythmic drone jams, which could blare for hours. Like a punchier, less prog-noxious Acid Mothers Temple, Oneida blends bubbling organ/synth minimalism in its liveliest form (taking cues from Terry Riley, pinball machines and carousel/carnival…
Back To Basics
It happens more often than it should. A band releases a debut album that's so innovative, smart and just plain amazing that fans find themselves wondering if the band can do it again. For the Academy Is… that album was 2005's Almost Here. The Chicago group followed it up with a less-than-amazing second album, last…
I’ll Get My Rest When the Lord Is Done With Me Here
Fannie M. Lewis is dead and the eulogies have begun. Some will now try to name a school, a recreation center or some other monument after her, an idea she abhorred, convinced such acts were prideful and thus wrong with the Lord. There will be others who will fight to assure her ideals become achievable…
Oh My
Maybe it was the dirty-looking angels perpetrating various offenses against defenseless humans, including pissing on them. Or maybe it was the frightening red elephants, meant to represent a political party that had sold its soul. Then again, it could have been the "crosstikas," blasphemy depicted in six simple pen strokes. Most likely it was all…
Zach Hill, Jaguar Love, The Baseball Project, And More
Jaguar Love Take Me to the Sea (Matador) I was bummed last year when two of the Pacific Northwest's best bands, Pretty Girls Make Graves and the Blood Brothers, called it quits. Sure, they were both a bit past their prime, but they still possessed a unique and eclectic sound. Now comes Jaguar Love, a…
Tropic Thunder
While shooting on location in the jungles of Vietnam, the cast and crew of a “Rambo”-esque adventure movie are attacked by a real band of guerrilla fighters/heroin dealers. The ensuing stand-off between the feral Flaming Dragons and the clueless, girly-man actors is a meta-hoot, even when (especially when) it’s spurting enough blood to keep Count…
Black, White, And Elusive
Chances are, if asked to list the 10 or 20 or 25 greatest photographers of the 20th century, few would mention Bill Brandt (1904-1983). That speaks less to the man's gifts than to his elusiveness, a quality that underlies his work and is at once its greatest strength and liability. Ultimately, it provides the thread…
