Bolt
The first Disney CGI ’toon produced since Pixar major domo John Lasseter took creative control of Walt Disney Animation Studios, Bolt has something of a cobbled-together, Chinese-menu feel. Its story of a dog that must travel across country to find his way home inevitably recalls classic live-action Disney fare like 1963’s The Incredible Journey (and…
Repo! The Genetic Opera
Repo! The Genetic Opera, a gothic-rock musical and midnight-movie hopeful, shows what can happen when a person with no musical talent locks himself in a room with the soundtracks to Phantom of the Opera, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Moulin Rouge, and decides, “Hey, I can do that!” No words yet exist to describe…
Twilight
Twilight, the film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling young-adult vampire novel, tells the story of Bella (Kristen Stewart), a 17-year-old girl who moves to the small town of Forks, Washington to live with her father (Billy Burke). Forks is also where a vampire named Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) lives with his surrogate “family” of nice…
Australia
Is Baz Luhrmann’s sprawling epic Australia a love story? An adventure pic? A war flick? In the grand tradition of old-school Hollywood movies, Luhrmann’s $130 million movie is all of these. Set in 1939, on the eve of Australia’s involvement in World War II, English aristocrat Sarah Ashley (played with proper stick-up-her-ass form by Nicole…
Four Christmases
“How can you appreciate someone for who they are if you don’t really know them?” Courtney (Kristin Chenoweth) asks sis Kate (Reese Witherspoon) in Four Christmases, a holiday-themed rom-com co-starring Vince Vaughn. So, for 90 minutes, three-year-old couple Kate and Brad (Vaughn) get to really know each other. But it turns out that they really…
Transporter 3
Directed by the wonderfully named Olivier Megaton from a script by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, Transporter 3 seems to have been written by taking the first film’s screenplay and crossing out the names of the supporting characters and substituting new ones. Add a few new stunts and fights, and you’ve got the movie.…
Legally Blissful
Brothers, sisters, devoted readers, it's confession time. Your humble critic has succumbed to snobbery. How? Well, let's have a flashback. Two musical works recently hit town. One, an opera, Doctor Atomic – serious, based on history, riddled with antique poetry by dead masters trailing clouds of critical glory, telecast by the Met. The other, a…
Mighty Dog
Featuring the generation-spanning voices of John Travolta and Miley Cyrus as the titular pooch and his owner, Bolt has less crossover appeal than your typical Pixar 'toon. That's the difference between a one-off stocking stuffer and a gift that keeps on giving (e.g., DreamWorks Animation cash cows like Shrek). In other words, a Mouse House…
Most Wonderful Time Of The Beer
Beer fans know that as the mercury dips, they can count on a fresh batch of seasonal brews to carry them through the darkest days of winter. Whether you call them holiday ales, Christmas beers or winter warmers, these festive elixirs tend to follow a distinctive pattern. "They are usually richer, sweeter beers with malty…
Trash Pop Duo
You can't swing a shorted-out mic cord without hitting a guitar/drum duo these days. The Gay Blades understand they're in a saturated market, so the pair (guitarist Clark Westfield and drummer Puppy Mills) distinguishes themselves by virtue of their twisted stage presentation and by writing songs that skirt the line between serious rock odes and…
Film Capsules
Angels and Insects (US/Britain, 1995) – An eccentric, visually lush and decadently romantic mixture of period drama and anthropology and upper-class-twit bashing, based on A.S. Byatt's novella Morpho Eugenia. A penniless Victorian entymologist (Mark Rylance) is hosted by a wealthy English family. He observes uncomfortable parallels between insect and human behavior as he falls in…
Nevermind
The final whistle had barely been blown on the Browns' second straight calamitous collapse when the word quitters was first uttered after the Broncos game. In the locker room, Jamal Lewis stopped short of pointing fingers but said he believed some guys had quit, that some guys hadn't checked their ego at the door. Not…
Democracy Now
Well, it's here at last. Maybe the Olympics gave Axl Rose the kick in the ass he needed. Maybe it was the rumbles that Velvet Revolver was breaking up (they've been dropped by their label and bassist Duff has a new band), which are bound to start a new round of "will the original G…
The Funky Bunch
If Mifune had simply been the band that got unplugged by Tower City mall management for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts when they played there during Tri-C JazzFest 2006, they'd be long forgotten. Instead, the group used the ensuing publicity as a springboard for their excellent debut CD, Afro-electronique, released that fall. Taking its title from the…
The Last Word
Tons of songs inspire YouTube cover versions. Everybody from Wayne Newton to Lil Wayne has impelled fans to plug in their USB mics, set up webcams and post videos of, say, their four-year-old nephew rapping "A Milli." But Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours" is something different. The song – a ginormous hit in the U.S., Norway…
Emetic Opera
There are some jobs best left to professional. Opera writing is certainly one of them. Repo! The Genetic Opera, a gothic-rock musical and midnight-movie hopeful, shows what can happen when a person with no musical talent locks himself in a room with the soundtracks to Phantom of the Opera, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and…
Crime And Punishment
Heartbreaking and harrowing, Boy A proves that Irish stage director John Crowley's first film – 2004's Intermission – wasn't a fluke. A chamber piece in the truest sense of the word, Boy A depicts the complicated relationship that develops between 24-year-old ex-con Jack (Andrew Garfield) and his middle-aged caseworker Terry (the excellent Peter Mullan) after…
A Big Week In New Releases
BeyoncéI Am … Sasha Fierce (Music World/Columbia) Beyoncé divides her third album into two discs. One is credited to the comely singer who's sold tons of records over the past decade; the other introduces Sasha Fierce, Beyoncé's diva alter ego, who has no problem getting naked for your video phone. Together, they're supposed to represent…
Your Concert Picks For A Frigid Week
The Bong Show Brightblack Morning Light at the Beachland Tavern, Thursday, Nov. 20 The singer's name is Naybob Shineywater. The album was recorded "with four solar panels in New Mexico." And the lyrics promise, "A high time is on the rise." Welcome to the world of Brightblack Morning Light, freak-folk's ambassadors of "just chill, man."…
Family Matters
Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale is a talky two-and-a-half-hour French movie about a family dealing with their matriarch's diagnosis of possibly terminal liver cancer. It's also the best film I've seen this year and the one most brimming with grand, messy, bulging-at-the-seams life. Despite that treacly title, which makes it sound like a very special…
Crikey, Mate!
Is Baz Luhrmann's sprawling epic Australia a love story? An adventure pic? A war flick? In the grand tradition of old-school Hollywood movies, Luhrmann's $130 million movie is all of these. Set in 1939, on the eve of Australia's involvement in World War II, English aristocrat Sarah Ashley (played with proper stick-up-her-ass form by Nicole…
Dick Valentine
In an era when rock 'n' roll excess has scaled back, Electric Six has brought back the concept of "more is more." Combining tons of guitar, shimmering banks of synthesizers, and humor that features equal measures of tongue and cheek, the Detroit sextet reinvented the rock 'n' roll experience as a contemporary high-energy vaudeville act,…
Craptastic
What word comes to your mind when the puckered visage of W. flashes like a nightmare before your eyes? Us too. You've said "bullshit!" more times in the past eight years than you did during your entire childhood full of embarrassments, and you have no one but Cheerleader-in-Chief Bush to thank. So say goodbye in…
Short Takes
Four Christmases "How can you appreciate someone for who they are if you don't really know them?" Courtney (Kristin Chenoweth) asks sis Kate (Reese Witherspoon) in Four Christmases, a holiday-themed rom-com co-starring Vince Vaughn. So, for 90 minutes, Kate and Brad (Vaughn), a couple for three years, get to really know each other. But it…
A Very Long Engagement
Sebastien Grainger was the drummer and vocalist for Toronto dance-punk duo Death From Above 1979. The 1979 was added to avoid threatened litigation from New York-based DFA Records, home to James Murphy's pre-LCD Soundsystem project Death From Above. If you were a DFA79 fan, you may have certain expectations of Sebastien Grainger based on his…
Anger, Management
The kerfluffle over Phil Savage's obscenity-implied e-mail has died down now, pushed aside in favor of analysis of a team that went out and had its butt roundly handed to it during an embarrassing loss at home. I guess when the stadium is nearly empty with two minutes to go in the fourth quarter and…
Your Winter Horoscope
Aries (March 21-April 19) Finding a mitten in a snow bank strangely leads to your sex-change operation and eventual bankruptcy. Your chili recipe incorporating yak meat is a big hit at a meeting for periodontists. The guy at the reception who handed you a business card with "Obama Transition Team" handwritten on it is just…
Last Ones Standing
Above This Fire bassist Oliver Barrett and guitarist LT Magnotto are such friendly, good-natured guys, you'd never guess they play in one of the city's more aggressive hardcore/metal bands. Barrett is a skinny guy with, what he refers to as, "the best mustache you've ever seen." Magnotto is short, stocky and has the kind of…
Get Out! It’s Thanksgiving Week
Friday 11.28 JOSHUA JAY When he was a second-grader in his native Canton, Joshua Jay groaned at the magic books he'd check out of the library. How can a magician teach a visual art to a beginner if there are no pictures to show you how to perform it? he complained. Nearly 20 years later,…
Local Reviews
Flowers in Flames Self Titled (self-released-) myspace.com/flowersinflames With their self-titled debut, Flowers in Flames brings back an '80s post-punk sound. There's a definite Cure sound on this goth/psychedelic band's album, most prominently on "Third Wave." Cynthia Dimitroff's vocals give the song a theatrical feel. But she's better off when she sings lead. When she sings…
Taylor Made
It's hard to believe Taylor Swift when she sings "I'm not a princess/This ain't a fairy tale" on "White Horse," one of the boy-crushing ballads on her terrific second album, Fearless. Just a few minutes earlier, she was joyfully exclaiming "you'll be the prince and I'll be the princess." That's more like it. After all,…
Have Yourself A Wary Little Xmas
As we tiptoe into the economically uncertain yuletide season, there will be fewer than normal theatrical enticements drawing upon local playgoers' budgets which are bound to be a lot more than customarily penny-pinched. Nevertheless, the response to this dollar crunch from most area producers is to rely on the same old reliable programming strategy that…
Who Are You Now?
"Go put on your dress," the sinister Spooky tells his boyfriend Timothy whenever he gets out of control. Timothy obliges by going into the tent they share and emerging as a platinum-haired Hollywood starlet, Little Red Riding Hood, a helmeted Valkyrie – whatever the situation calls for. Occasionally, Timothy is replaced by an actual woman.…
This Week’s New Releases Reviewed
T-Pain Thr33 Ringz (Nappy Boy/Konvict/Jive) There's more to T-Pain than his ubiquitous Auto-Tune program. For starters, there are plenty of R&B hooks, famous friends and self-deprecating slams on his third album of space-age love songs. But yeah, mostly it's about his Auto-Tuned warble coming on to the shawties in the club and the strippers on…
Cirque De La Season
Sunday, November 30 The holidays represent a whole bunch of things, from nostalgia to spirituality to all kinds of excess, and the Cleveland Pops manages to put it all together in its annual Christmas concert. You've got your "Winter" concerto from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, performed by concertmaster David Russell. You've got your guest vocalist, Susan…
Letters From Home
Robert M. Reed Greetings From Cleveland Ohio: 1900-1960s (hardcover, 258 pages, Schiffer Books, 2008, $29.99) Part history, part collector's guide, and part tour book, this volume is primarily a look at historic postcards, showing the things that printers and promoters thought worthwhile to show off about their hometown during the city's heyday. In that sense…
So Far Along, So Far To Go
I am a 20-year survivor living with AIDS, and another World AIDS Day (December 1st) is fast approaching. Much has changed; much has stayed the same or gotten worse. I have lived long enough to see food trays left at hospital room doors of people dying from AIDS. Now the dying are being fed and…
Culture Jamming: Joy Ride
TOP PICK New Order reissues (Rhino) Say your singer kills himself when you’re on the verge of making it big. What do you do? If you’re Joy Division, you rename yourself New Order and transform into one of the world’s best dance-rock groups. These five two-disc CDs cover 1981’s debut, Movement, through 1989’s Technique. In…
In A Tough Spot
Staggering out of Ensemble Theatre's version of The Lucky Spot, I found myself so dispirited that I could barely choke down the conciliatory brie and crackers offered in the lobby. Naturally, it's an occupational hazard for a reviewer to encounter theatrical roadkill on his travels. Often out of embarrassment, pity or respect for past accomplishments,…
Your Complete Winter Events Calendar
Wednesday,November 26 Candy Wonder Land: Celebrate the holidays at an exhibit of scenes inspired by the favorite children's board game Candyland, from noon to 5 p.m. daily (except Thanksgiving and Christmas Day) through January 1 at Penitentiary Glen Reservation, 8668 Kirtland-Chardon Rd. in Kirtland. Admission: free. Call 440.256.1404 or visit lakemetroparks.com. Festival of Trees:…
The Looming Battle
With a 3-0, 3KO record and ranked number four in the world, lottery liar Elecia "Mega Bad Girl" Battle fights Tanya "The Redneck Mama" Colvin November 21 at the St. Clarence Hall in North Olmsted. You may recall Battle as the woman who told a whopper about losing a multi-million-dollar lottery ticket back in 2004.…
Culture Jamming: Joy Ride
TOP PICK New Order reissues (Rhino) Say your singer kills himself when you're on the verge of making it big. What do you do? If you're Joy Division, you rename yourself New Order and transform into one of the world's best dance-rock groups. These five two-disc CDs cover 1981's debut, Movement, through 1989's Technique. In…
Capsule Reviews Of Current Releases
Bolt – The first Disney CGI 'toon produced since Pixar major domo John Lasseter took creative control of Walt Disney Animation Studios, Bolt has something of a cobbled-together, Chinese-menu feel. Its story of a dog that must travel across country to find his way home inevitably recalls classic live-action Disney fare like 1963's The Incredible…
Shop Here, Shop Now
The economy is collapsing, and no one's coming to save us. So while the supposed experts haggle over the causes and effects and solutions, let's do what we can to help each other out, now, and spend our holiday shopping money locally this year. A NEW RECORD Despite its impeccably hip pedigree, Tremont, home to…
Decriminalizing Victims
If someone holds a gun to your head and forces you to rob a bank, you're not held responsible for the crime. You had no choice if you wanted to stay alive. And if that standard makes sense, it seems reasonable that someone forced into prostitution because of a threat to her life or the…
A Truth About Cats And Dogs
Mornings are not supposed to smell like burning flesh, with wispy twirls of flesh smoke moving sensually and methodically toward the cluster of operating-room lights. Morning sounds should not be muffled weeping or verbalized grimaces. The sounds of morning should not allow the normalcy of the electric saw making its way through the guardian bone…
Culture Jamming: Gearhead
TOP PICK Gears of War 2 (Microsoft) The sequel to the best videogame of 2006 is still about slaughtering the giant monsters that are trying to take over your planet. Only there are more of them this time around. And they're mad. Really mad. Don't make any plans once you start the single-player campaign: The…
Winter Sports: Ice Ice Baby
As a boy, my passions were UFOs, mythical monsters and Star Wars. In high school, I worked on the stage crew and played Dungeons & Dragons. My college work-study job was movie projectionist, and I hung out with wanna-be filmmakers and played drinking games based on David Lynch movies. Today, solidly middle-aged, I get as…
Unnatural Resources
It's dim and the streetlights are on at 6 p.m. in late October. The first stop on the Volunteers of America homeless outreach tour is in East Cleveland. The neighborhood doesn't have the look of the city at night, with lights in the windows showing that people are home from work and getting ready for…
Around Hear — Code: Electro
Encoder has self-released its second full-length CD, Slivers of Time, after splitting with New Mexico electro label DSBP. "The label was pleadin' poverty because the last two CDs they released busted the bank," explains multi-instrumentalist Ted "DJ Cable" Carter, who founded the Phantasy Niteclub's Violent Playground parties in the mid-'90s. "We decided to release it…
Around Hear: Turkeyberry
Coffinberry returns to action Thanksgiving night, headlining a special show at Pat's in the Flats (West Third and Literary Streets, Tremont). The indie-rock band's set will debut lively new material from its upcoming LP. But, says drummer Tony Cross, the live set won't necessarily be a representative sampler of the album. "We'll do some songs…
Suicidal Tendencies
Depending on how you look at it, Suicidal Tendencies was either the biggest '80s hardcore band or wasn't a punk band at all. Twenty-seven years after the controversial group formed as a party band, the evidence points toward the latter. While fellow California bands like Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys were cresting, Venice's Suicidal…
Get Out! This Week’s Event Picks
Thursday 11.20 JEFF GERBINO Minneapolis comic Jeff Gerbino will work for a paycheck anywhere he can. One time, he even broke away from his left-wing leanings and wrote 25 jokes for Minnesota's Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty, who got laughs with them at his state party's nominating convention. Gerbino collected $1,200. "People asked, 'Why'd you go…
Arti$t Friendly
It was hard not to think of the old Works Progress Administration as Tom Schorgl rolled out the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture's plan to administer individual artist grants on behalf of Cuyahoga Arts and Culture last week. The economy is in the tank, but the region is spilling over with creative resources, especially…
Opportunity Knocks
Every time the county engineer's office opens the lower level of the Detroit Superior Bridge to walking tours, conversation ripples through the strolling crowd about how cool it would be if someone could think of something to do with that below-deck thoroughfare. (Until 1950, streetcars dove beneath the surface where Detroit Road widens near West…
If You Need To Avoid Your Family This Weekend, Go See These Shows
The Takoma Kid Eric Hutchinson at the Beachland Ballroom on Friday, Nov. 28 National recognition came to this recent New York transplant (originally from Takoma Park, Maryland) via gossip blogger Perez Hilton, who last year helped put Hutchinson’s Sounds Like This on iTunes’ Top 10 list. As a result, he became the online store’s biggest-selling…
Fearless Symmetry
Since the early 1970s, Seattle-based artist Alfredo Arregu’n has become widely known for richly colorful paintings that pace, cat-like, between several worlds. Some contain allusions to iconic figures from Mexico's revolutionary and artistic past, such as Miguel Hidalgo, Emiliano Zapata and Frida Kahlo. Others are completely filled with tight ranks of haunting masks derived from…
Chestnuts And Raisin
What does A Raisin in the Sun – Lorraine Hansberry's classic tale of a family trapped in a Chicago ghetto in the '50s – have to say to the generation that has just elected the first African-American president?Ê Raisin is, in many ways, an old chestnut – the prototype of the "Mama on the Couch"…
Local Arts News
Years before the U.S. got into World War II – while the Nazis were perpetrating atrocities on Catholics, gays, gypsies and, of course, Jews – German artist John Heartfield had already fled his fatherland and was making satire about then-current events. He had begun his career in film, plying his artistic skill in the Dada…
If You Need To Avoid Your Family This Weekend, Go See These Shows
The Takoma Kid Eric Hutchinson at the Beachland Ballroom on Friday, Nov. 28 National recognition came to this recent New York transplant (originally from Takoma Park, Maryland) via gossip blogger Perez Hilton, who last year helped put Hutchinson's Sounds Like This on iTunes' Top 10 list. As a result, he became the online store's biggest-selling…
Cma Leads This Week’s Arts Picks
HOTTER CALDER CMA series brings quartet to Plymouth Church of Shaker Heights WednesdayAlexander Calder's mobiles balance color and form so that the organic shapes move with relation to each other and make for constant visual intrigue. Musical programs assembled by the Calder Quartet are a sound analog to that idea, balancing one piece of music…
A Chef’s Dream
Nick Kustala is acting like a kid in a candy store. But this store is actually a butcher shop and the candy in question is a freshly slaughtered hog. The locally reared swine hangs from a shiny steel meat hook, and the butcher is waiting for instruction on how Kustala wants it dismembered. Kustala pulls…
Local Foodie News
Not to be left out of the holiday hoo-ha, Willoughby Brewing (4057 Erie St., 440.975.0202, willoughbybrewing.com) is cooking up a batch of its popular Wenceslas Christmas Ale. Named after Good King Wenceslas, the spiced brown ale features aromas of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. Also on tap for a very limited time is their Imperial Oatmeal…
Sarah Brightman
Famous as the muse behind Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, English singer Sarah Brightman is the best-selling soprano of all time. But don't hold that against her. Teased as a child, she first sang in a disco group before experimenting with dance and theater and finally embarking on a solo career. Phoning…
