Lakeview Terrace
Samuel L. Jackson is Able Turner, a police officer and single dad. Turner’s got a few issues about race, and when an interracial couple (Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington) moves in next door he becomes the neighbor from hell. That premise could have made for an entertaining guilty pleasure in the vein of early ’90s…
My Best Friend’s Girl
Nothing new in this predictable romantic comedy. The insufferable Dane Cook plays Tank, a good-looking but obnoxious guy who’s such a bad date, his buddies get him to go out with their ex-girlfriends because they know they’ll come back to them after one night with the guy. But when his best friend and roommate Dustin…
Choke
Based on Chuck Palahniuk’s novel about a guy so starved for affection, he’s taken to choking himself in public places in order to get attention, Choke is just as twisted and disturbing as its source material. Protagonist Victor Mancini, a guy who works as a historical re-enactor at a Colonial Williamsburg theme park, is played…
Eagle Eye
It knows when you are sleeping. It knows when you’re awake. It knows your weekend plans and what you’re having for dinner because it’s monitoring the plague of electronic devices in our pockets and purses. The Patriot Act-protected title character in Eagle Eye is a self-aware, anti-terrorism surveillance computer that goes rouge — deciding to…
Fireproof
Imagine a government bailout putting the Southern Baptists in charge of Fox Cable; then Rescue Me would look like this: Hotheaded Georgia firefighter Caleb (Kirk Cameron), an internet porn addict, turns to Jesus and a series of “love dares” (that’s trademarked, evidently, judging by the book tie-ins being sold) to salvage his failing marriage to…
I Served the King of England
Part fairytale and part historical overview, Czech director Jiri Menzel’s (Closely Watched Trains) film starts out as a lighthearted story about Jan Dite, an ordinary guy who’s just gotten released from jail, where he served a 15-year sentence. The film’s told in flashback mode with Dite reflecting back on his life as a waiter (and…
Miracle at St. Anna
Spike Lee’s wildly ambitious, two-and-a-half-hour-plus WW II epic has so many interesting elements (including the heretofore unexamined role of African-American soldiers who served in the 92nd Infantry’s Buffalo Soldiers division) that it’s a shame the movie feels so unfocused, digressive and needlessly cluttered. Adapted by author James McBride from his same-named novel, Lee’s film is…
Nights in Rodanthe
Nights in Rodanthe tells the story of Adrienne (Diane Lane), a middle-aged mother of two whose husband left her for another woman but now wants to return. Adrienne decides to think it over during a trip to look after a beachfront inn in North Carolina’s Outer Banks owned by her friend, lively artist Jean (Viola…
Ghost Town
Brit funnyman Ricky Gervais plays Dr. Bertram Pincus, an uptight, Scrooge-like dentist who’s so misanthropic, he likes the fact that his patients are often too numb to speak. But when Pincus encounters some health problems, he has to make an emergency trip to the hospital and wakes up to find out he came close to…
The Cleveland Connection
With the recent release of These Magnificent Miles, Columbus' Red Wanting Blue is calling most of the shows it plays this month "record release parties." But the official event takes place in Cleveland at House of Blues this week. It's a bit odd that these Cowtown rockers would come to Cleveland to launch their new…
Uncommon Sense
As you might be aware, the current administration has managed to incur a gross national debt of some $9.6 trillion. And no matter how many coupons Cindy or Michelle clips, no matter how meticulous you are with your drawer full of "Obama's Energy Plan" tire gauges and the Goodyears on your motorcade, you're not going…
The Sounds Of Science
Sometime between 2006's Return to Cookie Mountain and Dear Science, N.Y.C. art-rock weirdos TV on the Radio discovered the joy of melody. Not that Cookie Mountain was completely liberated from riffs, structure and the stuff that rocket more commercial-minded bands to the top of the iTunes chart; but between utility member and producer David Sitek's…
New York Can Wait
Cleveland Orchestra gives U.S. Premiere Thursday-Saturday at Severance HallThe Cleveland Orchestra is back from Salzburg and Lucerne, and this weekend the musicians will give their hometown a souvenir in the U.S. premiere of George Benjamin's Duet for Piano and Orchestra. The piece was commissioned by the pharmaceutical giant Roche – for performance by the Cleveland…
Overcoming The Past
In 1963, when the civil-rights movement is just beginning to open new doors across the South, a single mother of three finds herself trapped in a laundry room in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Her employers have the only basement in town. As Caroline sings in the show's opening moments, "Nothing ever happen underground in Louisiana, cause…
Urban Suppres-sion Or Urban Legend?
Here we go again. On September 10, the left-leaning online news site MichiganMessenger.com posted a story titled "Lose your house, lose your vote." The article – by Eartha Jane Melzer, a documentarian whose work has appeared on right-leaning Fox News – quoted the GOP boss of Macomb County, Michigan, as saying: "We will have a…
She Wears The Pants
There's something uniquely Cleveland about the scene: Deep in the heart of an industrial complex at East 35th and Superior, sublime music spills out a door big enough for a truck to drive through. Freight trains occasionally rumble past on tracks perhaps 100 yards away. Inside the warehouse, a cast of singers pours itself into…
Coyote Ugly
To say Oberlin graduate Christopher Zalla's Sangre de Mi Sangre (Blood of My Blood), also released as Padre Nuestro (Our Father), is a thriller about identity theft is like saying Luis Bunuel's Los Olvidados is a gang-actioner. But that's become the shorthand for this U.S.-made Spanish-language indie feature, which Zalla will introduce when it screens…
Around Hear: Black Top
Akron's Black Keys keep finding fans in higher places. The Akron blues-rock duo has been tapped to write material for ZZ Top's first album since 2003. The team-up was the idea of the project's producer, Rick Rubin, a Grammy-winning icon who's worked with Metallica, Johnny Cash, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Run-DMC. "Rick and…
Boston Spaceships
When singer Robert Pollard brought Guided by Voices to an end after a run of about 20 years, he left behind a legacy that included a recorded output of well over 300 songs. And that's not to mention the countless cases of beer he and his rotating cast of cohorts chugged down before each and…
Short Takes On Current Films
Wind in the Wallows A good cast can't save syrupy Nights in RodantheI never admire the craft of acting more than when I see good actors giving everything they've got to make bad material work. It must take uncommon dedication to resist shredding the script into bitty pieces and stomping on them screaming, "This is…
A Class Menagerie
How fortunate is the paucity of truth in advertising. For if there were any veracity in the Cleveland Play House's recurrent Plain Dealer ad for The Glass Menagerie, one might suspect that Tennessee Williams' career-making memory play had been morphed into a wheezing sex comedy re-titled The Hot Menagerie. The ad features a Maybeline headshot…
The Band’s The Thing
CORRECT BILLING for Ryan Adams and his band the Cardinals has been a point of dispute since Follow the Lights came out last year. Although Adams and crew announced they were working on a follow-up, no real information ever surfaced, and it became apparent that the group was moving toward just being called the Cardinals,…
Please Make It Stop
With the closing credits set to roll for the Tribe on Sunday, this season – as long and enjoyable as a five-hour silent Norwegian documentary – will finally conclude. While you quietly exit the theater and dispose of any trash or popcorn you haven't already thrown at the screen, it's time to take a look…
Local Arts News
Last week, choreographer Ana Dumet opened the doors at La Casa Latina, a place, she says, where artists from the Latino community can think of as a home for their creative endeavors. The organization is housed at St. Coleman's Hall (2001 W. 65th St.) in second-floor rooms set up for dance, art and music, as…
Lindsey Buckingham
Originally, Fleetwood Mac singer-guitarist Lindsey Buckingham was going to release his solo album Gift of Screws a few years ago. But when Fleetwood Mac came calling, he ditched the project and many of the songs ended up on the 2003 Mac album, Say You Will. Buckingham has since retooled the songs for the rock-oriented album,…
Your Complete Concert Calendar
THIS JUST IN All Things Elvis, featuring comedian Lord Carrett and Bigger Then Elvis (members of Sloppy Seconds and Zero Boys): Fri., Nov. 7. 8:30 p.m., $10. Beachland Ballroom. Amorphis/Samael/Virgin Black: Metal customer appreciation show. Sun., Oct. 5. 7 p.m., free admission. Peabody's. Joseph Arthur & the Lonely Astronauts: Fri., Oct. 31. 9 p.m., $15.…
The Plain White T’s, Jenny Lewis, And More Get Graded
Raphael Saadiq The Way I See It (Columbia) From its 1960s-style cover art to the retro-soul grooves found inside, former Tony! Toni! Toné! frontman Raphael Saadiq's third solo album lovingly replicates an old-school R&B experience. Channeling the spirits and voices of Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and various Temptations, Saadiq's frame of reference on The Way…
Capsule Reviews
Bangkok Dangerous – Joe (Nicholas Cage) is a hit man planning to retire after one last job in Bangkok. Along the way, however, he undergoes a transformation from cold and amoral assassin into a human being with a conscience. That change is brought about by two locals: Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm), a petty criminal Joe takes…
Local Foodie News
In the two years since Sage Bistro closed its doors, scores of chefs have toyed with the notion of taking over the space. Well, one finally bit. Pete Joyce, longtime executive chef at Blue Point Grille, and a partner have purchased the property on Tremont's Lincoln Park. Work has already begun on the space, though…
Sweet Tartine
If EPCOT Center taught us anything, it is that gimmicky knockoffs are no substitute for the real thing. It takes more than funny hats, overpriced foreign beverages and imported knickknacks to capture the soul and spirit of a place. Creating an unfeigned environment requires a masterful arrangement of setting, mood, food and drink. And when…
Found Horizons
Audiences looking for traditional media at the Cleveland Institute of Art's 2008 Faculty Show won't go home entirely disappointed, though a sea change is evident even in areas that have usually tended toward the conservative, like glass, metals and ceramics. Little in the way of painting has found its way onto the gallery walls this…
The Gospel Of Joe
Ever meet a guy in a bar who tells stories with great beginnings, interminable middles and never a satisfying ending? And they're all about him, even when he says they aren't? Reading Crossbearer is like sitting next to that guy. Joe Eszterhas, once King of the Nasty and screenwriter of Jagged Edge, Basic Instinct and…
Asphyxiation As Affliction
Talk about an eating disorder. Chuck Palahniuk's novel Choke is about a guy so starved for affection, he's taken to choking himself in public places in order to get attention. Early in the book, protagonist Victor Mancini, who holds down a shitty day job as a historical re-enactor at a Colonial Williamsburg theme park, confesses…
Get Out!
Thursday 9.25 PANDORA'S BOX Animatronics whiz John Merk of Euclid amps up the fear factor this weekend for the inaugural season of his Pandora's Box haunted-house complex in Mentor. Every weekend through the end of next month, a cast of 80 actors will scare the bejesus out of spectators who hop into "the Hellevator" that…
Culture Jamming: In The Beginning …
TOP PICK Spore (Electronic Arts) Get your Darwin on in this super-fun videogame (for the PC and Mac) about a planet of multi-limbed, rainbow-colored and constantly evolving creatures. Things start at the very beginning, as your cells fight for survival in a pool of bigger, badder embryo. Eventually, they grow up, build cities and create…
Buffalo Stance And Loudon Wainwright Iii Lead This Week’s Concert Previews
Buffalo Stance Donna the Buffalo at 8 p.m. Thursday, September 25, at the Kent Stage For the past 20 years, singer-multi-instrumentalist Tara Nevins and singer-guitarist Jeb Puryear have guided Donna the Buffalo through a sonic travelogue of American music, serving up a hybridized gumbo of bluegrass, rootsy rock, folk and country, spiced with exotic bits…
Conventional Wisdom
Cuyahoga County's political and business leaders have long had a weakness for high-cost, low-concept projects that supposedly will cure the region's economic woes. Remember Gateway and its promise of 28,000 jobs? Perhaps you prefer not to. This decade's model of the can't-miss scheme is a new convention center and "medical mart," where hospital administrators and…
What Part Of ‘Critic’ Don’t They Understand
If the Cleveland Orchestra is our city's most famous cultural ambassador, then the person who has that beat at our lone daily paper is a Very Big Deal. He's the sole critic writing week after week about one of the world's greatest musical institutions, and as such is history's principal scribe on the subject. And…
Pursesnatcher And Quadrophonic Desperation
PurseSnatcher Narrated By (self-released) myspace.com/snatchermusic On their MySpace site, these guys simply say they sound like "trouble." I'm not going to argue that point. This six-song EP has a bristling energy to it, making it sound like something an underground project that wiseguy Steve Albini might have produced (he didn't). Engineered, mixed and mastered by…
