Eighteen years ago the effort to add the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution failed to garner the support of the 38 states needed to ratify the amendment. But it’s not dead yet. A bill is before the Missouri Legislature this session seeking the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Supporters hope that Missouri will be one of…
Susanna Kaysen’s 1993 memoir, about her stay in a psychiatric hospital in the late ’60s, is an episodic tale of self-discovery, which isn’t the easiest thing to film. Somehow, though, writer-director James Mangold (Cop Land) has created a linear story that brings Susanna’s experiences into focus without relegating the other characters to the sidelines entirely. Winona Ryder plays Susanna, a…
Every film school has one: a reject who shows flashes of talent but whose obsession isn’t with Jean-Luc Godard or Ingmar Bergman, instead it leans more toward George Romero, Tobe Hooper, and lesser-known directors whose projects splatter the pages of Fangoria. Milwaukee native Mark Borchardt is that guy, and the revealing documentary American Movie follows the 30-year-old filmmaker’s attempts to…
Denzel Washington is an actor of abundant talent. He not only possesses the charisma and good looks of a movie star, but he also has the acting chops of a seasoned thespian. Although he is an Oscar winner (Glory), many of the movies he’s made simply are beneath him (The Bone Collector, Fallen, Virtuosity, Ricochet, and so on). Perhaps he…
Putting a true story on film is never easy, especially when it’s someone’s autobiography. The lead character’s innermost thoughts and feelings drive the whole movie, and the other characters are filtered through that lens. In Girl, Interrupted, Winona Ryder has the task of bringing to life Susanna Kaysen’s memories of her time in a Massachusetts mental hospital, while co-star Angelina…
The Ice Cube-penned hood-rat presentation Next Friday is the follow-up to the 1995 ghetto-humor classic Friday. Craig (Ice Cube, Three Kings) is on the run from the neighborhood bully he beat down in the first flick who recently escaped from jail. His pops (John Witherspoon, Boomerang) sends him to live in the suburbs with his uncle (comedian Don “DC” Curry),…
There is a moment in Snow Falling on Cedars in which the audience sees through a window a couple making love. The image is at first intriguing, but as the camera lingers, the scene feels like a cheat because there is no emotional connection to the vague figures behind the glass. The film as a whole suffers the same problem….
Amid abstraction’s renaissance, technology’s overabundance, and sensation’s shock, an art viewer may be parched for good, quality narrative — approachable, sustainable narrative that can be digested with all the color and ennui any red-blooded artsy kid has grown to demand from this world. Please let us sit down for a minute, we wish, and hear a story; do not make…
Remember being so gullible that you believed that out of every maiden who attended the ball, the glass slipper could fit only Cinderella’s foot? Or that Little Red Riding Hood did not know it wasn’t her grandmother who had the big eyes, hands, and teeth? As a child, one is first introduced to life’s little lessons through literature such as…
Kansas City’s love affair with the Blades has seemingly gone ice cold. Attendance is waning, and the team is on the brink of finding a new hockey haven about 350 miles south in Oklahoma City. Yet an hour’s drive west on Interstate 70 will reveal a city involved in a heated love affair with its ice-skating gladiators. Granted, the Topeka…
On one side of the fence is the evolution argument. On the other side are the creation-theory believers. This ongoing battle fuels temper tantrums in the seemingly nicest people. Maybe there should be a middle ground. It’s not as if the two concepts can’t work together in harmony. In fact, at Hannah Bistro Cafe, 3895 State Line Road, creatively evolving…
William Newsome has a million-dollar smile. From downtown to Bannister Mall, he flashes that smile at every customer from the seat of the bus he drives for the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA). Tall, lean, and strong, Newsome commands a presence. A driver for the KCATA for five years, he has chosen the Troost route for the past three…
HE WAS HOPING FOR A MÉNAGE À TROIS … Singer Melissa Etheridge revealed that the father of her two children with partner Julie Cypher is veteran rock star David Crosby and that the pregnancy resulted from artificial insemination. Both children were excited to learn that they might grow up to be lesbian drug addicts with chronic health problems. — Robert…
My inspiration to be a journalist and writer came from a convicted murderer. The first time I saw J.J. Maloney was in Dave’s Stagecoach Inn on Westport Road. He was hunched over a bourbon and Coke at the bar. To most, Dave’s was — and remains — a dive, full of people pushing a cheap hustle or nursing a pain…
By this time, exercise programs have gone awry, diets have been abandoned, and discarded cigarettes have been fetched from the trash by would-be quitters, but Monique Danielle’s Resolution is holding up quite nicely. The Kansas City-based singer showcases her powerful voice over smooth, jazzy tracks concocted by producer Mark Thies. Most of the tunes have a lazy pace, but the…
In a transaction that leaves its editorial and management team intact, The Village Voice was purchased from owner Leonard Stern by a group of investors led by a New York-based money management firm. The price for the Voice and Stern’s chain of six other weekly papers, including the LA Weekly, was said to be in the range of $150 million…
There’s just something about the tactile experience of the weight of a book in your hands: smoothing your fingers over creamy pages, breathing deep the heady scent of new print; the pleasure of gently acquainting yourself with the title at hand by rapidly flipping pages to read a disconnected passage here, the first line of a chapter there. Then, too,…
Television is the least accessible medium. Print always has been accessible, from mass-producing flyers on a copy machine to writing a letter to the editor of the local newspaper. With call-in talk shows, nearly everyone can voice their views on the radio. These days the Internet has become a communication tool for the masses. But with the expense and technical…
Those who follow music in the area know that Kansas City had its fair share of bands signed to major label deals during the ’90s. And most people remember that these bands rarely stayed with said majors for more than one record. With that kind of track record, there is little reason to wonder why those “in the know” usually…
Despite the recent acquisition of a broken ankle and loss of a broken bouzouki, folk and Celtic musician Roger Landes is on somewhat of a roll. From the accidental casting of him and his music in Ride With the Devil to the near completion of an as-yet-untitled duets album with friend and musical colleague Gerald Trimble, through rave reviews of…
Every year, a few steadfast critics accept the Sisyphean task of encouraging Grammy voters to acknowledge quality instead of hype and sales numbers. And every year, they push the boulder less than halfway up the hill before it retreats, rolls over them, and rests comfortably at the base of the incline. By the time the majority of Grammy nominations go…
For about 12 minutes, Metallica’s decision to perform alongside the San Francisco Symphony and record the results seems brilliant. The orchestra powers the opening track, a haunting cover of “The Ecstasy of Gold” from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly soundtrack, and then classical music and metal merge perfectly on the intense instrumental “The Call of the Ktulu.” But…
Self-proclaimed canine junkie Earl Simmons (DMX) established himself as an A-list rapper by growling and snarling on the mic. He shot to the top of the charts with his debut, It’s Dark and Hell is Hot, and follow-up, Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood, both from 1998. Unfortunately, on his third release, … And There Was X, his…
For all who missed the happy-go-lucky Crows, the band that released the multiplatinum success story August and Everything After, you are in luck. This Desert Life signals the return of the Rain King himself, Adam Duritz, and better still, his sense of humor. Although Duritz’s gray skies have yet to turn sunny and cloud-free, his new record spends a considerable…
