For making an accomplished and ethereal debut, 2000’s Parachutes, Coldplay earned a Mercury Prize nomination, pinup cachet, impressive global sales — and bewildering comparisons to Radiohead. Not that Coldplay’s music isn’t analogous to Radiohead’s in some significant ways. Despite a narrower, more romantic lyrical focus — Coldplay is the beating heart to Radiohead’s throbbing temple — the younger band’s sound…
If moviegoers think Alexander Payne’s About Schmidt is hard on the Midwest, wait until they get a look at the treatment afforded Los Angeles in Francois Velle’s New Suit, the first Indy Film Showcase of the new year. Velle’s film (scheduled for a wider release this spring) is guided by voices — particularly the clamor elicited by screenwriter Jordan Strawberry,…
Roger Donaldson was part of a wave of Australian directors who went Hollywood in the 1980s, but he hasn’t fared as well here as colleagues like Peter Weir, Phillip Noyce and George Miller. His biggest hit was probably Cocktail, and his best American film was either Species or No Way Out. It is to the turf of the latter, the…
Color Blinds His Lott in life: I liked Greg Hall’s courageous story on Jason Whitlock (“Black Hawks Down,” December 26), but did not like Albert Burton’s letter to the editor (January 23), which stated that Jason sells newspapers for the Star and asked how many Trent Lotts are out there. First, as a former fifteen-year broadcaster, I have to say…
A few weeks after the Parks Board spent part of a December 3 meeting listening to Kansas City Zoo officials admit that the zoological park is so dull it isn’t worth the price of admission, Parks and Rec Commissioner Bob Lewellen appeared to take a public-relations campaign to the Star’s gossip columnist. A January 17 column in the Star quoted…
Ron Hunt has had a hard few weeks. In early December, the anti-violence activist got into a fight with his wife, Toddisha Brown. On December 20, a grand jury indicted him on two felony counts of second-degree domestic assault and unlawful use of a weapon. In her request for a protection order against her husband, Brown wrote that he had…
It’s a Monday afternoon, and women in green jumpsuits are passing the time in their crowded dorm at the city jail near Raytown Road and Interstate 435. Some sprawl on plastic beds strewn with blankets and thin pillows. A few read well-thumbed books from the jail library. A couple of strangers walk in wearing street clothes, and a guard calls…
Maybe it’s because we grew up in KC and remember tornado drills at school, but whenever we enter a basement, we have the urge to curl up into a ball and protect our head and neck with our hands and arms. So, when we heard that more bars were opening quieter basement rooms, we were interested yet frightened. After checking…
It’s fun to catch sight of celebrities eating in restaurants (see review), but do we really want more than a glimpse? Years ago, someone had a bright idea for a cable TV show starring New York celebrities like fashion designer Halston, artist Andy Warhol, singer Liza Minnelli and a socialite or two sitting around a dinner table, eating and making…
I was in Los Angeles last week and dragged two friends to one of the last Trader Vic’s restaurants in America, the supertacky one in Merv Griffin’s Beverly Hills Hilton. Kansas City had a Trader Vic’s, too, in the Westin Crown Center, but ours wasn’t a celebrity magnet like the Hollywood version. Maybe if it had been, the tropic-themed…
Alter egos are usually reserved for con men, spies and undercover cops. But this Saturday at the Brick, fake names and disguises are no longer the realm of career pretenders. “I’ve been alter-egoing for the last ten years,” says Tami Lucero, organizer of Alter Ego Night. “Your alter ego is just finding another side of yourself and expanding on that,…
Romance on the set of Sesame Street must be strange. When writer Annie Evans responds to our nostalgic inquiry as to whether Snuffleupagus is still on the show by admitting that she is dating the actor who plays Snuffie, we can’t help but wonder what it’s like to date a creature whose species is a cross between anteater and…
Just as writer-director Menno Meyjes’ Max was premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, Overlook Press was shipping to bookstores Frederic Spotts’ Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics. Meyjes’ film and Spotts’ book say essentially the same thing: Adolf Hitler was a reluctant dictator, a potentially insignificant man who wanted only to spend his life painting but turned to…
“A lot of folks don’t know me very well. I’m probably too open at times. Anybody can walk into my practice who wants to. In my heart, I’ve never had anything to hide.” — Bud Lathrop, Raytown South basketball coach, after he was suspended for unspecified issues that may have involved his use of abusive language and his custom of…
Charlie Seraphin, the Kansas City Royals’ vice president of sales and marketing, might have the worst win-loss record since Tony Muser. David and Dan Glass hired Seraphin away from the Texas Rangers’ front office in August 2001 and told him to do the impossible. “My goal is to have 15,000 full-season-ticket holders and to sell in excess of 35,000 tickets…
The darker side of Parisian wedded bliss gets the Merchant-Ivory treatment later this year in the film Le Divorce. Beating them to the punch is Neil Simon, of all people, whose work is surely being produced every night on any number of American stages. The Dinner Party, at American Heartland Theatre, is not traditional Simon, though. Humorous without being…
Slated for construction on the slope south of Bartle Hall and dubbed the Metropolitan Kansas City Performing Arts Center, the future home of the Kansas City Symphony, the Kansas City Ballet and the Lyric Opera will open its doors in 2006. For many Kansas Citians, hope for a revitalized downtown district rests on this $304 million edifice. With its dramatically…
Heavily influenced by Judas Priest, Saxon helped found the new wave of British metal that triggered Metallica and countless other headbangers. Undoubtedly, the group’s knee-slapping song titles (“Dragon’s Lair,” “Princess of the Night”) and lineup shifts also inspired the comic minds behind This Is Spinal Tap. Debuting with a strong self-titled effort in 1979, the group alienated hardcore fans when…
Germany’s Force Inc. is the BMW of techno and house. It manufactures goods every week as if guided by quotas, and the quality rarely wavers from world-class. The imprint makes DJ tools that spinners can trust, and much of the output also works wonders in car CD players or on headphones. Force Tracks is Force’s clubcentric subsidiary; Digital Disco showcases…
In 1995, reflecting on the toll that Beatlemania took on the fab four, George Harrison said, “They gave their money, and they gave their screams, but the Beatles kind of gave their nervous systems.” Harrison spent his solo career trying to reconstruct some semblance of normalcy while aspiring to the quiet spiritual rewards of a modest monk. Knowing that his…
It’s easy to be cynical about this repeat of the Supernatural formula that sold 25 million records and revived Clive Davis’ Arista label. On that level, the whole thing’s pretty crass: Couple the legendary guitarist with teen icon Michelle Branch for the first single, and pack the album with critical favorites like Macy Gray and Wyclef Jean or happening rock…
Americans have become lactose intolerant of domestic cheese. After years of being force-fed Velveeta-quality entertainment, they’ve started to demand exotic flavors. Imported acts, though equally processed, offer an unfamiliar tang without the mushy blandness or rancid odor. In 2002, Kylie Minogue became the wine-and-pop connoisseur’s chanteuse of choice, thanks to her scorching, slow-song-free collection Fever. This year’s tastiest slice comes…
As if the certainty of eternal salvation weren’t reward enough, Billboard’s Top Gospel Artist of 2002 Kirk Franklin keeps racking up awards and nominations on the strength of last year’s The Rebirth of Kirk Franklin. Last week, he scored eight nominations for the Gospel Music Association’s Dove Awards, no small feat even if some of those nominations are in the…
There was a time when Austin’s HairyApes BMX could draw a crowd based solely on its relation to old-school funk-punk outfit Billygoat, but as each year passes that connection becomes more and more tenuous. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. No doubt there were ‘Goat fans aplenty who came to see the Apes hoping for a chanting, Cheeto-tossing, foot-stomping good…
