Film lovers will feel less far from heaven next week. In addition to the kickoff of this year’s Kansas City Filmmakers Jubilee, the week brings the local premiere of Robert Bilheimer’s AIDS documentary A Closer Walk and the beginning of the spring Electromediascope series at the Nelson. Bilheimer filmed A Closer Walk in Africa, India and Eastern Europe — and…
It’s hard to believe they were originally going to release Basic before bombs started falling over Baghdad. Now, in the shadow of smoke rising from the rubble in Iraq, it’s even more unfathomable that Sony Pictures would unleash this stink bomb on the moviegoing public, which undoubtedly will turn up its nose at a movie in which soldiers are…
Repent now, Carl Peterson!: Regarding Greg Hall’s article on Priest Holmes (“It’s a Sin,” March 13): I was disgusted once again at the unnerving statements of Carl Peterson. Who put this brainless fool in charge? This man has made some tragic mistakes: Dealing with Marty Schottenheimer for all those years and never advancing through the first round of the playoffs;…
The day after the United States started dropping bunker busters on Baghdad, around 1,200 protesters (that’s a number you didn’t read in the Star) gathered at J.C. Nichols Fountain. Standing near the speakers was a little girl. She held a sign that read “Forget Enron, Bomb Iraq: The Republican Way.” The sign was nearly as tall as she was. Partly…
I’d been waiting a long time for this night. Last Thursday, after the first full day of the war, I knew exactly where I wanted to be: at America’s neighborhood restaurant. I’d known this since January, when I read a tiny item in the Star’s business section. The blurb quoted Applebee’s CEO and Board Chairman Lloyd Hill, who’d told Bloomberg…
All is not well in heaven. In Kansas City, Kansas, the United Nation of Islam has lost the daughter of Allah, the Mother of Civilization. Moreen Jenkins was to lead the faithful to heaven and teach them the divine principles of mathematical thinking and the secret language of Allah. Under Allah’s protection, it is said, the 144,000 chosen ones will…
Having always lived in landlocked areas, we’re kind of used to the absence of majestic natural features. OK, so the Missouri River is pretty cool, but it’s no mountain or ocean. So around this time of year, when the gray days of winter seem to drag on and MTV threatens to air lame-ass spring-break coverage nonstop, we start longing for…
The Peach Tree Restaurant (see review) may be the first restaurant to open on East 18th Street in many years, but it’s not the only new face on the east side of downtown Kansas City. The four Sierra brothers — Victor, Tony, Gilbert and Mario — opened the El Faison Mexican Restaurant (2021 Truman Road) eight months ago on a…
Kansas City’s long-ignored downtown has been getting a lot of ink these days, thanks to the sound bites issued by our two mouthy mayoral candidates. But no one seems to address the fact that the area once known as “downtown” — particularly the neighborhoods on the east side of Main — has been neglected for so long, there’s not…
Not long into Soul Circus — George Pelecanos’ new crime novel — an experienced black private detective named Derek Strange cruises the streets of Washington, D.C., with his young partner, Terry Quinn, a white man who’s new to the business. The two argue good-naturedly about the song lyrics pouring from the speakers of Strange’s Chevy: “There it is, man,”…
Thursday, March 20, 2003 Global upheaval and incessant war rhetoric got you feeling stressed? It’s so hard to be Zen when world leaders start stroking their big, red missile-launch buttons. Surely it’s not too much to ask that the UN invite Hussein, Bin Laden and all applicable axes of evil to a Buddhist retreat in Geneva. How could anyone…
Anticipating a collective springtime urge to move a little sawdust on the dance floor and let out a honky-tonk yawp, Cathy Hawes and Betsy Faubion of Leavenworth’s Doolittle Farms have set aside Saturday night for their first Barn Dance and Spring Cow Pie Fling. In case the pastoral setting isn’t enough to elicit that yawp, the duo has scored…
“I just really think that Jeff Graves will be the key for Roy Williams’ team.” — Digger Phelps, ESPN GH: Digger needs to shovel a hole, jump in it and stay there for the next three weeks. This guy hasn’t made a cogent comment since he first stared into the wrong ESPN camera ten years ago. If KU is depending…
Jon Sundvold, the college basketball television analyst, was giddy over the possible semifinal match-ups that awaited the Big 12 men’s basketball tournament last week. Lifelong rivals Kansas and Missouri were just easy wins away from facing each other on Saturday — as were perpetual antagonists Texas and Oklahoma. “It will be better than the Final Four,” Sundvold gushed. Correction. Those…
Danny J. Gibson loves copy machines. He also loves tape, broken fax machines, hole punchers, graph paper and corrugated cardboard from lightbulb boxes. But he loves copy machines the most. Sometimes he uses them to photocopy the dead mice that he removes from traps when he’s working as a janitor. He’s brought home dead animals ever since he was…
When the “Host” of the Coterie’s The Tangled Web appears at the top of the show and begins sticking Post-its on audience members — tagging them with words like Lie and Dream — he is part inspirational speaker and part demented carnival barker. Played with vulpine wit by Brian Paulette (dressed in a black trench coat, which, post-Columbine, has its…
The family tree of gender-bending comedies such as Some Like It Hot and Tootsie (and plenty of lesser fare) has roots dating back to 1732, when Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux wrote The Triumph of Love. These days the show is whipping up equal parts sex, heart and levity at the Missouri Repertory Theatre. With marvelous direction by…
These days, the excavation of reggae’s history is a full-time operation for several labels. Every month coughs up another bongload of compilations and reissues of albums by the genre’s legends. (England’s Soul Jazz has been particularly exhaustive and excellent.) The Bronx-based Wackies imprint allows us to take some American pride in this archive-plundering bonanza, although it took the cooperation of…
A Shiner wrap-up album, featuring live material, stand-alone singles and compilation contributions, will appear early next year. Hopefully, “Anytime,” which singer Allen Epley and drummer Jason Gerken recorded on No Escape under the pseudonym Ohms, will be among the featured tracks. One argument for its inclusion is the song’s high quality. The duo renders Journey’s version appealingly unrecognizable, drastically altering…
Malachy Papers has always been an ambitious, other-side-of-accessible ensemble, one that treads funky ground without succumbing to the lure of steady grooves. But Backbelly, recorded live at Davey’s Uptown, produces undiluted dance-floor dynamite — burly bass lines spurred by rhythmic record scratches, motivational vocal samples (“We have to go beyond”), distorted drum ‘n’ bass blasts and an uncharacteristically regular heartbeat….
Front man Jamie Stewart’s deep, dark tortured vocals are often compared to the wails of the Cure’s Robert Smith. Xiu Xiu, however, is far from a goth band. It tempers its cutting-edge, often shocking sound collages with emotion and stunning vocal melodies. With its clangy percussion, symphonic strings and harmonizing saxophones, Xiu Xiu embraces a classically informed, multi-instrumental approach to…
While pundits have continually overlooked Nashville’s white-trash cousins, punk’s purveyors of country have found a way to persist, and often succeed, under the mainstream radar. Wisconsin’s Shot to Hell plays forlorn songs rooted in the emotional energy and raw power of punk, but imbued with the understated elegance of a distant guitar and a distinct, catchy chorus. Fans never seem…
Hand in hand with the immeasurable legacy of Charlie Parker is the incredible sense of loss that accompanies the thought of his untimely death at age 34. The uncommon genius was — sadly enough — a common junkie and a victim of a self-inflicted lifestyle that all too often was mistaken as a mandatory mantle for any jazz musician. Frank…
In celebration of Women’s History Month, the American Jazz Museum has organized a two-night showcase for Kansas City’s resident jazz divas. The Blue Room’s Friday night lineup features a powerful pair of performers in Ida McBeth (pictured) and Sharon Thompson. While most local fans might be more familiar with McBeth’s effusive brand of jazz, blues, pop and R&B, Thompson’s many…
