James Murphy is tired. It’s 10 a.m. in Brooklyn — a decidedly unrockin’ hour for any rock star. But it’s not just the time of day that’s weighing on him. “I just don’t see the point of being in a rock band,” the 35-year-old musician and producer laments. “I love rock. I was raised on rock. But especially now that…
When we first see the protagonist of North Country, a working-class heroine portrayed by a deglamorized Charlize Theron, she’s sporting a black eye and a slight limp, the results of an encounter with her abusive husband. We soon learn that Josey Aimes has only begun to take her lumps. Desperate to support two kids and declare a measure of independence,…
Good Night, and Good Luck, a riveting movie that’s as entertaining as it is socially and politically important, is more than just the right film at the right moment. George Clooney’s sophomore directorial effort is dynamic filmmaking: brilliantly conceived, visually arresting, beautifully acted, emotionally engaging and intellectually stimulating. Many films try to create the sense that the audience is…
Best of B.S.: I remain mystified as to the process by which you arrive at your choices for “Best of Kansas City” (October 6). It doesn’t appear to be by reader input so much as by editorial whim. One wonders if personal relationships have an influence on the results. It also appears you folks don’t get out much, because the…
Hip-hop MC Priceless Diamonds describes herself as a “boss bitch” who grew up boosting clothes and turning the occasional trick. She swears that she’s leading a straighter life now, but we figure she’s still learned lots of good life lessons. So listen up, y’all. Would Snoop really play golf with Lee Iacoca like they did in those commercials? Yes. A…
With fuel prices climbing faster than a monkey on Red Bull, the Strip thinks it might be time for SUV-lovin’ Kansas Citians to consider alternative methods of transportation. There’s just one problem: figuring out what’s street legal means navigating a maze of state and city laws. The fine for operating an unauthorized motor vehicle in Overland Park is 70 smackers….
Before his daughter, 18-year-old Anastasia, was found shot to death in October 1997, Robert WitbolsFeugen had no reason to harass Jackson County officials. But the murder was a mystery. Anastasia’s body was discovered in Lincoln Cemetery, between Interstate 435 and the western boundary of Independence, with a gunshot wound to the face. Two of the friends who had been with…
Just because this is gay rodeo doesn’t mean Shorty likes to see men acting like women. While finishing a cigarette a few moments ago, he heard two men catcalling effeminately to each other. “Shit,” he said quietly. “Those are the ones who give us names.” Later, realizing the insult to gay culture’s time-honored tradition of campy behavior, he backpedals. “How…
Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989-1997 (Warner Home Video) There’s good reason to be skeptical of an eight-disc Batman set that forces you to buy the campy Joel Schumacher movies (Batman Forever, its title a veiled threat, and Batman & Robin) when all you need are the dark Tim Burton ones (Batman and Batman Returns). But you could watch…
It’s ugly to watch a grown man gush over a puppy. The kissing. The cooing. The “widdle-doggie” talk. Embarrassing stuff. So it was with trepidation that I approached Nintendogs, the cuddly dog-rearing sim for Nintendo DS. A million and a half people have already adopted virtual pooches, making the game a smash hit and stirring queasy memories of Tamagotchi…
The Adventures of Superman: The Complete First Season (Warner Bros.) American Movie Musicals Collection (Columbia/Tristar) Batman Begins (Warner Bros.) Bruce Lee: Ultimate Collection (Fox) The Care Bears: Big Wish Movie (Lions Gate) The Coen Brothers Collection (Universal) CSI New York: The Complete First Season (Paramount) Dark Shadows: The Complete Revival Series (Columbia/Tristar) Elektra: Unrated Director’s Cut (Fox) Eternal (Columbia/Tristar) Grand…
We have decided that the following words or concepts need to be banned: Man date (and any other words “invented” by the New York Times reporter whose byline is Jennifer 8. Lee). Diva (especially when uttered by the twats on MTV’s My Super Sweet Sixteen). Cutesy bar name spellings, such as Re:Verse. Despite our nonlove for the name, we do…
I have friends who are such food snobs, they’d rather be caught walking out of an adult bookstore than eating at a Chinese buffet. “Those places don’t even serve real Chinese food,” sniffs one such snob. “It’s all sugary, greasy glop. You never see real Asian people eating in them.” But I have! And a friend of mine, the daughter…
It takes awhile, but eventually I stumble back into restaurants that I’ve reviewed in the past (even the ones I didn’t like), either to see what’s new or just because I’m hungry. It was sheer hunger that brought me back, after five years, to Parkville’s Power Plant Restaurant and Brewery. I was in Parkville with two bickering friends (we…
FRI 10/14 Eric Grimes, curator of Tetanus: Pretty Nightmares, wants it known that his exhibit has absolutely nothing to do with the “candy-toned, trite” holiday that happens to fall at the end of this month. Instead, Grimes says, the show celebrates the “aesthetics of spook and rust” — which is perhaps a poetic way of saying it’ll scare the…
10/14-10/16 If, as Woody Allen says, everything we used to think was good for us is bad, then maybe some things we used to shun are worth our time. Things like fondue. Or mime. In the footsteps of silent Billy, who nailed the funniest bit in The Aristocrats, here come Dean Hatton and Beth Byrd, the creators and stars…
10/14-10/15 Bullfighting purists can complain all they want, but repeatedly stabbing a bull in the neck in front of a coliseum crowd is still illegal in the United States. Disappointing, perhaps, but at least there’s a rodeo clown at Friday and Saturday’s south-of-the-border extravaganza, La Feria Charra. The Mexican rodeo philosophy says it’s only entertaining if somebody might get…
10/14-10/20 Downtown scores a world-class film festival this week, thanks to the Film Society of Greater Kansas City. More than 35 movies from around the world, including several from our sister cities in France, Italy and Wales, screen along with local filmmakers’ works and a big-studio premiere at FilmFest Kansas City. We’re hitting the red carpet for the Midwest…
Kansas City’s artistic community can’t stand the old “Cowtown” label, as if it’s a slight to the area’s cultural accomplishments. Some business leaders also bristle at the nickname’s small-town connotations, which are unflattering to the home of several international corporations. But, as always, we suggest celebrating the idea, as Kansas Citians did more than 100 years ago when creativity…
Thursday, October 13 After missing a connecting flight from Chicago to Paris, then getting our passport stolen in Rome, we simply expected mishaps during the Venice portion of our trip. What we didn’t anticipate were record-low temperatures (we hadn’t even packed a coat) and enough rain and snow that even the streets looked like canals. The only way to get…
Not so long ago, a White House tour was part of any visit to Washington, D.C. Thousands of schoolkids and tourists could wander through the nation’s headquarters to see where the president greets foreign dignitaries and the first lady plants her roses. But since 9/11, getting into the White House has become a task for the truly dedicated. Groups of…
Rose’s Dilemma Neil Simon’s latest is more sweet than it is funny, but it’s often funny enough — the jokes went over with one night’s crowd of sweet old ladies like bread in front of pigeons. A Lillian Hellman-ish playwright (the commanding Donna Thomason) hires a disreputable young crime writer to ghostwrite the end of her dead husband’s unfinished novel;…
Exhibicion de la arte de vida y muerte The Day of the Dead Festival is over. Gone is your chance to buy skull-shaped lollipops, refrigerator magnets and pens. No more can you enjoy funnel cake while watching lithe flamenco dancers stomp gracefully in high heels. But the art and ofrendas (or altars) at Mattie Rhodes Gallery are still on display,…
This week, we have something to confess: a crippling weakness for good art books. And while we’re at it, we might as well admit to loving bad art books, too. Bloomsday Books’ new art-district locale specializes in both ends of the spectrum. Last spring, when the store left its comfy Crestwood location and ventured over to one of the Crossroads’…
