Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber (MCA) The Dick Cavett Show: Comic Legends (Shout Factory) Domino (New Line) Dorian Blues (TLA) First Descent (Universal) Left of the Dial (HBO) The Memory of a Killer (Sony) Midnight Cowboy: Two-Disc Collector’s Edition (MGM) Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Collector’s Edition (Sony) North Country (Warner Bros.) NYPD Blue: Season 3 (Fox) The…
Sony’s approach with its handheld, the PlayStation Portable, is to carbon-copy its most popular titles for on-the-go gaming. “Enjoy Grand Theft Auto on PlayStation 2?” Sony seems to ask. “Well, here’s a version for the PSP. Oh, you’re a SOCOM fan? Super, we’ve got that on PSP too.” With the DS, Nintendo has taken a different tack. Rather than…
(Warner Bros.) It’s no mystery why Warner Bros. chose to rerelease All the President’s Men now; at last we know how much — which is to say how little — Mark “Deep Throat” Felt really looked like Hal Holbrook. A new doc on former FBI second-in-command Felt and his long relationship with Bob Woodward is among numerous necessary extras included…
The Grey Zone Dark times are coming to Avila University. Tim Blake Nelson’s Holocaust drama digs into the moral morass of the Sonderkommandos, squads of Jewish prisoners who received some death-camp amenities in exchange for their assistance in ushering victims into the gas chambers and disposing of the corpses afterward. Inspired by a Primo Levi essay, Nelson’s bracing play traces…
Before and After Kevin McGraw refers to himself as a “junkyard guy.” Based on this show, the description is accurate. The title refers to the objects — metal traffic signs, skateboard pieces, tire treads, mudflaps — that McGraw frequently finds along the sides of roads. He incorporates these materials into photographs of assemblages he’s already made. There’s a bit of…
It’s the Homer Simpson mask, deflated and lifeless, that offends me. It feels personal. And the one responsible for the atrocity, Lithuanian-born artist Aidas Bareikis, probably knows it. In The Guard of Sorry Spirit, one of two installations now up at the Grand Gallery, Bareikis shows his attraction to (if not his blatant love for) pop culture but literally…
People are talking about the True/False Film Festival. Not just talking — effusing. And letting others in on the secret: Hey, did you know that one of the hottest film festivals in North America is in … Columbia, Missouri? The all-documentary fest started strong in 2004, gained momentum in 2005 and this weekend offers another world-class slate of films….
Tommy Lee Jones’ feature directorial debut, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, opens with a desert panorama right out of the Sergio Leone playbook, but it’s not the Old West we’re watching. This is the new West, where the most pressing problem isn’t gunslingers but illegal immigrants. Jones’ story, scripted by his friend Guillermo Arriaga, is based on a…
One of Kansas City’s beloved culinary characters is George Detsios, the vivacious and bubbly Hungarian dumpling who is still known as “former owner of George’s Cheese and Sausage Shop,” even though there hasn’t been a business by that name for nearly a decade. Every few months, someone phones into KCUR 89.3’s Walt Bodine Show to ask the panel of restaurant…
I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve lived in Kansas City for over two decades but, until recently, had never thought of driving to Blue Springs, the little town on the other side of Raytown. In fact, when I decided to go to a Thai restaurant on 7 Highway, I realized that I had been getting Blue Springs and Blue…
Age might be nothin’ but a number, but after a visit to Touché, well … we found out that it’s more than that. So much more. We’d heard that Touché attracts a more mature crowd — hence its nickname, Toupee. That factoid in and of itself was enough to draw us out to 103rd and Metcalf. And we were sold…
For all NoMathmatics cares, you can throw your TI graphing calculator to the wind. This band spits on your algorithms. The combination of three DJs (John Dawbarn, John Shepard and Christine Taylor) and a video artist (Paul Villasi) means that each performance is an eclectic sensory experience — think robot-lover theme songs and bizarre stock footage of meat. Staying true…
Aceyalone’s 2003 album, Love and Hate, inspired a lot of hand-wringing, with critics bemoaning the glaringly obvious gap between the MC’s slick, flowery raps and his bullshit-ass beats. It looked as though he’d hit a career zenith with 1995’s All Balls Don’t Bounce (reissued in 2004) and wasn’t destined to produce anything else worth writing about. But this year, Aceyalone…
Deadboy and the Elephantmen is an unlikely name for a band made up of only two members, one of whom is female. Then again, We Are Night Sky is an unlikely release for Fat Possum Records, a label typically known for its blues output. Led by Dax Riggs, who previously fronted the death-metal act Acid Bath, the Louisiana duo teeters…
Has it really been that long since the Sea and Cake’s One Bedroom? Three years are three too many for fans of the group’s airy pop experiments, though they never have to wait long to amend their collections with side-project material. Released slightly before Sea and Cake leader Sam Prekop’s Who’s Your New Professor (which Prewitt played on) a year…
For all the sniveling indie kids who prefer the white-boys-with-guitars dynamic of so many bands causing a stir on the independent scene, it’s actually a decent time to get into electronica. Acts such as Mylo and Isolée have recently dropped surprisingly accessible records, and to that pile we can add Vitalic. This is not to say that Frenchman Pascal Arbez…
If the Band That Saved the World was a classroom full of sugar-tripping kindergartners, then Emma Feel is a strip club full of dancing kindergarten teachers — it’s just that pervy. Slightly weak in the area of chops but totally making up for it in swagger, stomp and badonk-a-donk-donk, this Kansas City retro-funk band has just minted its second album,…
Some music historians define punk in terms of song characteristics (fast drumbeats, rapid-fire power chords, snotty or shouted vocals, anti-authority lyrics). Others believe groups that brazenly challenge rock’s standard practices deserve this designation regardless of whether they sound anything like the Sex Pistols. By the latter criterion, Queen embodied punk. Queen subversively smuggled a proud gay man’s voice into America’s…
Tristan Prettyman is difficult to categorize. That everything written about her blames her sound on beach-party superhero Jack Johnson might have something to do with the fact that they both treat surfing as a religious experience and perform their stripped-down acoustic pop with the same desperate need. But San Diego native Prettyman works from a darker place more in sync…
In the world of genuine blues, even the rawest initiate can hear a phony from the first false chromatic run. But in a room where Kim Wilson is holding forth with his road-dusty baritone or his miles-deep harp tone, even a complete blues rookie has to recognize a master. Since the Fabulous Thunderbirds’ heyday, Wilson has been laying down…
Grayskul’s 2005 release, Deadlivers, seemed suspiciously mature for a debut effort, at least until fans did some digging about these ascendant masters of the underground universe and discovered Reason, Fiddle Back Recluse and Phantom Ghost El-Topo were the superhero aliases of scene vets Onry Ozzborn, JFK and Rob Castro. These MCs drew upon their connections to solicit sharp cameo appearances…
There’s a genre of music in Nashville roughly analogous to the Island of Misfit Toys — bands that don’t quite fit any satellite radio category. The Greencards (not to be confused with Cincinnati garage rockers the Greenhornes or with our own local reggae favorites Green Card) are an imported trio: Australians Carol Young (vocals) and Kym Warner (mandolin) and English…
Music critics throw Brian Wilson’s name around a lot, but Dios Malos truly deserves the reference. Hailing from the same Los Angeles suburb that spawned the Beach Boys, the group lifts its predecessor’s summery compositional style and vocal harmonies, making for some obvious tributes. Allegedly, the band even financed its first album by auctioning bootleg copies of Brian Wilson’s Smile…
National Public Radio is a lot hipper these days. Its Web-only music show, All Songs Considered, broadcasts concerts from indie favorites such as the White Stripes, the Shins and Sigur Rós. And every once in a while, a show stays up for the taking. The program has posted exclusive live sets (available for download for a limited time) from Iron…
