The concept behind All-Pro Football 2K8 is simply wonderful: Imagine a fantasy football league where you draft from a pool not of this season’s top players, but of the greatest NFL players of all time: Joe Montana, John Elway, Dick Butkus, Jerry Rice, Marcus Allen, Mike Ditka, and more than 200 other legends. And though a few players are sorely…
Hot Fuzz (Universal) The second feature from writer-director Edgar Wright and writer-star Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead) has been available on home video for decades: Hot Fuzz is, after all, a witty and wisecracking montage of clips from some hundred-plus A-list and bargain-bin action films, chief among them Lethal Weapon, Bad Boys, Point Break, and, oh, Freebie and…
8-Track: The Sounds of the ’70s Each decade, radio’s definition of “oldies” refreshes itself in accordance with the key demographic’s nostalgic sweet spot. These days, the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boys of the world have been cut for the Elton Johns and — shudder — Billy Joels. Nobody knows more about tonguing said sweet spots than the American Heartland Theatre, where…
America Starts Here Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler, both graduates of the Kansas City Art Institute, collaborated for 10 years on the work exhibited here, until Ericson’s death in 1995 at age 39. Their widely recognized work is conceptual — it’s about ideas rather than experiences. Through mixed-media sculptures and installations, they explore the ironies of American life. “Squeaky Clean”…
Since the 1980s, New York artist Kiki Smith’s work has been an engaging and sometimes fraught conversation about the human body — whole or in fragments — as a vessel for ideas. Investigating how our bodies hold up or fail physically and psychically over time and distance, she’s been at the fore of dialogues about “body work” in contemporary art….
The Bourne Ultimatum opens in Russia with the amnesiac superspy Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) doing what he does best: eluding capture, cracking skulls and brooding. Lickety-split, he’s en route to Paris, nursing his wounds and breaking out with a bad case of the itchy-scratchy hallucinations that come with Hollywood Flashback Syndrome. Choice and painful bits from The Bourne Identity and…
Recently, I got a scathing e-mail from a small-town waitress who’d been insulted by my description of her skills (or lack of them) in my review of the restaurant where she worked. “It is one thing to have an opinion … however, it is another to humiliate someone publicly.” What she couldn’t know is that I had agonized over whether…
I was telling a friend about chef Scott Warren’s new restaurant — Scotty’s on 39th — when she got a funny look on her face. “Where is this restaurant again?” she asked. “At the corner of 39th and Mercier,” I said. “You know, where Macaluso’s used to be.” “I hope he hired an exorcist first,” my friend sniffed before quickly…
Johnny’s Tavern in Shawnee pulls off the suburban-sports-bar-and-dance-club thing better than most. DJ Highnoone, who spins there every Wednesday night, has something to do with that. Highnoone learned the mashup style from DJ Jamie J at Blonde, and he also cites DJ P as an influence. Highnoone’s use of Serato — which allows a DJ to make a ton of…
Detroit is knee-deep in music history, so it’s not hard to trace the Go’s influences. The Stooges, the MC5 and even the Motown sound are at the core of the band’s generation-hopping brand of garage rock. But this Motor City foursome doesn’t dish out secondhand tunes. Probably best-known as “that band Jack White used to be in,” the Go has…
After years of Mike Patton cramming 75 ideas a minute up listeners’ derrieres, one would think that ADHD-addled metal boys would wise up to the fact that showing off their chops is akin to bragging about dick size. But don’t hold any of that against Car Bomb, a spazzcore quartet that reverently praises Maestro Patton. Not since Human Remains has…
Mosquitoes and bandits share two essential skills: (1) ruthlessness and (2) the ability to strike fast and get the hell outta Dodge. Both traits are also associated with one-man punk bands, which tend to divide dinner-party conversations like politics or plane engines falling through the roof. With qualified eccentrics such as Hasil Adkins and Scott H. Biram leading the charge,…
Blah blah blah Modest Mouse blah blah Isaac Brock blah blah Johnny Marr. Instead of this overrated major-label indie-rock band from Issaquah, Washington, go see It’s Over, the Popsicles, Flee the Seen, the Roman Numerals, the Architects, Kasey Rausch, In the Pines, Kirsten Paludan, American Catastrophe, Lights & Siren, Be/Non, the Rich Boys, the Republic Tigers, the Gaslights, Megan Birdsall,…
The Alvin brothers, Phil and Dave, have had an abiding interest in roots music since their youth, and — along with fellow West Coast acts such as X, Los Lobos and Social Distortion — they introduced many punks to country and rockabilly as the Blasters. Dave went off on a successful solo career more than 20 years ago, but Phil…
To celebrate his 35th birthday, my friend David Wayne Reed came up with a brilliant theme for his party: I-35, where interstate-themed costumes were highly encouraged. When I asked him what that meant, he replied, “You know, like a five-legged calf or a roadside attraction. Or a lot lizard.” My history with David, a man-about-town and new KC Magazine columnist,…
In this week’s Pitchcast, Pitch Music Editor Jason Harper gets a Dogstock debriefing and Crossroads Fest preview with Bill “Roach” Sundahl and Scott Burnett. Music by the Cribs, Bears, Neko Case, the Go, Dr. Dog, Eleni Mandell and It’s Over. Get it through iTunes by clicking here, download it on the Web by clicking here or click the bar below…
Dear Readers: You love us, you really love us! Mere moments after publishing my July 12 column (in which Know Nothings had their say on the failed Senate amnesty bill), ustedes bombarded the Mexican with letters expressing your disgust toward those pendejos. Space prohibits the printing of all, so let’s give the only word not to a gabacho or wab…
Plog: “A Real Heist,” July 12 Prison Breaks Last month, I posted to my congressional Web site a list of my 2008 federal appropriations requests, making me one of only a handful of the 435 members of Congress to publicly disclose this information. Frankly, my colleagues in the House of Representatives told me this was a dangerous move. They said…
Hey, you — the guy or girl in Lawrence who scraped the paint off my three-week-old Honda Civic. Thanks to you, it practically has more scratches than miles. It was a beautiful blue. Now it’s a Pollock. You know, I think I could understand if it was some hugantic SUV. Hell, I’d be there with you. But when you pick…
During the dog days of summer, even the Department of Burnt Ends starts to feel the draw of outdoor patios and long afternoons, kicking back and swilling beer. Not Kris Kobach. When the University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor isn’t writing scathing editorials for the right-wing Heritage Foundation about recent attempts by Congress at immigration reform, he’s mugging on Lou…
Gloria Squitiro is making an awkward transition from natural childbirth instructor to first lady of Kansas City. She’s been at the nexus of the bad decision making that has caused even Mark Funkhouser’s supporters to wonder if he’s too cloddish to be mayor. The subject of gossip and unflattering newspaper stories, Squitiro appears to be drawing strength from the life…
Frances Semler keeps backfiring on people. When Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser named a new parks board in June, he declared an end to a culture of community divisiveness. At the time, Funkhouser wasn’t aware that one of his appointments, the grandmotherly Semler, belonged to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a nativist outfit known for its odious rhetoric about…
A few rounds into their evening, three men slump on stools around the expansive white bar at the Cashew. It’s happy hour on a recent Tuesday. Vernon Rice, Dan Pavlich and Dan’s uncle, Jim Pavlich — a computer tech, a bank services salesman and a trucking company owner, respectively — have met up to blow off some steam. A warm…
