At a bar a couple of months back, a member of an improv comedy troupe I’d recently written about wagged a finger in my face and huffed, “You think you could do it better?” Every critic confronts this question. The answer: “No. But I think you could.” I didn’t say it then, of course. It came to me only…
There have already been critical rumblings about the extreme violence in Shoot ‘Em Up, but it’s hard to get too worked up. Yes, the moment in the opening scene when Clive Owen jams a carrot stick into a bad guy’s eye — and out the back of his head — cheapens all involved, but you can’t stay mad at a…
Huffing and puffing to resuscitate a long-moribund genre, James Mangold manages to imbue a 50-year-old Western with a semblance of life. Mangold’s remake of 3:10 to Yuma isn’t as startling a resurrection job as his Johnny Cash biopic, but it does send a saddlebag full of genre tropes skittering into the 21st century. The original 3:10 to Yuma —…
Sundance signals, for better or worse, the state of American independent filmmaking. Cannes keeps faith, for those who still believe, with the cinema d’auteur. And Toronto? The largest and most important film festival in North America seems to do nearly as many things as there are movies to see — 349 in this year’s edition, which runs September 6-15….
Yes, there is a bar along one wall of Po’s Dumpling Bar on 39th Street, but I’ve never seen a dumpling on it. Nor have I seen a cold bottle of beer or a tiny porcelain cup of sake. The bar is just a decorative feature, like the buttercup walls and the blond-wood floors left behind by this restaurant’s…
L80s Night (a portmanteau of ladies and ’80s) at Jilly’s has been going for nearly three years, easily making it one of the longest-running and most successful dance nights in the city. Clockwerk is the selector on these Saturdays, and he plays to a crowd of people who fit the cliché of being stuck in the ’80s — big hair,…
“David Turns a Mystic” by Boo and Boo Too, from Boo and Boo Too EP (Iron Paw): Pretty much the only thing that’s missing in the music of Boo and Boo Too is space. Like a jubilant, overcaffeinated hybrid of the Walkmen and Broken Social Scene, this Lawrence band fills its songs from start to finish with whining guitars, hammered…
Florida punk band Against Me successfully negotiated the move to a major label without compromising its smart, passionate politics (“American Abroad”) or mediating its ferocious, shout-along musical intensity on July’s Warner Bros. debut, New Wave. Charismatic frontman Tom Gabel’s ragged voice growls over the band’s chunky mix of chiming guitars and propulsive rhythms. Arrive early and catch one of best…
“Universal Daughter” by Jennifer Gentle: Jennifer Gentle took its name from a Syd Barrett lyric, and the Italian group’s songs resemble abridged, if still potently psychedelic, versions of the late Pink Floyd frontman’s sprawling compositions. After collaborating with Alessio Gastaldello on 2005’s Valende, Jennifer Gentle co-founder Marco Fasolo recorded this year’s spellbinding The Midnight Room solo, multitracking his helium-huffing vocals…
“Kathy in Her Bedroom” by Bedroom Walls, from All Good Dreamers Pass This Way (Baria): Los Angeles band Bedroom Walls has mastered the art of the song title. Among the most evocative: “In Anticipation of Your Suicide,” “If the Storm Breaks and You’re at Home,” “There’s Nothing to See in the Morning Light,” “Succession of White Days,” and “I’ve Been…
Touting itself as “the world’s only mash-up rock band,” San Francisco’s Smash-Up Derby is taking the clever editing of bastardized pop to a whole new level. Sure, it may seem like a shameless guise for a cover act, but the Derby’s version of Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House,” sung to the tune of Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out,” is…
At the opening of UFOs at the Zoo, the first live DVD of the Flaming Lips’ 20-some-year career, footage of druggies, hipsters and animal-suit enthusiasts hootin’ and hollerin’ is juxtaposed with real-life wild animals — tenants of the Oklahoma City Zoo, in fact, which is where the town’s Grammy-winning, acid-tongued native sons held the featured performance. The show begins…
You wouldn’t expect someone called Roach to be so efficient. Then again, roaches are hardy, industrious little creatures. Industrious is an apt description of Bill “Roach” Sundahl. He’s the bassist for busy local band It’s Over and the force behind Spice of Life Productions, the outfit credited for those occasional, eclectic events around town known as Donkey Shows, which bring…
After walking upstairs to the new second floor of Tomfooleries on the Plaza on a recent Friday night, I found the place so busy that people were packed five deep at the bar. “I don’t get it,” Research Assistant John said about the cramped conditions. “It’s the goddamn second floor of a pre-existing bar.” Don’t get it? Well, the new…
“Kid On My Shoulders” by White Rabbits, from Fort Nightly (Say Hey Records): Two years after moving from Columbia, Missouri, to Brooklyn, New York, the White Rabbits are rock stars. Their Say Hey Records debut came out in May, and they played The Late Show With David Letterman in July. Somewhere along the way, this literary, rambunctious, almost painfully…
Dear Readers: It’s not just questions and racist rants that invade the Mexican’s mailbox — your feedback sneaks under my digital fence, también. Let’s start with Lean Like a K Street Chola, a gangbanger-turned-lobbyist who wrote in a few weeks back wondering how she could explain to quizzical pals why Mexican women use lip liner. The Mexican responded that such…
Feature: “Smoke and Mirrors,” August 23 August 23 Maximum Protection I would like to correct Eric Barton’s article about EPA Region 7’s response to the ChemCentral fire. Any evaluation of potential health risks must emphasize the role of exposure. The primary health threat from the fire would have been breathing the smoke. If there was no exposure, then there was…
Hey, you, scumbag of 38th Street! I’m sick of you breaking into my car and helping yourself to whatever’s in there. This is the fifth time I’ve had shit taken out of my car while parked on that street. I have no clue what you expect to do with an owner’s manual for a car you didn’t steal. And I’m…
Don’t Diss the Jay It’s been a whole four years since former University of Kansas coach Roy Williams gave Larrytown the ol’ heave-ho and bounded happily into a head coaching job at his alma mater, the University of North Carolina. And now he’s back. At least, the image of his growling face is. Staring down on the streets of…
At 67, retired Lawrence pharmacist Newton King is ready to honor The Last Cattle Drive, the Western novel that’s touched him for years, with a cattle drive of his own. The problem is, he doesn’t know a damned thing about cows. King is the first to admit that a lifetime in drug sales doesn’t exactly prepare you for roping and…
Citizen involvement. Open government. More people using the parks. Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser says he stands for these things. Yet last week, the parks board he appointed straddled those ideals and dropped a steaming load on them. On August 28, Board of Parks and Recreation Department commissioners trashed a well-organized citizen effort to set aside part of Sunnyside…
There is a volleyball net staked on the grassy hill where Jesus will rule the Earth during the Second Coming. A signpost at the bottom of the hill explains the spot’s historical and spiritual significance: On August 3, 1831, Mormon prophet Joseph Smith Jr. dedicated this land in the City of Zion for the Lord’s temple, and Mormons believe that…
The country’s supposedly fourth-biggest Irish Festival has now come and gone, but organizers of the Labor Day weekend bash at Crown Center still have a bit of a hangover. Categories: News
Recently posted on the MySpace page of local punk rockers Super Black Market, this pro-quality video finds the lads from Warrensburg, MO, nonchalantly going lycanthrope after a disappointing nightclub gig then rocking their hairy tits off at a house party. There’s even a nod to the basketball scene in Teen Wolf. In short: beautiful. “There’s Going to be a Party…!”…
