A screening and discussion of this film starring Ryan Gosling; Lars (Gosling) is a guy who thinks he’s found the girl of his dreams in a life-sized love doll named Bianca he found on the internet. Lars is completely content with his artificial girlfriend, but when he develops feelings for Margo, an attractive co-worker, he finds himself lost in a…
If all the jazz hands and overly dramatic singing in old-fashioned Broadway musicals inspire a constant urge to throw whatever is closest to you at the actor, check out Reefer Madness. Complete with sex, drugs and rock and roll, this contemporary musical is based on a 1936 propaganda film in which an all-American high school couple is lured into the…
Dogs and people have been hanging out together for the past 12,000 years, but the human desire to pamper the pooch is a more recent phenomenon. A couple of millennia ago, looking out for Spot meant giving him light armor to wear into battle, or, if you were a Chinese royal, carrying him around in the sleeve of your silk…
Television improves peoples’ lives in different ways. In the case of the Tony Awards — the theater industry’s equivalent of the Stanley Cup — the boob tube allows Broadway enthusiasts to share vicariously in the delight and rejection of the award winners and losers among American thespians.And hardened fans don’t have to stare at the TV alone. KC Stage, the…
Vicky Levy was at the front of the classroom, but she was the one who learned the most important lesson about being an artist. The lesson her students taught her: Do what you want and you will be rewarded. Born in Texas and raised in Mexico City, Levy didn’t aspire to be part of the creative class until she was…
Dads and shopping rarely go together — unless it’s at this weekend’s West Bottoms Urban Bazaar. Tonight, this smorgasbord of shopping and entertainment at the Foundation Room (1221 Union) pays tribute to Father’s Day with an array of dad-themed festivities. Live mannequins will sport neckties by designer Christian Michael (as well as the creations of Cali Roberta). Local bands the…
Major League Soccer can be confusing sometimes. Until recently, both the Columbus Crew and the Kansas City Wizards — which compete in the same league and often in the same conference — were owned by Lamar and Clark Hunt. Despite their incestuous past, the Crew and the Wizards clash tonight at 7 at Community America Ballpark (1800 Village West Parkway…
Ever heard of the Lingerie Bowl? You know: pay-per-view’s short-lived, controversial alternative to the Super Bowl halftime show in which teams of nearly naked models tackled one another just for the sake of spectacle? That’s not what this is about.But if you’re intrigued by the idea of talented women getting physical, check out KC’s semi-professional femme football team. The Kansas…
Overland Park normally is not associated with sporting events, save for drunken karaoke, miniature golf and bowling leagues. This changes today, when the U.S. Handball Association begins an eight-day four-wall championship at the Athletic Club of Overland Park (10440 Marty). Handball combines concentration and physical skill, with participants required to chase a ball traveling at speeds of more than 80…
Come showers or dry weather, the West 18th Street Fashion Show will happen at dusk on 18th Street between Baltimore and Wyandotte. And there will be synchronized swimming. “Synchronized land swimming,” says event coordinator Corrie Van Ausdal. In keeping with the event’s theme — “Summer at Sea” — a performance by the Kansas City Sea Sirens kicks off the eighth-annual…
Rare is the modern independent filmmaker who uses 35-mm film (approximate cost: $250 for four minutes). But Lawrence filmmakers Jeremy Osbern and Chris Blunk had an uncommon conviction in their first feature-length endeavor, AIR — an original musical that follows three interwoven love stories. Shot with a cast and crew made up entirely of Kansans, the film boasts higher production…
Whether you quote David Sedaris books like they’re gospel or are among those folks who can’t understand why someone would title a book Me Talk Pretty One Day, now’s your chance to get better acquainted with the man. Sedaris, whose other books include Naked and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, speaks at Rainy Day Books (2706 West 53rd…
Unlike other big-deal productions, The Drowsy Chaperone succeeds without cribbing from popular music (Mamma Mia!), the movies (The Lion King) or a celebrity’s life story (Dreamgirls). That’s what made the show stand out on Broadway in 2006, when it racked up five Tony Awards (including one presented by Kansas City son Paul Rudd). Through the faux 1928 musical at its…
Seeking Surreal occasionally sounds like a quieter, hookier incarnation of Tool, kind of like A Perfect Circle, which boasts the advantage of actually employing Tool’s singer. But this Kansas City-based quintet provides enough variety to avoid dubious categorization as a de facto side-project tribute act. On its full-length debut, Seeking Surreal supplements its mystical prog-metal riffs and hermetic three-part harmonies…
Husband-and-wife team Jason Hammel and Kori Gardner make gorgeous pop songs as easily and casually as the rest of us shower in the morning. Much has changed for them since their duo Mates of State’s 2006 debut on Barsuk, Bring It Back. They have moved to New York and had another daughter, for starters. But Re-Arrange Us continues Mates’ run…
I am absolutely dreading the arrival of Guitar Hero: World Tour. Can’t even enjoy the summer. It might sound like insanity, given that the fourth installment in the Guitar Hero franchise could end up being the most successful game of 2008. It won’t even hit store shelves till late October, but details leaked recently have set off an alarm in…
“Toxic Wind” by the Rich Boys, from $ (self-released): These ain’t the same Rich Boys who drank and howled us under the table all last year and left us with a debut album, $, that smelled of absolutely no money but plenty of cashed-in cred. Earlier this year, the group verged on breakup, with frontman Mitch Rich promising to carry…
Chimaira is the kind of heavy band made for fans of Slayer’s sheer intensity and Pantera’s breadth of attack. Since the group’s first album in 2000 (the same year it opened for Slayer at the Uptown), Chimaira has never let up, even when catching hell for being too hardcore in the early days. But its music is hardly monolithic. “Empire,”…
“A Strange Kind of Love” by Peter Murphy, from Wild Birds 1985-1995 (Beggars Banquet Records): Most know Peter Murphy as the frontman of Bauhaus — one of the original goth-rock acts — but his solo career has been surprisingly eclectic. Though prone to similarly gloomy atmospherics and chilly, dyspeptic lyrics, his music in the quarter-century since Bauhaus first called it…
“To the Threshold” by Hatebreed, from Supremacy (Roadrunner Records): Since launching in 2002, the biannual Jägermeister Music Tour has favored extremely heavy acts (with Slayer headlining twice) alongside rock-radio fixtures (Disturbed, Drowning Pool). For its past six outings, tour organizers selected loud, melodic headliners, but this bill returns to the hard stuff. Hatebreed, which got its first Jäger shot on…
“Gobbledigook” by Sigur Ros, from Með Suð I Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust (Beggars Xl Recording): The most puzzling thing about Sigur Rós is not the lyrics, which, when there are any, are sung by a high-pitched elfin voice in either the band’s native Icelandic or in its native-native Hopelandic (a made-up language consisting of about three syllables: you, sigh and…
Errol Morris’ latest documentary addresses Iraq — specifically the infamous photographs of abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the so-called bad apples who took them. The director asks: How did these pictures come into existence? And what, if anything, do they reveal? The snapshots and videos are annotated by interviews with four of the bad apples as well as letters…
Predicated on the spectacle of functionally depressed types stuck in mildly ridiculous situations, the Israeli ensemble comedy Jellyfish has an emotional resonance beyond its controlled slapstick and deadpan sight gags. A beautiful bride trapped in a toilet stall breaks her leg upon climbing out and is forced to relocate her honeymoon from a Caribbean dream beach to a Tel Aviv…
In recent days, Universal has been running a TV spot for The Incredible Hulk that gives away what should come as no surprise to any fanboy worth his action figure collection: the appearance of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. From the delighted, deafening squeals of at least one sneak-preview audience, it’s clear that the thought of an all-star Marvel…
