Guy Maddin’s frozen reverie on Canada’s “Gateway to the West” is barely defrosted by the warmth of the projector bulb. The filmmaker conjures up his own “snowy, sleepy Winnipeg,” a place of eternal winter and endless night, while providing a turgid stream of consciousness, babbling in an urgent, incantatory mock-travelogue style. Restaging his youth but making his own detours, Maddin…
It takes a good while for Ricky Gervais to warm up in Ghost Town; it takes even longer for the audience to warm to Ricky Gervais as a dentist named Bertrand who sees dead people as a side effect of having briefly died on an operating table. Director and co-writer David Koepp, more or less remaking his 1999 film Stir…
Venture unprepared into writer-director Alex Karpovsky’s Woodpecker, and you might leave the movie feeling unsure about what you’ve seen. Rough-edged, beautifully shot, sometimes idyllic and pitiless in the end, it’s a feature-length exercise in narrative chain-yanking, a genre experiment that gums up truth and fiction without sacrificing the pleasures of story. Karpovsky comes on at first like any earnest indie…
Election news has sharpened the relevance of this sturdy doc about a one-fell-swoop settlement of Depression-era Alaska. Turns out, the state’s confounding philosophy of individualism on the government dole started when a New Deal program shipped 202 Midwestern farm families way up north to farm land that wasn’t particularly farmable. Directors Paul Hill and Joan Juster tell an engaging story…
It’s never too early to make it rain. Cash Image looks good. He’s covered in jewelry and tattoos. He’s wearing his sunglasses at night, with a black-and-gold bandanna around his neck and a winged-skull belt buckle so shiny, it could burn a hole in the ceiling. In one hand, a microphone and a bottle of Moët. From the other hand…
It figures. The indie-film world has backed its truck up to the Glenwood Arts Theatre and is dumping product by the shitload, including daring narratives, prize-winning documentaries and bizarre experiments such as the wonderful Woodpecker (reviewed at right). It’s all work we’re not likely to get another chance to catch on a big screen. Still, the question people keep asking…
Melissa Leo is terrifically truculent as Ray, a single mother of two boys who reluctantly teams up with an equally hard-up Native American, Lila (Misty Upham), to smuggle illegal immigrants across the border from Canada. Like many first features that began life as shorts and were shot over two weeks with a Varicam, Frozen River can make for ragged viewing….
If any band personifies the rock-and-roll ideal of drinkin’, fuckin’ and partyin’ until the sun comes up, it’s Buckcherry, the outfit responsible for such irresistible hard-rock anthems as “Lit Up” and “Crazy Bitch.” In a publicity stunt, the band’s manager leaked the first single off Black Butterfly, the group’s fourth and latest, a month early. It must have worked, because…
The Raveonettes have announced that a series of digital-only EPs will close out the year. The first is made up of remixes from last year’s Lust Lust Lust. Download it for free at the Vice Records site. The next, titled Sometimes They Drop By, is available September 23 and will contain four new tracks from the great Danes. Sune Rose…
“Caney Mountain,” by Ha Ha Tonka, from Buckle in the Bible Belt (Bloodshot Records): Brian Roberts is gonna be pissed if John McCain steals this election. The lead singer and guitarist for Ha Ha Tonka has been without health insurance since he had a cancerous tumor removed at the ripe old age of 21. There are plenty of insurance companies…
I like to see garnishes on a plate. Traditional sprigs of parsley or orange slices aren’t just festive but also useful: Peppery parsley cleanses the breath (and supposedly has aphrodisiac qualities), and the orange is loaded with vitamin C. Garnishes work best as minimalist touches — a small splash of contrasting color or an unexpected texture (croutons are considered garnishes,…
Jesse Christopher graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2004. In this exhibition, he has moved from painting and drawing abstract human figures to making fantastical abstract paintings in which contour figure drawings seem to remain as ambiguous presences. Christopher employs varied techniques in each painting, sometimes pouring the paint and sometimes using bold stripes that lend an unexpected…
Finally, just a year after opening its new Copaken Stage, the Kansas City Repertory Theatre has mounted a show that feels like something new. If there was any doubt that Matt Sax’s earthy, funny, overwrought but mostly bumping one-man hip-hop musical Clay heralded a new age for our biggest (but rarely most vital) theater, that doubt wouldn’t have survived Sax’s…
A woman at Whole Foods Market on 119th Street in Overland Park asks Leroy and Barbara Shatto about the boiler at their dairy that burst into flames. “I worry about you and your cows,” she says. The fire, extinguished without injury to man or beast, was reported in a Shatto Milk Company newsletter. The monthly “moosletter” debuted in 2005, two…
The Hypocrisy Express rolled through town last Monday. Sen. John McCain’s rally was scheduled for 11:30 a.m. inside the Pavilion at John Knox Village in Lee’s Summit. By 10:30, old folks had gathered on street corners within the sprawling apartment complex to watch for his motorcade. A standing-room-only crowd of nearly 3,000 filled the retirement community’s auditorium. An overflow crowd…
Dear Mexican: I am a chica struggling with the choice to come out to my parents about my sexual orientation. My family is Catholic, and my parents are old-school. While we are very close, I am scared of how badly this can go. My parents have been living in the U.S. for about 45 years, and they have adopted some…
Welcome to another edition of Burnt Ends Wild Kingdom. Today we explore the stunning migration of a rare species known as the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. For years, this tofu-chomping breed was spotted only on New York City streets, often hurling fake blood on fur-wearing models. But recently, the species known as PETA has expanded into territory…
Plog: “Death of Cyclist Costs Company Millions,” September 1 Safety First Thanks to Carolyn Szczepanski for her Plog item on the $2 million settlement in the wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the family of cyclist John Triggs against the Fordyce Concrete Company and truck driver Jason Driskell. Thanks for the publicity you gave this story and the safety of bicyclists. The…
The Edlers live at Raglan Road
Howl at the Moon Playboy Party
By The Pitch Staff Just three days ago, on September 14, The Kansas City Star boasted about its Gold Cup award in the Missouri Press Association’s annual contest: For the 14th time in the last 15 years, The Kansas City Star was the top finisher in the Missouri Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest. The Star won the Gold Cup sweepstakes…
By CHARLES FERRUZZA This particular “Where Is It?” was almost too easy, but what the hell, here’s special thanks to commenters Bill and Andrea who made correct guesses. I had been craving a flaky Danish pastry from the venerable McLain’s Bakery at 7422 Wornall Road, and the window display was festive enough that I couldn’t resist the impulse to photograph…
