From the computer screen to the bar scene, successful endeavors in social networking are built upon like minds with similar goals. For urban professionals in this cowtown, networking means being familiar with kcsoul.com, a source of information about social events for African-Americans, created by Higher Ground Entertainment LLC, which will sponsor tonight’s event at the Uptown Theater (3700 Broadway, 816-753-8665)….
Upon its release in 1995, Empire Records grossed a paltry $273,188 at the box office. Over the years, however, the movie has attracted a devoted cult following. For those who blinked and missed its theatrical run, it makes for an entertaining Where Were They Then? feature, starring pre-Without a Trace Anthony LaPaglia, pre-Jerry Maguire Renée Zellweger and pre-Middle Earth Liv…
A couple of years ago, The Pitch confidently predicted a win for the New York Nationals in their Kemper Arena face-off with the more flamboyant Harlem Globetrotters. We felt that the Nationals’ workmanlike, by-the-book hoops were more than a match for the spectacular, gravity-defying trick shots and unconventional athletics of the Globetrotters, a position which is admittedly hard to justify…
Funny fact: Bonner Springs is the unlikely home of the metro’s only theater devoted to improv comedy. To ring in the new year, the Roving Imp Theater (115 Oak in Bonner Springs) puts on two shows tonight. Bring the kids to Post Holiday Headache, which includes a made-up one-act play and games designed to poke fun at the season. For…
Some people like to build models. Others enjoy playing with action figures. Then there are gamers who roll dice and role-play. What unholy force could bring them all together? Find out today during the Heroscape tournament at Pulp Fiction Comics and Games (129 Southeast Third Street in Lee’s Summit). Heroscape is a customizable strategy game starring warriors ripped from different…
If the bad times are what truly define a sports fan, then true Jayhawks fans are about to be identified. This year’s University of Kansas men’s basketball squad looks like it will test fans’ patience like none since the words “Eric Chenowith” still meant something. First came the impossible loss to the Syracuse Orangemen, then the all-too-possible defeat at the…
Scientist and prolific author Isaac Asimov once wrote, “The only constant is change,” explaining that humankind cannot progress without weighing present-day convenience against future consequences. Life is a balancing act, after all. Observe a visual interpretation of life’s equilibrium with In a Sea of Change, an exhibit through January 11 at Wonder Fair: Art Gallery & How! (803 Massachusetts, below…
A Web search reveals that Carlos Martinez is the name of quite a few significant men, including a character on HBO’s Oz and various professional athletes the world over. Proving it’s not that comprehensive (or reliable) a resource, however, the Wikipedia entry for the name omits the Carlos Martinez performing at Jardine’s (4536 Main, 816-561-6480) tonight, despite the fact that…
“Lincolnesque,” a series celebrating next month’s bicentennial of the 16th president’s birth, continues with 1935’s The Littlest Rebel (January 26). Admission is free. For more information, see kclibrary.org/events. kclibrary.org/events Mon., Jan. 5, 6:30 p.m.; Mon., Jan. 12, 6:30 p.m.; Mon., Jan. 26, 6:30 p.m., 2009 Tags: Night & Day
What smelled good in 1967 still smells good today. At least, that’s the concept of a new living exhibit at Powell Gardens (1609 Northwest U.S. Highway 50 in Kingsville, 816-697-2600). The Fragrance Garden: A Journey for the Senses includes such intoxicating flowers as jasmine and gardenia. The plants and nine smelling stations are arranged according to the advice in Helen…
Participants in fantasy football leagues may have to crunch some stats, but there’s not much work involved beyond that. It’s called “fantasy” football for a reason. The name of the Independent Film Coalition’s latest creative endeavor, however, is a little misleading. The 2009 Fantasy Filmmaker Draft involves the writing, shooting, acting in, and editing of an actual short film. Team…
If the walls of the Dolphin Art Gallery (1600 Liberty) could talk, they would probably say something thoughtful in hushed tones of meditative Zen reservation. The new space quietly sprawls in the old stockyards area of the West Bottoms. The gallery’s sparse white walls and concrete floor make the space seem like a miniature version of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of…
Although the Sham is from St. Louis, the band sounds like it honed its dreamy indie rock in the Pacific Northwest. The young quartet’s debut EP, The Only Builder, features smoothed-over guitars, understated drums and the occasional tinny keyboard, all of which recall the introspective lo-fi maelstroms of early Death Cab for Cutie. Standout “Roller Skates” finds the Sham channeling…
Director Stephen Daldry does a fatally respectful take on the acclaimed 1995 novel by Bernhard Schlink about German culpability for the Holocaust. The Reader honors Schlink’s restraint and his struggle to avoid cliché, but neither Daldry nor his screenwriter, David Hare, seem eager to make the material their own. The movie plods grimly through the memories of law professor Michael…
The Livers have managed to invent something brand-new: a four-person rock band with just two members. Multi-instrumentalists Scott Freeman and Luke Roulston augment their live sound by playing electric guitars in front of a prerecorded video of Freeman on drums and Roulston on bass. Through the magic of painstaking video editing and green-screen wizardry, all four band members have the…
Rock-show faux pas No. 121: Attending with a percussion device and playing it from the seats without the band’s consent. Rock-show awesome trick No. 154: Taking along 100 tambourines and passing them out to your audience. San Francisco’s the Blacks (no relation to the ’90s alt-country band) recently attempted the latter, inciting an enthusiastic crowd to the peak of tambo-shaking…
Hailing from Norman, Oklahoma, Mickey Reece, the man behind El Paso Hot Button, combines dirty guitar riffs, pulsing kick-drum action and searing vocals into a tenacious aural assault. Boosted by the energy emanating from all four of his limbs, Reece’s one-man garage-band sound recalls the golden formula of other stripped-down acts like the White Stripes and the Black Diamond Heavies….
This lucid indie gem from Sweden, adapted for the screen by John Ajvide Lindqvist from his novel and directed with imagination and restraint by Tomas Alfredson, releases the vampire movie from overwrought conventions, offering instead a coolly balanced examination of alienation and love. The movie follows the burgeoning relationship between Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), a pale 12-year-old tormented by bullies and…
In the 1990 rock parody Cry-Baby, Johnny Depp played a rebellious rocker named Wade “Cry-Baby” Walker. Walker’s singing voice, however, was played by rockabilly revivalist James Intveld, who, at the time, was still working to make his name in the business. Intveld’s real break came in 1996, when he was invited to contribute a track on a disc that celebrated…
Do people go to shows anymore? Of course — well, sometimes. In Kansas City, your band can pack out the club one weekend, then the next weekend … crickets. Though crowds are nice, they may no longer be the best indicator of your band’s cachet. What is? Photographers, babe. If you’ve got more shutterbugs with detachable lenses snapping away at…
This past year, Kansas City’s restaurant scene has had more ups and downs — a whole lot of downs, actually — than I can remember in more than a decade. The year opened with such promise. One of my first reviews in 2008 was of Vinino, the super-sized Italian restaurant in the Power & Light District. Over the following 11…
When our often-contentious film critics put their heads together about the best movies of 2008, they managed to agree (more or less) on a dozen. What’s more, two of those films — The Dark Knight and Wall-E — happened to rank among the year’s five highest-grossing releases (with The Dark Knight, as of this writing, the second-highest-grossing film ever released…
Early January: A Hole New Year As the new year begins, anyone with e-mail is still snickering over Kansas City first lady Gloria Squitiro’s 2007 Christmas letter, the details of which we don’t need to repeat here. Meanwhile, City Manager Wayne Cauthen confirms that he’s a semifinalist for the city manager’s job in Austin, Texas. Who can blame Cauthen for…
One lesson from 2008: Screenwriter William Goldman’s famous line about Hollywood — “Nobody knows anything” — pretty much applies everywhere. The idled factories, frozen wages and decimated 401(k) accounts suggest that the United States can’t even do greed anymore. We seem to choose our business and government leaders by their ability to portray Ronald McDonald or eat a big hoagie….
