Nearly four decades before Pixar charmed us with Wall-E, Universal introduced audiences to another solitary eco-warrior — one a little more passionate, a little more committed to his cause, a little more, well … batshit. In 1972, Bruce Dern wasn’t just on the list of actors considered for such roles. He was the list. In Silent Running, Dern’s astro-botanist, Freeman…
For thousands of adults in the Kansas City area, decoding the words on this page is a source of frustration and embarrassment. More than 200,000 area residents struggle with literacy, making daily tasks — such as filling out job applications and reading newspapers — daunting assignments. Literacy Kansas City, a local nonprofit group that matches volunteer mentors with willing students,…
After some 60 years of festivals — and in its fifth year in KC — Fringe is now a noun (“See you at Fringe”), a verb (“I need the night off because I’m Fringing”) and an adjective (“It’s not cheap nudity — it’s Fringe nudity”). It also serves as a catchall category for theatrical miscellany: puppetry, belly dance, performance art,…
The Sunday-night shame spiral: leftover booze swimming in your bloodstream, weird feelings about the strange turn that last night’s hookup took, all-consuming dread regarding the start of another workweek. Cheap drinks and good company on Monday nights help us celebrate getting through it. Meet up with friends and have them tell you that everything’s going to be OK. Even if…
Baseball is broken, and we’re not just talking about the product that the Kansas City Royals put on the field every night. From the steroid era to small-market teams’ inability to compete, the sport is struggling mightily in the PR department. Royals broadcaster Denny Matthews doesn’t have all the answers, but he does offer some suggestions in his new book,…
Circus music most often consists of marches and screamers, waltzes and foxtrots. Fifteen years ago, production manager and concert promoter Cedric Walker ditched this traditional formula and began pursuing his dream of “Hip-Hop Under the Big Top.” Today, the UniverSoul Circus tours throughout the country, bringing audiences of all ages a one-ring circus experience complete with multicultural jugglers, comedians, contortionists,…
Parkville’s Café Cedar (2 East Second Street) may be the only restaurant in the metro that serves both Middle Eastern fare and all-American fried chicken. But tonight, owner Jehad Saleh adds the cuisine of many more regions when he lays out a lavish buffet for Café Cedar’s first International Feast and Wine Tasting to benefit Synergy Services. Beginning at 5…
With riffs, lyrics and production values all microscopically tailored to capture the feel of vintage thrash metal, it’s a surprise that Mantic Ritual’s label didn’t airbrush some acne into the liner-note photos of Executioner to mimic the back cover of Metallica’s Kill ’Em All. The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, band’s debut may as well have been recorded 25 years ago, at a…
For those ambivalent about whether stoning women to death is a cruel punishment, here’s The Stoning of Soraya M., a dutifully plodding if watchable dramatization of a real, particularly appalling application of Sharia (Islamic law) in small-town Iran. Soraya (Mozhan Marnò) refuses to divorce her abusive husband, Ali (Navid Negahban), because he won’t leave her enough money to feed her…
This appropriately titled tour brings a canny cross-section of metal’s toughest acts, headlined by a couple of legends in different states of decomposition. Marilyn Manson welcomed bassist Twiggy Ramirez back into the fold for The High End of Low, brewing up a nostalgic batch of tuneful industrial metal with (ineffectually) shocking lyrics. But Marilyn’s gothic cast feels painted on, and…
The March 2009 release of Neko Case’s sixth solo album, Middle Cyclone, has brought a maelstrom of critics praising and parsing the Virginia-born, Washington-raised singer’s preternatural alto. And while Case has dropped clues to her voice’s power on Cyclone (“This Tornado Loves You,” “I Am an Animal”), no one has determined its precise correlative in the cosmos. Until now. Using…
Max Justus doesn’t sleep. Maybe he sneaks naps between bouts of cranking out dense electro tracks in his basement studio, but he probably has a hard time shutting his eyes when there are a million little keyboard parts fluttering around in his head. In the past year, Justus (real name: Spransy) has sprung onto the national blog scene, thanks to…
Like Neko Case or P.J. Harvey, Eleni Mandell sings like a gal you don’t want to mess with. Any poor Joe who’s done her wrong has surely been called out for it, because Mandell’s seventh release, Artificial Fire, is full of smart little comebacks. The Los Angeles-based chanteuse proves hard to stay mad at on the lengthy 15-song disc, which…
Considering that Weezer’s blue album was the soundtrack to many a circa-1994 college freshman year (and probably quite a few since then), it seems kind of right that Asher Roth sampled “Say It Ain’t So” for the original version of his hit “I Love College.” According to Roth, the higher-education regime doesn’t seem to have changed in the last 15…
Guns, justice and fate may be the main themes here, but they don’t keep The Hard Way from being a party. On its fourth album, the Architects continues its quest to fuse punk grit with the pomp, theatrics and catchiness of arena rock, a mission that the group began in earnest with last year’s Vice. Whereas that record was at…
A docudrama with a good heart but a heavy hand, American Violet isn’t shrinking. Changing the names of the people and town involved, the third film by Tim Disney (Walt’s great-nephew) recounts the true story of Dee (Nicole Beharie), an African-American single mother of four living in a Texas housing project, who’s erroneously swept up in a drug raid. Her…
Some fans might be disappointed that half of the 10 songs on Stik Figa’s newest release, Stik Figa as Himself, are recycled from an earlier digital release on illroots.com, It Ain’t Easy Bein’ Skinny. No matter. Tracks such as “Class of 2000,” “Absitively,” “Susan B” and “Medicine” are local classics, aged like a Kansas City strip. “Everyday,” one of the…
In their 28-year career, the indie-rock heroes who comprise Sonic Youth have experienced unprecedented success — and have had unparalleled staying power. Credit this longevity to the band’s stability: Guitarist Lee Ranaldo; drummer Steve Shelley; bassist and singer Kim Gordon and her husband, guitarist and co-lead singer Thurston Moore, have together launched numerous side projects, completed countless world tours, and…
I don’t care what Café Europa calls itself — it may be the most American restaurant in midtown. And I’m not just talking about the family-style suppers on Sunday night, a buttermilk-marinated fried-chicken deal (or one of two other entrées offered) that includes salad, mashed potatoes, green beans stewed with bacon and onion, biscuits and dessert. If the place weren’t…
Don’t let the PG rating fool you: The dark arts are back with a vengeance in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the generally grim, occasionally startling and altogether enthralling sixth chapter in a movie franchise that keeps managing to surprise just when one would expect it to be puttering along on auto-broomstick. Going a few shades blacker than 2007’s…
A little before noon, on the last day of 2008, Abdullahi Ibrahim pecked at a laptop at the front of a space rented from the University of Khartoum, in the capital of Sudan. A white screen was ready to display images, but Ibrahim couldn’t get his PowerPoint presentation to work. The room was filling with students and academics. Journalists had…
The Kansas City Royals tend to repeat their mistakes. Last summer, the front office traded frustrating shortstop Ángel Berroa. His replacement, Tony Peña Jr., turned out to be even worse. In 2006, the organization stripped two radio reporters of their credentials after they subjected team owner David Glass to a line of questioning that he found impertinent. A few weeks…
Dear Mexican: How can I get Mexicans to arrive to a meeting ON TIME? Punctual Pete Dear Gabacho: Tell them you’re offering green cards on a first-come, first-served basis. And then diles a gabachos to eliminate the concept of arriving “fashionably late” the way they did the Polish joke. Dear Mexican: I was reading through the glossary in your ¡Ask…
Feature: “Story of My Life,” June 18 Q Tip Peter Rugg did an excellent job in portraying Quentin Carter. He really investigated Q before he wrote the story, and I admire that. It is really good to read about a person who makes bad choices and then gets back on track. So thanks again, Peter, as it made me a…
