Surrealist Luis Bunuel seared his brand into the cinematic psyche with his 1929 short Un chien andalou, in which a woman’s eyeball — yeesh! Yeah, that one. Following that auspicious debut, the Spaniard embarked on one of the most inventive and provocative careers in film, including the fertile period that followed his emigration to Mexico in the late 1940s. In…
Playing dark, Robin Williams has developed the burly insecurity and gargoyle frown of damned Edward G. Robinson in Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street. With World’s Greatest Dad, he almost has the movie to match. Lance (Williams) is an unpublished serial novelist and an unpopular poetry teacher at the same high school attended by his son, Kyle (Daryl Sabara), whom he is…
Michelle Shocked has explored solo rawness on Texas Campfire Tapes, has bounced big-band style on Captain Swing, and has even had a song used in a Kaiser Permanente ad for osteoporosis. After a legal battle with Mercury Records, which had her signed to a 10-year contract, she wrested control of her own material and, in 2002, founded her own label,…
When, in the early part of this decade, I worked as a freelancer for a publication two floors below Vogue, each of my sightings of Anna Wintour was terrifying enough to immobilize me. Wintour’s arctic imperiousness had a way of creating the most masochistic deference, a dynamic that R.J. Cutler superficially explores — and becomes prone to — in The…
Whether you’ve pulled this week’s Pitch out of a kiosk or you’re reading this online in your ergonomic computer chair, chances are that you take the objects you interact with daily for granted. Gary Hustwit name-checks his stylish 2007 typography doc, Helvetica, in this second film of a proposed nerd-porn trilogy: a slick, entertaining and thorough curio about the form,…
Sure, the Mars Volta might be one of the best examples of prog-rock’s comeback, but it’s not necessarily fair to categorize the band that way. In spirit and method, the Mars Volta is more like a modern-day sonic descendant of notorious surrealist filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky. Like Jodorowsky, principal members Cedric Bixler Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-López craft elaborate works of art…
There’s a warm, inviting breeze rolling through country-folk legend John Prine’s recent work. On 2005’s Fair & Square and 2007’s Standard Songs for Average People, the goofball humanitarian serves up songs steeped in the music of his youth: classic honky-tonk, bluegrass, rockabilly and folk. While his voice has deepened after a struggle with cancer in the late-’90s, Prine performs with…
Eventual decline may be a reality that all artists face, but Every Time I Die frontman Keith Buckley has told at least one interviewer that he’s certain his creative well is going to run dry any day now. Strangely, Buckley’s fatalism, while not immediately obvious in the music, actually helps Every Time I Die retain its vitality. With the hounds…
Like a post-apocalyptic Pinocchio, No. 9 (voiced by Elijah Wood), the diminutive, anthropomorphic hero of director Shane Acker’s computer-animated 9, awakens to the lifeless body of his human creator and sets forth into a decimated industrial landscape that calls to mind London after the blitz. There, he encounters some like-minded (and similar-looking) fellow travelers, each duly numbered, 1 through 8,…
As go-time rapidly approaches for his annual local music throwdown in the Crossroads, harried promoter Bill Sundahl can at least say this: “It’s a hell of a lot easier now than it has been.” Which isn’t to say that coordinating the 25 bands and six stages of the fifth-annual Crossroads Music Fest — during a recession — is something the…
FRIDAY PRE-PARTIES Though the meat of the Crossroads Music Fest is Saturday, the sizzle gets going Friday night, starting at Crosstown Station. There, from 7 to 9 p.m., singer-songwriters Brian Frame (of the Blessed Broke), Gabrielle T, Jamie Searle (formerly of It’s Over) and Kasey Rausch perform homespun ballads in the round. Then, at 10 p.m., Making Movies takes over…
Heartfelt, honest and influential as hell, the Get Up Kids is one of the most famous Kansas City bands around — and with good reason. Best known for its well-loved landmark 1999 album, Something to Write Home About, the five-piece group (made up of members Matt Pryor, Jim Suptic, James Dewees, Ryan Pope and Rob Pope) crafted spunky indie-pop anthems…
Zest opened just nine months ago, and I reviewed it in February (“Zest to a T,” February 3, 2009). Why, then, would I return so soon? In that February review, I agreed with seemingly everyone else that Joe DiGiovanni and Mike Schreiber’s sleek Leawood bistro was attractive and comfortable. But I thought that chef Eric Eckard’s “original upscale comfort food”…
The humble miracle of Corrie Van Ausdal’s Fishtank performance studio isn’t simply that such a lark exists, although it is remarkable: a theater where actors perform behind a storefront window for a crowd seated in folding chairs on Wyandotte. Still, theater today is always unlikely; this one is just a touch more than most. What’s most worth celebrating is that…
If this were any other street corner, she might look like a lost farm girl. But this is Ninth Street and Benton, and the woman with the golden tan doesn’t want directions. She wants a date. A forest-green Ford Explorer slows, and the driver nods at her. “What’s up?” he asks. She walks toward the car. “What’s up with you?”…
One of the things that draws people to cities is the ability to do things — shop, eat brunch, have a drink, find a sex partner — without driving much. Or at all. Recently, I was chatting with an urban planner. He lamented how Kansas City leaders, from the mayor on down, lack the awareness or the ability to sell…
Dear Mexican: Why do Mexicans make the sign of mucho dinero with a gap between their thumb and index finger, as if holding an imaginary wad of bills between both fingers? El Zorro Chupagringos Dear Gabacho-Sucking Fox: Because if a pendejo like you can get the gesture, imagine us normal folks? Dear Mexican: Why do Mexicans who come into money…
Plog: “Rep. Lynn Jenkins’ health-care campaign contributions,” September 1 Great White Dope I recently attended Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins’ town-hall meeting at the Dole Institute, equipped with information that I received from The Pitch’s news blog. What I saw was a woman who thinks showing up to a public forum and smiling a lot is enough to convince her constituents that…
Last night was the big Obama/health-care address to Congress, and one member of Congress didn’t disappoint with his dickish antics. South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson hollered “You lie” during Obama’s speech and that didn’t sit well with Missouri Sen. Claire “Bear” McCaskill. Here comes 140-characters of fury. Biggitybam! Quite a speech. Categories: News, Politics Tags: barack obama, Claire McCaskill, health…
Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel reportedly practiced for the second time this week (while wearing a knee brace) but is still questionable for Sunday’s game against the Baltimore Ravens. The official Chiefs injury report says Cassel had “limited participation in practice.” The unofficial depth chart, released September 7, lists Cassel as the No. 1 guy, but Coach Todd Haley’s comments in…
In the run-up to next weekend’s Black Clover Beerfest at the Riot Room on September 17 and 18, I’s doing a little catch-up reporting — or trying to — on Mac Lethal’s recent two-fisted split with (1) Rhymesayers Entertainment, the label that released 11:11, and (2) with Seattle rapper Grieves, who recently parted ways with Mac’s Black Clover Records. The…
