A medieval boy monk dreams of illuminating sacred books in this enchanting, animated, old-fashioned Irish upstart. Brendan (voiced by Evan McGuire) is a carrot-topped lad possessed of more imaginative brio than can be contained by the cloistered life he leads under the overprotective eye of his disillusioned uncle, the Abbot (Brendan Gleeson). A peppier old mentor (Mick Lally) dispatches Brendan…
Amiably self-deprecating to a fault, the semi-autobiographical Mid-August Lunch features writer and director Gianni Di Gregorio as Gianni, an aging slacker who cares for his demanding mother (Valeria de Franciscis) in their decrepit Rome apartment. Forced to take in several other matriarchs in order to win a reprieve on his overdue rent, Gianni wakes up to a functioning community of…
Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) has a secure fact-checking job and is engaged to Victor (Gael García Bernal), a hunky restaurateur of indeterminate exotic origin who dangles hot, fresh fettuccine into her mouth. But Sophie isn’t satisfied. She really wants to write, an ambition that sets the eyes of both boyfriend and boss aglaze. When Victor seems more interested in spending their…
Another movie might one day find better use for the easygoing vibe between Queen Latifah and Common. That absolutely no chemistry exists between them as love interests is the first of many flaws. Earthy, virtuous physical therapist and hoops fanatic Leslie Wright (Latifah) shares her house with childhood friend Morgan (Paula Patton). Leslie meets basketball player Scott McNight (Common) and…
Is it an accident that Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood plays like a rousing love letter to the tea-party movement? It’s certainly something of a surprise. When the movie was announced in 2007 with the title Nottingham, reports suggested that it would sympathize with the normally vilified Sheriff of Nottingham as a man torn between two extremes: the corrupt, tax-happy monarchy…
As the students of Studio 804 gather in the empty parking lot on a late autumn morning, the churning sky mirrors the gray expanse of the abandoned Farmland Industries plant. Behind chain-link and barbed-wire fencing, rusted pipes snake over grass-studded railroad tracks, connecting old warehouses and corroded storage units that once held chemicals. A few minutes after 8, architect Dan…
Honeyed vocals echo over caverns of black static in Phantogram’s Eyelid Movies. The title of the band’s debut is an apt description of the ethereal, vaguely queasy arrangements that rise and dissipate across the album’s 11 tracks. According to the Saratoga Springs duo, Phantogram is meant to sound like Serge Gainsbourg mixed with Detroit hip-hop. But Eyelid Movies’ slick street…
The reference may be as obvious as an extinct animal’s gigantic ass, but Mastodon arguably represents the last of a dying breed. The Atlanta foursome is a big metal band: It’s on a major label, universally revered by the metal press, and it has toured with Slayer and Tool. (A stretch accompanying the Deftones and Alice in Chains is set…
Someone living in the snowcapped Rockies may long for more culture or company, but isn’t that a complaint born of familiarity? It’s similar to a fan’s complaints about Matt Pond PA. Over eight albums, Matt Pond and his collaborators have fashioned plush, baroque pop suffused with hearthlike warmth. It seems curmudgeonly to note that little has changed — other than…
It’s not often that we advocate a trip along the road that is Interstate 70. Stock up on gas, beer and beef jerky, reader: That time is now. Local Natives are coming to Mojo’s — a glorified wooden trailer — in Columbia. The band’s slightly avant-garde, melodic arrangements synthesize the Dirty Projectors’ swelling vocal harmonies, Fleet Foxes’ sing-along melodies and…
Title: The Kansas City Star Published: Friday, May 22, 1942 Discovered: at a Prairie Village estate sale The Russians had broken through the German front. The Japanese stood poised to take Chekiang. And reporter William Clapper — a La Cygne, Kansas, native who had grown up to cover Washington and then the war for a great city’s great newspaper —…
I will always remember BRGR Kitchen + Bar as the first restaurant where I walked into the ladies’ room. At least, I thought it was the ladies’ room. There’s no door to the bathroom; you just take a turn down a narrow hall and you’re suddenly in the darkened room. For a moment I panicked and could feel myself blushing,…
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Cowboy Indian Bear’s admiration of Broken Social Scene is well-founded. The band’s first full-length, Each Other All the Time, is packed with falsetto refrains, thrumming bass lines and bouncy guitars that recall Broken Social Scene’s prime. Hell, even the title sounds like the name of a BSS track. (“Mathemeticians/Colour” nearly shares a…
What the hell do “accessible” and “radio-friendly” mean, anyway? In the critical lexicon, the first term is used to mark a transition in the sound of a willfully obscure band, and the second is used to lambaste popular music. Enclave, the new EP from the Noise FM (to be unleashed at a joint release party with fellow Lawrence act Cowboy…
At 8 a.m. yesterday, the Free State Brewing Company had trucks coming and going from three loading docks at its new bottling facility, as the Lawrence brewery moves closer to bringing bottles to the market. “It’s enough of us looking at it. We’re ready to have somebody else see it,” says Free State owner Chuck Magerl. Free State has been…
Filthy Jim was one of those area acts that I never truly appreciated until they were gone. After playing shows around Lawrence for over a decade, the band played a farewell show at the Replay Lounge on New Year’s Eve 2007. The band went out in style, though, Every person who’d ever played in the scuzz-rock foursome made an appearance…
Tomorrow, May 13, is National Fruit Cocktail Day. It’s a good time to pay homage to one of the classic canned fruit products: the combination of chopped peaches (it’s always mostly peaches, isn’t it?), pears, a few grapes and bright pink cherries. Fruit cocktail packed in a thick and sugary syrup was many Americans’ introduction to fruit, once they graduated…
He just farted. But she’ll never know…. Apparently frustrated by the limited selection of fart-related products at Spencer’s, a new company has created a blanket to absorb your spouse’s gas and save your marriage. Called the “Better Marriage Blanket,” the special cloth is supposed to filter the odorous chemicals coming out of your butt, leaving the bed smelling fresh, and…
Cake baker Diane Mora wants to “bake the world a better place.” Mora plans to travel to the Arizona-Mexico border next month to help the humanitarian group No More Deaths provide water, food and emergency medical aid to Mexican immigrants attempting to cross the border into the United States. “This is a humanitarian effort, not a political one,” says Mora….
Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany e-mailed conference officials Tuesday to debunk WHB 810’s report saying the conference had invited Missouri, Nebraska, Notre Dame and Rutgers to roll around in the Big Ten’s pile of money. Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith told the Associated Press about the e-mail, adding there was “no truth” to 810’s speculation “whatsoever.” “Actually, Jim sent…
Scene & Heard — wherein local music scene makers give you the lowdown on the soundtrack to their lives. Ian Sotomayor is the best beer-slinger in Lawrence, providing Free State Brewery customers with perfectly pulled pints. In addition, he can be found rocking area clubs as DJ Proof. This is a man who knows what gets a party started, so…
