Jolie Holland
Jolie Holland could hardly be recording for a more appropriately named label. While lumped by default into the country/folk singer-songwriter category, this Texas girl is intrinsically opposite to the rollicking country-pop you hear on commercial stations, emphatically against the slick folk-pop you hear on Adult Alternative public radio, and musically bereft of the flashy technique…
A Conversation With Dr. Ezekiel Mobley
Dr. Ezekiel … or Ezequiel, if you’re Spanish … Mobley is devoted to solidifying relationships between Central and South Americans and African Americans. For the last three years, his PCTV 21 television show, Hola!, has featured Afro-Mexican guests as well as many others who have a shared African and Latino ancestral background. He…
Drive Out to a Drive-In
Summer Music Roundup Music ListingsVisual ArtTheaterOrder Up! Fairs and Festivals Kidstuff Sports and Recreation “Really?” That’s what I hear when I tell people there are a dozen drive-in movie theaters still operating in the greater Pittsburgh area. Like poodle skirts, malt shops and chrome bumpers, drive-ins are a hallmark of mid-century Americana that folks assume…
Poseidon
Despite a few domestic skirmishes among the passengers, all’s well aboard the Poseidon, a truly massive cruise ship chugging across the Atlantic on New Year’s Eve. Expensive wines are being uncorked; revelers are shaking their booties on the dance floor; and the captain has just delivered the prophetic words: “Water is a chance…
Art School Confidential
Certified loser and mediocre artist Jerome (Max Minghella) enters art school with hopes of success (both on canvas and between the sheets), but quickly discovers that art school is a crock, his fellow students are all jerks, and that really, despite its great rep, art just sucks. Unfortunately, so does Art School…
JUST MY LUCK
Life is pure sunshine for the perennially lucky Lindsay Lohan, but it’s all mud and mishaps for the ill-fated Chris Pine. When the pair shares a kiss at a masked ball, they unknowingly swap their luck. Pine, with a British boy-band he manages in tow, skyrockets to the top, while Lohan learns some relatively painless…
KINKY BOOTS
How the British love to tease us with their little working-class comedies that titter and wink around some naughty behavior (so often, it’s “shocking” nudity). In Julian Jarrold’s oh-so-slight wannabe charmer, the bugbear the stiff-upper-lips and lager lads alike must embrace is that some men like to wear women’s clothing, and that, not surprisingly, there’s…
MARILYN HOTCHKISS’ BALLROOM DANCING AND CHARM SCHOOL
The gist of Randall Miller’s ensemble dramedy is familiar … that people should seek comfort and connection, no matter how curious or trivial the opportunity. Such an act spurs depressed widower Frank (Robert Carlyle) into an anachronistic dance school, where, upon being drawn into the lives of his classmates, he … surprise! … finds release…
OVER THE HEDGE
Yikes! A crew of woodland creatures wake up from hibernation to find suburbia on their turf. And just in time, a wily raccoon appears to help them navigate the riches of human life (mmmm, corn chips). This animated comedy, adapted form the comic strip and directed by Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick, is a cut…
Sunnyledge
Location: 5124 Fifth Ave., Shadyside. 412-683-5014 Hours: Lunch, Tue.-Sat. 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; formal tea, Tue.-Sun. 3-5 p.m.; dinner, Tue.-Sun. 6-9:30 p.m.; Sunday brunch 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Prices: Starters $8-15; entrées $19-32 Fare: Contemporary American Atmosphere: Where Carnegie took his mom for dinner Liquor: Full bar Smoking: Designated areas Along Fifth Avenue, Shadyside’s Millionaire’s Row, one…
Criminal Round-Up
The last few weeks have been especially eventful in the criminal-justice world. On April 28, Rush Limbaugh was arrested. No perp walk in front of the cameras for Rush. His lawyer, Roy Black, was able to negotiate Rush’s surrender at 4 p.m., when it’s hard for a camera crew to get across town on short…
Nipping Bonds Scandal in the Bud
With Public Enemy No. 1 closing in on the Babe, everybody just take a deep breath and relax about Barry Bonds cheating. I know, I know — it’s easy to hate the guy, and Pittsburgh fans know firsthand about his repellent personality. Everybody from Tony Kornheiser to the driver of the 61A has weighed in…
Twanda Carlisle’s Da Vinci Code
This column isn’t easy to write. Like Tom Hanks in The Da Vinci Code, I may have discovered a spiritual insight so powerful that it’s dangerous. Suffice it to say that if any robe-wearing albinos (other than our music editor) stop by the office, I’ll be calling security. My revelation came in an unlikely form:…
The Disposable American
Unlike impossibly bad hair, sprawling lapels and risk-taking Hollywood films, mass layoffs are one late-1970s hallmark that never quite died. In fact, when large corporations radically shrink their rosters while simultaneously reaping the reward of surging stock prices, the news receives much the same response as does a plane crash in Namibia. …
True to Former
Citizen Tom Murphy ends his morning chat about his efforts to revive New Orleans with a quote he credits to Niccolo Machiavelli: “Change is tough.” Looking small at the Starbucks table in a plain green sweater, matching casual slacks and a pair of Reebok trainers, there’s nothing about Murphy that says Machiavelli or…
Black Moth Super Rainbow
From the loveliest depths of Pittsburgh’s underground comes Black Moth Super Rainbow’s provocative tour de force, Lost, Picking Flowers in the Woods, out this week on Graveface Records. Compared to BMSR’s earlier releases, “it’s a little moodier,” says front man Tobacco, “and a lot more real, since we used tape for everything instead…
