OCEAN’S TWELVE
Director Steven Soderbergh reunites the gang from 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven (plus one) for another heist caper. Eleven was a zippy effervescent ride through a single spectacular knock-off that traded easily on the charm and insouciance of its ensemble cast, particularly its leads George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Twelve relocates the crime crew to Europe, where…
RECONSTRUCTION
Danish director Christoffer Boe’s Reconstruction begs repeated viewing, both for its challenging narrative and its artful aesthetics. In a “story within a story,” candy-for-the-eyes photographer Alex (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is drawn away from his girlfriend and into an alternate version of his Copenhagen life by a mysterious woman, leaving the viewer to decide what to…
SPANGLISH
Ay yi yi. Like we need another poorly conceived and executed film about an impoverished but ennobled ethnic person who intersects with petty wealthy white people and helps enlarge their hearts. Paz Vega is the Mexican housekeeper hired by the Claskys, headed by a shlubby middle-aged dad (Adam Sandler) and his shrieking bitch of a…
Saint Etienne
When groups who haven’t yet disbanded choose to release a “best of” record, they wade into choppy waters. The concept is a bit like penning an autobiography before your 50th birthday: Most of us at that point just haven’t lived enough life to say anything substantial. But Saint Etienne has always existed on…
Frog Eyes
Easily one of the finest post-punk releases of the year, The Folded Palm has brilliantly taken a page from the Captain Beefheart songbook and blended it ably with a bit of artsy spazzcore. The result? A neurotic A-bomb of an album that’s at once theatrically tuneful and strangely anarchic. If only the entire disc were…
Bites and Brews
Location: 5744 Ellsworth Ave., Shadyside. 412-361-4425 Hours: Tue.-Fri. 11 a.m.-2 a.m.; Sat.-Sun. noon-2 a.m. Prices: Pizza $14; sandwiches $5-7 Fare: Sandwiches & pizza Atmosphere: Colorful minimalism Liquor: Full bar Since Bites and Brews opened on Ellsworth Avenue this summer, we have asked ourselves the musical question: Is it a meal-worthy destination, or just another bar…
Josephine Foster and the Supposed
“Creepiness” is clearly the central theme here, and on All the Leaves Are Gone, Josephine Foster’s spooky vocal style manages a nifty trick: Not only does she succeed in exhuming the soul of ’60s folk while maintaining the cool, detached stance of an indie artist (Cat Power comes to mind), she also keeps us guessing…
You Call This Living?
If you have a hard time telling Democrats and Republicans apart — and who doesn’t? — this may be the test. Democrats are politicians who get drawn inside the Beltway, where they forget about the common guy and his concerns. Republicans do the same thing…except they collect tax breaks in the process. Or so…
Blanket Music
The publicity team at Hush Records calls Cultural Norms an album you can think to, but with its brilliantly genuine Tropocalia beats, it’s also an album you can kick back and relax to. In fact, the band might have called itself Beach Music, what with its proclivity to blend unfussy jazz guitar with simplistic, breezy…
Just as you pass the Duquesne University Tamburitzans Building on the Boulevard of the Allies, the next building past the Tamburitzans has an elaborate arched doorway that bears the Paramount Pictures emblem. What was it or what is it?
I used to think this was some kind of Masonic symbol — partly because I tend to drive past it so quickly, and partly because I harbor a deep conviction that the Tamburitzans are tied up with the Illuminati somehow. But a few years ago I was set straight by Ed…
Arms Erase
If the old Homestead mill were producing as much armor plate as it once did, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wouldn’t have had to answer to a National Guard member who questioned the shortage of armor for Humvees. And armor-plate mills in eastern Pennsylvania are still ahead of schedule, says a company rep. …
Party at the Crossroads
A priest, a minister, an atheist, and two political consultants walk into a newspaper office … Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. In the wake of the November election, a chorus of voices has cited a Republican rout — powered in part by the religious right — as evidence that Democrats need to…
Thrown a Curve
“What’s a French curve?” my friend the writer asked as I tried to explain the 30-foot-long flat thing in the middle of the Krause Campo. Situated on the roof of the one-story Posner Center, the new garden space and permanent art installation is located behind the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University (where…
A Conversation with Hide Yamatani
You’re tracking both white and black ex-inmates. How do you expect the two groups will do after they leave jail? Mainly because African Americans suffer very high levels of discrimination in things like housing and jobs, I think the social services [offered to ex-inmates] will have a tougher time making an impact. Perhaps…
A conversation with Jules Lobel
Jules Lobel, professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh, is one of three lawyers suing the federal government on behalf of eight U.S. Army soldiers in Iraq and Kuwait who are trying to free themselves from further service in the second Iraq War. Five have served past the end of…
Giving Death “Context”
Knoxville videographer Billy Jackson sounded understandably tired as he spoke on the morning of Dec. 13, having been up all night directing the re-enactment of Jonny Gammage’s death for a documentary he’s completing. Gammage, who was black, was stopped in mostly white Brentwood while driving a Jaguar he had borrowed from his cousin, then-Steelers player…
Kinsey
Wardell Pomeroy. Herman Wells. Alan Gregg. Paul Gebhard. Clyde Martin. Clara McMillen. These are the kind of names — and, more or less, the kind of people — you would expect to find in the Social Register. But because of Alfred Kinsey — a name that could have made the Register as well…
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
“The movie you are about to see is extremely unpleasant.” So warns our narrator, writer Lemony Snicket (voiced by Jude Law), chronicler of the Beaudelaire family history, at the start of Brad Silberling’s Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Indeed, no sooner do we meet the Beaudelaire children — 14-year-old Violet, with…
The Inheritance
When his father, a Danish industrialist, dies unexpectedly, Christoffer (Ulrich Thomsen) returns to Copenhagen. Christoffer long ago abandoned the family business — steel-making — and has been running a trendy restaurant in Stockholm, abetted by his actress wife, Maria (Lisa Werlinder). At the funeral his domineering mother (Ghita Ní¸rby) insists he stay and…
