Oh No, Not Again
You know when you’ve got an image problem? When you’re making City Councilor Jim Motznik look like the adult. And that’s where “progressives” on council find themselves today. As you’ve probably heard, city council President Doug Shields had a meltdown during a confrontation today with Barbara Trant, the city’s personnel director. Shields and others…
Did the P-G and the Trib attend the same Democratic platform convention?
You may not have realized it, but the Democratic Party came to Pittsburgh last weekend and held not one but two gatherings to cobble together the planks of its national platform. The events were held at the same time, and in the same place (the David L. Lawrence Convention Center), but had totally different outcomes.…
Flood of Interest
… admit that the waters around you have grown. – Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are A-Changin'” Brian Wolovich doesn’t need many more reminders about how damaging floodwaters can be. The Millvale resident’s bedroom window looks out into his backyard and over Girty’s Run, the creek that snakes through the borough and has plagued…
Swing Vote
In a bizarre turn of events, the presidential contest comes down to the vote of one man. Of course, it’s the vote of an utterly disinterested, rural doofus (played amiably if unconvincingly by Kevin Costner), which sets up the film’s best bits: the craven pandering of the two presidential contenders — Republican incumbent Kelsey Grammer…
Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead
To paraphrase one of this film’s characters: There hasn’t been such a lethal combination of Indian and chicken since the introduction of tandoori. Seems building a fast-food chicken joint on top of a Native American burial ground is a bad idea: You get a particularly bizarre sort of man-bird zombie, with a penchant for transforming…
Mother of Tears: The Third Mother
The latest film from Italian gore-horror master Dario Argento — the last of a trilogy — doesn’t offer a compelling story, quality acting or skillful pacing. However, it does give fans what they’ve likely come to see: disemboweling, the forcible removal of eyeballs and other body parts, copious bloodletting and attractive topless women, including the…
The Last Mistress
In Catherine Breillat’s lushly detailed film, adapted from Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly’s 19th-century novel, the aristocrats of Paris we meet are riven with feverish sexual desire — or at least, in the case of the elders, enjoying the show from the sidelines. The penniless “adventurer” Ryno de Marigny (full-lipped newcomer Fu-ad Aît Aattou) is set to…
Beer for My Horses
Thirty years ago, nobody could have foreseen a film featuring the unlikely combination of Mac Davis, Ted Nugent and Willie Nelson. But country-music mega-star Toby Keith is that visionary, co-writing and starring in this law-enforcement comedy, which is not really based on his pro-vigilantism hit song “Beer for My Horses.” Keith portrays a small-town Oklahoma…
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
Rob Cohen’s film is like a lame off-brand comic book: bad art, bad dialogue, uninteresting characters, stupid story. This is the third iteration of The Mummy action-adventure franchise that began in 1999, and clearly any creative steam this series had has run out. It’s mostly set in China, and our “mummy” is an ancient evil…
Brideshead Revisited
Julian Jarrold’s handsomely filmed feature is a fine piece of melodrama-plus, adapted from Evelyn Waugh’s 1945 novel. There’s the entertaining aspect of beautifully dressed people engaged in family dysfunction and troubled romance, but also more thoughtful critiques of class, social mores and religion (in this case, a rather fervent brand of English Catholicism). Our tour…
Encounters at the End of the World
This documentary at times feels like a parody of Herzog’s canon. He opens his film: “Who are the people I was going to meet in Antarctica at the end of the world?” he asks in his lugubrious voiceover narration. Well, no mystery: They’re scientists, because so far, no one has built a resort on Earth’s…
This Just In: August 7 – 14
Highlights from the local TV news: Smokescreen.
Mullen’s Bar & Grill
A North Side sports bar offers a taste of Chicago.
Crime Prevention: Region may be taking new angle against drug trafficking
Coalition of activists, law enforcement meet to discuss a regional attack on drug trafficking.
Iraq War: Ferlo hopes to stop National Guard deployments
A statewide effort at reducing troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan officially kicks off at a press conference in Pittsburgh Aug. 9, coinciding with a national Democratic Party platform event
Lend Me a Tenor
If delivering lines were like delivering parcels, half the best jokes would get lost in the mail.
The Star-Spangled Girl
Patrick Link, Mike Crosby and Melissa Newell manage to find the occasional bright spot, but, ultimately, they can’t make up for the work Simon refused to do.
Cymbeline
This production plays up the farcical aspects of Shakespeare’s tortuous tale, and the vagaries of weather may augment the comedy.
Alternative Film
For more than a month, a dozen Duquesne University students and alumni roamed the nation’s less-traveled roads from Pittsburgh to the Pacific filming stories of conservation and devastation throughout the country.
Indie darlings Tapes ‘N Tapes perform at Club Café with Br’er Fox
Tapes ‘N Tapes sounds melodic and at times pretty, even as Grier bangs trebly and brittle noises out of his guitar.
Brooklyn’s We Are Scientists and Oxford Collapse sound an ocean apart
If the Scientists — for all its drunken tales — are a bit buttoned-down stylistically, then Oxford Collapse is its laid-back, pot-smoking neighbor.
“Ambient punk” band Deerhunter plays Garfield Artworks
Cryptograms suggests that Deerhunter has the whole ambient thing down.
Local punks Burndowns celebrate new EP on Big Neck Records
“The lyrics are about as close as stupid punk songs can come to existentialism.”
Architecture students get hands-on preservation experience with an historic Friendship mansion.
“The ultimate source of information is the building itself. What does it confirm or disprove?”
Thomas Hirschhorn’s Cavemanman locates the modern primitive in Life on Mars.
It is as if the civilization in the “cave,” and its knowledge, signified by the books, are seconds from destruction.
Changes at Phipps’ Cafe
The popular café gears up for a change in food providers
Pittsburgh n’@
Dispatches from the blogosphere: Abandoning ship on the Pirates.
Instrumental trio 3 Apples High plays two reunion shows this weekend
Shortly after releasing their 2005 album Metrobotik, the band members went their separate ways.
Savage Love
I have a cousin with whom I am very close. He recently proposed to his girlfriend. I have several issues with this, but the most important one is the fact that EVERYONE who meets this young man thinks he’s gay. (I don’t know how the girlfriend hasn’t seen it.) When I told my friends he…
Pineapple Express
In David Gordon Green’s shuffling but still raucous Pineapple Express co-penned by R-rated-comedy king Judd Apatow, two everyday dudes — slacker Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) and his pot dealer, Saul Silver (James Franco) — run afoul of big-time drug dealer, after witnessing a crime. Rogen and Franco are enjoyable and funny, with Franco getting the…
