Start the (Next) Revolution With Him
Russ Schneider of Squirrel Hill is set to start the 2nd Revolutionary Army of the United States on Jan. 25, which would make him a 21st-century George Washington. But the dead general might not recognize his modern counterpart: Schneider’s first impulse upon defeat of his progressive ideals on Nov. 2 was to leap into action…
Class Reunion: The Remaking of the American White Working Class
When Wall Street began abandoning the Northeast’s huge old factories some 25 years ago, the newly named “Rust Belt” made the news, creating for the nation a morbid pop-culture cliché: the laid-off steelworker. In the midst of this, sociologist Lois Weis toiled to grasp what was going on beyond stock footage of locked…
Bush Non-Backers to Turn Backs on Bush
“I think there’s going to be a lot of people disappointed they can’t get anywhere close to Pennsylvania Avenue,” says Francine Porter, active member of Code Pink, one of the groups preparing protests against President George W. Bush’s Jan. 20 inauguration. Fellow Pittsburgh activist David Meieran says an “unprecedented military build-up in Washington, D.C.,” not…
Winter Guide
No need to let cold temperatures — or even the lack of them — keep you inside this winter. Not only are Pittsburghers noted for being a hearty lot, but the U.S. Department of Health is calling for Americans to get more exercise. Tailgating doesn’t count, but there are plenty of other excuses to get…
City GOP Casts Web for Candidates, Cash
If your boss is a Democrat, don’t check out the Pittsburgh Republican Committee’s new Web site, pghgop.org, during work hours. The home page blares “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Parading pachyderms make it clear that you’re viewing partisan patriotic propaganda. Click through to the page on city government, and you’ll hear “The Imperial March” — Darth…
KCRW: Sounds Eclectic 3
Anyone who has had the pleasure of hearing their favorite musician perform on Nic Harcourt’s live-in-studio public-radio program, Morning Becomes Eclectic on Los Angeles’ KCRW, might rightly wonder why they would need to own a mixed-bag collection of those same performances on compact disc. After all, Harcourt’s daily show is whittled down weekly…
Mark Geary
What in God’s name have they been putting in the water over on the Emerald Isle? Has anyone else noticed that for the past few years, just about every other acoustic hit-maker has also been a Dubliner? Maybe it has something to do with that city’s maternal street-musician culture; even Damien Rice and members of…
The Chorus
World-renowned conductor Pierre Morhange (Jacques Perrin, in an extended cameo) returns to his home in France, where he is visited by old schoolmate. The guest has brought a scrapbook — photos and notes of the year they shared in boarding school under the tutelage of a benevolent choral instructor, M. Mathieu. The two…
With all this rain, does our famous underground “Fourth River” flood? How would it manifest itself?
In tribute to Sen. Rick Santorum’s deeply principled support for teaching “intelligent design” in our public schools, I will first turn to a faith-based explanation about how a flooded underground river would “manifest itself.” Because the Bible, as we know, contains the answer to all things. You just have to be willing to look very,…
Those Damned Children
Village of the Damned (1960, 78 minutes). In the marvelous opening sequence, residents of a small English town simply fall over in their tracks. The clear sky and the bucolic nature of a rural village only heighten the sense of unease. Everyone awakens, but just as mysteriously, all the town’s women have been…
A Conversation with Jeff Gordon (a.k.a. “Gordoon”)
In the late 1970s, West Ender Jeff Gordon was a four-time All-American springboard diving champion trying to find a use for his college degree in art and anthropology. So he did what most liberal-arts grads do: He went back to school. Gordon attended Ringling Brothers’ clown college, performing for several years with Ringling…
Willow
Location: 634 Camp Horne Road, North Hills. 412-847-1007 Hours: Mon.-Sat. 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; Mon.-Thu. 4-10 p.m.; Sat. 4-11 p.m.; Sun. 4-9 p.m. Prices: Appetizers $7-11; salads/sandwiches, $5-10; entrees, $11-24 Fare: Contemporary American Atmosphere: Sierra Club sophisticate Liquor: Full bar plus BYOB for $10 We admit we’re the opposite of suburbanites who never set foot in…
ARE WE THERE YET?
Nothing goes right for Nick Persons (Ice Cube) after he falls head over heels for divorcée Suzanne Kingston (Nia Long). She cajoles him into escorting her two children to Vancouver where she’s attending a business conference on New Year’s Eve. In Brian Levant’s road comedy, Kingston’s children, Lindsay and Kevin (Aleisha Allen and Philip Daniel…
Gold Standard
It’s no surprise liberals feel besieged these days, held hostage in their own country by people with alien value systems. But it could be worse: If we were conservatives, we’d really be isolated. Just ask Philip Gold, a Squirrel Hill native, conservative ideological warrior and author of Take Back the Right: How the neocons…
ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13
Jean-François Richet’s pointless remake of John Carpenter’s lean, mean 1976 thriller has bigger explosions, grislier deaths and a stunningly dumb premise. It’s the same set-up: the last night in an isolated police station where a couple weary cops and some criminals in transit come under intense fire from the outside. Where Carpenter had gangs attacking,…
William Bolcom
It takes a certain something extra to set about the audacious task of writing music for all 55 of William Blake’s immortal poems in Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Let’s call it moxie, or chutzpah. What the heck. Let’s call it balls. Contemporary composer William Bolcom must have cojones of…
COACH CARTER
Inspired by a true story, this sports drama follows a basketball coach (Samuel L. Jackson) at a tough high school, who demands his players lead productive academic lives off the court. Thomas Carter’s overly long film is the predictable round-up of clichés that define the inspirational-teacher genre, from the secretly sensitive tough kid and the…
Notre Musique
Jean-Luc Godard divides his latest film, Notre Musique, into three “kingdoms”: hell, purgatory and heaven. At the end of the first section, he creates a jarring moment that works in a way opposite that of most cinematic shocks. “Hell” is a montage of images of warfare, destruction and cruelty — a grainy, elegantly assembled…
ELEKTRA
Spun off from 2003’s Daredevil, Rob Bowman’s Elektra follows its titular character, now a knife-wielding professional assassin. The lifestyle’s got her brooding — and Elektra (Jennifer Garner) opts for one last killing spree against some vaguely supernatural beings who comprise the terror organization The Hand in order to clear her conscience. The story is predictable,…
Riders Unrewarded
To ride the length of the 61C is to experience a National Geographic tour of Pittsburgh. After leaving Downtown for the slow stew of Oakland, it races pedestrians down Squirrel Hill’s Murray Avenue, past the eponymous coffee shop, chugging finally across the Monongahela at Homestead and following the river to McKeesport. The 61C…
THE WOODSMAN
A standoffish ex-con named Walter (Kevin Bacon) returns to his urban working-class environs and is gradually revealed to have molested little girls. When his lumberyard co-workers — including his tentative lover, Vickie (Kyra Sedgwick) — find out, ostracism compounds his struggles against recidivism. Director and co-writer Nicole Kassell’s drama is somber and serious-minded, as we’re…
Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst
No news story resonated more for me in 1974 than the kidnapping of California heiress Patty Hearst. Our wildly different lives had convergent points: We trod the same leafy residential streets in Berkeley; friends banked at the branch she held up at gun-point; my dad collected a meager paycheck from her dad, Randolph…
YES NURSE! NO NURSE!
From Holland comes this musical comedy adapted from a recent play that was based on memories of a beloved 1960s Dutch television series (apparently no original copies exist). Pieter Kramer’s exuberant and vividly colored film tracks the goings-on at Nurse Klivia’s rest home — there’s burglars, mean neighbors, funny pills and grandpas. Every 10 minutes…
Hotel Rwanda
How much genocide do we have to witness before we conclude that the current human race is well beyond salvage? In Bosnia, America stepped in to help stop an anti-Muslim slaughter. In Ethiopia, the urban government is slowly exterminating the Anuak mountain culture. In Rwanda, an ethnic power struggle a decade…
Media Scandal
The first thing I thought when I heard that former KDKA-TV anchor Bruce Pompeani was accused of sexually harassing a Hopewell Township hairdresser was: I don’t know whether these allegations are true or not, but, man, TV news folks are some horny-ass creatures. Bruce may be innocent of all the allegations…
