CP Remixed: Photos and video!
Thanks to all who came out for last Thursday’s CP Remixed featuring Joy Ike, Meeting of Important People and Donora. Click here to go to CP Video and peep a song from each artist in case you missed it, or in case you loved it so much, you want to relive it, over and over.…
Rescued Afghan Movie at the Warhol
“The Suitor” is one of a handful of movies a couple of film-lab employees in Kabul saved in 1996, when the Taliban took over and burned everything not to their fundamentalist liking. (That was when they also blew up those giant Buddhas carved in the mountains.) Even a not-very-good-quality video transfer of the 1969 film,…
MP3 Monday: Satin Gum
Check it: Monday is here again, and so is the MP3. This week it’s courtesy Satin Gum, a local outfit that’s gotten the blog world abuzz and to whom our Margaret Welsh paid one of the great music review comliments: admitting that their songs were totally stuck in her head. If you’re ready to get…
The State Budget and the Arts
It goes without saying that the version of a state budget approved May 6 by the Pennsylvania Senate with zero funding for the arts is a bad idea. Of course, such proposed budgets are of just first sallies in a longer battle, perhaps even bargaining chips. But as Pittsburgh Filmmakers/Pittsburgh Center for the Arts chief…
Saturday night: Pete Seeger tribute
This past Sunday marked the 90th birthday of the remarkable Pete Seeger, possibly the 20th century’s most famous folk singer. There was a huge celebration in New York City, but for those who couldn’t make that, local promoter-about-town Maree Gallagher has put together a bill of some popular local folk/folk-rock types to celebrate Seeger’s life…
Short List: Week of May 7 – 14
The Kite Runner aside, popular culture seldom evokes pre-Taliban Afghanistan. But thanks to two courageous archivists, a few films not only depicting that society — including its Westernized elements — but made within it survived the Taliban’s 1996 takeover. Risking their necks, a Kabul film-lab technician and a colleague hid selected reels from Taliban torch…
Pittsburgh School Board District 1
Three-way Race to Replace a Gadfly
City Council District 6
Payne Faces Familiar Challengers
City Council District 4
An incumbent’s departure means a chance for new blood
City Council District 2
Familiar faces square off in the western neighborhoods
Party Games
A new generation of Pittsburgh politicians is arguing over old problems
Paris 36
This backstage musical comedy from Christophe Barratier isn’t content simply to ply the genre’s chief attractions: pretty people falling in love, lively songs, quirky characters and the perennial woes of staging a successful revue during tough economic times. Set in a working-class Parisian neighborhood in 1936, the film interweaves weightier social and political threads including…
Greece: Secrets of the Past
A movie about ancient Greece might seem like a snoozefest, but IMAX transforms this history lesson into a captivating visual experience. Directed by Academy Award-nominee Greg MacGillivray and narrated by Nia Vardalos (of My Big Fat Greek Wedding), the film follows archeologist Christos Dumas in his quest to uncover his culture’s past. A combination of…
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
The handsome, glib and perpetually tanned Matthew McConaughey is well on his way to becoming the George Hamilton of the Gen-Y set. While McConaughey has a likable screen presence and some comic flair, he persists in signing on to only the most insipid rom-coms. Here, he plays the same insta-character — Connor Mead, a charming…
Film Kitchen ponders the end of the world as we know it.
Douglas distinctively evokes a sort of groggy, dawn-lit sense of confused trepidation.
Star Trek
To the degree that Star Trek matters at all, the new movie in the depleted franchise negates the past 40-plus years of the concept and its contribution to popular culture in the interest of nothing but commerce. There may have been one movie left in this graying enterprise, but Star Trek, directed by J.J. Abrams,…
Silk Screen Film Festival
The fourth annual film festival showcases new works representing Asian and Asian-American experiences.
Golden Pig
Homestyle Korean cuisine stakes a claim in Cecil.
Revolution in Czechoslovakia, philosophy and music kick out the jams in the Pittsburgh premiere of Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll, at PICT.
Characters’ record collections regularly figure into the plot.
Seven Guitars
It’s August Wilson, so, yeah, the poetry of the dialogue is beyond gorgeous … but three hours is a very long time for nothing to happen.
Backers of the Governor’s School for the Arts are still trying to save them from the governor’s chopping block.
“Art is just another subject. It’s a subject that is just as relevant to the world as math or science or English.”
The Kelly-Strayhorn kick-starts a brand-new, multi-day dance festival.
“I think now is the perfect time to try new ideas.”
This Just In: May 7 – 14
Highlights from the local TV news: Honked off about crime.
Pittsburgh n’@
Dispatches from the blogosphere: Snarlin’ about Arlen.
A Candidate of a Different Hugh
LGBT activists and other progressives have high hopes for a judicial candidate
The Contenders
Is John Fetterman as popular inside Braddock as he is outside it? He’ll soon find out.
KaiserCartel’s couple-tastic indie pop offers both carefree moments and drama.
Two musicians who hold down day jobs teaching art and music to young children, KaiserCartel aspire to a certain librarian chic.
John Doe & The Sadies bring classic 1960s “countrypolitan” songs to life
“Anyone who’s a skeptic was once a romantic.”
TV On The Radio gives no quarter in fashioning its audacious sound
“Hope running free is fairly useless if it’s not tied to some kind of pragmatism.”
A Conversation with Yanni
“When it comes down to music, art, putting labels on it does not compute with me.”
A diverse collection of work by Czech photographers at Space spans several eras.
The theme of “being looked at” is seen through a lens that is feminist, humorous and strange.
May local releases: Crown the Lost, Boilermaker Jazz Band, T. Mitchell Bell and Thirteenth Rune
One of the most unusual recent “local” releases doesn’t feature the sounds of a local musician, but a local building. Yes, you read that right.
Piper’s Bang-Up Brunch
Traditional, hearty British and Irish fare distinguishes this Sunday brunch
Savage Love
My 14-year-old son just came out to me. He has a slightly older boyfriend, and they’re going to the school dance on Saturday night. I am adjusting to a truth I had long suspected. I am worried, though, that my son will get hurt. We live in North Carolina, but our town has a gay…
