Casino Royale
Martin Campbell’s actioner is an adaptation of Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel, yet it presumes we know who Bond is, and what’s he’s likely to be up to.
Grip of the past: Mazel, at Jewish Theatre of Pittsburgh.
Reviews of Jewish Theater’s masterful Mazel; Pitt’s “goofy and angry, subtle and surreal” A Toothache & A Plague & A Dog; and Gemini’s Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You.
City Grill
With a menu balanced between Italian and chophouse, entrées and burgers, City Grill straddles the divide between restaurant and pub.
A Toothache & A Plague & A Dog
The danger in giving the University of Pittsburgh’s production of A Toothache & A Plague & A Dog a rave review, which I’m about to do, is that it might encourage others to think they can pull off something similar. But you can’t, so don’t even try. Because Melanie Dreyer beat you to it, and…
This Just In
Feeding Fluffy, Part I Summary: Is pricey food better for your pet? This minute-and-a-half promo for an even longer piece won’t tell you. Station: KDKA Channel 2 Reporter: David Highfield, “Live” When it Aired: Nov. 9 Running Time: 1 minute, 24 seconds Visuals: * Inside the KDKA newsroom, where Highfield stands in front of a…
Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You
Here’s news: It was written in 1981, and I’ve been reviewing since 1987, but this Proudly Presents production of Christopher Durang’s Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All For You is the first I’ve ever seen. Maybe that’s not such a surprise. Unlike such shows as Black Patent Leather Shoes, Over the Tavern and Late Nite…
What’s In A Namesake
Jhumpa Lahiri is the writer you wish you were. Her very first short-story collection, 1999’s Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize. The book also took home the 2000 PEN/Hemingway Award, the New Yorker’s Debut of the Year Award, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Addison Metcalf Award. Lahiri was just 32 years…
You know you’re in for a long night at the opera when the prima donna can’t sing.
You know you’re in for a long night at the opera when: A) The hero’s dressed as Kevin Federline. B) The prima donna can’t sing. C) The choreography doesn’t match the dialogue. D) All of the above. Unfortunately, Pittsburgh Opera’s production of Charles Gounod’s Romeo & Juliet is an unequivocal D — depressing, desperate and…
Wig stylist Sandy Cridge helps the hairless.
Sandy Cridge is marking 10 years of Cloud 9 Hair Design and Wig Salon. Her boutique, on a Mount Lebanon side street, serves men and women with hair loss, including chemotherapy patients. Cridge lives in Brentwood. Your shop. This is the wig room, where I take care of the people. This is all of my…
HAPPY FEET
A penguin who doesn’t sing, they say, is “hardly a penguin at all.” Unfortunately, Mumbles the penguin (voiced by Elijah Wood) has a terrible voice. Forced into exile, Mumbles decides to prove his worth by solving the mystery of the fish shortage that is threatening the penguin community. What begins as an adorably imaginative look…
Why is parking so expensive in Pittsburgh?
When city officials couldn’t get the new tax they wanted, they raised the taxes they already had.
Rapper Scotty Coles makes Big Statements
While he’s still getting his name out with appearances at Pittsburgh clubs, the 22-year-old California University student’s no stranger to the game, having honed his music and production skills behind the scenes for ten years.
Under the Wire
“Eighty percent of the people I talked to hated the music. So what? … I’m not going to be presenting pretty music show after show.”
Norfolk & Western
Norfolk & Western projects different layers of history onto the same sonic screen — an assemblage of settings past and present.
New faces take on gallery spaces at The Mattress Factory.
For the latest in the museum’s Factory Installed series, five artists created ambitious works exploring the limits of physical space, personal experience or reality itself.
Califone
Roots & Crowns finds Califone still drawing on while simultaneously deconstructing America’s musical past, filtering it through a post-roots clatter built on white noise, found sounds, tape loops and a piano with duct tape and paper clips stuck to its wires.
The Taste of the Drowned Man’s Mouth
“Jim sucked air deep into his own lungs and then covered the man’s mouth with his own, just as a vomit of swallowed seawater bubbled up the man’s throat.”
Old North Siders: New Housing Too Pricey
The neighborhood sorely needs to attract new investments, but without sacrificing its long-time residents.
Bank Receipt Security: Answer is Not Blowin’ in the Wind
New ATM technology puts a lot more personal information on those receipts we too often leave behind.
Street Art: Message in the Method
“It might be clunky or sloppy or most people may not read it,” says Josh MacPhee of justseeds.org, “but it generally seems to be about a truth that is hidden.”
CD Review: Isadora
Young local rockers Isadora do an admirable job of straddling hardcore, pop-punk and emo genres and emerging with something, frankly, quite good.
Laughing Matters
In the wake of the Nov. 7 elections, we lefties need to avoid gloating. Now is a time for coming togeth– Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Sorry, couldn’t help myself. As I was saying, we need to move for– Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!! Hahahahahaha! Ha. Haha. Hoo boy. OK. Haha! Phew. A couple weeks ago, I promised that if a certain U.S.…
The Known World
When I first bumped into guitarist Jim Graff at a party, probably a year ago, I left with a CDR in a little envelope — a few songs by his band, The Known World. Periodically I’d get another in the mail or at a gig, each with a few more tracks. What I didn’t realize…
In Country: A Vietnam Story
By now, it’s hard to say anything new about the Vietnam War, and maybe we shouldn’t try. The grand themes have all been sounded: valor, horror, defeat, redemption. Perhaps we now need quieter stories about people making peace — with their former enemies and themselves. Such a story is In Country, an hour-long documentary featuring…
Trial by Fire
Frank Williams was running late on July 16, 2002, as he hurried up Allegheny Avenue, walking to his weekly Narcotics Anonymous meeting. He had to hurry: As a convict on a “pre-release” program, he’d be forced to return to prison if he didn’t make the therapy session. As it turned out, few people have ever…
Turnovers Spoil the Steelers Season
The Steelers are spotting their opponents about 10 points a game. They’re talented, but not that talented.
The 2006 Election Viewed From Behind Bars
Democrats win big, but what’s in it for the country’s prison population?
Ella Fitzgerald, Good Friday and Getting Ready to Move
Out of the forced teak forest of furniture and out of the rain in these last wet days in my old apartment — these last silent days of Pompeii, I wait for a peculiar death to turn into life and I listen to Ella singing her song and I let myself think it’s old and…
Fast Food Nation
Richard Linklater’s emsemble drama is a profile of what your hamburger is, where it came from and who suffered on its way to you.
Wightman School Renovation Teaches Valuable Lessons
Once again, a Pittsburgh architect is presenting important achievements before a national audience.
A Good Year
Owing much to the return of Russell Crowe’s charisma, this sunny adaptation of Peter Mayle’s cozy 2004 best-seller suffices to entertain us for a few hours.
Under the Wire
Two weeks ago, internationally renowned experimental musicians were heard Downtown in the Cultural District.
