Voting
From the start of his jail stint on a felony conviction to his release in 2001, K.L. Brewer of Highland Park — spoken word artist and political activist — had been told by various authorities that he would not be allowed to vote once he got out. On December 26, 2000, the Commonwealth Court…
Just Like Heaven / Corpse Bride
What’s left under the sun where non-traditional relationships are concerned? Two new films suggest that a dalliance with the dead can be just as rewarding and romantically charged as that ordinary hook-up with a breather that we’re accustomed to. In Mark Waters’ wispy romantic comedy Just Like Heaven, the lady in question is a…
Ann Arbor Film Festival
At one hour, the preview tape the Ann Arbor Film Festival hands to the press includes less than one-third of the venerable touring show’s total running time. Yet that sampling of the fest’s short documentaries, animations and experimentals suggests that, as usual, it’s a safe bet for those interested in what film and video can…
5×2
There’s something clinical about 5×2 — and not just because its first scene, set in the office of a divorce attorney, suggests the discomfiture of a doctor’s visit in which the patient is confirmed in his suspicion that he actually died some months earlier. It also has to do with how filmmaker François Ozon structures…
CRY WOLF
Who’s zooming who at this tony prep school? The cool kids, a multi-culti lot led by a red-headed bitchy minx named Dodger, relieve the ennui of being rich and gifted by playing elaborate lying games. New kid Owen (or “O-dog,” as his hopelessly white roomie calls him) ups the ante by spreading a lie about…
The Map Room
Location: 1126 Braddock Ave., Regent Square. 412-371-1955. Hours: Sun.-Sat. 4-11 p.m. Prices: Starters $5-10; sandwiches $6-7; entrees, $9-15 Fare: Upscale bar food and varied entrees Atmosphere: Part corner bar, part traveler’s tavern Liquor: Full bar, house wines only With their unique promise of discovery and revelation, old maps have an unrivalled ability to fascinate. We…
THE GIRL FROM MONDAY
Hal Hartley refers to his latest film as a “fake science fiction,” which may account for the satirical bent to this otherwise typical tale of a displaced alien in New York City’s near-future. There, life is controlled by a mega-corporation whose interests are dominated by consumerism (for instance, sex drive is calculable in monetary terms).…
Shocking Truths
In today’s Pittsburgh, when a police officer fires a 50,000-volt stun gun at a political protester, you can find out the officer’s name, address, and life story with a few clicks of a computer keyboard. But it’s almost impossible, strangely, to discover the city policies that put the weapon in that officer’s hands. So…
ROLL BOUNCE
Having seen Roller Boogie, Skatetown USA and Xanadu a quarter-century ago, I’m well prepared to assess this latest film in the roller-disco canon. Sure it’s 25 later, and stars kids who barely remember the early ’90s, but Malcolm Lee’s film, set in that heady 1979 Spandex season, purports to throw us all back to a…
Urbanist Myths
It would really be no surprise if you asked yourself, upon seeing a drawing of Leon Krier’s Atlantis Tenerife project, whether the thing were a serious building proposal or just a precisely drawn flight of nostalgic architectural fancy. With a dense profusion of becolumned temple-like structures cascading down a hillside, the proposed cultural…
THE TAKE
“Resist. Occupy. Produce.” That’s the rallying cry of a small but influential labor movement in Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital battered by failed political and economic policies of the last decade. There, workers left unemployed when factories close move into the shuttered facilities, and as a collective without bosses, re-start production. This Canadian-produced documentary from…
Moody Shift
Rick Moody, known for fiction exploring the domestic travails of suburbia, changes pace with his new novel, The Diviners. The author of The Ice Storm devotes at least one chapter to each of a dozen or more disparate characters in the sprawling, comedic, 567-page portrait of people in the orbit of a proposed…
Where does the name of Smithfield Street come from? I’ve never heard “Smithfield” mentioned in Pittsburgh politics or business.
There’s a reason the name doesn’t ring any bells: “Smithfield” is actually a contracted form of the street’s original name, “Smith’s Field Street.” In a city as consonant-adverse as Pixburgh, that name was never going to last. And as you may have guessed, “Smith’s Field Steet” was so named because it…
McMuckraker
He’s been lauded as an “old-fashioned muckraker.” He’s also been called “Michael Moore without a bullhorn.” And for hundreds of us — maybe thousands — heck, maybe even tens of thousands — he’s forever changed how and what we think about the most common of American convenience foods. But when journalist…
Backtracking Through Fall
Theater Listings Pop Music Visual Art Fall Festivals and Special Events Dance Fall Film Preview It used to be we thought nothing of boarding a train — for commuting or shopping, seeing far-flung relatives, going to the seaside, joining the army, fleeing from the law. But the ascension of the automobile meant the demise of…
A Conversation with Roosevelt Blair
Roosevelt Blair and his brother Jeff Blair have made sure East Liberty had its fair share of giant lizards for the past four-and-a-half-years. Their shop, Animal’s Place on Penn Avenue, specializes in alligators and other lizards, including a pair of adolescent ‘gators — one that’s over 5 feet long. Roosevelt Blair, 30, grew up in…
Ohmega Watts
Dig deep like Dickens in Ohmega Watts’ name and you’ll find all the clues you’ll need to the Portland emcee’s sounds: The aggressive Watts funk he concocts on “That Sound,” the old-school nods to original breakbeat riders (Eric B. and “No Omega” Rakim) and the complex noms de rap of Native Tongues. (On “Where It…
Metric
Despite the critical acclaim, the vast-and-growing fan base, the adoration heaped upon the band’s debut, Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, Montreal’s Metric has led a troubled existence the past few years. Shifted by record labels, managers and bad wisdom from Quebec to the U.K. to New York to L.A. and dozens of points…
Number One With a Bullet
We may no longer be the most livable city, but Pittsburghers still have one more top national ranking to make their chests puff with pride: Allegheny County may issue more concealed carry gun permits than anywhere else in the country. According to the Allegheny County Sheriff’s office, there are 47,278 active concealed carry permits,…
