The Wecht Files

The controversial coroner goes on trial next month … who will try the system that judges him?

• by Charlie Deitch

Going Through the Motions: Dec. 18, 2007

"Pittsburgh Promise" turns sour for UPMC and council

• by Charlie Deitch

History Repeating?

Hill District activists say moving forward with new arena construction without a Community Benefits Agreement is unacceptable. Apparently the mayor may be willing to accept it.

• by Chris Young

Education

PSSA test scores at the city’s Fulton Elementary have skyrocketed in the past few years. But can that success be duplicated in other district schools?

• by Chris Young

Azzeria

Pizza in a former coal mine -- now that sounds cozy. And, at Azzeria, it is. Owners Gary Matson and Mike Hren mine the appetites of hungry commuters as they motor to and from Downtown, with locations on both sides of busy Banksville Road.

• by Angelique Bamberg and Jason Roth

Food Blogs

• by Colleen Van Tassell

DumplinZ

• by Angelique Bamberg and Jason Roth

Persephone’s Dream releases prog opus Pyre of Dreams

The band could also provide the background tunes to your next Dungeons & Dragons tournament.

• by Manny Theiner

Festivus III features Youngstown’s Leonard Cohen Ensemble One

Who has to wrestle Manny?

• by Aaron Jentzen

Rock the holidays with local musicians Black Tie Revue, Eviction Notice and more

Even the gruff 31st Street Pub is ready for the holidays, with loads of Christmas lights brightening the usually rather forbidding skull décor

• by Aaron Jentzen

Berklee grad Cameron Lister drops debut

If the album’s strength lies in its adherence to very professional pop production standards, its weakness is perhaps related.

• by Andy Mulkerin

Piano man Ryan Skyy is looking for BETA testers

Perhaps this would-be Captain Fantastic could use his own Brown Dirt Cowboy.

• by Aaron Jentzen

The Kite Runner

The lessons here — historical, cultural, ethical, moral — are many, and director Marc Foster presents them simply and cleanly, underscoring the things we need to know. But too often The Kite Runner, adapted from Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling novel., feels like a clickable drama: “Taliban,” “Sharia,” “Afghanistan, Soviet Invasion Of.” A work like this gives human dimension to the brown faces and suspicious accents we racially profile now in our newly dangerous world. It just never transcends two dimensions, and virtually every word of dialogue comes from the catalogue of noble sayings reserved for the Dignified Other. Fortunately, The Kite Runner has enough else to justify its existence. Its point of view is simple, stopping just short of being simplistic, but as a primer The Kite Runner is a reasonable place to start. In Pashto, Urdu, Russian and English, with subtitles. [3 out of 4 stars]

• by Harry Kloman

Margot at the Wedding

When they gather for a wedding, family kinetics fester immediately between the bride (Jennifer Jason Leigh), her malicious sister (Nicole Kidman), the depressed fiancé (Jack Black), plus kids, neighbors and assorted lovers. It’s all terribly messy, disturbing and irresolvable, which is the point that Baumbach wants to make in his challenging films. These people are often repulsive, and Margot is almost unforgivable. Baumbach’s intelligent script simmers with good writing, and his actors are all sublime. It’s exciting to watch Kidman work through each internal crisis, and the exhilarating Leigh should be legally required to make more movies. Cinema like this requires a belief that everyone’s life is interesting if it’s richly portrayed, regardless of how hideous those lives may be, and Baumbach, who is clearly telling stories drawn from his life and his family, has become its new master. [3 out of 4 stars]

• by Harry Kloman

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Burton’s film is an interesting hybrid, at once his and Sondheim’s – with characters in elaborate stage makeup, visually arresting sets, a largely static camera and lots of blood. The story revolves around the vengeful eponymous barber (Johnny Depp), who kills his customers and drops them down a chute so that Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) can bake them into her meat pies. It’s all highly entertaining, although our culture wasn’t exactly crying out to be reminded of Sondheim’s 1979 masterwork. An impressive Depp sings solidly and Bonham Carter is perfectly creepy and dryly funny. The point of it all, made over and over, is that the world is a cesspool of shit, and everyone deserves to die. And yet, you don’t exactly leave Sweeney Todd feeling bad about anything. That’s because Burton has always been a dilettante existentialist who really has a heart. As for Sondheim, who can say? [3 out of 4 stars]

• by Harry Kloman

Charlie Wilson’s War

Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) is a lightweight, fun-loving congressman who hooks up with a CIA agent (scene-stealer Philip Seymour Hoffman) in order fund a covert war in Afghanistan and help end the Cold War. True story, and it gets crazier. This history all occurs in a compact, lively 97 minutes; there’s Cliff Notes for those just tuning in, but if you’re old enough to dredge up your own dusty notes about what Soviet control of this largely unknown country meant, you’ll have more fun. In some respects, War makes even the worst of geopolitics easy to laugh at, though the final reel should give pause. While this rah-rah secret war helped dismantle our then-mortal enemy, the blowback from our meddling in Afghanistan guaranteed us a new one in Islamic extremists. That’s a barb that stings. [3 out 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

Atonement

In the late 1930s, a terrible deliberate lie — even one whose genesis we understand — wreaks havoc on the lives of three Britons: chilly socialite Cecilia (Kiera Knightley); her lover (and the housekeeper’s son), Robbie (James McAvoy); and her younger sister Briony (Saoirse Ronan), with whom the lie originated. The repercussions stretch into World War II, where death etches the lines of guilt, anger and lost opportunities even sharper. While Ian McEwan’s meta-novel, upon which this film is based, drew more complex relationships between fiction and fact, and just what power the creator of a narrative ultimately holds, Joe Wright’s film surrenders mostly to the melodrama and a softer, more audience-friendly conclusion. Atonement also bolsters its lace-hanky tears with a grand war-is-hell sequence (in a showy, if technically impressive five-minute tracking shot) and a sex scene or two. This is a well-acted literary adaptation, complete with handsome cinematography, sumptuous country-house interiors and gorgeous cast draped in period clothes. [3 out of 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

I Am Legend

In the wake of a deadly virus, only a medical researcher, Dr. Neville (Smith), is left alive, in Francis Lawrence’s adaptation of novelist Richard Matheson’s last-man-on-earth sci-fi thriller. During the daylight, Neville cruises around a surreally empty Manhattan, now home to weeds and wildlife. (Abandoned buildings decorated for the holidays are a nice sardonic touch: Even for the last man on earth, the overly commercialized build-up to Christmas will never end.) Nighttime has him hunkered down against the infected — super-fast humanoid killers. Lawrence’s film is surprisingly bleak, and offers, to its credit, far less action, quipping and actor showboating than you’d expect from an A-list Hollywood production. Smith dials back his cheery charisma considerably for this role: His Neville is depressed, frightened and losing his mind in the twisted playground that is I’ll-take-Manhattan. But if Legend’s first two-thirds are tense and reflective, its conclusion feels considerably less organic, with a hastily appended religious twist and a final two minutes of plot any intelligent filmgoer should simply disregard. [3 out of 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

I Want Somebody To Eat Cheese With

Garlin, who wrote and directs, portrays James, a lumpy sad sack of a directionless guy: He’s nearing 40, lives with mom and eats junk food to fill the loneliness. It’s telling that his dream gig is Paddy Chayefsky’s “Marty” — the role he’s already living. Chance encounters with two women — a manic shop clerk (Sarah Silverman) and a nervous schoolteacher (the always droll Bonnie Hunt) — provide the kick-start, however painful, that James needs. Cheese is a typical low-budget indie talkie, with lots of self-conscious nattering about food and self (some of it amusing), and a vibe that balances cynicism with heart. [2.5 out of 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

Juno

Sassy, smart 15-year-old art nerd Juno (Ellen Page) is pregnant and wise enough to know she’s unprepared to raise a child. Instead, she chooses to give the baby up for adoption. Jason Reitman’s film charts these few momentous months that find Juno struggling with her decision, her compromised status among her peers, and whether the father, track nerd Paulie (Michael Cera), is worth a second date. Juno is wildly overwritten by hottie scribe du jour Diablo Cody; nearly everybody speaks with arch drollery, and a fair number of wacky lilies are gilded (see: hamburger phone; living room on lawn; pop-culture shout-outs). But if you accept that conceit, Juno also delivers a lot of laughs and some sharp observations, and even lets its guard down for a sweet moment or two. I liked how Juno slyly won me over to the characters such films typically set up to dismiss — Juno’s parents (J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney) and the uptight Yuppie adoptive mom (Jennifer Garner). Juno is sure to raise appreciative discussion from some circles about Juno’s opting out of an easily procured abortion, but those folks are missing the backhanded pro-adoption joke: Juno picks the parents out of the freakin’ Pennysaver. [3 out of 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

P.S. I Love You

Who wouldn’t find it hard to move on after the untimely death of a spouse when said spouse keeps sending letters and gifts! And so it is for Holly (Hilary Swank), after her roguishly charming Irish husband, Gerry (Gerard Butler), dies. Love letters, instructions for karaoke night, an all-expenses-paid trip to Ireland — it simply prolongs Holly’s (and our) journey. Director and co-writer Richard LaGravenese pads out this flick as you’d expect — girl talk with Holly’s funnier friends (Gina Gershon and Lisa Kudrow); a few potential new lovers, including an odd bartender (Harry Connick Jr.); pretty Irish scenery; a few mournful ballads; and plenty of flashbacks. Holly and Jerry’s romance-for-the-ages is so poorly written — their cute meeting made me want to shriek — that it’s hard to care that death has ripped it asunder. There’s meatier material in Holly’s troubled relationship with her angry single mom (Kathy Bates), but frank talk about abandonment and mother-daughter jealousy doesn’t sell as many tickets as does swooning over cute shoes. [2 out of 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

The tale, co-written by Judd Apatow and the director Jake Kasdan, follows the oh-so-familiar trail from Dewey Cox’s life-altering childhood trauma to sudden fame as a country singer and accompanying substance abuse, through late-career woes and, finally, sober reflection and redemption. There’s little subtlety here — twice Kasdan gets laughs simply by shooting an exposed penis, and there’s a chimp — but even the worst groaners go by quick, a la Airplane, and there’s dozens of star cameos to chuckle over. John C. Reilly throws his all into the naïve buffoon Cox, portraying him from adolescence through retirement. The outrageous hairdos and outfits help (as does Reilly’s occasional resemblance to the late country crooner Conway Twitty). Dewey is mostly an extended skit that will resonate best with fans of popular music, who’ll dig the winks to Cox’s Dylan phase; his drug-addled, never-completed orchestral masterpiece; and his execrable 1970s TV variety show. [2.5 out of 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep

Likewise, this film, set in the Scottish highlands during World War II, toggles between a well-rooted, bittersweet story of a fatherless boy, Angus (Millions’ Alex Etel), lost in the shuffle of wartime, and a cartoonish madcap involving the rubbery aquatic creature who befriends him. The gurgling water horse is handled with all the subtlety of Spielberg’s most manipulative, wide-eyed, kid-centric creatures — it coos, acts like a naughty kitten, cavorts like a dolphin at SeaWorld — when gentle whimsy would be far superior. Must we even be certain of the creature (who, it is implied, is also the Loch Ness monster), and endure all its meticulously created close-ups? How about a nod to the imagination — both ours, and that of Angus, the lonely boy, who may have just created the water horse out of need? [2.5 out of 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

You’ve seen the art, now read the blogs for Digging Pitt’s The Blogger Show.

Do we want our appreciation of art informed by knowledge of its creators, or do we want to consider the work on its own?

• by Lissa Brennan

Decade

They’ve plonked down in nests on the paper’s surface, but it doesn’t look like they’ll stay where they’ve lit.

• by Lissa Brennan

Taking Back a Promise

Lots of us contribute to good causes: Can we get a dollar-for-dollar break on our taxes too? Or is that only when your contributions support mayoral golf outings?

• by Chris Potter

Performance Anxiety

Maybe now baseball will do something about drugs

• by Jody DiPerna

Letters to the Editor: Dec 19 - 26

Feedback from our readers: Local designer gets cut from "Best of" story ... readers argue over the future of Schenley High School

This Just In: Dec 19 - 26

Highlights from the local TV news: Woman gets "Deer John" letter ... Myspace vandal tags herself instead ... Andrew Stockey checks out the high-end stock.

• by Frances Sansig Monahan

A Fistful of Dollars

If the Penguins want to play, someone has to pay

• by Dr. Goddess

Where We Stand

Ultimately, Garte’s approach creates a kind of cognitive dissonance: We’re asked to celebrate qualified victories against hand-picked antagonists while bigger, more intractable foes remain at large.

• by Bill O'Driscoll

Poet Laureate

A poem by Victoria Dym

A Musical Christmas Carol

Lyndeck is careful not to play Scrooge as a caricature or a buffoon; he finds the humor in the man (“At my age, hauntings are very hard to bear”), yet refuses to play it broadly, making his transformation from selfish into selfless convincing.

• by Alan W. Petrucelli