Reporting Error

No one can account for county's accountability measure

• by Chris Potter

School of Hard Knocks

The privatized Clayton Academy is supposed to prepare at-risk students to return to their home schools. But it may actually be making it easier for them to get into trouble.

• by Chris Young

Coin-Operated Politics

• by Chris Potter

Environment: Paper or Paper?

By April, Whole foods customers won't have to choose between paper and plastic.

• by Melissa Meinzer

Health: Getting to the Point

Allegheny County council has enacted a new law covering needle-exchange programs.

• by Adam Fleming

Politics: Name Recognition

Dems endorse a politician with a deep political background to try to replace reformer in Harrisburg.

• by Adam Fleming

Infused Cocktails

• by Melissa Meinzer

Hereford and Hops

The menu caters to a broad audience with offerings ranging from predictable pub grub through some appetizing salads and sandwiches to a variety of upscale entrees. Then there's the steak page, which, like any specialty menu, takes some time to parse.

• by Angelique Bamberg and Jason Roth

DJ Jwan Allen

"I'm still not allowed to touch my dad's records."

• by Justin Hopper

Laptop musicians battle in the Galactic AssDragon Classic

"It's mostly beat-oriented dance music, but aggressive and on the harder side of things."

• by Manny Theiner

Hero Destroyed signs to Relapse Records

Soon, steel won't be the only metal Pittsburgh is known for.

• by Manny Theiner

Electro-retro act Freezepop leaves you cold (in a hot way)

"Would you dance to a song about dancing?"

• by Aaron Jentzen

Chatham Baroque presents "Journeys: Sounds of the Jewish Diaspora"

"Most are tunes that have been passed down that we don't have any written records of until the 19th century."

• by Manny Theiner

Oscar-Nominated Shorts

Just in time for your picks list, Pittsburgh Filmmakers will screen all of the short films, both live-action and animated, that have been nominated for an Oscar. This is a strong crop of shorts, and a rare chance to see nearly a dozen films, representing seven countries and a variety of styles, in one sitting. The live-action films range from the mordant Gallic humor of "The Mozart of Pickpockets" to the somber Danish drama, "At Night," set in a cancer ward. Computer animations dominates the animated films, but a long-ago encounter with Beatle John Lennon inspires a clever hand-drawn entry. At Oscar time, it's the full-length features that grab most of the headlines. But these worthy entries -- which have a much harder time just reaching an audience -- deserve your attention, too. Starts Fri., Feb. 15. Regent Square

• by Al Hoff

The Spiderwick Chronicles

Adapted from the popular series of children's books, Spiderwick features three young siblings, imperiled when the discovery of a mysterious field guide in an old country house summons a lot of nasty creatures from the woods beyond. There are bad guys, including goblins and shape-shifting mega-baddie Mulgarath, but also a few allies, such as the porcine blowhard Hogsqueal. The film chugs along quite rapidly through its compact 90 minutes. On the upside, this should hold kids firmly in their seats; on the downside, the rush gives short shrift to the mysterious. We also don't hear much about the setting's non-otherworldly qualities. What about how the natural world we can see might engender wonder in children, especially such city slickers as this lot. Ultimately, the children's only relationship with the wonderful woods beyond their home seems simply to be ridding it of weird varmints. [2.5 out of 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

Diary of the Dead

The conceit is that we're watching various film sources -- home video, security tapes, footage uploaded to web sites -- that have been edited together after the fact by a survivor. The film thus presents an on-the-fly account of what happened to a group of Pitt students after the dead returned to life, hungry for brains. Romero's zombie thrillers are rarely without larger critique, and here his barbs are aimed at a video-centric generation whose fascination with documenting everything exerts a heavy price. With undead on the loose, imminent danger should prevail over getting a good angle, but most of Romero's finger-wagging suggests that our incessant documenting, our converting everything into "reality-of-me TV" fodder, has desensitized us to human suffering. Of course, horror filmmakers aren't exempt from this judgment, and Romero tips his hat by including a burgeoning horror director in his story. That may be why Diary is lighter than usual on gore and scares ... or maybe I'm just used to it. Starts Fri., Feb. 15. (AH) [capsule review] [2.5 out of 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

Fool's Gold

It's not enough that a pair of beautiful sniping exes -- Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson -- are searching for lost Spanish treasure in the Bahamas. No, this breathlessly scripted sunny turd has to toss in subplots involving a Diddy-esque rap impresario and his goons; a dim-bulb teen party girl (a la Paris Hilton) and her elderly zillionaire father (Donald Sutherland, cashing a check and getting a tan); and four extraneous "colorful" characters, including two gay chefs, a salty treasure bum and a stray Ukrainian. Andrew Tennant's comedy-romance-adventure fails to deliver any facet of its hybrid genre, and just spins its wheels for two hours. (The film's best joke doesn't even get a proper airing: You have to look quick to see that the treasure-hunting boat is named Booty Calls.) Thus, the film's chief attractions are the pretty Caribbean scenery, and the well-sculpted, sun-burnished form of Mr. McConaughey, who spends nearly the whole film in board shorts while running, swimming, jumping, falling and flexing. If that's worth eight bucks to you, then come on board. (AH) [capsule review] [1.5 out of 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

Jumper

A young man (Hayden Christiansen) discovers he can teleport through space to any destination of his choosing, making world travel and bank robbery a snap. But some cop-like figures known as paladins don't care for so-called jumpers, and soon Mr. Jet Set has the worse sort of menace on his tail: Samuel L. Jackson, who plays a particularly aggressive paladin. While Jumper is entertaining in a dumb comic-book fashion -- and who wouldn't want to zip around the globe at will, even vicariously? -- it fails to fill in too many holes: Who and why are jumpers? How many are there? Why exactly are they pursued? And these paladins are who? If this is really is an eternal battle as stated, then tell us more. Instead, we get the last resort of plot development, a boring romantic subplot. Director Doug Liman has done zippy action before -- Go, The Bourne Identity -- so chalk this venture up to a misstep and jump away. Starts Thu., Feb. 14. (AH) [capsule review] [2 out of 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

Steep

It sure looks freakin' awesome -- barreling down the 45-degree face of a remote mountain, through perfect powder snow, before skiing off a cliff and parachuting to safety. This is the new edge of extreme skiing, a daredevil sport largely pioneered in the Alps in the 1970s. Mark Obenhaus' documentary updates the uninitiated on sport's development -- from its roots among Europeans and their ungainly hopping turns through the American yahoos who made it playful to the Alaska-based technicians who finally rendered the gravity-defying activity graceful. While helicopters give wide-shot scenery and in-helmet cameras put you on the stomach-turning slopes, the action grows repetitive (unless you're a huge ski-vid fan). And Steep also leaves a lot of potentially provocative ground uncovered: What kind of cash is needed to go heli-skiing in the back country, anyhow? Is this adventure in the grand tradition, or a new elitism? And, while most of the skiers are happy to ruminate about their spiritual connection to the mountains, no one seems to ask whether it might be a higher calling to leave some parts of pristine nature free of human conquest. Starts Fri., Feb. 15. Harris (AH) [capsule review] [2 out of 4 stars]

• by Al Hoff

Nick Cave's Soundsuits speak volumes even when silent.

Inhabited, they rustle, echo, clank and clatter; empty, they entice with promises of whispered secrets.

• by Lissa Brennan

Whether as prelude to his masterpieces in oil or in themselves, Winslow Homer's early illustrations fascinate.

The strength of Homer's illustrations lies in his ability to show figures in action, and in his active and vibrant compositions.

• by Melissa Kuntz

An impromptu canopy over a large sculpture at the Warhol points to roof problems.

"If anyone tells you that any museum is free of buckets on the floor, they're lying," Sokolowksi says.

• by Melissa Meinzer

August Occasion

Pittsburgh has rarely celebrated its black geniuses until they were dead, gone or gone mad.

• by Dr. Goddess

This Just In: Feb 13 - 20

• by Frances Sansig Monahan

Poet Patricia Jabbeh Wesley's new collection reflects on place and displacement.

The very funny "When My Daughter Tells Me She Has a Boyfriend" is successfully followed by the white-hot anger and sadness of "Monrovia Revisited": "You should come here if you want / to know how sacred / pain can be."

• by Bill O'Driscoll

Area poet Angele Ellis explores ethnic identity and more in Arab on Radar.

"June 1967" tells how a war halfway around the world can suddenly split suburbia with ethnic fissures, even though "There were no soldiers / on Sparton Lane."

• by Bill O'Driscoll

'Burgh Words

Freeman

Which brother represents Abel and which Cain, or Esau and Jacob, is just one of the undercurrents swirling in this deceptively straightforward narrative.

• by Michelle Pilecki

Breakfast With Mugabe

Mugabe is too moving, too sophisticated, too important to risk losing the audience halfway.

• by Robert Isenberg

Forever Premieres

In minutes, Stallings transformed those movements into the kind of choreography that makes audience members exclaim, "That was freaking cool."

• by Steve Sucato

Western Civ

"The students become more complete, civilized, whole people."

• by Justin Jacobs