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News
For more than a month, a dozen Duquesne University students and alumni roamed the nation's less-traveled roads from Pittsburgh to the Pacific filming stories of conservation and devastation throughout the country.
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Features
On the anniversary of the 2007 Millvale floods, what's being done to prevent recurrences in creeks like Girty's Run?
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News
A statewide effort at reducing troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan officially kicks off at a press conference in Pittsburgh Aug. 9, coinciding with a national Democratic Party platform event
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News
Coalition of activists, law enforcement meet to discuss a regional attack on drug trafficking.
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Dining Reviews
A North Side sports bar offers a taste of Chicago.
- by Angelique Bamberg and Jason Roth
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On The Side
The popular café gears up for a change in food providers
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Signal to Noise
Shortly after releasing their 2005 album Metrobotik, the band members went their separate ways.
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Music Features
"The lyrics are about as close as stupid punk songs can come to existentialism."
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Music Features
Cryptograms suggests that Deerhunter has the whole ambient thing down.
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Music Features
If the Scientists -- for all its drunken tales -- are a bit buttoned-down stylistically, then Oxford Collapse is its laid-back, pot-smoking neighbor.
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Music Features
Tapes 'N Tapes sounds melodic and at times pretty, even as Grier bangs trebly and brittle noises out of his guitar.
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Movie Reviews + Features
This documentary at times feels like a parody of Herzog's canon. He opens his film: "Who are the people I was going to meet in Antarctica at the end of the world?" he asks in his lugubrious voiceover narration. Well, no mystery: They're scientists, because so far, no one has built a resort on Earth's southern chunk of ice. His talking heads share anecdotes, and Herzog tries desperately to make them sound as perilous as possible. And of course, Herzog has a message: He wants to globally warm our hearts. As Encounters goes on, there are tidbits of information and ample beauty -- call it National Geographic Lite -- but nothing to mute Herzog's bloated observations and ridiculous queries. [2 out of 4 stars]
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Movie Reviews + Features
Julian Jarrold's handsomely filmed feature is a fine piece of melodrama-plus, adapted from Evelyn Waugh's 1945 novel. There's the entertaining aspect of beautifully dressed people engaged in family dysfunction and troubled romance, but also more thoughtful critiques of class, social mores and religion (in this case, a rather fervent brand of English Catholicism). Our tour guide is Charles Ryder, a young middle-class man enamored of the titled Flyte family, ensconced at Brideshead manor. Throughout, the genteel callousness of the very rich is an easy critique to read, particularly in its over-bred, hothouse-raised victims such as the Flyte children. The inclusion of Ryder into this fraught milieu, as a somewhat naïve and unwitting catalyst, simply highlights and intensifies existing fault lines. In the end, nobody is left undamaged. Not even the gorgeous titular manor home remains intact, downgraded to bivouacking soldiers, and likely destined to stand as a dusty tourist monument to an era gone by. [3 out of 4 stars]
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Movie Reviews + Features
Rob Cohen's film is like a lame off-brand comic book: bad art, bad dialogue, uninteresting characters, stupid story. This is the third iteration of The Mummy action-adventure franchise that began in 1999, and clearly any creative steam this series had has run out. It's mostly set in China, and our "mummy" is an ancient evil emperor (Jet Li), long converted to terra cotta by a curse. Once freed, battles between the undead and mummy-hunters (Brendan Fraser, Michelle Yeoh) ensue. Essentially, this is a mummy movie cross-pollinated with a Hong Kong actioner, and it might have been silly fun if there was anything to relieve the tedium. But, the sets are mostly wonders of obvious CGI, the jokes tepid and the acting dismal throughout. Even action star Li's sword-fight scene with Yeoh that only serves to highlight how the Chinese martial-arts angle isn't gelling with the snarky ripping-yarn vibe. In English, and some Mandarin, with subtitles. [1.5 out of 4 stars]
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Movie Reviews + Features
In David Gordon Green's shuffling but still raucous Pineapple Express co-penned by R-rated-comedy king Judd Apatow, two everyday dudes -- slacker Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) and his pot dealer, Saul Silver (James Franco) -- run afoul of big-time drug dealer, after witnessing a crime. Rogen and Franco are enjoyable and funny, with Franco getting the better "stoner" lines. (He is the dreamier Chong to Rogen's more grounded Cheech.) Pineapple tries for but doesn't find that elusive heart that made earlier Judd Apatow joints such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Superbad such winners. But in spite of all the dumb, easy jokes, this is still the funniest film I've seen all summer. And in the final scene, Pineapple finally nails both well-earned laughs and the warm glow of male camaraderie, with a winky riff that finds our three heroes describing their recent adventures as if it had been a movie. It's a profane, male-bonding, pop-culture-lovin', sweetly affirming scene that's pure Apatow. [2.5 out of 4 stars]
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Movie Reviews + Features
Thirty years ago, nobody could have foreseen a film featuring the unlikely combination of Mac Davis, Ted Nugent and Willie Nelson. But country-music mega-star Toby Keith is that visionary, co-writing and starring in this law-enforcement comedy, which is not really based on his pro-vigilantism hit song "Beer for My Horses." Keith portrays a small-town Oklahoma deputy, who with his dim-bulb partner (Rodney Carrington), heads south to retrieve his sweetie from Mexican drug lords. Drinking, farting and the killing of evil hombres ensues. This movie should have bugged me with its lazy plotting, casual offensiveness, not-quite-professional cast and obvious plugs for Ford trucks, but something about its shaggy goofiness kept me mildly entertained. Was it the sheer unabashed cheesiness of Nugent's character -- a mute, heavily armed "Indian" -- gleefully firing off two automatic rifles as the "Cat Scratch Fever" riff played? The out-of-nowhere circus-freak scene? The blue-collar pandering? The pointless cameo from M-m-mm-mel Tillis? Recommended for indulgent fans of silly films. See it with beer, if at all possible. Starts Fri., Aug. 8. (AH) [2 out of 4 stars]
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Movie Reviews + Features
In Catherine Breillat's lushly detailed film, adapted from Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly's 19th-century novel, the aristocrats of Paris we meet are riven with feverish sexual desire -- or at least, in the case of the elders, enjoying the show from the sidelines. The penniless "adventurer" Ryno de Marigny (full-lipped newcomer Fu-ad Aît Aattou) is set to marry wealthy, virginal Hermangarde (Roxane Mesquida) after his tempestuous 10-year affair with a Spanish divorcee known as La Vellini (Asia Argento). In flashback, we view their love-hate relationship, marked by La Vellini's aggressive sexuality and fierce independence. (She's a character we're invited to read as contemporary.) Thus it's no great mystery how de Marigny's marriage might fare. With little plot and a languid pace, the film's pleasures are in its handsome players (notwithstanding Argento's bursts of overacting), smartly delivered dialogue mulling over the era's changing morality and explicit sex scenes. In French, with subtitles. Starts Fri., Aug. 8. Manor (AH) [2.5 out of 4 stars]
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Movie Reviews + Features
The latest film from Italian gore-horror master Dario Argento -- the last of a trilogy -- doesn't offer a compelling story, quality acting or skillful pacing. However, it does give fans what they've likely come to see: disemboweling, the forcible removal of eyeballs and other body parts, copious bloodletting and attractive topless women, including the director's daughter, Asia Argento. Argento portrays Sarah, a student archeologist in Rome, who ill-advisedly opens a recently unearthed urn covered in weird symbols. This act unleashes a powerful witch -- plus a load of related mayhem -- whom Sarah must find and kill. The sketchy plot resorts to some dreadful cheats to advance the story. The film's final sequence offers better aspects of Argento's idiosyncratic B-movie cannon: A chase set in a maze of catacombs is juiced with lots of artful colored light and provides a spooky claustrophobic feel. But inevitably, it ends with more topless women being impaled. Starts Fri., Aug. 8. Oaks (AH) [2 out of 4 stars]
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Movie Reviews + Features
To paraphrase one of this film's characters: There hasn't been such a lethal combination of Indian and chicken since the introduction of tandoori. Seems building a fast-food chicken joint on top of a Native American burial ground is a bad idea: You get a particularly bizarre sort of man-bird zombie, with a penchant for transforming customers into exploding egg-carriers. In other words, the perfect subject matter for a Troma musical comedy. Like an extra-value meal, Poultrygeist offers plenty of what Troma fans want: dreadful puns, gallons of spurting bodily fluids, topless women, cheap but disgusting special effects, equal-opportunity offensive humor and director Lloyd Kaufman in a thong. Oh, and if you really want to glean something meaningful, there's arguably a critique here about the social, environmental and nutritional damage wrought by fast-food chains -- even those that aren't harboring zombie chickens. Starts Fri., Aug. 8. Oaks (AH) [2.5 out of 4 stars]
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Movie Reviews + Features
In a bizarre turn of events, the presidential contest comes down to the vote of one man. Of course, it's the vote of an utterly disinterested, rural doofus (played amiably if unconvincingly by Kevin Costner), which sets up the film's best bits: the craven pandering of the two presidential contenders -- Republican incumbent Kelsey Grammer and progressive Dem Dennis Hopper -- to the capricious interests of one guy. Writer-director Joshua Michael Stern's loose-limbed comedy has a few well-aimed barbs at our increasingly silly, minutiae-driven campaigns, obsessed with narrow-casting and fueled by 24/7 media. (The hastily produced TV ads the candidates create are almost worth the price of admission.) But Stern pulls his punches in the last reel, trading mild satire for some family melodrama and a buzz-killing speech about What America Means to Me. Dude, we don't go to the movies to hear why democracy isn't working for the common man. We can get that at home; give us laughs and more kookiness like that bizarre Richard Petty cameo. (AH) [2 out of 4 stars]
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Art Reviews + Features
It is as if the civilization in the "cave," and its knowledge, signified by the books, are seconds from destruction.
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Architecture
"The ultimate source of information is the building itself. What does it confirm or disprove?"
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This Just In
Highlights from the local TV news: Smokescreen.
- by Frances Sansig Monahan
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Dispatches from the blogosphere: Abandoning ship on the Pirates.
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Theater Reviews + Features
This production plays up the farcical aspects of Shakespeare's tortuous tale, and the vagaries of weather may augment the comedy.
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Theater Reviews + Features
Patrick Link, Mike Crosby and Melissa Newell manage to find the occasional bright spot, but, ultimately, they can't make up for the work Simon refused to do.
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Theater Reviews + Features
If delivering lines were like delivering parcels, half the best jokes would get lost in the mail.
Spotlight Events
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Sat., May 25, 9:30 a.m.-7 p.m.
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Growing Pains
@ August Wilson Center for African American Culture
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