- Issue Archive for
- May 21-27, 2009
- Vol. 19, No. 20
News+Features
Conspiracy Theories
Was the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette behind a Texas radio host's eradication from YouTube?
Taking a Dive
Entertainment ideas that promise to hold water this season
Eating Park?
Some on Mount Washington worry that a new hotel will take up precious green space
Disease Control
Feds, state pony up to find out why bat colonies are dying
Food+Drink
Mexico City Mash-Up
Avocados and secret spices make a sublime side dish at this Downtown Mexican eatery.
Isabela on Grandview
A fine view -- and fine dining -- make this Grandview eatery a doubly worthy stop.
Music
Pittsburgh's Complete Failure aims for DIY success with sophomore release
"We use speed, and effects in the vein of Neurosis, to convey a certain atmosphere, which is partly about rage -- being very angry and lashing out in an uncontrollable way."
Singer-songwriter Kevin Finn releases new album as Thirteenth Rune
"I'm always trying to change my niche a little bit; it's kinda like changing the furniture in your room."
The Dream Intended releases thematic, hooky pop-punk album
For hooks, guitar tone, and a general sense of devil-may-care pop fun, The Dream Intended gets high marks.
John Wicks resurrects the exultant power-pop of The Records
Wicks recruited a backing band a few years ago, and he's been reprising the Records' timeless classics, while mixing in several of his own more contemporary tracks.
Local band The Incline releases album of sunny, vocals-oriented pop
The song "George Foreman" amounts to a novelty song about the eponymous fat-reducing grilling machine.
On Screen
Hunger
This account of a hunger strike undertaken by IRA member Bobby Sands in 1981 is the debut feature of Steve McQueen, a young, award-winning British visual artist. McQueen clearly tilts more toward art than documentary, yet his work is no less powerful for it. The 96-minute Hunger is divided into three distinct sections. The first, a series of often spare vignettes, establishes the ongoing tensions and casual brutality within Maze. The second is an almost theatrical presentation of Sands' motivations, outlined in a stunning segment: an 18-minute single take in which the prisoner argues with a priest. And the third is a harrowing yet lyrical depiction of Sands' slow death.
Hunger is undoubtedly a challenging work. For some, its spareness and violence alone will make it difficult viewing. And with virtually no conventional techniques such as defined characters, dialogue or music to cue us, many scenes are as you read them, with no definitive text. With its predetermined ending and its lack of narrative, McQueen's film is something of a meditative exercise -- albeit an occasionally brutal and jarring one. Because it lacks a broader accounting of the external -- the ugly tenor of those specific times that created and sustained bad behavior -- Hunger is not really a history lesson. But as an analog for how seemingly civilized cultures justify violence and barbarity in the name of a higher cause -- be it inside or outside the law -- Hunger is assuredly provocative and strangely beautiful. Starts Fri., May 22. Harris [3.5 out of 4 stars]
Sugar
Sugar, a young aspiring baseball pitcher from the Dominican Republic, makes the cut to play single-A ball in Iowa. But Sugar, who doesn't speak English, finds the Midwest to be baffling, and the climb up the baseball ladder to be frustrating. It's fair to say that Sugar – from the writer-director team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson) -- is less a baseball movie than a low-key, bittersweet coming-of-age film. In retrospect, the hints are dropped early that Sugar's journey may not conform to our romantic ideas about the plucky kid plucked from obscurity, whose burning dream will nonetheless propel him through all adversities. This odyssey, which we see through Sugar's eyes, is filled with experiences that are perplexing or unfulfilled. Like Sugar caught in his new unfamiliar, fast-moving life, the film takes a while before you see where it's going. Its real payoff is in its final third, where circumstances cast many of the film's earlier scenes into new, sharp relief. And don't reach for your cheering horn: Ultimately, Sugar's fate is unclear. That's real life, not some rah-rah sports flick. In English, and Spanish, with subtitles. Starts Fri., May 22. Regent Square [3 out of 4 stars]
Lemon Tree
In Eran Riklis' modest drama, Salma (Hiam Abbass) is a middle-aged Palestinian widow living alone on the green line between Israel and the West Bank. She quietly ekes out a living from her family's small lemon grove. Then, the new Israeli Minister of Defense moves next door. The leafy trees are deemed a security risk, and ordered to be cut down. Salma, with the help of a young Palestinian lawyer, Ziad (Ali Suliman), fights back. The grove is fenced off, pending a decision. Lurking on the sidelines, but only minimally entering the fray, is the minster's neglected wife, Mira (Rona Lipaz-Michael), who spends her days at home staring into the contested grove.
Riklis, who also co-wrote the screenplay, tells the story from both sides, though Salma is clearly the aggrieved party, and thus more sympathetic. (Also, Abbass gives a marvelously soulful performance.)
The film focuses chiefly on the women, and their roles in both this conflict and their wider communities. Salma and Mira each muster stands, but the real power ultimately rests with the men. (Riklis makes the rather tepid insinuation that left to their own devices, the women would sort it out. Perhaps -- and perhaps these two would -- but the assumption that women are inherent peacemakers, even in this fraught, contentious place, seems a bit facile.)
Rooted in real events, the film functions as an engaging story in its own right, and also as commentary about the ongoing inability of these two groups of people to literally live side by side.
At times, Lemon Tree feels a bit like Mid-East Conflict 101, with its simplistic symbolism (from shots of rotting fruit to the construction of a wall), and its characters who reiterate history to support their claims. But the quiet pace, fine acting and a certain sun-drenched lyricism keep this film from being a polemic.
It all ends with a judgment worthy of King Solomon and a bitter comment on available compromises. Happy endings, as Salma's lawyer notes, are only in American movies. In Arabic and Hebrew, with subtitles. Starts Fri., May 22. Manor (AH) [3 out of 4 stars]
