• Issue Archive for
  • Dec 10-16, 2009
  • Vol. 19, No. 49

News+Features

  • Troop Buildup
  • News

    • Troop Buildup

    Western PA well represented in the ranks of the KISS Army
    • by Robert Isenberg
  • Site Cleanup
  • News

    • Site Cleanup

    Community activist wants Pitt, UPMC to help tidy up Oakland
    • by Chris Young

Food+Drink

  • On The Side

    • Pierogies Plus

    Tens of thousands of pierogies call McKees Rocks home
    • by Charlie Deitch

Music

On Screen

  • The Beaches of Agnès
  • Movie Reviews + Features

    • The Beaches of Agnès

    The French New Wave was primarily a boys' club, except for Agnès Varda, whose seminal film, Cleo from 5 to 7, still resonates today with the beautiful melancholy of Paris. Her film career emerged almost by accident; Varda remembers "wanting words" to accompany her images. She never attended film school: "I used my imagination and took the plunge." Varda is an atom: small and compact, with positive and negative things swirling around inside her in equal measures and in perfect balance, but with the power to explode. She's 81 now, and has just filmed her autobiography, which recalls her life as a creative person and as the wife of Jacques Demy, another New Wave progenitor. Varda tells her story with every tool at her disposal: old film and photos, recreations of the past, clips from her canon, interviews with childhood friends now grown very old. Her voiceover narration is lean and thoughtful, but when she addresses the camera directly, with an insight or an anecdote, it feels like she's talking only to you. In English and French, with subtitles. Starts Fri., Dec. 11. Regent Square (HK) [3.5 out of 4 stars]
    • by Harry Kloman
  • The Princess and the Frog
  • Movie Reviews + Features

    • The Princess and the Frog

    Despite its title, this animated family film isn't really about a princess. The story, loosely adapted from the old fairy tale about the hopeful bussing of amphibians, is set in 1920s New Orleans. Tiana wants to open a restaurant, not become an accessory for a prince. But a bit of voodoo hijinks later, and she and a visiting prince are transformed into frogs, stranded in the bayou and sorting out exactly what their hearts desire. After all Disney's globe-hopping to exotic locales, it's satisfying to see the gang wind up here at home, in colorful New Orleans: baroque mansions and shotgun houses, streetcars and steamboats, cemeteries and bottle trees, voodoo practitioners, and an unself-conscious mix of white and black characters. Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, Princess is Disney's first hand-drawn film since 2004, but the old-school technique still delivers a visual treat. The film moves at a lively pace, with plenty of organic humor. Hopefully, Disney is taking cues from the recently absorbed Pixar, and noting that audiences might want more than the same old treacly princess stories. Starts Fri., Dec. 11 (AH) [3 out of 4 stars]
    • by Al Hoff

Art

Views

  • Pittsburgh n'@

    Dispatches from the blogosphere: Steelers Unleash Hell ... On Their Fans

Books

On Stage

  • Theater Reviews + Features

    • The Little Dog Laughed

    The laughs flow freely at Little Dog, but you hate yourself for finding such horror funny.
    • by Ted Hoover
  • Jane Eyre
  • Theater Reviews + Features

    • Jane Eyre

    Scott Wise's direction manages the large cast smoothly, making few demands upon the audience except to sit back and enjoy.
    • by Michelle Pilecki

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