Chris Sharp and David Long
At its finest moments — David Long’s blue tenor arcing over Chris Sharp’s timeless vocal — this newly established duo finds itself in long-lost-brother territory, a natural harmony in the tradition of Alton and Rabon Delmore or Bill and Charlie Monroe. But beyond perhaps, the pair’s vocal affinity, Sharp and Long prove on…
Dunning’s Grill
Location: 1100 Braddock Ave., Regent Square, 412-243-3900 Hours: Mon.-Thu., 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Prices: $6-13 Fare: Bar-style comfort food Atmosphere: Bar-style comfort Liquor: Full bar These days, “family restaurant” is generally synonymous with “national chain,” a place where meticulous branding meets immaculately inoffensive food. Sadly, the neighborhood bar is headed in the…
Vequinox
Sometimes it takes a while in Pittsburgh to kick-start the sort of esoteric music that takes root more naturally in cosmopolitan places such as, say, New York or San Francisco. In our city’s case, we’re lucky to finally have a full-fledged example of what Europeans call an “apocalyptic folk” band, a crossover of darkwave and…
What I Saw at the Evolution
Close your eyes and imagine for a second: What might happen if Oakland’s college kids could choose their own city councilor? Are you picturing something like Wild in the Streets II: Taking on the Zoning Board? Are you imagining Pitt students crafting ordinances to create a “no-pants zone” on the Cathedral lawn? Or…
Shiver
To those not deeply involved in the independent-music side of catchy, sing-along punk rock, there can seem to be only two aspects: the geriatric (or deceased) ’70s artists such as Iggy, Johnny and Joey — whose music can now be heard in corporate commercials — and the post-Dookie world of cookie-cutter mall-punk bands.…
Words’ Worth
You have to smile at the giant blinking light on top of the Grant Building, Downtown. The 23-foot cone of neon tubes atop Henry Hornbostel’s structure, a technical marvel in 1930, flashes “P-I-T-T-S-B-U-R-G-H” in Morse code. But planes back then already notoriously used the light of nearby open-hearth steel mills as a navigational…
Digressive Progressives Unite When Pissed Off
Adrienne Marie Brown and Celeste Faison descended on Pittsburgh from New York to turn you out, but first they had to turn you on. Which meant they had to piss you off. Faison and Brown were here Aug. 4-7 for Smackdown 2005, the 2nd annual convention of the League of Pissed Off…
Why did Andy Warhol not play up the fact that he was from Pittsburgh?
Your question reminds me of a bit of dialogue from the 1958 film Auntie Mame. Nephew Patrick asks his sardonic society-dame aunt about her “English lady” friend, to which Mame replies, “She’s not English, darling; she’s from Pittsburgh.” “She sounded English,” Patrick presses. “Well, when you’re from Pittsburgh,” Mame replies,…
Counter-Recruitment Rally Encounters No Foes
About 150 people marching against military recruitment on Aug. 6 in Oakland discovered their main protest target — the Armed Forces Career Center on Forbes Avenue — closed during normal business hours. “If you can shut it down for one day, you can succeed,” said Alex Bradley of Pittsburgh Organizing Group, leading the rally…
Paleos in Comparison
In 1952, visitors to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History got their first look at what was likely the largest image of the Ice Age most would ever see. The mural, titled “Pennsylvania 20,000 Years Ago,” was an attractive autumnal scene featuring a bull mastodon in the middle ground. In the shadowy foreground crouched two…
Canned Music Can’t Help Ballet, Musicians Say
“We’re in attack mode here,” said Cynthia Anderson on Aug. 5. If Anderson, an oboist and chair of the Pittsburgh Opera and Ballet Orchestra Committee, sounded at odds with the genteel high-arts world in which she performs, she has a good excuse. Four days earlier, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre had announced that as a thrift…
Hospital Discharge
The letter firing Dr. David Lemonick from West Penn Hospital won’t say why he was terminated. The letter gives no reason, but simply reads, “terminated without cause.” Ask hospital spokesman Tom Chakurda why Lemonick was canned, and he says it was the doctor’s “inability to work effectively and professionally with his…
Mon-Fayette “Pre-Enactment” Previews Post-Expressway Braddock
On the morning of Sat., Aug. 6, Braddock was filled with caution tape, a swarm of people in reflective orange vests, and even some billowing yellow flags. Some residents of this tiny borough — only one-half of a square mile and, these days, just 3,000 people — might’ve thought for a second that Pennsylvania…
The Dukes of Hazzard
If there is anything the world doesn’t need, it’s a big-screen adaptation of The Dukes of Hazzard. This early 1980s television series held some appeal in its day as a subtle (if perhaps unintentional) satire of the “traditional rural family values” espoused by the Reaganites, and as a chance for home viewers to…
Up for Grabs
In the fall of 2001, Americans had plenty to fret about: terror attacks, the military actions in Afghanistan and the collapse of the New Economy. But grabbing headlines and creating a furor out in San Francisco was a baseball, an innocent object caught up in what would become a million-dollar media circus and…
My Summer of Love
The key to coming away from Pawel Pawlikowski’s My Summer of Love with a rewarding intellectual (forget emotional) experience depends upon whether you care to embrace its point-of-view storytelling. Absolutely nothing happens in this morose drama, adapted from Helen Cross’ novel, that you don’t anticipate. And Pawlikowski sets it all up…
CATERINA IN THE BIG CITY
The more you know about contemporary Italian politics the sharper you’ll find Paolo Virzi’s social comedy. Still, if you don’t know your New Right from your Communistas, there’s Caterina’s coming-of-age story with its familiar thrills and pains. She’s a bright teen-age girl from the hinterlands who moves to Rome with her bitter, class-obsessed father. Caterina…
FOUR BROTHERS
After their mom is shot in a hold-up, four adopted brothers reunite in Detroit to seek vengeance in John Singelton’s action drama. We’re meant to care about these four lost man-boys — two white (Mark Wahlberg and Garrett Hudland) and two black (Tyrese Gibson and André Benjamin) — as the film provides more backstory and…
FUNNY HA HA
Being an elder statesman of slack, I could dig what Andrew Bujalski was aiming for in his ultra-droll, nearly plotless study of some post-college free-floaters, though I’m not sure that capturing such ennui in realistic terms amounts to productive entertainment. We bumble along with Marnie (Kate Dollenmayer), a wistful underachieving sort who likes a guy…
THE GREAT RAID
John Dahl’s World War II drama feels like a throwback to the men-of-valor films of the 1940s and ’50s. This is an earnest re-telling of a military operation in 1945, when a small troop of Rangers freed hundreds of American POWs held by the Japanese lines on Bataan peninsula. The commanding officer (Benjamin Bratt) is…
JIMINY GLICK IN LA LA WOOD
“Jiminy Glick” is another of comic actor Martin Short’s transformations — a corpulent, self-absorbed, dull-witted film critic from Montana. Vadim Jean’s film supersizes Short’s moderately funny parody (formerly of Comedy Central) by transporting the blowhard Glick to the Toronto Film Festival. Glick mixes with real celebs on the red carpet (who won’t Keifer Sutherland talk…
LILA SAYS
In a grubby old neighborhood of Marseille, now home to various immigrants, two teen-agers enact an erotic pas de deux with consequences both devastating and liberating. Chimo (Mohammed Khouas), of Arab descent and sensitive, is boldly approached by Lila (Vahina Giocante), a blonde angel who to Chimo’s astonishment speaks frankly to him about her sexuality…
