Maxïmo Park
It’s the stuff of dystopian science-fiction: A mass of svelte, skinny-tied young lads from England’s north-easternmost corner appear, Village of the Damned-like in their uniformly robotic new-wave movements. And before we can understand a word of their Geordie accents, it’s total domination. This innate distrust of instant pop-music trends helps make…
Orange Juice
It’s hard to imagine a band like Edwyn Collins’ circa-1980 Orange Juice establishing itself in the testosterone-poisoned alleys of Glasgow, Scotland, today. Softly elegant and fey pop songs conveyed in a manner at once grinningly confident and punkishly self-loathing; the accessibility of hit-worthy guitar rock corrupted by a laissez-faire post-punk smirk. You know…
Staying Power
Nobody knew what would happen locally when three dissident unions pulled out of America’s largest labor organization, the AFL-CIO, at the group’s Chicago convention in July. Among other complaints, the so-called “Change To Win” coalition — which includes the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers, plus…
Crawford Braces for Hurricane Jim
Cindy Sheehan’s campaign to confront George W. Bush about her son’s death in the Iraq War has gained a couple of local allies: protesters at Downtown’s Federal Building and state Sen. Jim Ferlo in Crawford, Texas. The senator was on his way to Sheehan’s protest site outside the president’s ranch as City Paper went to…
Insuring Hospitals Give Charity Care
“Many low- and moderate-income families qualify for charity care but are not receiving it,” notes Maryellen Hayden, head organizer with ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). Most families getting by on the minimum wage qualify for significant breaks on medical bills, Hayden says, but they often aren’t aware of it. And hospitals don’t…
The Aristocrats
The cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz believes our rituals tell us stories about ourselves. The teacher/activist Noam Chomsky believes the capacity for language is genetic, and most of what we speak is a variation of a few basic forms that are wired into our brains. And then there’s Gilbert Gottfried, the shrill,…
Torremolinos 73
Lugging The Encyclopedia of the Spanish Civil War door-to-door in Madrid’s suburbs proves so fruitless that Alfredo Lopez can’t even make the rent on small apartment. Never mind that his wife, Carmen, longs to have a baby they can’t afford. So when his boss calls him in for a meeting, Alfredo’s sure he’ll be…
Eros
At what age do men start being so serious about sex? At what age do they stop? In Eros, a triptych of short tales by noted directors from different cultures, there’s barely a good romp ‘n’ roll to be found. In fact, most of the men don’t have sex at all, instead coupling…
THE BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY
The abandoned product of a union between a G.I. and a Vietnamese girl, Binh is despised in post-war Vietnam for having “the face of the enemy.” Spurred by a silly bit of plot device, the grown Binh, in 1990, makes the arduous journey to America, via the smuggled-labor route, in search of his father. There’s…
Salvatore’s Pizza House
Location: 612 Penn Ave., Wilkinsburg. 412-247-4848 Prices: Large pizza, $5.99-$8.99; salads, $3.79-$6.99; sandwiches, $2.65-$6.99; dinners, $6.49-$14.49 Hours: Mon.-Sat. 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Fare: Italian and much, much more Atmosphere: Light, bright, and friendly neighborhood hang-out Liquor: None There’s no easier food craving to satisfy than the craving for pizza. Wherever you are, you’re never far from…
DEUCE BIGALOW: EUROPEAN GIGOLO
. It’s almost unimaginable that adults created this film, a strenuously unfunny comedy about a serial killer who is knocking off Europe’s top gigolos. Or that Mike Bigelow’s film is a sequel to the equally unnecessary Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo. Into this stew of he-bitches and prosti-dudes — if you’re not laughing now, you won’t…
Lake Effect
Were it not for the joggers visible through the trees, it would be easy to forget yourself here. The grasses reach above your head, and the nearby pond, while a bit brackish, teems with insects and at least a lone fish. A startled yearling, its brown coat still flecked with white, bounds out from the…
RED EYE
Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy meet cute at the airport before their flight, but there’s no romance in Wes Craven’s new film. And a good thing too since Craven delivers a straightforward, compact thriller with no distractions. Murphy’s charmer-turned-killer holds McAdams hostage onboard a night flight while blackmailing her into assisting with a political assassination.…
The Peter Principle
I am not given to hero worship of TV anchormen. When I was a kid I thought Cronkite was God, but so did the rest of America. When I grew up, I got into the local-TV news business as a reporter and later an anchor. I recognized the obvious: Sometimes the job mattered, but often…
THE SKELETON KEY
Kate Hudson takes a nursing job at a creepy old mansion out in a Louisiana swamp. (Cue weird Cajun music.) The first half of Ian Softley’s thriller loads up on familiar hints: blind sages, hidden photographs, ghostly mirrors and the irresistible favorite, the locked attic door. Turns out the joint is a repository of some…
It Takes a Family: Conservativism and the Common Good
Sometimes, you really can judge a book by its cover. Rick Santorum’s magnum opus, It Takes a Family, features a distinctly Hispanic-looking clan on the front cover (rendered as a stained-glass window, no less) and an African-American family on the back. This is a book willing to pander, especially to constituencies Santorum has…
THE TWO OF US
Claude Berri reveals his own humanity along with his characters’ in this tender but lively semi-autobiographical 1967 comedy (original French title: The Old Man and the Boy). A Jewish couple in occupied Paris send 8-year-old Claude to “live like a little Catholic for a while” in the country with a friend’s elderly parents. Grampa (the…
I recently read an obituary of John McTernan, who represented three local men charged under the sedition laws. Was this case of major importance? What were the sedition laws like in those days?
What were the laws like? Unconstitutional, for starters. But hard as it is to believe today, when a country gets panicky, legal protections tend to get tossed out the window. In 1951, at the height of the nation’s Cold War hysteria, a Pittsburgh judge and raconteur, Michael Musmanno, decided to strike a blow…
VALIANT
During World War II, the British military trained pigeons to deliver important messages and even assigned some medals of bravery. John Williams’ computer-animated adventure depicts one puny pigeon’s coming-of-age quest to end the war. Inspired by a visit by the Royal Homing Pigeon Service’s suave top messenger, plucky underbird Valiant (featuring Ewan McGregor’s gee-whiz voice)…
River Stories
Falling WaterHeart Is HomeConcrete and Water People in Pittsburgh know their rivers. Judging by the submissions we received, all dealing with the theme of rivers, the writers were well in tune with the legendary three rivers that strap our city down like some sort of aquatic seatbelt. There were stories that spoke of childhood memories:…
Broken Flowers
To say a movie character merely suggests a human being might sound like a harsh critique. But for Jim Jarmusch, who makes comedies without writing many jokes, it’s just what’s intended, and just what works in the ruefully funny and ultimately wrenching Broken Flowers. Jarmusch prefers observing his poetically imagined characters to psychoanalyzing…
Various Artists
Various Artists Can You Jack? — Chicago Acid and Experimental House 1985-1995 Soul Jazz In the beginning — that being Chicago, early 1980s — there was Frankie Knuckles and there was Ron Hardy; the Warehouse and the Music Box; Knuckles’ deep and soulful post-disco (i.e. Ware-“house” music), and Hardy’s drug-addled (i.e.…
