Local rapper Incyte’s The Write Away
Sampling Sesame Street jingles for a sex jam is definitely sick.
Mellon Arena Re-Imagined
Imagine opening the dome permanently and having it a public space in the Lower Hill District.
Does Pittsburgh rock on YouTube?
Smaller local venues are represented by only a handful of samples, some barely watchable.
Alpha Dog
Alpha Dog is all surface and no soul, a string of f-words with no underlying poetry (capsule review).
Loss of Cowher
It may not always have been pretty, but the Bill Cowher era was never boring.
Code Name: The Cleaner
The slim feature is a round-up of familiar scenes — and there’s some stuff about a microchip, super-bad video games and a sassy waitress (capsule review).
Idiocracy
As a writer, animator and director, Mike Judge has given us some sublime moments in pop-culture analysis — from the blissful, anarchic adolescent mayhem of Beavis and Butthead (whose early episodes still stand as the best rip on MTV fatuousness) to the sweetly befuddled All-Americans on the long-running sitcom King of the Hill. In 1999,…
Curse of the Golden Flower
Never has a dysfunctional family melodrama felt so epic (capsule review).
Savage Love
I have some concerns about my cuckold fetish that you did not address in a recent column on the subject. Aspects of my particular fantasy are prevalent among people with this type of fetish, and they cause me guilt and shame. I am white and all of my cuckold fantasies involve my future wife having…
Happily Never After
This animated re-imagining of Cinderalla tale just barely registers as entertaining (capsule review).
Taking a Flyer
Let’s look on the bright side of the Port Authority’s proposal to slash its service, shall we? Among the 124 routes it plans to cut is the 28X, which connects Oakland and Downtown to the Pittsburgh International Airport. The bright side? The Port Authority has finally found a way to hold onto Pittsburgh’s college students!…
Opal Dream
Opal Dream is about children growing up, but it’s also a reminder about keeping dreams trimmed down to size (capsule review).
Prog of Future Passed
Keeping Tracks I: Overture A week before the Christmas holiday, a handful of employees are tying up the loose ends of 2006 in a small office suite, hidden away along Banksville Road. But unlike many other Pittsburgh businesses entering holiday hibernation, here the walls echo with high-speed guitar runs and pyrotechnic flourishes blasting from a…
TV: The Movie
The subtitle of this feature is “a very special kind of stupid” and for once, that’s a fair warning (capsule review).
Keeping Tracks
Why would Jim Pitulski — or anyone else — base a music business in Pittsburgh? The superficiality of La-La Land or the sophistication of the Big Apple aren’t for everyone. Talent agents need to schmooze with execs, but booking agents can set up concerts from any desk with a phone and a computer. And at…
Matthew Bourne’s “dance play” Edward Scissorhands is a story without words.
Bourne says he was drawn to adapting Burton’s film by Johnny Depp’s almost silent-film-style portrayal of the title character as the “ultimate outsider expressing himself through movement rather than words.”
The Pittsburgh region is abundant with Louis Tiffany’s stained glass.
Tiffany may be stuck in his own era, but he plays with time as if it, too, could be heated, colored, shaped.
The Bridge
Eric Steel’s cameras captured exquisite vistas, myriad tourists, cars and birds that share the Golden Gate Bridge — and nearly all of the 24 people who jumped to their deaths from the pedestrian walkway that year.
At the Warhol, Deadly Medicine shows how Darwin got twisted into eugenics.
Artifacts include a pamphlet, issued by the Louisiana Department of Health and Bureau of Venereal Disease, which encourages women not to proceed with their nuptials “blindly.”
Miss Potter
Don’t look for any darkness to be revealed: Miss Potter remains warm and cozy, like a cup of afternoon tea genteelly served in delicate rose-patterned china.
Pittsburgh N’@
From http://pittsburghdish.typepad.com/: Port Authority opens Prince Albert can of worms. In response to the impending tangled web that is to become Pittsburgh’s transit system, the Port Authority has set up a hotline for the public to comment on proposed fare hikes and service snafus … (412) 566-5335 … It asks that irked and disgruntled customers…
Mexico City
One of the great pleasures of learning about authentic Mexican food is learning about its array of salsas.
Bus Cuts Unkind
City residents may still be served but stranded here
This Just In
A roundup of TV news highlights
Defense Dollars Indefensible, Especially on MLK Day
Long-time CMU critic brings annual protest back to campus
Battered Citizens rekindle Pittsburgh’s hardcore past
“Most people are afraid to leave their city, to come out of their turtle shell.” — Brian Brick
Drugs for Sex Case Appeals Nearly Exhausted
A Plum doctor faces sentencing next month
Pittsburgh-based composer Flávio Chamis releases Especiaria
Before all that, he was just a teen-ager in Brazil, strumming a guitar and learning popular songs by ear.
Black Moth Super Rainbow collaborates on House of Apples & Eyeballs
Lush, beautiful tones that never actually sound pretty.
Brooklyn’s Dirty on Purpose derive and thrive
I’d say Dirty on Purpose sounds most like U2 on Robitussin (I’m sure it’s happened before).
