Pittsburgh emcee Freestyle hits the campaign trail
“Usually, for a rapper to go on a joint like a Britney Spears-type song is a crossover totally out of the normal.”
John Waters
I’m in love with all of them from Jackass. They’re my type. They’re straight, but crazy.
Menomena backs art-rock with indie buzz
“I don’t even know what experimental music is anymore,” Harris admits, with a laugh. “But apparently, we’re it.”
The Guatemalan Handshake
Todd Rohal’s ensemble film recalls the sun-drenched off-kilter Americana of David Lynch, as well as the deadpan quirkiness of Napoleon Dynamite. (Capsule review.)
Toumani Diabaté’s Symmetric Orchestra
Diabaté has taken a uniquely African instrument and, with it, drifted back and forth between Western and African concepts of music.
Man Push Cart
Writer-director Ramin Bahrani has crafted a small heartbreaking study of one of New York City’s invisible immigrant workers. Former Pakistani pop star Ahmad (portrayed soulfully by Ahmad Razvi) now runs a coffee cart in midtown Manhattan. Bahrani employs a deceptively loose documentary style for his meditative drama; only upon reflection do you realize how carefully…
Celebration and Chinese Stars open for The Blood Brothers at Mr. Small’s Theatre
As long as nobody gets smacked in the face by a mic or stray body parts, the kids’ll be all right.
Matthew Barney: No Restraint
If you’re already in the bag for the artist, sculptor and filmmaker Matthew Barney, you’ll swoon for Alison Chernick’s profile. (Capsule review.)
The Pittsburgh Home & Garden Show’s Girl Scouts Build a Dream Auction is fun, but must address a wider audience.
The real fantasy is thinking that in the future we can build architecture without environmental concerns.
Premonition
Premonition doesn’t bring much freshness to the genre’s conventions — and ultimately the story isn’t compelling enough to overcome the tedium if its second half. (Capsule review.)
A local artist’s assemblages court the mystical at Gallerie Chiz.
Each item is carefully placed; each completed work becomes a vessel for communion with a historical past.
Rendell Proposals Leave Many in the Cold
Well, finally justice has been given unto Penguins owner Mario Lemieux, the long-suffering millionaire from Sewickley. Nice to see the guy get a break for a change. And that’s one Pennsylvanian down, 12,440,620 to go. Many Pittsburghers haven’t noticed, focused as they’ve been on Mario’s martyrdom. But in those off moments when Gov. Ed Rendell…
Pride
Pride hits the genre’s familiar beats, but the film is enjoyable and the swimming milieu makes a refreshing change from the usual basketball and football arenas. (Capsule review.)
Pittsburgh N’@
“Mary Beth Buchanan needs much more scrutiny, as do all the other U.S. Attorneys who weren’t fired during the Bush administration’s recent purge.”
Savage Love
I was shocked to read your response to Not Giving Up last week. Dan, how could you? For years, you have been our go-to guy for uncommon sexual knowledge. So it made me want to cry when I read your column about Joan Sewell’s book I’d Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to Love My Low Libido.…
Shooter
The story is a short-changed mess with the whole thing dependent on a very canny dude falling for a patently obvious ruse. (Capsule review.)
Lard to Believe
Vegetables are delightful. But they’re even better — and much healthier — if you smother them in lard. So says Sally Fallon, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation and keynote speaker at next week’s conference “Farm to Table: Nourishing a Sustainable Pittsburgh.” The day-long event will focus on integrating local, organically produced foods into…
Some Voters Mayor May Not Get Involved
An open letter to mayoral candidates Luke Ravenstahl and Bill Peduto: I’m young, gifted and black. Why should I vote for you? What do you have to offer me? You both have track records, but what have you done for me lately? I’m young, gifted and black, and there’s one thing I know about most…
No April Fool’s joke — Coulter coming to Pitt
Fresh from her knee-slapping reference to presidential candidate John Edwards as a “faggot,” Ann Coulter is coming to Pittsburgh on April 1.
Penguins Fans Have a Chance to Skate By
The Pens help bind a region together.
Doyle ‘puzzled’ by protest vigil outside his office
U.S. Congressman Mike Doyle says he respects the work done in the past four years by anti-war protesters. But the vigil by protesters outside of his Downtown office has him a little puzzled. From roughly 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. each day, activists have been protesting Doyle’s decision to vote in favor of a supplemental…
A Conversation with Cole Lea
Cole Lea, 25, is an environmental organizer by day, spoken-word poet by night … and a full-time feminist dyke. Lea, of the West End, is a force to be reckoned with at shows and open mics all over town. Has “feminist” become a dirty word? For some people, I think it has. I think that’s…
An acclaimed contemporary dance company keys on a piano-based tribute.
Murphy said he needed a pianist who not only could play everything from Bach to Fats Waller, but who didn’t mind being pushed about the stage, and having dancers lean and climb on the piano while he played it.
Life X 3
It’s indicative of this play’s fuzzy-headedness that you could perform the three skits in any order you chose and it wouldn’t make the least bit of difference.
This Just In: March 21- 28
This Week: Answering some of your most pressing weather-related questions. What, exactly, causes a “water-main break”? — Maria, Brookline I am so glad someone finally asked this question. Because on the news, all we ever hear about are the things that water-main breaks cause: “trouble,” “pandemonium,” “disruption,” “flooding,” “evacuation,” “sinkholes,” “low water pressure,” “icy messes,”…
Mother Courage and Her Children
You want so badly for this still-shocking look at war, capitalism and survival to be as scalding you think it can be
Half Life’s Mike Lavella embarks on hot-rodded writing career
“You would have thought we would be stocking the shelves at Barnes & Noble, not writing books that are sold there.”
Mezzulah, 1946
Imagine William Inge without the dark undercurrents and you have Mezzulah playwright Michele Lowe.<
Military Police
The Lenco BEAR measures 11 feet tall, 9 feet wide and 25 feet long. Its roomy interior includes an on-board communications center, with power ports for laptop computers, a 40,000-BTU air-conditioner and enough power to operate a refrigerator. Just the thing for a long, drawn-out siege. The BEAR (an acronym for Ballistic Engineered Armored Response)…
Station Brake Café
The menu, perhaps the longest we’ve ever seen outside of a Chinese restaurant, comfortably straddles the banal and the exotic.
Former local newspaper reporter Dave Copeland’s first book is about life inside New York’s Israeli mafia.
Gonen’s stories about life as a jewel and art thief in Europe, about prison breaks and coke deals and multi-million-dollar crime rings, sounded too wild to be true.
The Pittsburgh Jewish-Israeli Film Festival
The festival wraps with a contemporary Israeli romance, a profile of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, and a provocative documentary about Holocaust film, among other selections.
Literary journal Caketrain earns four candles.
“After college we were bored, and decided to start a journal.”
The Host
A great monster film should have serious undertones — something to give the viewer pause when the chuckles and shrieks die down.
