Body and Soul and Defining Beauty: Ms. Wheelchair America both feature admirable subjects who have "overcome obstacles," and also take refreshingly unconventional approaches to these subjects.
"I can't answer the questions people sometimes ask," says Mariana Tembe. When people ask how she gets dressed on her own, or how she takes a bath, she can only say that she does it like they do. She dresses her young son, then sits him on the bed beside her, combs his hair and then combs her own. "For me, it's essential to be pretty," she smiles. Mariana lives just outside Maputo, Mozambique's capital city, where, she explains, it's not easy getting around in her wheelchair. As she makes the way to the bus stop, the camera in Body…]]>Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein were not out to throw a big production, nor re-enact characters and sketches. Instead they were onstage as Fred and Carrie, real people with a knack for casual conversational comedy looking to hang out.
Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, the visionaries behind Portlandia, took their hit television show on a five stop, sold-out US tour in January. In case you are unfamiliar Portlandia is a sketch comedy that debuted on the Independent Film Channel (IFC) in January 2011. The show parodies and chronicles characters one may find walking the streets of Portland, or any hip metropolitan area for that matter. Armisen, a veteran of Saturday Night Live, and Brownstein, vocalist/guitarist of Sleater-Kinney and Wild Flag, not only created and wrote the show, but also starred in it. Portlandia stopped by The Hideout in Chicago…]]>The Old 97's use two decades of experience to make being professional feel like anything but that.
The music had started when I finally got inside the theater, but an unusual number of people were already filling the main floor. Given that the show started before the announced time and openers The O's were unlikely to have produced such an audience, I could only guess that last April's remarkable Old 97's show was good enough to make fans bring their friends, and to get there in time to claim a good spot. I made my way to the front and realized that The O's were doing a pretty good job holding a restless crowd. An alt-country sort…]]>Twin Sister is a talented and smart collective of musicians, but their set at the Mohawk showed that they still have a long way to go before they can enter the realm of "captivating live act".
When reviewing live music, one can only hope that a performance will either be excellent, good enough to write about, or terrible. In any of these three scenarios, there is usually an abundance of things that a writer can point to as being responsible for the quality of a show. However, when a performance is so overwhelmingly mediocre that you are basically scraping for words to describe it, it makes for a frustrating challenge that can cause problems for even the most seasoned of journalists. This particular conundrum came to me in the form of Twin Sister’s performance at the…]]>Arguably the biggest sporting event of the year (sorry, Olympics!), the Super Bowl telecast is usually the highest-rated program of the year. Did this year’s show live up to the hype?
Arguably the biggest sporting event of the year (sorry, Olympics!), the Super Bowl telecast is usually the highest-rated program of the year. Last year’s mix of highly hyped commercials, a modern halftime act, and an interesting match-up of teams made Super Bowl XLV the most-watched show in TV history. Therefore, all eyes were on NBC last night for Super Bowl XLVI. Did this year’s show live up to the hype? Read on to find out. Pre-Game The festivities kicked off with a good, old-fashioned country duet of “America The Beautiful” sung by Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton. The married couple…]]>Weird was good at the seminal silly band's 30th anniversary gig.
It was like something out of a Charlton Heston movie. On one side of the battlefield, damn dirty apes raised their hairy fists in defiance of their human oppressors. On the opposing end, the people united to overcome this newly empowered foe. Between these warring factions patrolled a deadly laser beam that would indiscriminately slice through anything in its path. And this wasn't even the weirdest thing that happened at They Might Be Giants' 30th anniversary show. John Flansburgh and John Linnell are skilled stewards of tomfoolery. So perhaps they sing songs about their drummer's secret identity being Whitney Houston…]]>Shelby Lynne performs live for you on 6 February 2012.
Most critics interpreted Peter Weir’s Dead Poet’s Society as a mournful critique of the vitality-destroying technocratic social structure of '50s America. While it's certainly mournful, the film makes a more important, overlooked point. As John Keating leaves the classroom to his students defying their autocratic headmaster’s orders by standing on their desks, he is not leaving in wistful triumph, but utter defeat. His defeat is symbolic of the final and definitive passing of one era in human history to another. Namely, poetry had died. And with it, its ability to express the range and depth of pre-electronic human emotion. Radio,…]]>The reclusive songwriter returns for his first tour in over a decade.
It is difficult to say just how much all of this MEANS. Did you know, in my entire career as a critic of music, I have never used all caps in a review? You didn’t know it, because why would you, and I’m not sure it’s even true -- but it definitely FEELS true. Jeff Mangum playing music again is an all caps event. Mangum, the songwriting force behind Neutral Milk Hotel, last performed with that group in 1998. Since then, Neutral Milk Hotel’s second and final proper album, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998), has achieved a level…]]>My proximity to the actors heightened both the comedy and tragedy, for us all.
Do you agree with the following statement? Theatre presents a special art form because of the actors' personal, intimate relationship with the audience. They share in the same, live moments, unique to that performance because every performance with a different audience is different. I've often heard or read this idea, expressed by people who work in theatre. As I felt understanding theatre largely depends upon similarities of audiences' experiences, I disagreed. Until now. If you are literally one of the lucky few who has the chance to see the site-specific performance, Hotel Project, immediately snap up your opportunity. I emphasize…]]>Nneka teases a new album and offers up a remix for you to download.
On January 17th, Nneka previewed a few of her new songs in New York's tiny club, Cielo. The line was long to get in when the doors opened for the free show since the bouncers were strict about checking coats. It even creating some difficulty for Nneka and her friends but it wasn't long after that she began her short, intimate performance. Shortly after, she announced a proper US tour to support the US release of her latest album, Soul is Heavy out at the end of February.]]>A rare, live performance of The Miners' Hymns.
Last year, I attended a screening of The Miners' Hymns during the Tribeca Film Festival. I was drawn to Bill Morrison’s silent film because Iceland’s Jóhann Jóhannsson composed the original score. The music suited the film well -- I wrote “Morrison’s curation is aided by Jóhannsson’s dignified composition to majestically illuminate a more universal message” -- but did not render as resounding an impact as normally occurring in Jóhannsson’s separate work. The sound was guided by the narrative and constrained by the movie theater’s speakers. This year, Jóhannsson was making one of his infrequent and brief trips to the United…]]>Minneapolis indie rap crew Atmosphere seemed an iffy choice to headline the landmark show, but the capacity crowd welcomed the group as if they were a St. Bernard carrying the world’s largest brandy cask.
In more than a century of live events, Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre had never put on an official winter show before this year. So when the venue announced Icelantic’s Winter on the Rocks, a January concert featuring Atmosphere and Common, rap fans weren’t the only ones marking their calendars. Given Denver’s boundless love of Red Rocks, inclement weather and oddball hip-hop, perhaps the biggest surprise is that the event didn’t happen sooner. But even among the most diehard of snow bunnies, you could sense some quiet hesitation. There’s a reason Red Rocks takes the winter off, and it is called…]]>Thank a higher power that Antony is a singular artist; if every singer-songwriter were to undertake similar projects, Swanlights would have not have been nearly as special.
When Antony Hegarty finally spoke at the outset of his awe-inspiring Swanlights performance at Manhattan’s Radio City Music Hall on January 26th, his first words were, “Well that’s the bulk of the show over; I’m so fucking glad!”. Any conscious person in attendance would have been a fool to disagree. The rapt state of the Swanlights spectators all but enhanced the power of Antony’s performance. Although the hour and a half long piece -- performed with the 60-piece Johnsons Orchestra before a sold-out audience -- appeared seamless, the handiwork, ambition, and planning that went into the production was deeply felt.…]]>Slamdance Film Festival, begun in 1995, has become a yearly event, taking place, “coincidentally”, at the exact same time as Sundance, in scenic Park City, Utah.
Sometimes rejection is the best motivator. This was certainly the case for filmmakers Dan Mirvish, Jon Fitzgerald, Shane Kuhn and Peter Baxter, who took their rejection from the Sundance Film Festival and channeled it into the creation of their own, alternative film festival. Slamdance Film Festival, begun in 1995, has become a yearly event, taking place, “coincidentally”, at the exact same time as Sundance, in scenic Park City, Utah. Run and operated with the mantra of “by filmmakers, for filmmakers” in mind, the Festival, which aims to showcase truly independent films, has drawn quite a following in its 18 years…]]>The Blink-182 side project is shiny but lacks that certain something in a concert setting.
The side project of Blink-182's guitarist and vocalist Tom DeLonge might as well be called Egos and Airwaves. Pomp, given the circumstances, absolutely enthralled the huddled masses of hoodie-wearing youth at the Avalon on January 23rd. But deep within the object of these kids' adoration lives an extremely vulnerable front man. The immensity of Angels and Airwaves' sound greatly complements the bigheadedness of DeLonge. Forget moving mountains; he'll move planets if it means he can bask more easily in the neon spotlight. This band, referred to as AvA by its minions (a nod to the singer's daughter Ava), is a…]]>Television comes to life on stage in similar surroundings.
Portlandia The Tour stopped by a parallel universe at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on January 20 to present the live version of this cult hit on IFC. Portlandia has just started its second season, continuing on with a wide variety of recurring characters and quirky tag phrases. Starring the new comedy team of Fred Armisen (SNL) and Carrie Brownstein, the show provided fans with an up close and personal evening of bonding over this left-wing brand of bohemian skewering, which somehow never manages to cross over into pure malice. With the pair’s background in punk rock bands, there's always…]]>The talented actress Rebecca Vaughan studied the more troubled, realistic, autocratic, sectarian, personal, and paranoid aspects of Queen Elizabeth I.
Recently, Kim Jong-il -- the Dear Leader -- passed into blessed oblivion. Subsequently, two important matters struck me: that both totalitarianism and theocracy are still, alas, alive and well. (And George Orwell found no distinction between the two).This presumed modern world simply accepts these malignancies on the stage. China, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Russia, and arguably the U.S., continue the proud tradition of sectarian-autocratic rule. In the “Christian nation”: The Patriot Act, covert prisons, “enhanced interrogation”, censorship, nukes, drones, empire. What a total answer to it all? But Queen Elizabeth I and Mr. Kim, in fact, had a great deal…]]>The DocYard in Boston showcases "what is innovative, interesting, and inspiring in documentary." Space Coast is all of that.
"Here's me in pink stretch pants," notes Mary Bubb. She's a space reporter in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at the moment sharing some of her memorabilia with filmmakers Ross McElwee and Michel Negroponte. She smiles as she remembers a friend telling her, "Not everybody has their pink ass on the cover of Newsweek." Mary's recollections as a pool reporter provide something of a background for Space Coast, a film McElwee shot while he was still a graduate student at MIT in 1979. Like his subsequent, more famous documentaries, this one appears mostly observational, with subjects occasionally speaking directly to his camera,…]]>