Pimping pop
A word from our sponsors: Ads pillage your music.
Cape Verdean blues
Cesaria Evora sings mornas of longing from the African islands.
Out living the myth
Ani DiFranco, the person, speaks with Stewart Francke about Ani the musician, the goddess and the entrepreneur.
The Myth of Fingerprints
Thanksgiving, the anathema of dysfunctional families, is the focus of two very different film debuts: The Myth of Fingerprints, from writer-director Bart Freundlich, and The House of Yes, directed by Mark Waters (no relation to John), who adapted it from Wendy MacLeod’s play. Fingerprints is hushed and muted, its tone mirroring the less-than-communicative WASPs at…
The House Of Yes
Thanksgiving, the anathema of dysfunctional families, is the focus of two very different film debuts: The Myth of Fingerprints, from writer-director Bart Freundlich, and The House of Yes, directed by Mark Waters (no relation to John), who adapted it from Wendy MacLeod’s play. Fingerprints is hushed and muted, its tone mirroring the less-than-communicative WASPs at…
Going All the Way
Twist the James Brown lyric and you’ll get the gist of what the film Going All the Way delivers — talking pretty, saying nothing. On paper, the film sounds more than promising: Young first-time director noted for his stylish and definitive MTV videos takes the helm with a cast boasting the sublime Jeremy Davies, with…
Seven Years in Tibet
It’ll be interesting to see how Seven Years in Tibet, a message of peace dressed in adventure film clothing, does at the box office. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud’s epic treatment of a memoir by ex-Nazi Heinrich Harrer, the famous Austrian mountaineer, is not in a class by itself. Instead, it joins such sweeping investigations of the…
Kiss the Girls
Only in America could so much money and power be put to the systematic production of ignorance. Willful ignorance at that. How else can one explain the appearance of yet another serial killer film long after the thrill has gone. Director Gary Fleder, who deserved a kick in the head for his dreadful debut, Things…
Soul Food
In Soul Food, writer-director George Tillman Jr. shows a middle-class black family in Chicago as a matriarchy held together by communal meals. Mother Joe (Irma P. Hall) cooks an elaborate soul food dinner for her extended family every Sunday, providing nourishment for both their bodies and spirits. (In a strange omission, Tillman doesn’t mention church…
