Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
Three years ago, Wes Anderson was an unknown writer-director winning praise for his charming, offbeat feature film “Bottle Rocket.” These days, he’s traveling on a bright yellow tour bus promoting his latest picture, “Rushmore,” which opens Friday. (Anderson prefers not to fly.) And check this out. The soft-spoken Anderson has groupies.
At 19, Queen Latifah was the first female solo rapper to have a major label record deal. Four years later, she had crossed over into acting with roles in Spike Lee’s “Jungle Fever” and her own Fox sitcom, “Living Single.”
Viggo Mortensen is relating a tale that involves Vince Vaughn, a butcher knife and the threat of bodily harm. But, oddly enough, the actor isn’t describing the shooting of his latest film, “Psycho.” He’s remembering a country music concert. “Vince and I went to see Buck Owens one night after we had finished that day’s shoot [for “Psycho”],” Mortensen said during a call from his Los Angeles home. “I had gotten one of the `Psycho’ knives to give to Buck as a present ’cause it was his birthday. They wanted us to give it to him on stage that night. “So we bumbled our way through our speech to Buck. He opened the box and saw the knife, and the fiddler started making the “eek eek eek” [noise from the shower scene]. Buck got all excited and started posing as a damsel in distress. Then he began chasing Dwight Yoakam all around the stage with the knife. I don’t think he realized it was real.”
For a band that made its debut with an album full of bluntly sexual songs, Placebo has simmered down … a little. At their show Tuesday night at Metro, the English trio debuted cuts from their current record “Without You I’m Nothing.” Musically, the album is pure post-punk genius, heavy on dissonant guitar chords and conjuring up the romantic desperation the title implies.
The three-dimensional Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaurs in “T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous” look like they could throttle the dickens out of the ones depicted in “Jurassic Park.” The visuals in “T-Rex” are so amazing that a story line isn’t even necessary. But the screenwriters came up with a plot that – while not totally original – works as an effective tool to educate viewers as it entertains.
Shot in Chicago in 18 days, “Do You Wanna Dance?” is a delightful little sleeper that captures the richness of the city as it tells the story of a dancer forced to serve community service in tightly knit Greek Town. Never mind the goofy title, which implies a giddy, mindless romp.
“No land on Earth possesses more wonder than Egypt,” narrator Omar Sharif notes in “Mysteries of Egypt,” the latest Omnimax film to play at the Museum of Science and Industry. And the film certainly plays up some of those wonders: the ancient Pyramids, King Tutankhamen’s sacred tomb and the glorious, winding stretch of the Nile. But what the movie lacks is the excitement and splendor of previous Omnimax films such as the superb “Everest.”
Imagine that the Russians took over America in 1957, nirvana is a place called Lost Vegas and the leader of the Western world is Elvis Presley. When he dies in 1997, every guitar-playing, sword-swinging maverick worth his weight in blue suede shoes heads to Vegas to become the next King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.
You have seen “Knock Off” before. And you didn’t like it then, either. Sure, it may have had a different title and maybe a Dolph Lundgren or a Brandon Lee in the starring role instead of Jean-Claude Van Damme. But the premise has always been the same: The charming, vaguely shady hero is caught in a web of deceit where no one is what they claim to be. (In Van Damme’s case, that would be an actor.)
This spare duo delivers a cohesive, 15-track follow-up to 1996’s As Good as Dead. Equal parts sardonic brat (”All the Kids Are Right”), realist (”She Hates My Job”), and dreamer (”Lucky Time”), vocalist Scott Lucas also cranks out the best crunchy guitar licks since Cheap Trick’s heyday. Grade: A-
Movie soundtracks have become music to record companies’ ears. Once studios discovered that popular music from such artists as Simon and Garfunkel and the BeeGees could help sell a film, the lush orchestral scores that were the high-water mark of the ’50s all but disappeared. These days, soundtracks have become far more than promotional tools for hyping a movie. They are thriving independently of the films that spawn them to become a force on the album charts – with some even outliving their big screen brethren.
There was one scene in “Dead Man on Campus” that elicited a really good laugh. But I’m not sure whether it truly was funny, or if I was just so bored that it seemed funny at the time. The premise of the “comedy”: A couple of irresponsible college freshmen slack off all semester and freak out when they realize they are about to flunk out of school. So instead of hitting the books and getting tutors, they do what all 18-year-olds do in that situation: They try to find a suicidal third roommate.
Vincent Gallo wrote, directed and starred in “Buffalo ’66.” But ask him which of his talents he’s proudest of and Gallo will answer, “Well, I’ve acted in 18 movies, but I would never call myself an actor. I’m not Steve McQueen. More than anything else, I’m probably best as a stylist.” This is the enfant terrible described by some as a “loose cannon”? “I am a bit vindictive and unforgiving to people who behave inappropriately against me,” Gallo said softly in an interview from his Los Angeles home. “But I’m not really mean to anybody.”
What’s wrong with this picture: Roger Daltrey not playing to a full house Tuesday night at the 4,200-seat Rosemont Theatre. I’m not sure how all the no-shows knew they’d be better off staying home that evening, but they had the good fortune of missing a stinker of an event called the British Rock Symphony.
Here are a few factoids I picked up at the Backstreet Boys concert Saturday night at the New World Music Theatre in Tinley Park: Nick Carter, the youngest (18), tallest (6-foot-1) and blondest of the five Boys, is the most popular. The Backstreet Boys say “Wassup?!” a lot. They are the male equivalent of the Spice Girls: young, good-looking and blandly appealing as singers.
Richard Ashcroft had his work cut out for him when the Verve kicked off their American tour in Chicago. Instead of performing at the 13,400-capacity Rosemont Horizon as originally planned, poor ticket sales forced the Englishmen to move the show to the Aragon Ballroom, a venue one-third the Horizon’s size. Then, too, the quintet performed minus lead guitarist Nick McCabe, who had announced earlier this month that he would not go on the road with his bandmates.
Outside Wrigley Field, surrounded by thousands of other Cubs fans, David Boreanaz hit the ground and bowed. “I’m not worthy,” he said, half-jokingly. “I’m totally in awe. I’m mesmerized right now.” The same could be said for the gaggle of teenagers nudging each other, asking, “Hey, isn’t that Angel?”
Spanning two centuries, the latest IMAX three-dimensional film, “Mark Twain’s America,” celebrates the puckish author through his own words, 3-D stills and re-enactments of historic events.
`Autumn Sun” is a rarity – a bittersweet love story where the main characters happen to be – at least according to society – well past their prime. All too often, older characters are treated as asexual caricatures. But here director Eduardo Mignogna treats them with respect and humor.
After 12 hours of climbing, I had to force myself to concentrate,” says Jamling Norgay, a climbing leader in the latest Omnimax documentary “Everest.” “As the pain gets worse, I feel worse than I’ve ever felt . . . without passing over to the other side. But up here in the clouds, I touched my father’s soul.”