Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Fri, 26 Sep 2008 02:29:27 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Steve Dollar :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Steve+Dollar istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/barbet-schroeder-cant-be-killed/86654/ Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Even though his retrospective at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's BAMcinématek alludes to his "mad obsessions," Barbet Schroeder seems entirely measured and sensible. The affable and erudite Iranian filmmaker acts more like a wily anthropologist, irresistibly drawn into the unruly thicket of human nature, eyes wide open, unsure of exactly what he will find. "I take reasonable risks," the 67-year-old Mr. Schroeder said. "I know it looks crazy." Film history marks him as a key player in the French... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/nights-in-rodanthe-contrived-hollywood-archetype/86645/ Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Nicolas Sparks is the Stephen King of the mush-brained romantic novel and, like the prolific schlockmeister of "Carrie," "Pet Sematary," and "The Stand," the author has found true love in Hollywood. Producers can't option his four-hankie epics of transformational passion fast enough. "Nights in Rodanthe" is the fourth big-screen adaptation of Mr. Sparks's work, following "The Notebook," "Message in a Bottle," and "A Walk To Remember." Like those movies, "Nights in Rodanthe" offers the kind of... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-director-creates-ballast-in-his-soul/86446/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Had circumstances broken another way, Lance Hammer might not have spent the past five years creating "Ballast," which opens next week at Film Forum. The film, set against the desolate yet stirring winter vistas of the Mississippi Delta, is a parable of loss and redemption that won top prizes for directing and cinematography at last year's Sundance Film Festival. It was born of an almost happenstance occasion of wanderlust and a foreseeable bout of frustration with the Hollywood machinery. "It... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/jon-langford-saves-wales-with-song/85874/ Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Onstage recently in the back room of Schuba's Tavern in his adoptive hometown of Chicago, the singer Jon Langford introduced a song he called the Welsh National Anthem. His band, one of many fronted by the multifaceted guitarist and songwriter, was called Skull Orchard, and played an often rollicking repertoire of songs about Wales. That's where Mr. Langford grew up, and it's where he returns — in spirit, at least — when he convenes the group. In Mr. Langford's imagination, Wales has been... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/jonathan-lethem-brooklyns-newest-literary-rock/85871/ Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Inside every celebrated Brooklyn novelist is a songwriter struggling to break free. At least, it seems that way. Paul Auster has written songs with the band One Ring Zero, which has backed up his daughter Sophie's performances of them. Rick Moody plays in the quirky art-folk outfit the Wingdale Community Singers. Now, Jonathan Lethem, author of "Motherless Brooklyn" and "The Fortress of Solitude," has a new musical side project. "You Are All My People," which comes out today on Bloodshot... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/mister-foe-the-boy-who-cried-mother/85229/ Fri, 5 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST With its endearingly misfit teenage antihero, peppy-wistful soundtrack featuring Franz Ferdinand and other indigenous small-label Scottish pop, cult-novel source material, and an absurdist fixation on social taboos (in this case, incestuous frolic and Peeping Tomism), "Mister Foe" could have been hatched by the Quirky Indie Hit Simulator. Traces of everything from "The Graduate" to "Spanking the Monkey," and from Bill Forsyth's shaggy-underdog romances to the darker fringes of "Mister Foe"... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/august-evening-a-repressed-family-in-the-land/85228/ Fri, 5 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Suspended between the lyrical and the gritty, "August Evening," which opens in the city on Friday, aspires to a kind of ambient eloquence, one in which everyday vistas and incidental moments acquire the clarity of insight. At least, that's how it appears to work for the characters, members of a Mexican family living north of the border and struggling with difficult transitions as they stall at their various personal crossroads. Jaime (Pedro Castaneda) is a handsomely gray 60-something laborer... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-pool-life-is-better-in-the-water/84969/ Tue, 2 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST There is nothing quite like the subtle pleasure of close but seemingly casual observation in a medium that often forgets how much natural grace, levity, and melancholy exists in the spontaneous actions of human beings. The gentle, gradual unfolding of circumstances and characters in "The Pool" is a quietly stirring reminder of how it can be done. The new fictional feature by Wisconsin native Chris Smith, who is best known for his independently shot documentaries about wannabe Midwestern horror... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/mccarren-park-pool-gets-watered-down/84569/ Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST New Yorkers love a perfect summer night under the stars, with a great live band, a steady flow of beer, and several thousand of their neighbors hanging out in a state of suspended urban bliss. That was the scene at McCarren Park Pool a couple of weeks ago when the Chicago rock group Wilco headlined the venue, a 6,000-person-capacity site in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, that has become a staple of the city's warm-weather concert season. Wilco's generous 2 1/2-hour set unfolded before a concrete and... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/ps1-warm-up-cools-down-with-jonathan-kane/84570/ Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST As a drummer, Jonathan Kane has worked for such demanding bandleaders as the minimalist godfather LaMonte Young, and Michael Gira of post-punk brutalists Swans. But before all that, Mr. Kane was a teenage blues addict with a fake ID who toured up and down the East Coast with his harmonica-wielding older brother Anthony, in the Kane Brothers Blues Band. It was the 1970s. The combo lasted only a few years, breaking up about the time Mr. Kane reached legal drinking age. One day, on one of his... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/movies-in-brief-wild-combination/86646/ Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Anyone who mythologizes the glory days of East Village bohemia will watch Matt Wolf's "Wild Combination," which opens Friday at IFC Center, with a frog in his throat. Sympathetic enough to count as a fan's hagiography, this modestly mounted documentary details the life, death, and artistic evolution of Arthur Russell, one of the most remarkable figures to emerge from the downtown New York music scene of the 1970s. An Iowa farm boy turned avant-everything cello player, Russell (1952-92) was a... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/movies-in-brief-the-amazing-truth-about-queen/86647/ Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Much as its subject — a 20-something Filipino pre-op transsexual named Earvin who rechristens him/herself Raquela — this curious film is never quite here or there. The Icelandic director Olaf de Fleur Johannesson discovered Raquela working the streets in an impoverished sector of Cebu City, Philippines, and decided he had the basis for a fascinating documentary. But he lacked the budget to shoot a proper feature. Instead, Mr. Johannesson created a hybrid. Though it is filmed with an intimate... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/eri-yamamoto-finds-the-keys-to-the-city/86651/ Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Manhattan's landscape can change in a flash, yet even near the busiest thoroughfares, a half-forgotten pocket exists where time stands still and only the escalating beer prices alert a patron to the approximate decade. Straddle a barstool inside the musty, West Village cocoon that is Arthur's Tavern and marvel. Balloons dangle from the ceiling, slowly deflating, their candy-shop hues faded with the years. The tobacco-brown wall paneling is dotted with ratty decorations that celebrate every... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/christmas-comes-early-for-the-flaming-lips/85395/ Tue, 9 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Joining the cult-filmmaking ranks of Frank Zappa and Neil Young, the visionary Oklahoma rockers the Flaming Lips — specifically lead singer Wayne Coyne — have finally unwrapped their long-rumored "Christmas on Mars: A Fantastical Film Freakout Featuring the Flaming Lips." Seven years in the making, the 85-minute science-fiction head trip makes its New York premiere Friday in a new, and appropriately unconventional, movie space. Cinema Purgatorio, the Manhattan-based outfit devoted to promoting... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/lincoln-center-offers-roberto-gavaldons-mexico/84384/ Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Mexican cinema would be hard to imagine without Roberto Gavaldón. Born in 1909 in the state of Chihuahua, Gavaldón worked his way up through the industry, beginning in the late 1920s as an editor, actor, and assistant. Between 1946 and 1980, he directed 50 films. Then, for the most part, he faded into obscurity. That's unfortunate, since Gavaldón possessed a true populist touch and a well-rounded sense of how to construct robust, emotionally charged stories in a variety of genres. His work was... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/nico-muhly-smashes-language-barriers/84381/ Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Nico Muhly may not get the kind of attention that is lavished upon some of his collaborators, such as Björk or Rufus Wainwright, but the New York-based composer may be the most buzzed-about musician in the city right now. The prolific Mr. Muhly, who turns 27 on Tuesday, has had his pieces performed uptown (at Carnegie Hall) and downtown (at the Kitchen), created music that was adapted from sources as unlikely as "The Elements of Style," and worked closely for a spell with the almost painfully... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/shannon-mcardle-speaks-for-herself/84106/ Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Some artists hide behind the scrim of creative license, contending that even the bloodiest confessions are merely the fabric of fictional conceit. Names are changed to protect the guilty. Catastrophic experiences are related by imaginary characters. And everything else is coincidental. Bob Dylan, in his 2004 memoir, implied that his 1974 classic, "Blood on the Tracks," widely assumed to be about his divorce, was in fact based on Chekhov. It took less than half a pint of Belgian wheat beer to... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/vicky-cristina-barcelona-woody-allens-purple-spain/83923/ Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Woody Allen has made so many bad movies for so long and with such clockwork diligence that even mildly positive appraisals of his latter-day output seem like wishful thinking. Despite the A-list casts, the new (and often breathtaking) European locations, the impeccable production design — unanticipated leaps beyond his insular upper-Manhattan comfort zone — and the frequent, flirtatious appearance of his current muse, 23-year-old Scarlett Johansson, it's been hard for ardent fans of those... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/lincoln-center-celebrates-lindsay-anderson/83927/ Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Though Malcolm McDowell achieved his greatest notoriety as Alex, the sociopathic lad-turned-lab-rat of Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange," he never struck it luckier as an actor than the day he met Lindsay Anderson. "I didn't know who he was," Mr. McDowell said. "But I soon found out. I thought to myself, 'My God, this man is a heavyweight.'" The actor, then in his early 20s, had walked in to audition for the lead in the British director's 1968 film "If ...," but he had no idea of... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/steve-coogan-sucker-punches-shakespeare/83920/ Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST In this, the summer of the $250 million "Mamma Mia!" starring none other than Meryl Streep, who could imagine that there would be another show-stopping musical and that its star would be even less familiar with song and dance? "Hamlet 2," which opens next Friday and stars the British comedian Steve Coogan — festooned with an unlikely wig and messianic robes, and shaking his caboose to a pop-operatic hymn to sacred desire called "Rock Me Sexy Jesus" — could be Andrew Lloyd Webber on drugs, but... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/brotherman-the-soul-soundtrack-that-almost-wasnt/83641/ Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Sometimes a cliché isn't a cliché — it's stirringly profound, less for what is imparted than for the eloquence with which it is delivered. Even when a listener knows what to expect in theory from a piece of music, the merits of an offhanded artistry can be surprising. Such is the case of "Brotherman." This original soundtrack recording was destined for the background of a film with the same name, a would-be blaxploitation epic that was never made. Now, more than three decades later, the music... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-melvins-wont-go-quietly/83640/ Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST As strong candidates for the ultimate in rock 'n' roll longevity, bands such as R.E.M., U2, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers have found ways to persevere into their third decades as working entities in part by being thoroughly embedded in pop culture's collective subconsciousness. Even an "underground" group such as Sonic Youth, which has never been a steady presence on the radio or television, can be seen as a precursor to a thriving generation of acts that exploded out of its model for moderate... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/what-we-do-is-secret-contagious-in-a-bad-way/83418/ Fri, 8 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Given the recent onslaught of punk-era biopics and documentary exhumations of such influential characters as Joe Strummer, Kurt Cobain, and Ian Curtis, it's inevitable that filmmakers would have to start poking further down in the pickle barrel of popular culture to find suitably mythic figures to celebrate. Even so, making a dramatic film about Darby Crash, the lead singer of 1970s Los Angeles punk band the Germs, is an odd choice. True, Crash had all the elements, including an assumed name of... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/beautiful-losers-on-the-lower-east-side/83420/ Fri, 8 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Stars of a far more compelling and truthful bohemian rhapsody than, say, those in "Rent," the artists, musicians, and filmmakers who populate Aaron Rose's new documentary "Beautiful Losers" marked a generational shift in what could be loosely termed visual culture. Some of them, such as Mike Mills, grew up to be novel independent filmmakers ("Thumbsucker") who would make a ton of unusual rock videos and now-iconographic Beastie Boys album covers. Others, such as Stephen "ESPO" Powers, committed... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/ludvine-sagnier-has-the-power/83424/ Fri, 8 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Bright sunlight streaks through the foliage decorating the patio lounge at the Bowery Hotel, the ornate and clubby boutique establishment that has taken over a still-scrubby block along the city's historic, and rapidly evaporating, desolation row. Inside, the popular French actress Ludivine Sagnier has her sunglasses on. They're those big, round, glamour shades, the kind that might once have graced the face of her idol, Elizabeth Taylor. "I have a friend who lived here for awhile, and he was... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/304-musicians-one-abiding-spirit/83162/ Tue, 5 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST If the experience of listening to music has become an increasingly insular occasion of individuals floating inside the private bubbles of their iPods, then there also exists a movement toward the other end of the spectrum: the concert as a mass public immersion in a tribal sonic ritual. And, no, not at Bonnaroo or Burning Man. Try the banks of the East River in Williamsburg or Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center, both of which will host unique events this weekend and next at which scores of... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/sixty-six-aint-that-a-kick-in-the-head/83001/ Fri, 1 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Something about England — and English filmmakers — lends itself naturally to the plucky, can-do comedy. Maybe it's the deep-seated cultural memory of living on rations and bravely scraping by in the years during and immediately after World War II. Maybe it's inspired by the hardships faced by striking laborers in the Thatcher era. Maybe it's because they still eat baked beans for breakfast. Given that the pound sterling is worth more than the euro right now, and that the once brilliantly grubby... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/learning-the-truth-at-seventeen-in-american-teen/82592/ Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST When previews of "American Teen" were screened on large overhead monitors in a giant sports bar during a party at this year's South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, the smartly edited montage of life at a Midwestern high school looked like a teaser for a new cable network series. One of the documentary's selling points is its professional slickness, achieved on a remarkably slight $5 million budget, which adroitly packages a year's worth of fly-on-the-laptop peeking into adolescent... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/mumblecore-meets-grindhouse-in-baghead/82601/ Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Though it's doubtful anyone can really consider something called "mumblecore" an actual genre, the assortment of low-budget filmmakers making talky, intimate films on handheld video cameras (and their fans) can take great pleasure in what festival-circuit stars the Duplass brothers have achieved in "Baghead." Beyond its engaging effectiveness as a flirtatious comedy that veers suddenly — horribly — into grindhouse dread, this mash-up also is a knowing satire about the creative hubris that... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/pitchfork-hosts-a-perma-rock-festival/82331/ Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST CHICAGO — As concepts go, the notion of pop acts going onstage to reprise their best-loved albums front to back isn't particularly new. To conclude its 1989 "Green" tour, R.E.M. threw in a surprise set at its Atlanta homecoming show, playing its debut album "Murmur" in original track order as a no-fuss bonus for its fans. These days, however, all quarters of the music industry are looking for ways to generate a marketable buzz as record sales plummet and recorded music becomes an ephemeral... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/movies-in-brief-take/82136/ Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST If you thought the vehicular homicide and obsessive revenge plotline of "Reservation Road" was a hoot, you'll absolutely adore "Take." This heap of heavy-handed misery serves as a platform for actress Minnie Driver to give one of those histrionic Lifetime channel meltdown performances, playing a working-class mom whose learning-disabled son gets snuffed in a robbery attempt gone badly wrong. Written and directed by Charles Oliver, "Take" has a purposefully "indie" veneer: desaturated color, a... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/englands-answer-to-tony-soprano-a-very-british/82140/ Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST An engaging, BBC-style documentary about Manchester, England's answer to Tony Soprano, "A Very British Gangster" is a must-view for casting agents. There haven't been this many slack-jawed mugs with crew cuts and bad teeth on-screen since "Trainspotting." Indeed, one nattily attired teenage aspirant to the working-class mob that the film anatomizes allows that he's already winning small roles in movie productions. His buddy, who looks as if he might be fronting an early-1980s ska outfit, smirks... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/silent-films-with-music/81847/ Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Moviegoing is, at times, a quest for that moment when reality suddenly makes unexpected sense. And it was during a screening of the 1920 German Expressionist silent film, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," that Matthew Nolan had one such moment. An amateur musician and budding film scholar, Mr. Nolan suddenly saw a creative path for himself. "Seeing the film made me realize that the possibility existed not only for musical but for sonic exploration," Mr. Nolan, who is based in Dublin, said. It... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/garden-party-keep-off-the-grass/81648/ Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST It's hard to say if the sexual roundelays and uncanny happenstances of "Garden Party" are intended as a decaffeinated-double-latte homage to Robert Altman ("Shorter Cuts"?) or as some kind of audition for the next racy Showtime series, since the plot features plenty of weed-smoking and kinky Californicatin'. Vinessa Shaw, the actress who played the world's nicest and best-looking streetwalker in Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut," has the sassy, sexy, lady boss role as Sally St. Clair. She's a... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/hellboy-ii-the-red-menace-rides-to-the-rescue/81649/ Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Thanks to its one-two punch of pulp-fiction archetypes and an encyclopedic grasp of demonology — and a considerable degree of cockeyed humor — 2004's "Hellboy" was the comic-book superhero movie for people who hate comic-book superhero movies. It didn't hurt to have the Mexican director Guillermo del Toro ("Pan's Labyrinth") and his fabulist imagination at the helm of the obsessively detailed costumes and design, which extended to elaborately conceived monsters, mythological contraptions, and... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/closing-time-for-waitss-american-tour/81381/ Tue, 8 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST ATLANTA — A man who dredges his art up through a reservoir of phlegm, subterranean myth, vaudevillian shtick, fractured blues, and the fantastic testimony of a carnival barker, Tom Waits has long served as a kind of all-purpose synonym: He's a one-man signifier of vintage American weirdness, whose gruff veneer gives way to soulful depths of tear-wringing melancholy. Mr. Waits is also, at 58, far enough beyond the demands of a routine musical career that he doesn't have to do much besides hang... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/afro-on-the-outside-punk-on-the-inside/81187/ Thu, 3 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Ever since he began screening his documentary "Afro-Punk" in 2003, former Brooklyn resident James Spooner has become a conduit for a generation that often feels stuck in a cultural divide. The 32-year-old filmmaker shot the music documentary out of a need both to connect with and expose a nation of folks like himself — fans of indie-rock and punk-inspired do-it-yourself culture who are often the only minorities in a minority culture. "Afro-Punk," which features concert footage of seminal punk... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/following-the-music-to-brooklyn/81085/ Wed, 2 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Only a decade ago, what fans used to call the downtown jazz scene was thriving in the geographical zone that supplied its name: Lower Manhattan. A new club called Tonic had just opened at the site of a former kosher winery. The tri-level Knitting Factory was still presenting adventurous music in TriBeCa, and its founder, Michael Dorf, was producing a sprawling summer jazz festival. Smaller spaces such as Context, Alt.Coffee, Fez, and the Internet Café also hosted frequent performances, with a... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-last-mistress-the-naked-force-of-nature/80791/ Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Sumptuously realized and devilishly adroit in its provocations, "The Last Mistress" finds Catherine Breillat, the French director notorious for what the characters in her films do while naked, taking on a 19th-century costume drama. Not to disappoint, though: The scintillating corsets do slip off, most often to expose Asia Argento, "the old mistress" of the movie's French title and Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly's 1851 novel, which was as scandalous for its time as Ms. Breillat's candid... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/shes-a-little-bit-country-and-so-is-she/80518/ Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Now more than ever, America needs the Watson Twins. The sisters from Louisville, Ky., were the secret, double-barreled weapon on singer Jenny Lewis's 2006 album "Rabbit Fur Coat," on which they helped the former child star break out as a countrified solo artist after years of indie-rock success with the Los Angeles quartet Rilo Kiley. And they did so often subliminally, like the fine details in the fancy embroidery on a Western-style shirt. The more deeply one listens to that record, the more... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/nothings-quiet-on-the-easternfront/80363/ Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Across the metropolitan galaxy of cinematic obsession, in a city that unspools a new film festival every week, there is nothing quite as giddily in love with the mad, marvelous insanity of movies as the New York Asian Film Festival. It's not an excuse for a night out. It's more like a state of being, a way to live, a tao. Mushrooming into a 43-film, 17-day marathon in its seventh year, what began as a modest celebration of genre enthusiasm has become as formidable as Choi Min-sik's... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/mike-myers-expends-his-karma/80358/ Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Loosely assembled as a spoof of celebrity self-indulgence on the road to enlightenment, "The Love Guru" is no more than an excuse for its silly-pants star and creator, Mike Myers, to crack pee-pee jokes for nearly an hour and a half. Indeed, Mr. Myers is a Van de Graaff generator of pee-pee jokes. As Guru Pitka, the spiritual guide of the movie's title, he dispenses erotic wisdom to the Hollywood elite through endless innuendos and puns that derive their humor from an appreciation of bodily... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-liberated-voice-an-enslaved-soul/80108/ Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST By now, less pop-obsessive viewers probably have had their fill of films about the rise and fall of the music scene in Manchester, England, in the late 1970s and early 1980s — the post-punk era. First there was Michael Winterbottom's comedic "24 Hour Party People," which anatomized the birth of rave culture. Then, last year, Anton Corbijn delivered his poetic "Control," a subdued biopic about Ian Curtis, front man for iconic dance-mopers Joy Division. There has also been "Factory," an excellent... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/david-berman-finds-comfort-in-his-own-head/80110/ Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST There are no simple conversations with David Berman. The singer-songwriter, whom indie-rock historians always will remember as the guy who started the 1990s hipster favorite Pavement as a side project, has an acutely analytical mind that can find multiple layers of meaning in everything. Chatting over bistro fare in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn during a recent visit to New York, the 41-year-old performer, who records under the moniker Silver Jews, discussed, among other things... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/no-cannes-do-at-the-directors-fortnight/79917/ Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Born under polemical punches, the Directors' Fortnight was launched at the Cannes Film Festival in 1969, a year after the festival was forced to shut down amid the sweeping public protests of May 1968 — not to mention the fury of New Wave figures such as Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, who saw the hoopla of Cannes as irrelevant to the aesthetic guts of filmmaking. Thus, the Fortnight, which still runs concurrently with Cannes 40 years later, was conceived in part as a noncompetitive... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/chris-don-a-love-that-defied-its-time/79919/ Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Those of us who find the concept of "soul mates" corny and wistfully delusional may be defenseless against the intimate generosity on display in "Chris & Don: A Love Story." This quiet, observant documentary, which opens Friday at Quad Cinema, charts the unique, lifelong relationship between the English expatriate writer Christopher Isherwood and his lifetime companion, the artist Don Bachardy, whom Isherwood first met on a beach in Santa Monica in 1952, when Mr. Bachardy was only 18... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/kidd-stays-in-the-picture/79617/ Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Even people who aren't sure they've heard of Kidd Jordan have probably heard him. Now 73, the tenor saxophonist has been playing since the early 1950s. And since Mr. Jordan's spirited adolescence coincided with the dawn of rock 'n' roll and the explosion of new sounds coming out of New Orleans's fertile rhythm-and-blues scene, the Crescent City native was at the right place at the right time. Mr. Jordan was barely out of his teens when he began gigging with the Hawkettes, a band featuring... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/dario-argento-gives-us-one-ugly-mother/79446/ Fri, 6 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Telepathic lesbian vamps. A vicious screaming monkey. Shock cuts to bugged-out eyeballs. Udo Kier as an exorcist with a bad case of the shakes. These are a few of my favorite things in "The Mother of Tears," a brain-blasting flashback to the anarchic delirium of 1970s Italian horror, and a bit of an autumnal encore by its master, 67-year-old director Dario Argento. Almost nothing in this gore-drenched sprawl makes any sense, from the ludicrously flat dialogue to the dumb things people do when... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/new-film-raises-questions-about-rfks-assassination/79234/ Wed, 4 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Nothing if not timely in its brief theatrical release this week at the Pioneer Theater, Irish filmmaker Shane O'Sullivan's "RFK Must Die" revives visions of a brighter, bolder, better America 40 years gone — and yet much on the electorate's mind. The film opens tomorrow, on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, who was gunned down in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles with a whole nation watching. The senator from New York had just delivered a rousing... STEVE DOLLAR http://www.nysun.com/arts/in-documentary-harlan-ellisons-dreams-get-sweeter/79130/ Tue, 3 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST If you happened to be a teenager in the late 1960s or early '70s, Harlan Ellison was a literary giant. The prolific, pugilistic writer transformed geeky science fiction into mind-blowing prose, becoming a point man for a new generation of fabulists bursting free of the genre's pulpy conventions to go where no one in the field had gone before. Mr. Ellison, now 74, wasn't the only important author rewiring sci-fi to more deeply explore social, psychological, metaphysical, and ethical themes, nor...