AltWeeklies Wire
Blurring the Lines Between Real and Virtual, Art and Worknew
Are oppressive labor laws and expensive real estate getting in the way of your dream of opening your own sweatshop? That's the curious question asked by an introductory video to "Invisible Threads," a 2008 collaborative project by artists Jeff Crouse and Stephanie Rothenberg.
Baltimore City Paper |
Bret McCabe |
04-20-2010 |
Art
Jameel Saleem's Debut Feature Follows a Guy's Romantic Misadventuresnew
What makes Cream Soda work is how vulnerable his male characters are willing to be. When talking about his love life, he admits that some things were funny then, and some were only funny in hindsight.
Baltimore City Paper |
Bret McCabe |
03-23-2010 |
Reviews
Tags: Cream Soda, Jameel Saleem
Novelist Michael Kimball Pieces Together a New Kind of Narrative in '60 Writers/60 Places'new
On one hand, 60 Writers is little more than a series of vignettes featuring authors reading an excerpt of their works in some setting, shot with a static single-camera set up. On the other hand, it is a single-viewing experience composed of 60 completely different elements.
Baltimore City Paper |
Bret McCabe |
02-09-2010 |
Reviews
Matthew Porterfield Talks About His Latest Projectnew
The second feature by filmmaker Matthew Porterfield is almost finished, though not the one you may have heard about. Putty Hill is making its world premiere at the Berlinale's International Forum for New Cinema in early February.
Baltimore City Paper |
Bret McCabe |
02-02-2010 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Matthew Porterfield, Putty Hill
Is This It? A Look Back at the Last Decadenew
The Y2K scare, the dot-com bust. Sept. 11, weapons of mass destruction, mission accomplished. Hurricane Katrina, evacuation, "looting," George Bush doesn't care about black people. A president admitted to knowingly giving misleading testimony.
Baltimore City Paper |
Bret McCabe |
12-29-2009 |
Commentary
Writer Collaborates With Iraqi Refugee to Tell a Different Story From Iraqnew
What Justin Sirois wanted to do was offer a different perspective of the war that wasn't being as accessibly covered in conventional war journalism. He wanted to argue that there might be more going on than journalism can offer. He wanted to tell a different story.
Baltimore City Paper |
Bret McCabe |
12-21-2009 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
'Cold Souls' is a Delightfully Coy, if Featherweight, Comedynew
Writer/director Sophie Barthes' debut feature is a philosophical meditation hiding behind a science-fiction premise and all wrapped up in a intelligently nutty comedy of manners.
Baltimore City Paper |
Bret McCabe |
09-08-2009 |
Reviews
Thomas Pynchon's 'Inherent Vice' is an Endlessly Entertaining Variation on the Detective Yarnnew
Unlike any previous Pynchon work, Vice fully embraces genre. And in doing so it's difficult to tell if the genre is merely pliable enough to accommodate all of Pynchon's literary whims or if the now 72-year-old author has basically been riffing on this form his entire career.
Baltimore City Paper |
Bret McCabe |
08-25-2009 |
Fiction
Guys Wide Shut: 'Humpday' Calls Bromance's Bluffnew
Lynn Shelton's winning indie comedy is about two thirtysomething men contemplating taking their friendship to the alternative lifestyle edge to win an amateur porn competition, and what is revealed as they go under the microscope ... err, video camera.
Baltimore City Paper |
Bret McCabe |
08-04-2009 |
Reviews
Robert Kenner Talks Cloned Meats, Big Agribusiness and 'Food, Inc.'new
Kenner is no stranger to controversial subjects. He won an Emmy for his 2005 "Two Days in October," which examined the domestic response to the Vietnam War during the turbulent fall of 1967. Kenner runs into a even more volatile subject with his new documentary, Food, Inc., an investigate peek into America's big agribusinesses and meat and poultry industries.
Baltimore City Paper |
Bret McCabe |
07-07-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
The New 'Pelham': Just Another Mindless Tony Scott Productnew
Like almost every single one of Scott's movies since 1998's Enemy of the State, though, Pelham's inevitable critical drubbing probably won't stop it from making pretty good money.
Baltimore City Paper |
Bret McCabe |
06-16-2009 |
Reviews
Baltimore Bookstore Works to Create a Free Schoolnew
The latest endeavor for Red Emma's, a Baltimore bookstore and activist hive, is building a free school to introduce an alternative to the usual institutional school tuition system.
Baltimore City Paper |
Bret McCabe |
06-02-2009 |
Education
Filmmaker Looks to Connect with Witnesses to RFK's Funeral Trainnew
In June 1968, a train bearing the body of Robert F. Kennedy traveled from New York to Washington. Now Jon Blair is making a documentary about the myriad people who spontaneously lined the tracks along its route.
Baltimore City Paper |
Bret McCabe |
05-19-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Leave the Ego Behind and the Music Will Follow With the Yahowa 13new
For the past 30 years the music of the Yahowa 13 has entranced that segment of music heads who dig spaced-out excursions into psychedelic tapestries and krautrock tumults of infinite jams.
Baltimore City Paper |
Bret McCabe |
03-31-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
A New Study Storms the Barriers Between Punk and Metalnew
Whether you agree with the author or not, This Ain't the Summer of Love considerably raises the bar for engaged exploration of music subcultures.
Baltimore City Paper |
Bret McCabe |
03-31-2009 |
Nonfiction
