AltWeeklies Wire
Ambitious Singer/Songwriter Is a Critic's Dreamnew
Michigan-bred Sufjan Stevens is about as likely to appear on the side of populism as Britney Spears or Linkin Park are to land on a year-end list. But the hushed-voiced creator of folk-based arrangements is optimistic that a change may be coming.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Nikhil Swaminathan |
07-08-2004 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Sufjan Stevens
A Look inside Sao Paulo's Most Notorious Penitentiarynew
With the loose, anecdotal structure of nonfiction work, the film explores the daily lives of the prisoners, who occasionally recount their stories in flashbacks. The tales inevitably build to violent confrontations, but frequently find room for gallows humor.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
07-08-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Carandiru, Hector Babenco
Stick a sword in it, King Arthur's donenew
King Arthur never commands our interest as an action film or a history lesson, and whenever director Antoine Fuqua tries to push the two together, it feels like he's hammering a square peg in the Round Table.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
07-08-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Antoine Fuqua, King Arthur
Delpy and Hawke Reconnect in Before Sunset new
Sequels are rarely improvements on the original, but Before Sunset is an exception to that rule. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are utterly charming as two quirky, overly analytical people whose cynicism blankets a soft core of romanticism.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Felicia Feaster |
07-08-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Richard Linklater, Before Sunset
Family Values Reaffirmed in Kidnapping Thriller The Clearingnew
The Clearing is unconventional in some ways, for the age of its protagonists and for the way it bucks the usual thriller formula. Gone is the breakneck pacing and the kind of race-against-the-clock, heart-pounding hysteria that seems to dominate the genre.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Felicia Feaster |
07-08-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Pieter Jan Brugge, The Clearing
Set Designer Finds Raw Emotions in Raw Materialsnew
Rochelle Barker's creative process resembles a crime scene investigator's -- and not just because she likes to work between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. While a forensic detective will examine the scene of a crime and reconstruct the deeds that took place, Barker takes the events of a play's script, and creates the scene in which they happen.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
07-08-2004 |
Theater
Tags: theater
Judge Is Accused of Threading Ethics Loopholenew
In a sign of just how aggressive the campaigning has become for Georgia's courts, a candidate for Fulton County Superior Court has accused one of his opponents -- Atlanta's former chief Municipal Court judge, no less -- of skirting the city's ethics laws in his bid for the bench.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Ben Diamond |
07-08-2004 |
Politics
Athens, Ga., Electro-Pop Duo Offer Another Album amid Dramanew
Having shortened to "I Am the World" briefly while on tour in late 2001-early 2002, I Am The World Trade Center returned to its original moniker by the time Tight Connection hit stores in July 2002. Two years later, Geller and Dykes have a new album ready for the masses, but once again, circumstance has dealt them a difficult blow.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Nikhil Swaminathan |
07-01-2004 |
Profiles & Interviews
The geriatric set experiences a sexual awakening in The Mothernew
Director Roger Michell (Notting Hill) offers a convincing picture of how growing old means being forced to life's sidelines. The crux of the film, in fact, is May's determination to register as something more than a free babysitter and emotional punching bag for her harried daughter, Paula (Cathryn Bradshaw), and merit some attention.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Felicia Feaster |
07-01-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Roger Michell, The Mother
High-School Outcasts Rule in Dynamitenew
Napoleon Dynamite scribbles a deadpan portrait of an adolescent on the margins. Hess reveals his lack of fresh ideas by spending too much time on pointlessly nasty caricatures. As long as Napoleon Dynamite restricts itself to the misadventures of the title role, the film finds laughs that are plentiful, if not exactly deep.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
07-01-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Jared Hess, Napoleon Dynamite
Operatic Spider-Man 2 improves on predecessornew
Since Batman, superhero films have frequently gone for gothic self-importance, but Spider-Man 2 brings camp back into the formula. The operatic, at times overblown adventure enthralls and amuses the audience without overtly winking at it.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
07-01-2004 |
Reviews
Tags: Sam Raimi, Spider-Man 2
A Company Goes Bust -- and Leaves the EPA with One Big Messnew
A potential toxic soup sits in a shipping depot in southeast Atlanta. A shuttered company that specialized in disposing hazardous waste has abandoned about 13,000 containers there. Fifty-five-gallon drums containing flammable oils and lubricants are stacked on and amid chemicals that, if mixed with the flammables, could ignite.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Michael Wall |
07-01-2004 |
Environment
Tags: environment
Can Johnny Isakson Out-Conservative the Conservatives?new
Widely regarded as the most reasonable, amiable and downright likable Republican lawmaker in Georgia during the long years in which Democrats ruled the political roost, Isakson has found that those qualities aren't exactly selling points among the post-Newt, ditto-headed, conservative hard-liners who control his party these days.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Scott Henry |
06-24-2004 |
Politics
Documentary Takes Respectful, Sober Look at Poet's Lifenew
The documentary gives you the itch to get reacquainted with Bukowski's work, preferably while sitting astride a barstool.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
06-24-2004 |
Reviews
Waiting for Rocco at NBC's 'The Restaurant'new
NBC hyped the second season as a battle for control of Rocco's 22nd Street, but when the show ended June 5, both men still held equal stakes in the business. Unable to accept such an unsatisfying ending, we went to investigate the made-for-TV eatery for ourselves.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Heather Kuldell |
06-24-2004 |
TV
Tags: TV
