The Village Voice back issues from July 2008:
A Stone's Throw From Paris
Jul 02, 2008; ... Trekking to France to shop for history, 40 years after Mai '68 WHO'D BE CRAZY ENOUGH TO PLAN A WEEKEND IN FRANCE WHEN AIRFARES ARE THROUGH THE ROOF AND A CROQUE-MONSIEUR IN A SLEAZY DUMP COSTS $50? OK, ME. BUT I HAVE A GOOD REASON: WHEN I FIND OUT THAT IN HONOR OF MAI '68-THOSE HISTORIC ...
Bash'd!
Jul 02, 2008; ... Sightlines Bash'd! By Chris Craddock and Nathan Cuckow Zipper Factory Theater 336 West 37th Street 212-352-3101 Bash'd! had me at "cocksuckaz." When Chris Craddockand Nathan Cuckow-two white Canadians who look more like character actors than ...
The Flat Earth
Jul 02, 2008; ... The Flat Earth Written and performed by Annie Lanzillotto HOT!, at Dixon Place 258 Bowery 212-219-0736 HOT!, the annual summer-long queer performance festival, is in its 17th steamy season at Dixon Place, and though its new Chrystie Street digs will be ...
Brunch at the Luthers (and Other Quacks)
Jul 02, 2008; ... Brunch at the Luthers (and Other Quacks) Written and directed by Misha Shulman Theater for the New City 155 First Avenue 212-254-1109 Misha Shulman sure has a thing for ducks. In the collection of sketches Brunch at the Luthers (and Other Quacks), the ...
THE (HUNGRY) ODD COUPLE
Jul 02, 2008; ... TRAINING FOR JULY 4 WITH EATER X AND CRAZY LEGS The Nathan's hot-dog-eating contest held on the Fourth of July in Coney Island is the most anticipated of an competitive-eating events. "It's the Masters of competitive eating-the mustard-yellow belt is like the green jacket," says Rich ...
Opposite Poles
Jul 02, 2008; ... Opposite Poles TR Warszawa's Macbeth 2008: Shakespeare made vivid-and almost invisible Macbeth: 2008 Adapted from Shakespeare by GrzegorzJarzyna St.Ann's Warehouse 38 Water Street, Brooklyn (Closed) In a rueful quip that still rings ...
Fissure Spooner
Jul 02, 2008; ... Afro-Punk Festival Films screen July 4 through 9, BAM Fissure Spooner More hits than misses at Afro-Punk Fest You can't fault BAM for trotting out James Spooner's 2003 debut yet again for its fourth annual DIY celebration of black rebellion; the 10-day Afro-Punk ...
Thar She Blows
Jul 02, 2008; ... The Rusty Knot has no clothes In front of me sits a $17 shepherd's pie that is hopelessly oversalted and a glass of crushed ice that tastes vaguely of rum and nothing else. Around the packed room, hipsters of every stripe-along with some obvious out-of-towners-are playing pool and ...
The Lens Centennial
Jul 02, 2008; ... The Lens Centennial A striking, revealing lineup of giants from photography's first hundred years 'Framing a Century: Master Photographers, 1840-1940' The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1000 Fifth Avenue Through September 1 Photography astounds us by ...
Art, Not News
Jul 02, 2008; ... Best in Show Recommendations by R. C. Baker W. Eugene Smith Silverstein Photography 534 West 24th Street Through August 1 Art, Not News You've seen many of these black-and-white photos reproduced countless times-the pietà of a Japanese ...
Need a Makanek?
Jul 02, 2008; ... Need a Makanek? Flouting traffic laws, we seek out a Lebanese barbecue in Astoria Cedars Meat House 41-08 30th Avenue, Astoria, Queens, 718-606-1244 A guy named Gerard sends me tips from an address in Richmond Hill, Queens, from time to time. The other day, I ...
American Idol
Jul 02, 2008; ... William Holden: A Different Kind of Hero July 2 through 15 Walter Reads Theater American Idol Bridging the gap between hero and antihero, William Holden was no typical golden boy It's the end of the Civil War, and a ragged Confederate detail faces teeming ...
We Are Together
Jul 02, 2008; ... We Are Together Directed by Paul Taylor Palm Pictures Opens July 4, Cinema Village What's not to weep over in the latest documentary about the virulent spread of AIDS through the African continent? Rim-school graduate Paul Taylor took a break volunteering at a ...
The Cine Phile
Jul 02, 2008; ... Mark the 40th anniversary of '68 once more with Kôji Wakamatsu's grueling, engrossing three-hour United Red Army. The movie's hectic first hour uses newsreel footage, scored by Jim O'Rourke's ongoing psych-rock jam, to track the course of Japanese-student radicalism from the 1960 ...
Beyond Gonzo
Jul 02, 2008; ... Beyond Gonzo Call hell-raiser Hunter S. Thompson's style what you will-a new doc succeeds when saluting his substance Gonzo: Th. Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson Directed by Alex Gibney Magnolia Pictures Opens July 4 'In a nation of ...
Judging the Torture Presidency
Jul 02, 2008; ... Building a case for a prosecution that likely won't happen IN STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE, A DEFINITIVE ACCOUNT OF WHAT HAPPENED AT ABU GHRAIB PUBLISHED BY PENGUIN PRESS, AUTHOR PHILIP GOUREVITCH WRITES OF THE AMERICAN INTERROGATORS WHO SO DEGRADED THE HUMANITY OF ...
Empire of Dirt
Jul 02, 2008; ... Reviews Miles BenjaminAnthony Robinson Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson Say Hey Empire of Dirt An appealingly bummedout troubadour slouches toward redemption Life definitely handed Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson loads of lemons (and first names), ...
Tell No One
Jul 02, 2008; ... Tracking Shots Tell No One Directed by Guillaume Canet Music Box Films Opens July 2, Sunshine Cinema and City Cinemas 1,2,3 Francois Cluzet, who looks like Daniel Auteuil and runs like Dustin Huffman, simmers beautifully as a Paris pediatrician who, eight ...
Very Young Girls
Jul 02, 2008; ... Very Young Girls Directed by David Schisgall Opens July 4, IFC Center Rachel Lloyd's accent is a study in transition: Neither the chewy drawl of her native Portsmouth nor the clipped patois of her adopted Brooklyn, it's an odd fish that swims against both currents, vowels ...
Superzero
Jul 02, 2008; ... Hancock Directed by Peter Berg Sony Pictures Opens July 2 Superzero Hancock squanders potential greatness with lame humor and a half-baked hero The Sixth Sense, starring Bruce Willis as a dead man, was writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's ...
Diminished Capacity
Jul 02, 2008; ... Diminished Capacity Directed by Terry Kinney IFC Films Opens July 4, Sunshine Cinema This first feature by character actor/theater director Terry Kinney addresses, once again, America's apparent surfeit of sweet-souted losers and eccentrics, replete with rueful ...
The Wackness
Jul 02, 2008; ... Tracking Shots The Wackness Directed by Jonathan Levine Sony Pictures Classics Opens July 3 The Wackness is a mix tape of clichés, with writer-director Jonathan Levine taking cuts from a dozen or more "life-affirming" coming-of-age melodramas and setting ...
Holding Trevor
Jul 02, 2008; ... Holding Trevor Directed by Rosser Goodman Regent Releasing Opens July 4, Quad Cinema Such an anomie-filled nothing of a movie that it wouldn't even be a pleasure to savage it. The Trevor of the title (Brent Gorski, who also wrote the screenplay) is trying to break ...
The Homiest Band in Williamsburg
Jul 02, 2008; ... Band on the Street Grand Ole Opry ambience and sticky pork buns, together at last M Shanghai String Band are an Americana act in a hipster neighborhood, named after a Chinese restaurant in Thaioverrun Williamsburg. When non-leader Austin Hughes sings the titular line of the ...
The Watson Twins
Jul 02, 2008; ... The Watson Twins Fire Songs Vanguard Restrained country lounge-core (?) and a triumphant Cure cover As fetching backups for Jenny Lewis's faux-Loretta Lynn country-folk memoir/solo doo-dah-day Rabbit Fur Coat, the Watson Twiiis pretty much sabotaged their own ...
Obscured by Weezy
Jul 02, 2008; ... Obscured by Weezy Praising outstanding 2008 hip-hop records sadly subsumed by Lil Wayne mania OK, let's get this straight: Fergie says "lady lumps" five times in a hit single and she's America's easiest water-cooler joke; LiI Wayne says it seven times and he's the best rapper ...
Render Unto Chávez
Jul 02, 2008; ... But don't get César wrong, gabachos Dear Mexican: Whenever I have an immigration debate with my Chicane hermanos who support open borders, they don't seem to understand that they can never demand wage increases as long as a steady flow of their friends keeps coming. Will somebody please ...
40 Ounces, Nine Lives
Jul 02, 2008; ... 40 Ounces, Nine Lives New Orleans hooligans and lost Chicago r&b star team up, barely survive "How does the record sound?" RyanScully asks over the phone. But the hoarse musician can barely hear my response above the din at BJ's, the downtown New Orleans bar where he's ...
A Man of All People, Bleating Like a Seal
Jul 02, 2008; ... The Sound of the City GilbertoGil Nokia Theater June 24 A Man of All People, Bleating Like a Seal Gilberto Gil's reception is still as clear as ever Gilberto Gil is many things to many people, which explains why his Nokia Theater audience scanned ...
Bobby Digital
Jul 02, 2008; ... Bobby Digital Digi-Snacks Koch More hippie bullshit immaculately produced, terribly rapped The pinnacle of one of the all-timegreat Wu-Tang publicity tours, for last year's 8 Diagrams, was a 12-minute YouTube video in which a despondent, protest-chic Raekwon ...
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Jul 02, 2008; ... ARIES [March 21-April 19] Here's the first rule of panning tor gold: Go to a slow-moving stream where flecks of the precious metal have been found in the past The second rule: Gold, carried along by the current is heavier than water and rarely appears right on the surface. Look deeper. A third ...
How the Other Half Lives
Jul 09, 2008; ... Once the heart of tenement New York, Orchard Street now hawks million-dollar condos to a very different kind of settler. 'MY NAME IS JESS, AND I'M GOING TO BE YOUR EDUCATOR TODAY!' SAYS JESS, CHEERFUL AS A DAY-CAMP COUNSELOR DESPITE THE BLISTERING HEAT ON THE SIDEWALK OUTSIDE THE ...
Fundamental Belgrade
Jul 09, 2008; ... Counter Culture Kafana 116 Avenue C, 212-353-8000 Fundamental Belgrade Don't balk at Balkan as it sets down on Avenue C's restaurant row The mid-priced segment of the restaurant industry has been conquered by cooking-school graduates who create, plate, and ...
Cops Rip Up Rappers
Jul 09, 2008; ... Rebel Diaz and their hip-hop politics run afoul of the NYPD ON JUNE 18, A PAIR OF BROTHERS NAMED RODRIGO AND GONZALO VENEGAS DECIDED TO TAKE A FRIEND VISITING FROM CHICAGO FOR A CITY TOUR. THE BROTHERS VENEGAS, WHO COMPRISE TWO-THIRDS OF THE ACTIVIST HIP-HOP GROUP KNOWN AS REBEL DIAZ, ...
Texts for Something
Jul 09, 2008; ... Actor Barry McGovern brings his Samuel Beckett adaptations to the Lincoln Center Festival 'I must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on." So ends The Unnamable, Samuel Beckett's inscrutable and very nearly unreadable 1953 novel. Irish actor Barry McGovern has taken those words to heart For 23 ...
The Houses That Ruthlessness Built
Jul 09, 2008; ... Welcome to middling baseball in sleek new cathedrals By Allen Barra What's the worst baseball season in New York history? Most fans, if asked that question, wouldn't cite the really bad years, the worst losing seasons-they rationalize those away by wrapping them up in jokey ...
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
Jul 09, 2008; ... Tracking Shot Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired Directed by Marina Zenovich ThinkFilm Opens July 11, Angelika Along its winding road to calcifying the American judiciary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired grinds some blunt axes, makes dizzying leaps to ...
A Week in the Slow Lane
Jul 09, 2008; ... A Week in the Slow Lane Nothing important to review? Try reviewing the rarity of that. It was Assignment Day, which, despite its sound, is not a Calvinist adumbration of the Last Judgment, but rather a weekly occurrence in the arts sections of The Village Voice. And our esteemed ...
The Art of War
Jul 09, 2008; ... Two films-one a documentary about war games, the other a WWI romance-find fantasy in the fight Full Battle Rattle Directed by Tony Gerber andJesse Moss Opens July 9, Film Forum La France Directed by Serge Bozon July 11 through 17, Anthology Film ...
Retro Man
Jul 09, 2008; ... Best in Show 'No Images of Man' Geringit Lapez Gallery 730 Fifth Avenue Through August 22 Retro Man In 1959, with Abstract Expressionism triumphant over a then much smaller art world, the Museum of Modern Art mounted "New Images of Man," an ...
La Rivière Gentille
Jul 09, 2008; ... La Rivière Gentille Directed by Brigitte Cornand July 9 through 20, Anthology Film Archives The most recent of three documentaries screening in anticipation of the career retrospective of French artist Louise Bourgeois, which comes to the Guggenheim this fall, La Rivière ...
DJ Darky's Deutschland Daze
Jul 09, 2008; ... DJ Darky's Deutschland Daze Paul Beatty forsakes blogs! Returns instead with a new comic novel, Slumberland. I've invited novelist Paul Beatty to meet me at a restaurant that no longer exists. Informed that the writer lives in the East Village, I'd suggested meeting at Alphabet ...
Soul and the City
Jul 09, 2008; ... The Exiles Written and directed by Kent Mackenzie Milestone Film Opens July 11, IFC Center Soul and the City A'lost'classic, 1961's The Exiles gets its long overdue theatrical debut 'The old people remember the past," a narrator says early in The ...
Going Down
Jul 09, 2008; ... Journey to the Center of the Earth Directed by Eric Brevig Warner Bros. Opens July 11 Going Down Brendan Eraser falls into a deep, deep hole at the Center of the Earth Let's be clear about one thing: Journey to the Center of the Earth is more a ...
Kabluey
Jul 09, 2008; ... Kabluey Directed by Scott Prendergast Regent Releasing Now playing, Cinema Village From the film appearances of the San Diego Chicken to the penguin-suited thug who gave Jean-Claude Van Damme a flipper-smacking in Sudden Death, I can't think of a single instance ...
Devil May Care
Jul 09, 2008; ... Hellboy II: The Golden Army Directed by Guillermo del Toro Universal Pictures Opens July 11 Devil May Care Big Red returns in a mindless, rewed-up Hellboy sequel Hollywood's Endless Superhero Summer rolls on with the arrival of Hellboy II: The ...
August
Jul 09, 2008; ... August Directed by Austin Chick First Look Studios Opens July 11, Village East August plays out almost entirely in the testing fire of crisis, as the brothers Sterling fight to keep their NYC-based Internet startup afloat. Josh (Adam Scott) is the visionary ...
Eight Miles High
Jul 09, 2008; ... Eight Miles High Directed by Achim Bornhak Dokument Films Opens July 11, Cinema Village Groupie Uschi ("ooh-she") Obermaier has a name that's fun to say and a youth that reads like it was even more fun to live, but Eight Miles High, Achim Bornhak's exasperating ...
A CIA Lawyer's Smoking Gun
Jul 09, 2008; ... Interrogators were told: 'If a detainee dies, you're doing it wrong.' IN OCTOBER 2002, 10 DEFENSE DEPARTMENT LAWYERS AND OFFICIALS MET AT GUANTANAMO TO FIGURE OUT WHICH INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES WOULD FINALLY EXTRACT INFORMATION FROM THE HARD-SHELLED TERRORISM SUSPECTS THERE. ALSO IN ...
Asian American International Film Festival
Jul 09, 2008; ... Tracking Shots Asian American International Film Festival July 10 through 19, Asia Society aaiff.org/2008 Twenty-two features and a whole platoon of shorts-simple logistics limit the critic-as-consumer-guide. In large, you've just got to peruse the program ...
Harold
Jul 09, 2008; ... Harold Directed by T. Sean Shannon City Lights Pictures Opens July 11, AMC Loews Village VII The long stretches of dead air that it can only be assumed, were supposed to be filled by laughter provide ample time for pondering what audience Harold, T. Sean Shannon's ...
Days and Clouds
Jul 09, 2008; ... Days and Clouds Direct ed by Silvio Soldini Film Movement Opens July 11, Lincoln Plaza and Quad Cinema Elsa (Margherita Buy) and Michele (Antonio Albanese) have a problem: They're a married couple in a middlebrow arthouse movie. When Elsa gets her art doctorate, ...
Do Androids Dream of Electric Pianos?
Jul 09, 2008; ... Ratatat branch out and gear up Last fall, while you were still debating whether LCD Soundsystem or Battles was the best electrorock band of 2007, RatatatBrooklyn's other white meat-were upstate in Catskill, holed up at an old mansion where former president Martin Van Buren got married ....
Garden Party
Jul 09, 2008; ... Garden Party Directed by Jason Freeland Roadside Attractions Opens July 11, Village East Agaggle of unblemished Los Angeles transplants face a squeaky-clean fantasy version of "struggling" in Jason Freeland's trivial, commercially calculated ensemble drama (porn! ...
The Reflecting Pool
Jul 09, 2008; ... The Reflecting Pool Directed by Jarek Kupsc Opens July 11, Two Boots Jarek Kupsc's investigative conspiracy drama wants to be this generation's All the President's Men, but instead of focusing on real characters and events, it's based upon a hypothesis that unsoundly ...
The Stone Angel
Jul 09, 2008; ... The Stone Angel Directed by Kari Skogland Vivendi Entertainment Opens July 11, Sunshine Cinema and AMC Empire 25 A stubbornly affecting drama that's far stronger in its quieter moments, writer-director Kari Skogland's adaptation of the late Canadian novelist ...
The Trials of Jean Grae
Jul 09, 2008; ... Down in Front Why an NYC rap star threatened retirement, and why she hasn't stopped threatening yet Jean Grae once had two different albums leak on the same day. That is really hard to do. This Week, the official follow-up to the brash, volatile, riveting New York City MC's 2002 ...
Refried Elvis
Jul 09, 2008; ... ¡Ask a Mexican! How the King was redeemed for Mexico Dear Mexican: What's the fascination Mexicans have with Elvis? -Good Roceando Tonight Dear Gabacho: It's taken a while for Elvis to achieve icon status with Mexicans. As recounted in Eric Zolov's 1999 book. Retried ...
Chopping It Up
Jul 09, 2008; ... Damon Albarn flaunts the fruits of his adventurous Honest Jon's label The most mysterious song I've heard all year is by a Londoner named Ben Simmons. Appropriately, the track shows up on iTunes as "[Blank]," as if technology itself couldn't figure out just how to classify this ...
Let It In, Let It Out
Jul 09, 2008; ... Recapping 2008's Vision and JVC jazz festivals Kidd Jordan felt something stir deep down inside. He just had to let it out. That's the way the tenor saxophonist explained it during a Vision Festival pre-concert discussion when poet Kalamu ya Salaam asked, "Why don't you just play more ...
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Jul 09, 2008; ... ARIES [March 21-April 19] "The only way to get a difficult feeling to go away is simply to love yourself for it," says author Christiane Northrup. "If you think you're stupid, then love yourself for feeling that way. It's a paradox, but it works. To heal, you must ... shine the light of ...
PAINTED INTO A CORNER
Jul 16, 2008; ... BRUSH OFF FIRE HAZARD? PHILIP SHERROD IS A TRIPLE THREAT TO THE SENSES BY MARIA LUISA TUCKER When Philip Sherrod mentions at regular intervals that he is "the most prolific painter of any century," you assume it's an exaggeration. That is, until you walk into his ...
NYPD's SCHOOLYARD BULLIES
Jul 16, 2008; ... CLASS ACTION ANOTHER REGENT CASE OF POLICE AS HEAVIES IN LOCAL SCHOOLS On March 6, after being dropped off at Middle School 88 in Park Slope by his father, a Manhattan court officer, Joshua Ramos was approached by another boy. Joshua, who was 13, says die other kid was upset ...
Statues of Limitations
Jul 16, 2008; ... A kinda grand tour of the city's new, giant public art. And speaking of dips, look in the East River. IAM LEAVING SAKS FIFTH AVENUE IN A HUFF ON A RECENT BLAZING SATURDAY-BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH EVERYTHING is 70 PERCENT OFF, THE SGT. PEPPER-ESQUE JUNYA WATANABE JACKET I'VE BEEN CONTEMPLATING ...
Ray-Gun Kelly
Jul 16, 2008; ... Stopping-and-frisking (and now tasering) his way to becoming New York's next mayor? MAYORAL CANDIDATE ANTHONY WEINER, THE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN WHO REPRESENTS PORTIONS OF BROOKLYN AND QUEENS, TOLD THE NEW YORK SUN RECENTLY THAT "TO A LARGE DEGREE," MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG "GETS A PASS ...