Charles Busch might be the biggest drag diva this side of RuPaul. But unlike Ru, Busch has a legitimately impressive résumé, which includes critically acclaimed work on the stage, a memorable run on the most underrated television show of the last 20 years (HBO prison drama Oz), and a pair of feature films adapted from […]
Jon Popick
Posted inMovies
Lost in perfection, or Tokyo
There are several scenes in Lost in Translation (opens Friday, September 26, at the Little), Sofia Coppola’s brilliant follow-up to The Virgin Suicides, that were blindingly hysterical on the big screen. But somehow, as I sit down to write this review, they just don’t seem as funny on my little screen. I know what I […]
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From burqas to bunnies: a second dose of Toronto
Here’s the dirt on the second half of the Toronto International Film Festival, which just ended Saturday (September 13) evening. The Good The Brown Bunny: Vincent Gallo’s notorious road-trip flick, which was booed out of Cannes this past May (it was an unfinished print that ran 30 minutes longer than the final version screened here), […]
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Sorting out films, from feel-goods to yawners
From the thick of the 28th Toronto International Film Festival, here is the lowdown on the most notable films so far. The Good Coffee & Cigarettes: Not so much a film as a collection of shorts Jim Jarmusch started making back in 1986 (for Saturday Night Live, no less). Each features a few actors sitting […]
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Losing their way in the Middle East
There are a pair of 40-minute Middle Eastern films screening at the Dryden Theatre this Saturday (September 6). Each makes its Rochester debut and each arrives with buckets full of praise from people whose hearts go out to the ridiculously oppressed citizens of the countries represented by the shorts (Yemen and Iran). I don’t […]
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Buffy who? Give us more JC!
The makers of Slamdance victors Harry Knuckles and the Treasure of the Aztec Mummy are back with a cautionary tale involving Jesus, lesbians, vampires, Mexican wrestling, Kung Fu, and God knows what else I missed because the smile on my face was so huge, I couldn’t see over my cheekbones. We’re talking about a film […]
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Nowhere to go and all day to get there
It’s been a decade since the bafflingly popular Merchant-Ivory team has churned out anything I could even remotely recommend to friends and family. Since Remains of the Day, director and co-writer James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant, and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala have made a couple of really awful pictures (Jefferson in Paris and Surviving Picasso), […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Shooting for the ‘Stars
Most 18-year-olds fret over waking up in time to make their English 101 class. Mike Magee has to worry about scoring on Zach Thornton and Pat Onstad. The New York/New Jersey MetroStars forward, who graduated from high school earlier this year thanks to an accelerated program, has six goals already this season — just one […]
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Get itchy and dirty this weekend
Okay, first things first: Ichi is pronounced “ee-chee,” not “itchy,” otherwise this would probably be the long-awaited feature-film debut of a certain ultra-violent cat-and-mouse team from The Simpsons. But that’s not to say Ichi the Killer (screens Saturday, August 16, at the Dryden) isn’t brutal in its own right. Believe me, when director Takashi Miike […]
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Rhinos enter tie land
Last time out. The Lynx are so bad. They’re so bad, they couldn’t even draw the Rhinos 2-2 at Frontier . The last time a non-Toronto team failed to score two goals on the road against Rochester was back in June, when the Rhinos shut out Montreal, 2-0. Last Friday, the Lynx (9-3-10, 30 points) […]
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Chasing a one-armed bandit, and a box
The flying guillotine looks like an umbrella that extends into a red fondue pot on a chain. Its master is a blind octogenarian named Fung Sheng Wu Chi, and he has eyebrows twice that of even Andy Rooney. Fung’s enemy is a one-armed bandit who killed his two brightest protégés in 1971’s One Armed Boxer. […]
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Rhinos enter Bizarro World
Last time out. Who would have dreamt that the Rhinos (12-4-5, 40 points) would get more points during the Charleston-Richmond road trip (3) than they did in the Charleston-Richmond home stand (2)? Anyone with their hands in the air is a filthy liar. Richmond (10-4-7, 34) still seems to have Rochester’s number, winning in Virginia […]
