One man and a knife against the world
As his new movie, The Hunted, suggests, William Friedkin’s career continues to wander into bizarre areas of subject and character and, not surprisingly, to display a flagrant and really quite inexplicable inconsistency. He has directed some excellent and influential motion pictures, most notably The French Connection and The Exorcist; in addition to some almost equally…
A fine line between tedium and entertainment
The last time Gus Van Sant directed a Damon-Affleck script, the film (Good Will Hunting) hit Oscar gold. The Gusmeister is back behind the camera for another Damon-Affleck project, but the odds of Gerry (opens Friday, March 21, at the Little) finding the same kind of success seem robustly unlikely. Gerry is a very different…
Cold weather, warm women
Spring at last, spring at last, thank God almighty, it’s spring at last. I’m gonna kiss spring on the mouth. And, being the subversive romantic that I am, you can tell “W” it’ll be a French kiss, too — with French-fry breath. Flogging Molly flogged Molly and the whole damn sold-out crowd at Water…
No war on our watch
Right now you may be thinking it’s over. The neo-cons who’ve long wanted the US to smash Iraq, only the first act in their global tragedy and domestic farce, have won the day. The Telepromptee, sounding like the Lyndon Johnson of “Come, let us reason together,” has uttered the fatal words. It doesn’t seem…
Sign of our times
“Let’s roll!” United Flight 93 passenger Todd Beamer’s last known words — before he and some of his fellow passengers ostensibly tried to overcome the terrorists who hijacked his plane on 9/11 — have become a battle cry (and patriotic marketing gimmick) in the wake of the attacks. In the immediate aftermath of the…
News Briefs 3.19.03
He comes in peace A world on the brink of war. Terrorism. Murder. Brutal dictatorships. Who’s to blame? For most people, it’s “them.” We believe we’d have a more just and peaceful world if only “they” would change and be more like “us.” But how do we change others or an unjust society? Sulak Sivaraksa,…
Reader feedback 3.19.03
Pleas for peace On a recent trip to Laos, it was with great shame that I saw the results of the US bombing during the Vietnam War. US pilots indiscriminately dropped more than 250 million cluster bombs, hitting schools, hospitals, and temples, killing thousands of innocent people. Historic sites are filled with bomb craters; ancient…
Lafayette, we aren’t there yet
It was a long time ago — in emotional distance more than in years. On June 7, 1825, the Marquis de Lafayette stopped in downtown Rochester aboard an Erie Canal barge. An “estimated ten thousand cheering citizens” for the “Nation’s Honored Guest” were “double the town’s population,” write historians Blake McKelvey and Ruth Rosenberg-Naparsteck.…
Happily divided?
There was a moment during last Tuesday’s City Council meeting when longtime Councilmember Tim Mains’ face said it all. It happened shortly before Council passed legislation that bars Mains — and anyone else employed by the Rochester City School District — from serving on Council. As two councilmembers abstained from voting on another piece…
Thomas P. Ryan Jr.
Thomas P. Ryan Jr. Tom Ryan was a complicated man, and a complicated mayor. Ryan, who died last Friday, served as Rochester’s mayor from 1974 to 1993, and right to the end, he was shy: hated public speaking, didn’t like going to neighborhood meetings. “He was not one who reveled in the ceremonies of…
Images for a lifetime
In one of Charles Arnold’s most memorable self-portraits, the artist stares at the viewer while surrounded by an eclectic array of items: an animal skull, an otherworldly plant, and a piece of architectural ornamentation. But the strangest presence in the print, also staring out (though somewhat cross-eyed), is Arnold’s hero, Wile E. Coyote. “Road…
The envelope, please
Despite all the breathless reporting of the nominations, and all the learned speculation about who and what will win one of those gleaming art deco statuettes known as Oscars, students of the cinema should understand that like most such contests — from Miss Artichoke all the way up to the Nobel Prize — the Academy…
St. Mark meets Britney Spears
Tony Bibawy always draws a little cross at the top of the page before he writes anything, even his phone number or an everyday note. It’s an ancient custom of his ancient people and religion, “a practice we do a lot,” he says. Bibawy is a member of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Founded in…
