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Bon Voyage brings spectacle to the screen for moviegoers who aren’t so much into gladiators and CGI and the like, and does it with old-fashioned panache. It posits the eve of World War II as a giddy, exciting time to be alive in France, as the leaders of Paris convene in Bordeaux to decide whether…
k.d. lang still burns the absolute torch
We call my Grandpa Big Frank. Big Frank loves k.d. lang. In fact, he loves music in general — most of it. He digs Sinatra but thinks he was too much of a womanizer. Dean Martin was a drunk. Elvis had a nice voice, but Grandpa considers him part of the ongoing longhaired-pinko menace and…
Garbage plate special
Last week’s meeting of the Susan B. Anthony Neighborhood Association (SBANA) included one aside that could make some waves: the Nick Tahou’s building at 320 West Main Street — home to the beloved garbage plate — could soon become home to any number of non-profit organizations. The building is owned by the Tahou family,…
Body count
To honor the war dead and fill an information gap in US mass media, City Newspaper will run weekly lists of American/”Coalition” soldiers and Iraqi citizens killed during the ongoing occupation of Iraq. The totals: 770 American soldiers, 108 “Coalition” soldiers, and approximately 9,000 Iraqi soldiers and 10,750 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq…
Philip Kapleau
Roshi Philip Kapleau, founder of the Rochester Zen Center, was buried on Sunday at the Chapin Mill Retreat Center, the Zen Center’s site in Batavia. Roshi Kapleau, who wrote The Three Pillars of Zen, one of the seminal books on Zen practice, was 91 and died from complications of Parkinson’s Disease. Originally trained as…
Dems grumble, but approve borrowing
After five months of haggling, the Monroe County Legislature approved the 2004 capital budget in a special session Friday that saw Democrats breaking from an earlier stance to support financing county projects with borrowed funds. The vote green-lights a $58 million plan for projects throughout the county: road repair, bridge work, technology upgrades, and…
Reader feedback 5.12.04
The Bush policies, improving schools, WRUR changes
Rochester’s 2004 Lilac Festival
It’s bloom time Our 10-day homage to the heady lilac has returned: This year’s Lilac Festival will run from Friday, May 14, through Sunday, May 23. The festival doesn’t only give us more incentive to enjoy the well-designed acres of Highland Park, or herald the opening of the long and busy summer festival season.…
Rochester’s 2004 Lilac Festival
It’s bloom time Our 10-day homage to the heady lilac has returned: This year’s Lilac Festival will run from Friday, May 14, through Sunday, May 23. The festival doesn’t only give us more incentive to enjoy the well-designed acres of Highland Park, or herald the opening of the long and busy summer festival season.…
Image, memory, and identity for sale
In the 15th century, you might have encountered an image once a day, once a year, once in lifetime, or not at all. Today, we are practically swimming in images. They’re all around us. And because of this proliferation we take them as a given, natural occurrence. For our culture, an image or picture…
Rochester’s 2004 Lilac Festival
It’s bloom time Our 10-day homage to the heady lilac has returned: This year’s Lilac Festival will run from Friday, May 14, through Sunday, May 23. The festival doesn’t only give us more incentive to enjoy the well-designed acres of Highland Park, or herald the opening of the long and busy summer festival season.…
Wanna buy some aspects?
Once again a brave theater group is giving a surprisingly effective revival to a difficult cult musical which its admirers insist was never properly appreciated. And once again I’ve belatedly been introduced to a well-known old show and impressed by the performance. But again I’ve had to admit that I think the thing deserved to…
Family valued
Children’s Theatre Festival The local young ones’ version of Lollapalooza happens this weekend at the Nazareth College Arts Center, when Nazareth and Rochester Children’s Theatre host a hand-clappin’, foot-stompin’, drum-poundin’, three-day extravaganza of plays, dance, juggling, and more. The festival begins Friday evening with a fantastically mystical interpretation of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the…
Bush, Rumsfeld, and ‘the values of our nation’
Headline in the Democrat and Chronicle on May 3: “Abuse of Iraqis Called Isolated.” Statement by President Bush May 5: “The abuse does not represent the America that I know.” Statement by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on May 7: “It was inconsistent with the values of our nation.” Many Americans, no doubt,…
Dachsund Parade
Mary Lyle, one of the organizers of Rochester’s Dachshund Parade, expected about 60 dogs to gather this past Saturday for the third annual march down East Avenue. “We had 41 dogs last year, and this year we’ve had interest from people as far as Buffalo,” she says as she distributes photocopies of “The Doxie Song.”…
Beating the bush
It looks hopeless. The Sherbrooke Canadiens trounce the visiting Amerks 6-1 in game five of the 1987 Calder Cup Finals, and lead the best-of-seven series 3-2. The Canadiens are in the zone, the Amerks in the toilet. They lost consecutive games — one at the War Memorial — by a 13-4 margin. It’s time to…
Special effects forge a horror compendium
The lavish new vampire movie, Van Helsing opens, appropriately, with a sequence that combines back story with an act of homage to the long, rich history of horror. Shot in black and white, with the classic Expressionist oblique angles, the opening duplicates the famous laboratory from the Frankenstein movies. Electricity crackles and sparks up…
Also playing…
Usually the dullest points during the Academy Awards telecasts occur when the presenters dole out Oscars for films the general public hasn’t seen and will probably never see: i.e., the shorts. That’s why this program, called the 2004 Oscar Shorts, is such a rare treat. The program contains three of the five 2003 nominees…
