Defying Gravity: The Complete First Season
The endless comparisons of “Defying Gravity” to “Grey’s Anatomy” are not unfounded. With the characters spending all their off-time “? and much of their on-time “? discussing relationship foibles, the drama really does seem like a straight graft of the “Grey’s” template, but replacing “doctors” with “astronauts,” and “hospital” with “spaceship.” At least that’s the…
Sita Sings the Blues
02?ie=UTF8&tag=oklahgazet-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B002G50002″>Sita Sings The Blues,” a feature-length indie that depicts a loss-of-love story via a heaping handful of styles. Writer/director/animator Nina Paley uses everything from slick, computer-generated animation to cruder, collage cutouts, and bathes it all in vibrant color. Visuals are its driving force, but its lively score helps, too, if sometimes tonally jarring, culling from…
Super Friends: Season One, Volume One
It’s like it’s Saturday morning all over again while watching “Super Friends: Season One, Vol. One.” All that’s lacking for the total 1970s experience is footie PJs and a bowl of Sugar Smacks. Other “Super Friends” episodes have made it to DVD before, but this is the series’ first incarnation, when you had your core…
Ringo Starr – Y Not
Ringo Starr’s post-Beatles work has been the least lauded of the four stars’ solo efforts, and “Y Not” does nothing to change that assessment. “Y Not” is full of tunes that are thoroughly average, which results in a poor overall album. What’s even harder to digest is that these tracks are dated. Their deep adherence…
Legends of Laughter: Abbott & Costello
n&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr” style=”width: 120px; height: 240px;” marginwidth=”0″ marginheight=”0″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”> There are many, many DVDs out there of Abbott and Costello’s material, but Infinity Entertainment Group’s six-disc “Legends of Laughter” set is the one to get “? not because it offers anything new, but because it collects so much of it in one place. The big…
The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity – Mike Carey and Peter Gross
What if Harry Potter were real? That’s the simplified “? but rather apt “? way to describe the concept behind Mike Carey and Peter Gross’ phenomenal graphic novel “The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity.” Tommy Taylor is two people: a young man in a magical world, as featured in a long-running series of…
Kingdom of the Spiders
<iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=oklahgazet-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B002NN7EY2&fc1=000000&IS2=1 When I was a kid, one movie scared me more than any other: 1977’s “Kingdom of the Spiders.” It remains, as Shout! Factory’s reissue proves, genuinely unsettling. Stupid title aside, this entry in the animal-attack subgenre is a great movie —? somewhat of an unsung horror classic. William Shatner stars as vet Rack…
Eat hot peppers, do nothing, lose weight?!
For those who like to sit all day and eat hot peppers, there may be good news for you. Researchers at the University of Oklahoma confirmed the results of an experimental drug that the makers claim burns calories while sitting at your desk. This is as opposed to another way of trimming fat at the…
Questionable Judgments
Michael Sampson, who was in court in Salina, Kan., in November merely on charges of littering and driving with a suspended license, was arrested after a judge spotted him at the defense table, making threatening gestures to witnesses. Sampson was seen holding his thumb and fingers in the shape of a gun, “firing” at a…
Business sense
In Somalia, which is without a central government to speak of and where very little functions beyond an Islamic resistance and individual warlords’ fiefdoms, a robust “stock market” has emerged in the city of Haradheere for “investors” in the seagoing pirate “industry” to raise money and supplies for kidnappers in exchange for a share of…
Latest Religious Messages
Martina Rabess, 52, was sanctioned by Britain’s Sevenoaks Magistrates Court in October after neighbors complained about her loud, continuous recitations of the Lord’s Prayer in early morning hours around her apartment house. Atlanta municipal bus driver Leroy Matthews was suspended in November for a recent incident in which he suddenly stopped the bus and refused…
Least Competent Criminals
Andre Stoltzfus, 17, was arrested in Saugerties, N.Y., in October after he allegedly counterfeited a $1 bill that a family member later used toward the purchase of a pack of cigarettes. Bandanna-clad Jason Zacchi, 27, was arrested in Dearborn Heights, Mich., in November after, according to police, pointing a shotgun at a Wendy’s employee at…
Mudvayne – Mudvayne
Intense, thrashy metal is usually not associated with the color white. Thus, I was confused when I noticed the entirely blank art of Mudvayne’s newly-released self-titled album Mudvayne. Then I noticed the attached blacklight. Every piece of art, from the cover to the lyrics to the inset tray art, is only visible while shining the…
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
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Country stars Miranda Lambert and Justin Moore get adjusted to their public lives as entertainers
Brad Paisley with Miranda Lambert and Justin Moore7:30 p.m. FridayFord Center100 W. RenoWWW.OkFordCenter.com(800) 745-3000$39.75-$54.75 Since exploding onto the country music scene in 2003, Miranda Lambert has scored several hit singles from her three albums, all of which have debuted at the No. 1 position on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart. MOORE MUSIC This week, she…
Wind turbines threatening existence of the lesser prairie chicken
Technology may yet save the chickens. Those would be the lesser prairie chickens, the colorful birds that flee habitats where wind turbines are built. Apparently, the chickens think anything that rises above the horizon is a potential predator, such as a raptor. COLLABORATIONWYOMING PROBLEMS J.D. Strong, state environment secretary, said at the Oklahoma Wind Energy…
Comedian Chris Rock takes on locks in the documentary “Good Hair”
“Good Hair” 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 5:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch. 236-3100, www.okcmoa.com/film Examining racial differences on film typically results in documentaries that raise and debate issues and motivations, often with a politically pointed finger. But comedian Chris Rock has taken a different angle. An…
Big 10 insults academic integrity of Big 12, despite inability to count
Never mind this year’s record in bowl games. The Big 12 Conference received a one-two punch ” and then some ” off the football field in December. To kick off the sour news, there were two coaching scandals, both of which involved former offensive coordinators from the University of Oklahoma. First, Mark Mangino resigned from…
Not necessarily the year 2010
Jan. 1, 2010: 31,000 University of Oklahoma football fans show up at the El Paso International Airport asking for their charter to Los Angeles. Sun Bowl promoters sold out the game by telling Sooners fans that it was a scrimmage before meeting Alabama.Jan. 6: Bob Stoops turns down Florida coaching job in exchange for being…
Exhibit of works by Oklahoma City expressionist Bert Seabourn opens
The paintings of Bert Seabourn are on display at In Your Eye Studio through Jan. 31.A new exhibit opened last week in the Paseo Arts District, showcasing multiple works by Oklahoma City artist Bert Seabourn.”Honest Expressions” is on display through Jan. 31 at the In Your Eye Studio & Gallery, 3005-A Paseo. Seabourn is an…
All-female, Irish-American group Cherish the Ladies gets jiggy with Oklahoma City Philharmonic
Cherish the Ladies with theOklahoma City Philharmonic8 p.m. Friday-SaturdayCivic Center Music Hall201 N. Walker297-2264www .oklahomacityphilharmonic.org$12-$65 There’s a reason it’s called “folk” music. Even as record execs wander the country in search of the next big sound, the tried and true persists, passed across generations and even cultures. Whether it’s Americana artists rediscovering the charms of…
Republicans Not Economically Selfish
Although I wasn’t wholeheartedly opposed to the MAPS 3 initiative, professor Keith Gaddie makes a couple of erroneous assumptions in his analysis (Commentary, “Back to the public space,” Dec. 16, 2009, Oklahoma Gazette): Lower-income Republicans (or Republicans in general) are not economically selfish. It’s more of a “we can’t afford it” movement, during a period…
Clay Bennett gets the better of Seattle again to the tune of $30 million
It seems 2009 was good to ol’ Clay Bennett, the Thunder owner who brought the NBA to OKC. According to a blog on the Web site of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Bennett not only whisked away their Seattle Sonics, but he also gets to keep a cool $30 million he had agreed to pay the Washington…
People With Issues
Sara Foss, 39, the mother of 13 in Derby, England, who is scheduled to deliver No. 14 in March, told the Daily Mail in November of her vow to continue getting pregnant until she fulfills her desire to have twins. Her longtime, live-in boyfriend works as a boat-builder, but their main income is government benefits…
OKC Zoo hosts kids’ Oklahoma-themed goat-naming contest
A dozen Nigerian dwarf goats born last spring are awaiting final construction on their permanent habitat at the Oklahoma City Zoo. The new children’s zoo will open March 12, and while officials are responsible for building the goats’ housing, it’s up to local kids to help the new guests feel at home, starting with their…
Karma
Shannon Broome, 15, of Jacksonville, Fla., with her leg in a cast and still laid up from a June rollover accident in an SUV, was hit again in December when another out-of-control SUV came through her bedroom wall and re-broke the leg (among other injuries inflicted). Recently, at the Abergele Hospital in North Wales, Geraint…
Monica Taylor – Cotton Shirt
Monica TaylorCotton Shirt CD release party9 p.m. Saturday, $10The Blue Door, 2805 N. McKinley 524-0738, www.bluedoorokc.com “Cotton Shirt” is the latest from Perkins singer/songwriter Monica Taylor, an 11-song album that, as its title suggests, provides wellworn stories, dependable chops and durable spirit.The title track is a bittersweet, finger-picking return to memories of love left behind.…
Broken Embraces
Pedro Almod
Screenwriter Lou Berney aims to make a name in crime fiction with debut novel, ‘Gutshot Straight’
What’s that saying? When life gives you a Writers Guild of America strike, make lemonade? Or something like that. Lou Berney’s batch of lemonade hit shelves yesterday in the form of his debut novel, “Gutshot Straight.” The Oklahoma City resident earns his living as a Hollywood screenwriter. Although none of his works have been produced…
‘The Data is the Data’
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but they’re not entitled to their own facts: The data is the data. This quote from renowned CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research and University of California, Santa Barbara physicist Maria Spiropulu sums up the appropriate response to Judy Wesselhoft’s screed (Letters, “Kids deserve better”) in the…
Beginning new year with praise for last year’s theater
Lyric Theatre presented the year’s best musical in “Woody Sez: The Words, Music & Spirit of Woody Guthrie.” PLAYLISTAS YOU LIKE IT This account of the life and music of Okemah folk icon Woody Guthrie was “devised” by David M. Lutken with Nick Corley, who directed the production at the Plaza Theatre. The show was…
Secret arrests go against our country’s ideals
Trying to access the Cherokee County sheriff’s booking records years ago suddenly became a problem for the newspaper. Reporters couldn’t do their jobs, and the public didn’t know who the sheriff was putting in jail. I didn’t understand why he was refusing to release the information. The newspaper had had no problems in the past,…
Local activists have an ax to grind on a variety of issues
It’s just a few hours before President Barack Obama gives a national address about a major surge of American military forces in Afghanistan. And Nathaniel Batchelder is where you would expect him to be: on the corner of Classen and 23rd holding a sign opposing the war. He is joined by several antiwar compatriots, and…
The OU/Texas rivalry turns to war, literally
Sooner fans, Texas is beating you again. And this time, it really counts. According to a press release from the U.S. Air Force, alumni from the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma are having their own Red River Rivalry in the place where American forces are fighting for freedom: Afghanistan. Maj. Tobin Griffeth,…
Science Education Curriculum Must Include Evolution’
Judy Wesselhoft (“Kids deserve better,” Dec. 16, 2009, Gazette) made several statements in her letter that need to be addressed. First she claimed that “Government spends billions of dollars every year promoting evolution.” I am curious to know where this figure comes from. After a brief search on the Internet, I found summaries of the…
Blaming media remains a cop-out
Shooting the messenger is certainly not a new concept. Sophocles wrote about it in 442 B.C. in his play “Antigone.” Shakespeare wrote about it in “Henry IV, Part II” in 1598. The idea is still alive and well today. Joe the Plumber has blamed the media for painting him as “a fool” since his emergence…
Cutting Funding Violates God’s Nature
There has been much talk about the placing of the Ten Commandments monument at our state Capitol: some talk for and some talk against. But have we truly considered the message of the Ten Commandments? That is the issue to be extolled. By way of a quick reminder, the context of the Ten Commandments is…
Did You Hear About the Morgans?
With a few minor variations, romantic comedies are, by and large, predictable and formulaic. The thing that saves the good ones is chemistry between the leading players and effective comic relief from the supporting cast. “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” is not one of the good ones. Paul (Hugh Grant, “Music and Lyrics”) and…
Unintelligent Design
In her letter, Judy Wesselhoft (“Kids deserve better,” Dec. 16, 2009, Gazette) claims there is no evidence for evolution, which is completely false. She cites anecdotal evidence of “a number of renowned scientists that have publicly expressed doubt “¦” Evolution is widely accepted in the scientific community as fact. There are heaps of evidence in…
Pandorum
Three decades ago, “Alien” set the standard for the sci-fi subgenre of the spaceship as haunted house. With the exception of the 1986 sequel “Aliens,” no film has even come close to it, but Hollywood continues to trot them out. “Pandorum” is one of the latest, from producer Paul W.S. Anderson (who threw his own…
Five Finger Death Punch – War is the Answer
The heavier and louder a song by Five Finger Death Punch is, the better it is. This is a direct relationship; if you rank the songs on this album on a scale that starts at “several dudes got teeth knocked out in the pit” and ends at “several lighters were raised,” you’ve ranked the songs…
