Jersey Shore Shark Attack
The great William Atherton, the reigning sleazeball of ’80s movies from Ghostbusters to Die Hard, plays a greedy developer breaking ground on a premiere beach club and spa near the New Jersey boardwalk. The underwater drilling — illegal, of course — unleashes a school of CGI albino sharks, just in time for the big Fourth…
Penumbra
That sounds too good to be true, but stranger things have happened on the day of a total solar eclipse. And they will. Too bad Penumbra takes a full 51 minutes of its 90 to get near there. Only then does the Argentinian film approach any plot points that reveal themselves as thriller-esque. Before then…
Lovely Molly
The film opens with a deeply distraught Molly (newcomer Gretchen Lodge, in a fearless, go-for-broke debut) recording herself on Oct. 16, 2011, saying, “Whatever has happened, it wasn’t me.” Immediately, we jump back to “whatever.” Married just 13 months earlier, mall janitor Molly and her level-headed truck-driver hubby, Tim (Johnny Lewis, TV’s Sons of Anarchy),…
Forbidden love
Credit: Brad Gregg It’s fair to say the love story of Ernest W. Marland and Lydie Roberts could have given Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn a run for their money in the department of the thoroughly icky. The Weinstein Company is set to make Ends of the Earth, a film dramatizing the tale of Marland…
A tale of two Toms
Tom Coburn credit: Mark Hancock If you picked Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, move to the head of the class. The plainspoken, sometimes grim physician, nicknamed “Dr. No” by his Senate colleagues for his penchant for holding up seemingly innocuous items, is the answer to all of the above. It’s among the reasons he is routinely…
Do the ’due
Fondue at The Melting Pot Credit: Jordan Ensminger But the temperatures haven’t gotten the memo yet. So when the kiddos come home from school ready for dinner, heating up the oven might be the last thing you feel like doing. You might not think it’s possible for a meal to be as kid-friendly as it…
Forté’s forte
For some musicians, performing is work. For others, it’s just a big party. For Tulsa’s Fiawna Forté, it’s therapy. “I was a very shy child, and had a pretty rough childhood. I buried everything,” she said of her intense performance style. “Onstage, I’m taking every bad thing in my life and throwing it up, mentally…
Betting on a better boulevard
At the June meeting of the MAPS 3 streetcar subcommittee, Green presented an update on the progress of the new Oklahoma City boulevard. Within a couple days after his remarks, the Friends for a Better Boulevard Facebook group had been formed, newspaper articles began to appear, local blogs were heating up and talk radio was…
Youth group
Most people play in their first band sometime in high school. But recent high school graduate Scottie Noonan — chief songwriter, singer and guitarist of Enid acoustic-pop act The Fossil Youth — is already an old pro, with half a decade of experience behind him. “It’s helped me progress a lot quicker. A lot of…
Don’t say Chick-fil-A wasn’t personal
While I hadn’t had time to consider it earlier in the day, I suddenly realized I felt the same way. In the days following, I heard from dozens of other LGBT Oklahomans who had similar feelings. I shared this with a straight friend who simply couldn’t understand these feelings. “Why?” she asked. “This is just…
All aboard!
Credit: Shannon Cornman I like a nice plate of pasta. Well, if I’m being honest, I love a giant bowl of pasta covered in rich, creamy sauce, topped off with meatballs or seared shrimp, or just a mountain of Parmesan cheese. Daddy needs his carbs. Which is why your mother and I want to talk…
Letters
Oklahoma Gazette provides an open forum for the discussion of all points of view in its Letters to the Editor section. The Gazette reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity. Letters can be mailed, faxed, emailed to pbacharach@okgazette. com or sent online at okgazette.com, but include a city of residence and contact…
Vouch for it
Dan Straughan credit: Jordan Ensminger “It’s incredibly unlikely that a panhandler could earn that much in a year,” said Dan Straughan, executive director of the metro’s Homeless Alliance. For social services organizations, dubious stories like Speegle’s tend to ramp up public cynicism and make it harder for agencies to do their work. “In our experience,…
Like it dirty?
Although the name now applies to all sorts of cocktails, “martini” originally meant the recipe of five parts gin to one part dry vermouth. An olive was allowed, and even a touch of bitters. You could shake or stir; it was still a martini. The name now describes everything from the original to a glorified…
Letters
Oklahoma Gazette provides an open forum for the discussion of all points of view in its Letters to the Editor section. The Gazette reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity. Letters can be mailed, faxed, emailed to pbacharach@okgazette. com or sent online at okgazette.com, but include a city of residence and contact…
Oh, Mercy
Credit: Brad Gregg The new Mercy logo was rolled out in Missouri in September of 2011, but only arrived in Oklahoma a few months ago. That’s when an Oklahoma City resident informed the company of the remarkable similarity. Rachel Wright, a spokesperson for OKC’s Mercy Hospital, said a graphic designer at the corporate office created…
Runoff rumble
Charles Key After nearly 16 years in office, Oklahoma County Court Clerk Patricia Presley chose not to run for re-election. No Democrats filed for the seat. In the crowded Republican primary, no candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote, which means the runoff winner will take office in January. Presley hired Tim Rhodes…
Precious cargo
In April, the nonprofit began its Homeward Bound program, which places dogs that have been surrendered by their owner for one reason or another. Their previous owners’ loss is the gain for dog lovers in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Christy Counts, president of Central Oklahoma Humane Society, said the program is off to a good start.…
Feed’n y’all
Credit: Brad Gregg By the end of this year, the chain expects to have a total of 19 locations across the country. Time magazine has called TK’s ILTB&G one of the top 10 celebrity restaurants, while The Huffington Post (“HuffPo” to the hipsters) included it in its list of the 25 best celeb-owned eateries. Hats…
You say ‘Ohio,’ I say ‘Oklahoma’
Credit: Brad Gregg That’s because it’s actually footage of Oklahoma City. Sarah Burris, Dwight Clark and other locals noticed the shot of E. Sheridan in Bricktown in the spot. Burris speculated that the error might have something to do with the states’ close proximity, alphabetically speaking. Does this mean we’ll soon see an ad about…
OKG7 sweet shops
Sweete Memories Specialty Bakery 6501 N. May 842-4799 You might be familiar with its signature box. It’s the white one with the cellophane covering and the gold emblem at the bottom. Inside, it’s the perfect frosting-to-cookie ratio. Cookies aside, Sweete Memories also allows you to indulge in pumpkin and banana bread. Make special orders for…
Before the fall
As I trolled along, my foot was met with a sound that was familiar, yet strange. Crunch. I stooped down for inspection and saw underfoot what was unmistakably the remains of a dead leaf. While this might mean nothing to you — and I’m aware that a fallen leaf could have been the victim of…
ParaNorman
But while Coraline sustained a masterful level of Grimm-like creepiness, ParaNorman is only fitfully brilliant. The premise is promising. Eleven-year-old Norman Babcock (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee, Let Me In) has a familiar problem: He sees dead people. Lots of ’em, actually, which makes him something of a pariah in the hamlet of Blithe Hollow, Mass.…
Headhunters
Compared to the continent of Europe, the rate of death by guns in America is six times higher. You wouldn’t know it based on the current wave of crime films from that half of the globe. Arguably kicked off by the worldwide success of Sweden’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, the movies of…
The Bourne Legacy
Director Tony Gilroy, who penned the previous Bourne films and wrote this one with his brother Dan, jump-starts the series by beginning — sorta — where 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum left off. The events of that film have prompted U.S. intelligence honchos to scrap a super-clandestine spy program by way of killing off a small…
Vetting process
Allen has had a long career in the music business. Before moving to Oklahoma, he worked in Nashville, Tenn., managing music royalties. In the ’90s, he played open-mic nights at local venues and coffee shops, sometimes in a band and sometimes solo. But these early experiences aren’t the only that inspire Allen today. Instead, the…
Foreign Home — How Strange the Night
From the sounds of it, that’s a place where Tulsa outfit Foreign Home would like to call home. Its debut album, How Strange the Night, is big, layered, engrossing and just enough offbeat to not reside firmly in the mainstream. That can be a death trap for some bands who drown in that wall of…
Elena
Moral bankruptcy looms over Elena, a noir-ish Russian-language drama that screens Thursday through Sunday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, but director Andrey Zvyagintsev (The Return) would have us withhold judgment of the dreary, compromised characters he presents. In lengthy, often static shots, Zvyagintsev urges his audience to study every inch of the bleak…
Adopt an acre
Clay Pope The program works on a simple premise to reduce ecological damage: Those who can, do. Those who can’t, buy passes. Each $5 pass sponsors one acre of agricultural land for a year, giving the farmers funding to switch to conservation practices such as no-till farming, tree planting, and riparian restoration. When implemented, these…
Monkey business
Bob Barker Mindy’s Memory Primate Sanctuary was the recipient of a donation of around $200,000 according to Associated Press, from the former The Price Is Right host, who has a long history of donating to animal-welfare causes. That money will be used to house five new rhesus monkeys from an unidentified research lab in California…
Not so hot
Credit: Brad Gregg July was the hottest month in the U.S. since records began in 1895. Our fair state alone broke 64 heat records last month, which followed on the heels of Oklahoma’s warmest spring ever recorded, according to the Oklahoma Climatological Survey. And the warning bells about climate change have been sounding louder. Koch-funded…
Party down
Credit: Brad Gregg Republican voters have had the largest net growth of all political parties in the state since June 1 of this year. Democrats, who have held the most registered voters for many decades, only do so now by a small margin. Also outpacing Democrats in growth are Independent voters, an interesting development since…
It’s a bird, it’s a plane …
Robert Carr thinks he might have invented a way for firefighters to do just that. Carr is the founder and CEO of Supero USA, an Oklahoma company that specializes in aerodynamic technology, specifically a fixed-wing aircraft fitted with video and thermal imaging cameras designed to give users a view from the sky. His latest project…
Rest of the Best of OKC 2012
See, shockingly, we didn’t have quite enough lists last week, despite running the gamut from Best Waiter or Waitress to Best Free Wi-Fi, so for the fourth year in a row, we’ve assembled some extras — the Rest of the Best of OKC, if you will. And you will.
CFN headline of the week
“Olivia Munn Pulls Her Eyelashes Out Because She’s A Crazy Person” —thesuperficial.com, July 30
Get physical
Look inside and you’ll find what appear to be monster truck tires, loads of barbells, Olympic gymnastics-type rings hanging from the ceiling, and whiteboards with various workouts, goals, and records scribbled on them. You’ll see curiously few bench presses and not a single treadmill anywhere. Your neighborhood Y, this ain’t. “It’s not like going to…
Digging it
With his debut novel, Zombacter: Center City Contagion, Oklahoma City’s Sean Bingham has created the contingency plan and the apocalypse scenario to go with it. The first book of Bingham’s undead trilogy, Zombacter was published by Severed Press, an independent company that specializes in survival horror. It is Bingham’s first novel. A Georgia native, he…
Make a wish
Thinking big — and why shouldn’t she? — Kathryn McGill of Oklahoma Shakespeare in the Park said she yearns for a comprehensive performing arts center with 60-, 250- and 400-seat theaters and office and rehearsal space. She correctly notes the severe shortage of affordable, available theater space. But OKC already has one of the most…
Getting a leg up
Indie-rock trio Limber Limbs was having a bit of a Googleability problem before it switched its name from People, People. “We realized that people couldn’t find us on the Internet,” singer and guitarist Ben Bowlware said. “There’s a million results with people in it.” Added bassist Derek Moore, “It’s the comma that killed us.” “There…
Abducted to New York
But what if your dreams tell you to track down your high-school stalker, now an escaped convict, because he’s somehow connected to your unborn child? Do you run off without your husband and leave everything behind except an ancient Datsun and some fried pies? The answer, according to Alison Crane, is yes. Yes, you do.…
Still got it
Photo: Wesley Hamilton Next Wednesday’s show at the University of Oklahoma marks the third there for Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. Based in Springfield, Mo., the indie-pop band with the exhaustively long name hopes the third time will be the charm. “The first time we played was during finals week. The next time, we…
Ruby Sparks
This changes when, at the urging of his shrink (Elliott Gould), Calvin writes about the young woman who wanders in and out of his slumber. The girl of his dreams literally becomes the girl of his dreams when she appears in his waking life, in his kitchen, as if they’re already a devoted couple. Her…
Pet sights
Now pet lovers can honor their pets and benefit a good cause, all at the same time. Candid Color Systems is donating 100 percent of proceeds from its recently launched Pics Saving Pets website to the Central Oklahoma Humane Society. Under the initiative, pet owners can upload photographs of their animals — with or without…
Some like it H.O.T.
After settling in Oklahoma City after high school, she began looking for a way to participate in her community while engaging with international issues. In May 2007, she joined Kiva. a California-based nonprofit that allows people to lend as little as $25 to worldwide entrepreneurs in need of capital. By forming “lending teams” through Kiva,…
It’s melting! melting!
Credit: Brad Gregg That would be illegal, we’re pretty sure, just as it’s illegal to rob the ice cream man. According to Midwest City police, that’s what Gee did on Aug. 3, when temperatures were 113 and he purchased a frozen treat at an ice cream van. Sadly, the item evidently had melted. Gee allegedly…
Blast from the past
A small, but growing, band of self-described “history nerds” have taken an interest in preserving the heralds and other remnants of the city’s storied history. When the bridge was scheduled for demolition as part of the old Interstate-40 crosstown, members of Retro Metro OKC took action. Dedicated to collecting and sharing Oklahoma City’s history, the…
Secret paroles?
“We were thinking this can’t be right,” Sharp recalled. “What was going on behind the scenes to even get her a chance to talk to the parole board? We thought [at the time of the 2008 trial] that we had eight years before we had to relive this, and all of a sudden, we had…
The Hunger Games
I also found it disappointing — not as a near-billion-dollar grosser, but as a movie purported to be both action and science fiction. It’s too inert for the former and not imaginative enough for the latter. The title references a brutal annual competition staged by the government of a dystopian future, of which this film’s…
The Spy returns to radio
So long, Chopin and Mozart. Hello, Cut Copy and Morrissey. “The Spy has done a tremendous job of tapping into the pulse of the community to provide a vibrant venue for music genres that are completely underserved in our state,” said Kelly Burley, KOSU director. “Through our partnership, we look forward to amplifying what The…
Cooler running
Summer temperatures in Oklahoma always fall into one of two categories: There’s hot, and then there’s really hot. There is always a plethora of outdoor events available in Oklahoma City, but when the temperatures shoot past 100, some people balk in favor of air conditioning. And running outside? You can’t even walk without melting into…
Kill List
The less you know beforehand, the better, but know that Jay (Neil Maskell, Atonement, Doghouse) is stricken by immense stress. Struggling under the grips of the recession has placed his marriage to Shel (MyAnna Buring, The Descent, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1) on shaky ground, and their verbal disagreements dampen the spirits…
Shameful conduct
In regard to the “State of health” article by Mark Beutler (Aug. 1, Oklahoma Gazette), I wanted to say that I agree with the senti ment of the article. However, I’m disappointed the Gazette chose to include “headless fatty” stock footage. Most of those pictures are taken without permission. The idea that a person can’t…
Raising taxes? Really?
When a family member loses his or her job, that family has less income and normally creates a budget to live within its means, maybe cutting cable TV, Internet, etc. Can government not survive within a budget, instead of requiring taxpayers to give more? It could if it tried, but it’s easier to raise taxes…
