Saddle up
The rodeo, now in its 20th year, is hosted in three arenas all week with performances at 8 p.m. Sunday, and daily performances at 9 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Finals are scheduled for 8 p.m. Friday, July 13. A Western trade show featuring gifts, clothing, furniture and accessories will be open throughout…
Bear clod
BY PHIL BACHARACH Ted is a foul-mouthed, hooker-loving pothead prone to comments of racism, homophobia and misogyny. Ted is also a stuffed teddy bear. That’s the premise, plot and central joke of Ted, the movie-directorial debut of Seth MacFarlane, creator of TV’s animated series Family Guy. It’s a funny enough idea, but stretched mighty thin…
Go Wes
The ever-quirky Wes Anderson makes his masterpiece with Moonrise Kingdom. BY PHIL BACHARACH It’s been a long time since I fell in love with a movie. Thank you, Wes Anderson, for making that experience possible again with Moonrise Kingdom. Maybe it’s fitting that a film about young love would elicit that sort of rapturous response.…
Sticky situation
BY ROD LOTT I still don’t know why Hollywood felt that Spider-Man, all of 10 years young, needed to be remade — I suspect it has to do with selling toys. Enough of calling The Amazing Spider-Man a “reboot,” too; this is a remake through and through. Like director Sam Raimi’s 2002 original, this “new”…
The Flaming Lips — The Flaming Lips & Heady Fwends
Without consulting the track listing, I tried to associate any of its 13 songs with the visitors. Not counting the needlessly 10-minute cover of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” with Erykah Badu’s vocals, I was able to place one. My point? This is not a collaborative album in the true sense; this…
Sky high
Love it or hate it, local hardcore act Our Sky Is Falling finds that if it bleeds, it leads. BY JOSHUA BOYDSTON The guys behind Oklahoma City post-hardcore outfit Our Sky Is Falling bring more to shows than instruments and amps. They also bring Band-Aids. “We are huge fans of visual bands who go onstage…
Star search
Kick up your heels at a performing arts studio that aims to prepare its students for the big time. BY SARAH LOBBAN Oklahoma City’s Northpark Mall is getting a new addition: Starbound Productions Academy for Performing Arts. The full-service academy, which has by-audition enrollment, opens its doors Aug. 1 to students of all ages and…
Uncork that canvas
A little vino may unleash your inner van Gogh at classes taught by The Tipsy Artist. BY MALENA LOTT The Tipsy Artist 6-8:30 p.m. Thursday Gallery Grazioso 301 W. Oklahoma, Guthrie tipsyartist.COm 822-0481 In an age when even doodling gets an app, art the old-fashioned way — easel, paint, brush — feels both nostalgic and…
Set it off
Does it have to do with family, food or fireworks? My bet is that it involves at least one of those three, and maybe all of them. For me, the most memorable Independence Days have involved fireworks. When I was about 10, I clearly remember my two older, ornery cousins wearing blue-and-white-striped denim shorts and…
OKG7 sweets to eat
Custard Factory 1000 E. Alameda, Norman 360-6177 First things first: Try the custard cookie ($3.09). Choose your frozen custard flavor, which will be smooshed between two cookies. Have your pick between double chocolate, chocolate-chip vanilla or peanut butter chocolate-chip cookies. If you’re on the go, grab a fudge brownie sundae ($4.09). On Sunday, enjoy an…
Strong brew
Marcy Frejo Credit: Mark Hancock The terms sounds oxymoronic; a beer is a beer, after all. Kyle Fleischfresser, beverage director for Western Concepts, a metro restaurant group, said “cocktail” has morphed in terms of its meaning. “A cocktail used to refer to a mixed drink with spirits, water, sugar and bitters,” Fleischfresser said. “Now it…
Steakhouse of the rising sun
Kowasky Stephen Credit: Shannon Cornman There’s always room for improvement. You’ve heard that before, right? (Oh, man … was it only me? That’s a blow to the ego.) Restaurants are no exception. Whether it’s service, consistency of experience or consistency in food, everybody can, conceivably, get better. Which is what makes writing this review of…
CFN NSFW Quote of the Week
“Look at Captain Long Dick out there. This guy like to fuck or what?” —Broken Arrow native Kristin Chenoweth, in the trailer for the film Hit & Run
Ice, ice baby
Credit: Shannon Cornman Fantasizing about igloos or spending your free time in the pool will only get you so far. Maybe you’ve decided to set up camp indoors for the remainder of the summer. While that’s a viable option, at some point you’ll still have to emerge from the confines of your coolish living quarters…
Some Hearts
lack compassion Executives at Arista Nashville, the record label of country cutie Carrie Underwood, might be biting their nails after the Oklahoma native expressed an opinion at odds with many in her conservative fan base. Touring to support her new album, Blown Away, Underwood told British newspaper The Independent that she supports gay marriage. “I…
NEWS OF THE WEIRD
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal;mso-outline-level:1″><span style=" Times New Roman”,”serif”;mso-fareast-Times New Roman”; mso-font-kerning:18.0pt;mso-fareast-language:ES”> Oops! Andrea Amanatides suffered a booboo in May while being booked to begin a six-month jail sentence in Albany, N.Y., for a probation violation. As she was being placed in a holding cell, a cache of drugs fell onto the floor. Deputies soon figured…
Shedding tiers
Some city officials caution that the MAPS 3 convention center may need to be built with expansion in mind. BY CLIFTON ADCOCK Members of a group overseeing progress of the future MAPS 3 convention center have expressed concern that budget constraints could cause the city to miss the mark on a key goal for the…
Exchanging control
In the wake of the federal health care law being upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, Oklahoma must ensure a health care exchange. BY CLIFTON ADCOCK The U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week upholding the federal Affordable Care Act prompted no small amount of frustration from Oklahoma government and business leaders opposed to President Barack…
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…
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…
LIFE
First Position, director Bess Kargman’s award-winning documentary, steps into six screening slots at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive. The film follows half a dozen ballet dancers at the Youth America Grand Prix, one of the world’s most prestigious ballet competitions, as they prepare for a chance to enter the professional dancing…
CFN NSFW Quote of the Week
“Look at Captain Long Dick out there. This guy like to fuck or what?” —Broken Arrow native Kristin Chenoweth, in the trailer for the film Hit & Run
CFN NSFW Quote of the Week
“Look at Captain Long Dick out there. This guy like to fuck or what?” —Broken Arrow native Kristin Chenoweth, in the trailer for the film Hit & Run
Mega cheap
The earlier you book your reservation on the brand new 81-seat double-decker coaches, the cheaper the cost. For procrastinators out there, it could cost as much as $20 to $25. Still, that’s cheaper than filling up your own car to head down Interstate 35. When you take a ride on a Megabus, you ride in…
‘Some Hearts’ lack compassion
Touring to support her new album, Blown Away, Underwood told British newspaper The Independent that she supports gay marriage. “I think we should all have the right to love, and love publicly, the people that we want to love,” said the 29-year-old singer and Baptist-raised devout Christian. “It’s not up to me to judge anybody.”…
Any way you slice it
You’ve heard of the New York strip steak and the Kansas City strip. Well, meet their younger, party-ready brother: the Vegas strip. That’s right, the crew at Oklahoma State University’s Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center have been hard at work in their meat labs, and their efforts — along with an outside…
Same old story
Or, to be politically correct, you’re “unhealthy.” That’s according to a recent report by the American College of Sports Medicine. Its survey mapped a variety of factors — how many people are obese, how many are smokers, how many exercise facilities there are, etc. — to rank the fitness of 50 U.S. cities, from best to…
Playing ball
Why is this tale in our head these days? Chicken-Fried News thinks that Croatian man might have been Chesapeake Energy, with that beach chair actually a news agency called Reuters. Shortly after the Oklahoma City-based energy giant named a new board chairman and four new shareholder-selected board members — changes in corporate governance spurred by inflammatory…
Make the grade
Organizations that track the health care industry, such as The Leapfrog Group, hope to help with that. The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, which works to promote hospital safety and transparency, recently released a hospital-safety grading system determined by such factors as patient injuries, medication errors and infections. No hospital in the Oklahoma City metro scored an…
Star search
Cindy St. Peter, creator and education director at Starbound, said the studio is looking for people with raw talent, as well as those wanting to hone their performance skills. Acting, singing and dance classes form the heart of its curriculum. St. Peter, who has worked for 40 years as an actress, singer, vocal and piano…
Changes at DHS threaten progress
This legislative session the bulk of our work focused on child welfare reform: demanding change at the state Department of Human Services to better protect Oklahoma children in foster care and creating better opportunities for children of incarcerated parents. We demanded pay increases for foster care families, lower case loads for child welfare workers doing…
Feel the Bern
Ever had one of those days? Your co-workers are at each others’ throats, debt is piling up, you can’t get your mind off your ex no matter how hard you try — and then someone tries to shoot one of your customers. Charles “Shake” Bouchon is having one of those days. Whiplash River, the…
Brace for ‘Impact’
As a retired teacher, Stephney-Roberson knows firsthand how difficult it is to obtain material about Oklahoma’s black history. “During my years of teaching, I tried to find tools to use, but it was a topic that we were unable to acquire much information on,” she said. Impact highlights the men and women who played pivotal…
Getting scrappy
Best of all, the dirty work is done for free by bazillions of invisible, bacterial workers that never take breaks, vacations or even ask for raises. The result is compost. “The value is black gold,” said Zitterkob, co-founder of Fertile Ground Compost Services with Craghead. At any given time, the duo has piles of what…
Uncork that canvas
In an age when even doodling gets an app, art the old-fashioned way — easel, paint, brush — feels both nostalgic and primitive. Those who haven’t had art instruction since being yay-high, a blank canvas can be less daunting, thanks to Tiffany Bohrer. Teaching classes as The Tipsy Artist, she helps call up creativity at…
The Amazing Spider-Man
Like director Sam Raimi’s 2002 original, this “new” version is an origin story, depicting how mild-mannered Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield, The Social Network) transforms from high school science nerd to an arachnid-powered superhero in spandex. The major differences boil down to these: —swapping nemesis The Green Goblin for The Lizard (Rhys Ifans, The Five-Year Engagement);—swapping…
A history of Violence
Some band names perfectly match their sound. Consider The Beach Boys, Slayer and, now, Oklahoma City’s own Sonic Violence. “I like the idea of musical violence, like an amp punching you in the face,” lead singer and founding member Leon Manson said. “That’s the direction we wanted to go in.” Previously a member of Moon,…
Sky high
The guys behind Oklahoma City post-hardcore outfit Our Sky Is Falling bring more to shows than instruments and amps. They also bring Band-Aids. “We are huge fans of visual bands who go onstage and destroy everything,” vocalist Matt Magill said. “We throw guitars, hang from the ceiling, run out into the crowd and just freak…
Making a splash
Lead singer and guitarist Joey Vannucchi might be stranded roadside between Washington and Idaho while his alt-rock band, From Indian Lakes, works to fix a blowout, but the good on their tour has definitely outweighed the bad. “We ate at Pine Street in Portland, and they gave us a bag full of free biscuits,” he…
Line in the sand
Dream-pop duo Beach House finds itself in a precarious situation. The Baltimore act long has been weary of the foils of fame, but it’s been flirting with it more and more with each album. Its latest, Bloom, saw demand for the band hit a fever pitch. The record debuted in the top 10 on Billboard’s…
Seeking shelter
The mother of six and grandmother of three has not had an easy path getting to where she is now. She was a victim of domestic violence, which in turn led to homelessness. “I grew up in a domestic violence home,” she said. “Childhood memories I have include my dad stabbing my mom in the…
Municipal money
And a check of municipal salaries in the metro shows maybe that’s where college graduates should be looking for a high-paying job. What municipal officials in the area earn might be surprising in a county where the median household income — the combined income of the breadwinners in one house — is less than $43,000 a…
Exchanging control
Among the most immediate concerns is the state’s requirement to have a health care exchange. Under ACA, all states must have an electronic database that connects people buying insurance coverage to insurance providers, as well as information about what federal subsidies are available to them. Failure to create an exchange by Jan. 1, 2014, would…
Bank shot
But those in banking before the advent of the Internet tell a far more emotional story of high-flying finance that ended in a spectacular supernova, changing the banking industry forever. Thursday marks the 30th anniversary of Penn Square’s failure. Those in the industry still remember it like it was yesterday. In 1982, James Finch was…
Chesty Morgan’s Bosom Buddies
Now that that’s, um, out of the way, let’s dive into the new triple-feature Blu-ray, Chesty Morgan’s Bosom Buddies, from pioneering sexploitation director Doris Wishman and the cult-film gods at Something Weird Video. For fans of really whacked-out movies, it’s one of the year’s few must-own discs. Busting out of the box first is…
21 Jump Street
In the prologue, we’re introduced to high school nerd Schmidt (Jonah Hill, Moneyball) and his dumb-jock tormenter, Jenko (Channing Tatum, Magic Mike). Seven years later, both enroll in the police academy, and form an unlikely friendship by helping each other get through. At graduation, they barely can contain their excitement about a law-enforcement career: “Get…
American Animal
• watch porn• smoke pot• smoke cigarettes• have sex• stage Christmas• dance• spit blood• have sex again• change into a bunch of “funny” costumes• speak in “funny” invented languages That more or less doubles as a plot summary for the no-budget comedy (drama?). Matt D’Elia serves as writer (improviser?), director and center as Jimmy, a…
Howard’s end?
The current contract for Zoo Amp management and operation held by the Facilities Management Group expires in December. FMG’s successor is 3Horse Productions. The contract has been at the center of controversy for months, as FMG owner Howard Pollack, his employees and attorneys have criticized the deal. Pollack, who has had the Zoo Amp contract…
No place like home
The Sooner Theatre is celebrating its 10th year of summer camp productions with the performance of The Wizard of Oz. The cast consists of student’s aged 8 to 13. “It’s our second time to do Wizard of Oz, and we just had such a magical time with it last time we did it, and we…
Shedding tiers
The proposed $252 million convention center was to elevate Oklahoma City from a lower Tier 3 convention site to a higher Tier 2 site, said Roy Williams, Greater Oklahoma City Chamber CEO and MAPS 3 convention center subcommittee board member. However, funding from the 1 percent MAPS 3 sales tax may not be enough to…
Ted
That’s the premise, plot and central joke of Ted, the movie-directorial debut of Seth MacFarlane, creator of TV’s animated series Family Guy. It’s a funny enough idea, but stretched mighty thin for feature-film length. MacFarlane supplies the voice of the titular character, as he does for Family Guy’s Peter Griffin, but the similarities don’t end…
Harumph, harumph, harumph
Gov. Mary Fallin called it “a bad day for Americans,” noting that Oklahomans had approved a constitutional amendment to block implementation of the bill. “Today’s decision highlights the importance of electing leaders who will work to repeal the federal health care law and replace it with meaningful reform focused on commonsense, market-based changes,” she said.…
Bullhead
Hey, guys, you’d feel the same if you had no testicles. Bullhead is not, however, your average chunk of Oscar bait. In fact, nothing about it is average. Its distributor is Drafthouse Films, the theatrical arm of the legendary — among outré-cinema enthusiasts, at least — Austin, Texas-based Alamo Drafthouse, where you can enjoy a…
The Hunter
Willem Dafoe (John Carter) assumes the title role as Martin David, an expert hunter who’s hired by a shadowy mega-corporation in Europe to acquire the Tasmanian tiger for them in the Australia wilds. Although thought to be extinct, the animal is rumored to have been sighted recently, making it perhaps the last one in existence.…
Rendezvous on rights
On Saturday, the Norman chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) will host the organization’s fourth regional conference, which seeks to provide an education on matters relevant to the LGBT community. Organizers anticipate topics will include bullying, religion, health, and legal and political issues. Norman Police Chief Keith Humphrey will open…
New York Stories
While many omnibus films have been made in modern times, hardly any — at least in America — tout the caché of this one, letting directors Martin Scorsese (Hugo), Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather) and Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris) loose to each tell a story set in the city that has a million of…
