Carpenter Square treats Pulitzer-winning ‘Picnic’ with reverence
William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Picnic,” revolves around the people in a tiny Kansas town getting together for a Labor Day celebration. But what rides beneath the action is not fellowship so much as loneliness “? a gnawing ache to escape the boredom of their existence. Handsome drifter Hal blows into town, catching the…
Former Oklahoma lawyer gives up practice for Nashville dreams
After graduating from the University of Oklahoma College of Law, Dameon Allensworth has given up his legal practice to live the life of a struggling country music songwriter in Nashville, Tenn. He spent his spare time writing songs in college and being in the band Briar Branch Road, which gained a fan base throughout…
Turkish ceramics get rare stateside showing
Works of art rarely seen on American soil are now on exhibit in Oklahoma City University’s Wanda L. Bass Music Center Atrium. Turkish ceramists Ibrahim Erdeyer and Mehmet Gürsoy have about 35 pieces on display at “Modern Masters: Turkish Ceramics,” running through April 29. RARELY SEEN”The ceramics are very fragile, so you don’t…
Sixty years after Woodward tornado, girl’s kidnapping unsolved
On April 9, 1947, Oklahoma experienced the deadliest tornado in state history, resulting in a mystery around a 4-year-old girl that remains unsolved. A two-mile-wide cyclone left 107 dead in Woodward. In its aftermath, two men dressed in Army fatigues entered a hospital and kidnapped 4-year-old Joan Gay Croft. The kidnapping began a lifelong…
Guster makes Oklahoma stops on environmental tour
Dream-pop band Guster is currently on its Campus Consciousness Tour, playing its music and promoting environmental awareness at several universities. “The Campus Consciousness Tour is more about informing people who come to the show on how they can emit less and help the environment,” drummer Brian Rosenworcel said. ACTIVISM IN ACTIONBut the guys…
Former Norman dairy owner works motivational magic with businesses
Once an Oklahoma Pork Council lobbyist, Gene Parsons now deals with motivational management on the lecture circuit. “I have a great time doing motivational speeches because I always get a new friend and I learn something,” said Parsons, 83. “My main idea is to share what they need to do to have a…
Norman museum holds Native American Youth Language Fair
A battle of wits and words will be waged Thursday and Friday at the fifth annual Oklahoma Native American Youth Language Fair. Held at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, 2401 Chautauqua in Norman, participants will demonstrate their knowledge of more than 18 different American Indian languages. Students compete in spoken…
Patrice Pike builds on her ‘Rock Star: Supernova’ rep in OKC
Based in Austin, Texas, singer-songwriter Patrice Pike is proud for being known as an “eclectic” artist, mixing guitar-oriented rock with soulful singing. It must be working because Pike landed a spot on the CBS reality show “Rock Star: Supernova” last year, where she competed for a chance to be lead singer in a band…
Oklahoma native ‘Dick Tracy’ creator helped revolutionize law enforcement
Although his often-grotesque villains were larger than life, Gould was big on realism when it came to Tracy’s investigations. Said Michael Vance, volunteer curator of the Oklahoma Cartoonists Collection at the Toy and Action Figure Museum in Pauls Valley, “He wanted to be as close and authentic as possible.” “Dad’s goal in life…
Norman’s Blue Fish music show celebrates 20th gig
The 20th Blue Fish Companion party/music show recently was held at Norman’s Red Room. “It comes with a built-in crowd,” said Quentin Bomgardner, founder. “When I contact people, they want to play Blue Fish and that is why. You want to play in front of people. As a musician, it stinks to play in…
Premonition
Reviewer grade: D+ Why do strange things happen to good people? I dunno. Maybe because they’ve lost their faith in anything bigger than themselves. Or they’ve lost their ability to find a good script. There you go “? “Premonition” in a nutshell. I just saved you nine bucks. Thank me by dropping some of…
TMNT
n went nuts over when he was a sprout, I like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles best. Come on, they were fun. Now they’re back and this time, slightly more serious. They still have to defeat a super-villain and his minions “? that’s a big part of the fun “? but they also have to…
Reign Over Me
Reviewer grade: C+ Writer/director Mike Binder’s “Reign Over Me” is a bittersweet dramedy chronicling the efforts of a vaguely unhappy New York City dentist (Don Cheadle) to help heal a newly re-met college roommate (Adam Sandler) whose life has been devastated: His wife, three daughters and family dog all died in a 9/11 plane.…
The Ultimate Gift
Reviewer grade: C Work builds character. Family is important. It’s better to give than to receive. If such truisms strike you as fresh and exciting, there’s plenty more where that came from in “The Ultimate Gift,” the latest offering from 20th Century Fox’s faith-based division. But this treacle is more dispiriting than spiritual. …
300
Reviewer grade: B- If you’ve been waiting for a realistic movie on the Battle of Thermopylae, keep waiting. If you want one that’s all thud and blunder, with eye-popping CGI and exhilarating fight choreography, and you don’t care a damn about dialogue or reasonable motivation, welcome to Sparta. Director Zack Snyder follows up his…
Dead Silence
Reviewer grade: B+ When you see that the Universal Pictures logo that opens this movie is the version that was used in the early Thirties, you’ll know that this isn’t going to be another torture-porn hunk of splatterpunk. When a young man’s wife is killed, apparently by a dead ventriloquist’s aging dummy, he returns to his…
Shooter
Reviewer grade: D+ Settling into an implausible movie thriller is a bit like checking into a cut-rate motel room: Keep your distance and everything looks OK. Only on closer inspection will you notice the sooty walls and God-knows-what on the bedspread. It certainly doesn’t pay to look too closely at “Shooter,” a lunkheaded action-thriller in…
Believe in Me
Reviewer grade: B Although the scripting is often nothing to cheer about, writer/director Robert Collector hits an emotional three-pointer or two in “Believe in Me,” a story of girls basketball in Western Oklahoma in the Sixties. The film, based on Harold Keith’s novel “Brief Garland,” tells the fictionalized story of real-life coach Jim Keith, Harold…
I Think I Love My Wife
Reviewer grade: D Family man and investment banker Richard Cooper (Chris Rock) is bored with life. His wife, Brenda (Gina Torres), won’t have sex with him, forcing him to daydream about sleeping with beautiful women he sees in public. When old flame Nikki Tru (Kerry Washington) comes back in his life, Richard begins to…
The Hills Have Eyes II
Reviewer grade: C- Wes Craven and his son Jonathan co-wrote this sequel to last year’s successful remake of Papa Craven’s 1977 original. This time out, a team of National Guard recruits is taken into the desert of the American Southwest to find out why some scientists camped there have not been responding to radio…
Operation ‘Deserter’ storm for former Oklahoman
Right now, Joshua Key might be rethinking telling the world he took off to the Great White North. The former Oklahoman made headlines when he ditched the Army and then fled to Canada in 2004 as a deserter. He wrote about his hellish experiences in Iraq ” disembodied-head soccer-playing and all ” in his…
A political appeal to the Finnish Klingon community
A political appeal to the Finnish Klingon community A political appeal to the Finnish Klingon community … Plus, insurance against paper cuts, preferring babies with abnormalities, Egyptian Muslim women’s re-virginization, and more in this week’s News of the Weird. -Democracy in Finland: The Intopii computer firm of Helsinki announced in February that it has installed…
OKC’s The Flaming Lips head for Broadway
Grab your tangerines, Oklahoma, The Flaming Lips are going Broadway. Front man Wayne Coyne confirmed to www.ew.com that the space crusaders are set to team with “West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin and Broadway producer Des McAnuff (“The Who’s Tommy”) to produce a musical version of their 2002 album “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.” (Not…
Five stages of voter grief
If the 2006 election cycle has proven anything, it is that Oklahoma voters are sick and tired of the status quo and that they are tired of the wicked nature of political attack ads. So much so, it appears as though the electorate has begun to recognize that the experiment in self-government we call democracy…
More driving challenges for Tulsa author
One hates to kick a man when he can’t kick back (what with his shoes being on the wrong feet and all), but Chicken-Fried News wouldn’t be doing its civic duty if it didn’t mention Tulsa author William Bernhardt’s March 18 drunken driving arrest. This is not to be confused with Bernhardt’s Feb. 23 one,…
OKC-shot ‘Sex Machine’ set for DVD release
Despite what the title implies, the locally shot film “Sex Machine” isn’t X-rated. Lensed in 2005, the feature film is a horror-crime hybrid written and directed by Christopher Sharpe. Anthem Pictures will release “Sex Machine” on DVD May 1. “It’s kind of a combination of comic books and horror movies from the Sixties ” lots…
Oklahoma senators continue to make national news
Is there any way for Oklahoma’s senators to make national news that doesn’t make it look like the Sooner State is represented by those relatives you hope don’t show up for the party? The latest installment of wackiness from Oklahoma legislators came via Mr. Sunshine himself, Sen. James Inhofe. Public embarrassment, meet Inhofe. Inhofe,…
The real Ralph Nader
In the Sixties, I inherited my dad’s Chevrolet Corvair and drove it all over Austin, Texas. My younger sister then drove it till it died somewhere between Waco, Texas, and Dallas. We had fun with that little car until we read in Ralph Nader’s groundbreaking book that it was “Unsafe at Any Speed.” The…
