Brian Haas wasn’t always a jazz musician. The Tulsa native and Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey ringleader was instead trained from a young age to play classical piano. Even within the more structured confines of classical music, though, Haas has always been an improviser at heart. “I would always get super nervous before competitions or recitals,” […]
Mexico
Posted inArts & Culture
Come Out and Play
Francis (Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Lola Versus) and the very pregnant Beth (the genetically blessed Vinessa Shaw, Side Effects) rent a boat to explore the nearby island of Punta Hueca (can’t-be-accidental translation: Hollow Point). Under a sweltering sun, they find a few kids at the dock and seemingly no else along the village’s roads or in its […]
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Art de Aguilar
Deep in the valleys of southern Mexico lives a ceramic artist whose whimsical personality and artwork touch everyone within contact. Guillermina Aguilar Alcantara is a master of Mexican popular art, and the eldest of Ocotlán, Oaxaca’s Aguilar sisters, world-famous for their artwork. She has made the journey to Oklahoma City to create, display and sell […]
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Curandero: Dawn of the Demon
Certainly releasable, but only a goatee hair above watchable, the horror film is co-produced by Machete man Robert Rodriguez (no relation), who also wrote the original screenplay — “original” only in terms of it being rewritten, as there’s nothing new you haven’t seen 100 times before. To less adventurous viewers, I suppose the story’s being […]
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‘E.CO’ friendly
Contemporary art meets environmental awareness in E.CO, a photography exhibit that serves as the perfect showcase for [Artspace] at Untitled, according to Executive Director Jon Burris. “The reason we were interested in this particular show was that it fit our mission. We are an environment designed to stimulate creative thought and new ideas about contemporary […]
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Americano
Jetting to Los Angeles where she lived — and where he grew up for a few years until his father took him back to France, and where he hasn’t visited for five years — Martin plans on a quick trip to sign paperwork and put her condominium on the market. He doesn’t count on his […]
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Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXIV
This edition — four episodes on four discs, per Shout! Factory’s usual — is like a cinematic-crap tour around the globe. We venture south of the border for 1962’s Samson vs. the Vampire Women, a masked-wrestler epic that stars Santo (not Samson, no matter what the title says), the caped superhero of Mexico’s wrasslin’ ring. […]
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American DREAM
Judith Huerta and Fredy Valenzia Photo: Mark Hancock The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program offers a two-year deferment of deportation proceedings to undocumented immigrants. Qualified applicants must have entered the country as children, stayed out of major legal trouble and received at least a GED or be currently enrolled as students, among other requirements. […]
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Juan of the Dead
As played by Alexis Díaz de Villegas, Juan is a middle-aged, self-“employed” fisherman in Cuba whose layabout life gets some much-needed excitement when zombies dissidents invade their economically ravaged, crime-ridden village. Ironically, it motivates Juan and his otherwise lazy gang, as they start a dissident-extermination business whose motto is, “We kill your loved ones.” Armed […]
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Bad traffic
Zule Farms in Lexington Credit: Mark Hancock The evidence that Mexican drug cartels are doing business in Oklahoma appears overwhelming, and while the state has not seen levels of cartel-fueled violence even close to that occurring in Mexico, the Sooner State does play an unfortunate role in the madness. Situated almost squarely in the middle […]