If radioactive costumed heroes and obese green ogres can get kids into movie theaters, maybe they can get kids into books, as well. That’s the hope, anyway, as Borders at 3209 Northwest Expressway hosts “Storytime Goes to the Movies” 2 p.m. Saturday. According to Borders bookseller George Niestempski, this Borders location holds “storytime” sessions for […]
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Carpenter Square’s brave ‘Akimbo’ turns malady into comedy
“Kimberly Akimbo”‘s story line certainly doesn’t sound funny. A TV Guide summary might read, “A teenager with progeria, a rare medical condition that causes her to age at almost five times the normal rate, struggles just to get through her high school days.” If you added the other elements of the play “? an alcoholic […]
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Awesome!
Mexico City taxi driver Manuel Quiroz was seeking a sponsor earlier this year for his pursuit of the world raw-chili-pepper-eating contest. Supposedly, he can guzzle dozens of them at one sitting and even harmlessly squeeze their juice into his eyes. In February, Dublin, Ireland, software engineer Michael Killian demonstrated his sideways-traveling bicycle, in which a […]
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The Continuing Crisis
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, which operates mass transit just south of San Francisco, and whose employees stage about three dozen office parties a year, issued 33 pages of specifications in January to invite local companies to bid on a contract to supply sheet cakes. The winning bidder must be versatile enough to offer […]
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Notes on a Scandal
2006 With powerhouse acting talent like Oscar winners Dame Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, it’s tempting to ascribe deeper meaning and importance to “Notes on a Scandal.” But to do so would deny the lurid, trashy appeal of this fiendish psychological thriller. Dench is riveting […]
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Delta Farce
“MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt”> He stars as one of three numb-nuts Army reservists who end up in Mexico and think they’re in Iraq. An unforeseen irony is that Larry and his idiot buddies make better combat decisions than the professional soldiers in “28 Weeks Later,” which opened on the same weekend. “Delta Farce” is crude […]
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Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found
of “bananas” and one woman’s scrawled warning of “if you buy more rice “? i’ll punch you.” Chapters are devoted to old people’s lists (they really do have the worst penmanship, not to mention a predisposition to pills), doodles on lists and party lists. One chapter features a list from each of our 50 states, […]
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Fast Food Nation
2006 Good intentions prove as fulfilling as a Quarter Pounder with Cheese is nutritionally in “Fast Food Nation,” director Richard Linklater’s tricky fictionalization of Eric Schlosser’s nonfiction muckraking look at the suspect industry practices that go into making America’s McFood. Remember how Morgan Spurlock’s documentary “Super Size […]
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Georgia Rule
Reviewer’s grade: D Director Garry Marshall wastes a lot of acting talent in “Georgia Rule,” a melodramedy about messed-up mother-daughter relationships mismarketed as a comedic chick flick with light dramatic overtones. Starring Jane Fonda as Georgia, she who makes the rules; Felicity Huffman as Lilly, the daughter who breaks them; and Lindsay Lohan as […]
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Yikes!
After a street assault in January, a 22-year-old New Zealander was rushed to Wellington Hospital to have surgeons remove his car key, which was embedded behind his right ear. After a vicious attempted carjacking in March, an 18-year-old Australian was sent to Fremantle Hospital in Perth, where surgeons removed a screwdriver embedded in his face.