Best Of New Orleans Blog

Mayor Nagin began his comments at the news conference by saying, “How am I gonna stand up and say, I’m a ‘vagina-friendly’ Mayor to these cameras after ‘Chocolate City’ and some of the other stuff that I’ve done. But you know what? I’m in.” In context, Nagin’s comments are welcoming the tenth anniversary of playwright Eve Ensler’s empowering tale, The Vagina Monologues. After watching the directorial debut of Mitchell Lichtenstein, Teeth, which was the prized independent film at the Sundance Film Festival of 2007, one wonders if Nagin knows of the consequences of crossing the V. Teeth had its’ theatrical release in 2007 and has been released on DVD this week. (more…)

In the mood for a romantic comedy? At least one is usually released on DVD weekly and this does not include the many that go straight to DVD without a theatrical release. So, one might suppose that a romantic comedy with a huge theatrical release and this month’s “it” girl might be original or at least entertaining. Not true!

27 Dresses starring Katherine Heigl as a plain Jane, actually named Jane, with an affinity for being a bridesmaid in weddings (27 to be exact), is a cut and paste of about every romantic comedy which has preceded it. Jane is in love with her boss, played by a drab Edward Burns, but unable to tell him, even though both of the characters are so dull that it is immediately apparent they would be the perfect couple. Unfortunately, for Jane, her baby sister comes back from Italy only to set her pretty blue sights on Mr. Drab himself. Next thing you know, Jane is asked to be the Maid of Honor in the wedding of her sister and her boss, who she secretly loves. (more…)

Lolis Eric Elie knows how to get right to the point. As a regular columnist at the Times Picayune, Elie has little room for verbosity, but still those few words of his printed on a little slip of newspaper are often more than enough to knock you over. He has the same effect in person.

In the early summer of 2006, I was covering a story about a group of restaurateurs, who were visiting New Orleans to learn more the levee failures. Before getting on tour buses to see the devastation, the sponsoring-organization, Share Our Strength, asked Elie to say a few words about the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. With a straight, almost deadpan-delivery, Elie asked the group to imagine a trucker crashing his 18-wheeler through the middle of their living room. The trucker gets out of his cab, looks around and says, “Wow. I feel bad about this. Tell you what, I’ll give you 50 percent for everything I’ve destroyed.” Pause. (more…)

I do not remember ever seeing The Good Night theaters. Nor, do I remember even reading about this film in any “Coming Soon” articles. The first time I even heard of it was in the video store. There it was staring at me from the shelves. It is surprising to me that this movie went straight to DVD because the cast consists of Gwenyth Paltrow, Penelope Cruz, Danny Devito and Simon Pegg, who is growing ever more recognizable. Oh, did I mention, The Good Night is written and directed by Jake Paltrow, brother to Oscar-winning Hollywood starlet, Gwenyth? The Good Night has the potential to be good (excuse the pun), but it just misses the mark of eccentricity and becomes essentially just plain odd. (more…)

On another journey to the local video store, I picked up two new releases that appear to have little in common. However, it seems that many films of all genres are jumping on the “post-apocalyptic” band wagon. I did not want to like I Am Legend starring Will Smith. On the other hand, I wanted to love the long-awaited Southland Tales directed by Richard Kelly, of Donnie Darko fame, and starring Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, Justin Timberlake, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Mandy Moore. Both films deal with the annihilation of the human race in two major U.S. cities—New York City and Los Angeles.

I Am Legend relies completely on Will Smith. It is set on the island of Manhattan after a virus, meant to cure cancer, has turned most of the population into sun-starved, blood-sucking, rabie-infected creatures. The film is partly an analogy of a major metropolis’s destruction and the virtual destruction of a man by consuming loneliness. The other part of the film is a horror film with your typical zombie/creatures, which we have seen before in films like 28 Days Later and The Descent. (more…)

The Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center trumpets its return to Central City this weekend with a spate of intriguing screenings, including Lukas Moodysson’s experimental Container, Bertrand Bonello’s French short Cindy: The Doll Is Mine and the premiere of Peter Joseph’s appropriately titled (but completely unrelated) conspiracy picture Zeitgeist — The Movie. The actual trumpets will wait until Monday, however, beginning with a quartet of international music documentaries that takes a midweek redeye from the progressive plains of Reykjavik to the primal banks of Rio. (more…)

Val Kilmer’s website has announced that he has plans to join 50 Cent in a New Orleans based thriller “Microwave Park” directed by Charles Winkler.

Kilmer states on his site “I play a burly rough but loyal cop. 50 is my partner….”. (more…)

Amid insipid articles on Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day (fluffy!), the Bloody Mary (spicy!) and a repeat feature on George Rodrigue’s NOMA exhibit (from dogging to doting in one week flat!), today’s Times-Picayune “Lagniappe” insert proffered this intriguing tidbit: Some enterprising film company saw fit to celluloid-ize Robosapien, and auditions for the upcoming New Orleans shoot will be held next Friday, March 14. Robosapien, you may know (provided you’re sub-5 feet tall and possess a Y chromosome), is the flagship product of WowWee, a consumer electronics company specializing in robot design. Its inventor, Mark Tilden, is a former physicist for NASA whose applied principles in biomorphic robotics allow the 24-inch feller to perform a virtual acrobatics act — fluid motions, gestures, walking, turning, the works. (He can even speak, belch and flatulate at random, making him not unlike his target demographic.) Before visions of a climactic, albeit miniaturized, Cloverfield-style climax begin dancing in any heads — faulty wiring causes Robosapien to take out an unsuspecting family of nutrias! — it should be said that the picture is billed as “a beautiful family feature film about a boy who finds a robot and the adventures they have together.” Groan. Maybe the sight of all those damn inscrutable blue dogs around town will set him off. Hey, it works for art critics.   

The local filmmakers Court 13 Pictures premiere their new film Glory at Sea on Thursday (March 6) at the Prytania Theatre before taking it to the film festival portion of SXSW in Austin. The story is a post-Katrina take on the Orpheus myth. Mourners join a man cast out of Hades to build a boat from the hurricane debris and rescue their loved ones from the bottom of the ocean. Director Benh Zeitlin shot the film at locations throughout the New Orleans area and assembled Katrina debris to create the vessel.

Court 13 includes Zeitlin, whose film Egg won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Animated Short at the Slamdance Film Festival, and production designer Ray Tintori, who won a Sundance Film Festival award for the short film Death to the Tinman.

The screening is at 7:30 p.m. at the Prytania (5339 Prytania St.). Admission is $3.