MetroPulse Stories: Arts and Entertainment

Shane Carruth's Follows 'Primer' With the Perplexing But Rewarding 'Upstream Color'

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:11:00 -0000

That Upstream Color even exists represents both a triumph and a rebuke to the mainstream film-production system that couldn’t spring for a work this daring and, for all its polish, most likely inexpensive.

Baz Luhrmann’s 'Great Gatsby': All Spectacle, No Heart

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:48:00 -0000

Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby has quite a bit going for it: an epic soundtrack; eye-popping art direction; a titanic-sized (or Titanic-sized) budget, courtesy of co-producer Jay-Z; a number of radiant performances; and source material from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Great American Novel. It also kinda sucks.

Q&A: Food Writer Francis Lam

gervinc@metropulse.com (Cari Wade Gervin) — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:27:00 -0000

In this era where everyone who Instagrams his lunch and posts it on Tumblr fancies himself a food writer, Francis Lam is the real deal.

Studio Ghibli’s Torch Is Not Quite Passed Yet With 'From Up on Poppy Hill'

coury@metropulse.com (Coury Turczyn) — Wed, 08 May 2013 14:35:00 -0000

From Up on Poppy Hill is a fine film. But it’s not a great one.

The Emporium Keeps Its Standards High With a New Exhibit of Contemporary Polish Prints

Wed, 08 May 2013 13:47:00 -0000

Upon recently rewatching Roman Polanski’s The Pianist as my nod to the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto’s Jewish uprising, I was reminded of how intrigued I am by Poland and its history. But even though I have traveled to other Eastern European countries, I’ve somehow missed Polska. So I’m excited that the Marek Maria Pienkowski Foundation has brought art from Poland to Knoxville. Until June, the Arts and Culture Alliance presents works from the Wroclaw School of Printmaking, produced by professors and teaching assistants at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design, as part of the larger Wroclaw Faculty of Graphic Arts and Media Art Exhibition.

'Repo Man'’s Class Anger Still Seethes Almost 30 Years Later

Wed, 01 May 2013 15:38:00 -0000

Without putting too much weight or importance behind what a bunch of now-elderly former youths once wanted to express, one of the key things that keeps the spirit of punk alive, or at least on life support, is class anger. And class anger is one of the key things that animates writer/director Alex Cox’s 1984 Repo Man.

Michael Bay Reveals Unexpected Self-Referential Wit in Action Satire 'Pain & Gain'

Wed, 01 May 2013 14:34:00 -0000

Some people have never been particularly friendly to the Transformers director; according to Rotten Tomatoes, his 1996 prison-break adventure The Rock is the only Bay film to inspire so much as toleration from critics, while serious film fans deride his rapid, nearly incomprehensible cutting as the depths of taste. But if we let fair criticisms and commercial savvy drown each other out, what remains of Michael Bay isn’t some empty-headed technician with a hard-on for explosions—it’s a filmmaker who’s conquered the biggest, dumbest beast in Hollywood, and now practices the blockbuster as a style unto itself.

Knoxville Opera Delivers an Energetic, Sparkling 'Cinderella'

Wed, 01 May 2013 13:52:00 -0000

Simply stated, there are those operatic singers who consider themselves Rossini singers, and there are those who don’t. The diction and voice flexibility required for Gioachino Rossini’s characteristic style of rapid-fire runs of little notes is both an art and a craft—one that some singers luxuriate in naturally. Knoxville Opera, under executive director and conductor Brian Salesky, ended up with just such a solid cast of wonderful Rossini singers for its production last weekend of La Cenerentola (“Cinderella”), a production that bubbled and sparkled with typically melodic Rossini verve and a lot of lovable comedic energy.

Clarence Brown Theatre Produces High-Speed Farce With Tom Stoppard’s 'On the Razzle'

Wed, 01 May 2013 13:41:00 -0000

Tom Stoppard's On the Razzle is a classic mistaken-identity, disapproving-parent, jealous-pursuit romp turned up a few notches. It’s like a long Marx Brothers routine, with about a dozen Marx Brothers, and no musical breaks.

Q&A: Designer Paulie Gibson, Appearing at Knoxville Fashion Week

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:14:00 -0000

Paulie Gibson is an up-and-coming St. Louis based designer of think-out-of-the-box men’s fashion. His work will be featured during Knoxville Fashion Week.

Glass Slipper: A Q&A With the Stars of Knoxville Opera's 'Cinderella'

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:59:00 -0000

The work of the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini returns to the Knoxville Opera’s 2013 Rossini Festival with a production of Cinderella (La Cenerentola) featuring mezzo-soprano Leah Wool as Cinderella and tenor Michael Dailey as the Prince.

Knoxville Opera Revives Rossini’s 'Cinderella' for Rossini Festival

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:47:00 -0000

Audiences will find a few twists to the story they probably know very well.

'Oblivion' Reminds Us What Makes Sci-Fi Great

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:50:00 -0000

Oblivion is just as interesting for what it might mean for sci-fi fans as for what it actually is. It gives us everything we’d expect from a movie that comes with a reported $100 million price tag, but it’s also a throwback to the thoughtful science fiction of the 1960s and ’70s.

Q&A: Former Teen Heartthrob and Evangelical Speaker Kirk Cameron

gervinc@metropulse.com (Cari Wade Gervin) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:57:00 -0000

There was a time—before Justin Bieber, before Zac Efron, before even the New Kids on the Block—where one teen heartthrob towered o'er all the rest, ruling the hearts of prepubescent girls with a twinkle in his eye and a winsome smile. That boy was Kirk Cameron, aka Mike Seaver on the ABC sitcom Growing Pains, which had 20 million weekly viewers at the peak of it popularity in the late 1980s.

Film Critic and Documentarian Mark Cousins Explores a Very Personal 'Story of Film'

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:08:00 -0000

Most people who’ve been halfway paying attention know the story of film, or at least some version of it. Eadweard Muybridge, Thomas Edison, jerky silents, talkies, glossy Hollywood studios, the New Wave, the ’70s, Star Wars, indies, CGI, something like that. Whether gleaned from a college class or picked up along the way, it’s a serviceable outline, and one that thumbnails the rudiments of Mark Cousins’ The Story of Film (Music Box DVD and streaming) quite nicely. But in adapting his book of the same name, Cousins goes deeper, and, as one might expect for a video essay that spans 15 hour-long episodes, far, far wider.

Repeat Offender Rob Zombie Manages to Attain Stylishness with 'The Lords of Salem'

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 14:09:00 -0000
Shock-rocker Rob Zombie’s fifth feature, The Lords of Salem, is his most accomplished movie so far, and has something none of his previous films could claim: a sense of fun.

Downtown’s Satirical Revue "Forbidden Knoxville" Tries Out a Fresh Venue

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 14:02:00 -0000
“You’re so odd but we love you still,” goes a refrain in the opening number of Flying Anvil’s new musical production. The endearment is directed, of course, at the city of Knoxville, and expresses our sentiments exactly.

We Finally Get To See the Long-Rumored Knoxville Play 'Five Women Wearing the Same Dress'

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:23:00 -0000
Five Women Wearing the Same Dress was first mentioned in these pages back in the ’90s. Back then, we’d heard rumors of a wacky off-Broadway comedy that happened to be set in Knoxville. We never made the trip to see it.

UT’s 'Rape of Lucretia' Offers a Stylized Production of Britten’s Puzzling Chamber Opera

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:17:00 -0000
When the audience steps into the world of The Rape of Lucretia, the 1946 Benjamin Britten chamber opera that is being staged this weekend by the University of Tennessee Opera Theatre, they may discover some puzzling contradictions that have baffled theatergoers and critics alike.

Jamie Quatro’s Stories of Infidelity, Faith, and Family Herald the Arrival of a Bright New Talent

gervinc@metropulse.com (Cari Wade Gervin) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:13:00 -0000
I Want to Show You More marks the emergence of a new Southern talent. Jamie Quatro doesn’t just dissect the modern marriage and the modern family, but the modern evangelical church. It’s a book to both devour and chew over.