Arts & Entertainment
Friday night fever
Luke Jenner, singer-guitarist for the Rapture, looks serious in a cramped dressing room downstairs at Pure nightclub.
Under Pressure
At first glance, Harsh Times seems to be a film about two friends getting stoned and chasing women in South Central L.A.
This doc rocks
When shopping at the record store, one must choose sides, argues Keith Morris of punk rock band Circle Jerks in American Hardcore.
The best of times the worst of times
Across four albums, Mobb Deep's primal realism vaulted them amongst hip-hop's biggest names; they rap-battled with Tupac and rhymed alongside Nas, B.I.G.
'Babel'-ing on with Alejandro
At the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, Mexican director Alejandro Gonz
Towering achievement
Following in the wake of Syriana and The Constant Gardener, Babel is a thought-provoking film examining a multitude of characters and locales. Set in Morocco, Japan, San Diego and Mexico, the movie cuts among four interconnected tales.
Guess Who's Back
Sometimes when a band is 40 years old they release an album that is more for themselves than for the fans.
It's niiiiiiice
Similar to a Penn lecture in which students suffer from coughing fits every few moments, the new film Borat generates the same reaction, with spasms of laughter in place of coughing.
Meow mix
In 1974, drinking buddies John Lennon and Harry Nilsson decided to make a record. The Nilsson-penned, Lennon-produced result was Pussy Cats, equal parts riotous sing-along and nostalgic meditation.
If you build it, they will gather
It's close to midnight at the Rotunda on 40th and Walnut. On the steps outside, a cypher of about 20 hip-hop heads huddle in close as a ghetto blaster thumps old school loops and two emcees in the middle face-off: "Common nigga, you don't think that's a lie / That's like saying when I spit it I don't spit fly / That's like saying you ain't you and I ain't I / Like this ain't the Gathering it's a street word fight." The crowd goes nuts, leaning back like witnesses of a car wreck to reward the verbal beating.
A band you can't refuse
The Rapture are back. After their meteoric rise in 2003 on the strength of hit single "House of Jealous Lovers," the band spent a few years out of the public eye.
Same old stuff
Ignoring for a second that a mouse getting flushed down the toilet is just about the most preposterous movie premise of all time, Flushed Away (from the creators of Wallace & Gromit) actually offers up a pretty enjoyable 90 minutes.
Driving in circles
Casablanca's Rick Blaine said that "the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." The movie industry, as a whole, tends to reject this philosophy.
State of Panic in the attic
Paul Michel's fourth album, Quiet State of Panic, filled with tracks about loneliness and wistful romance, would make the perfect soundtrack for a sequel to Wicker Park.
Straight Outta Heathrow
Lady Sovereign is a girl who knows how to take her criticisms with a healthy grain of salt. "They can fuck off," said the 20-year-old British rapper of her detractors.
A big step up from 'Battlefield Earth'
In a conference call this week, Street had the chance to sit down with actor Barry Pepper of Saving Private Ryan, 61*, and, most recently, Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers.
Not Your average Church pedophilia Scandal
A case study on what could be called the biggest crisis to ever face the Catholic Church, Deliver Us from Evil tells the story of Father Oliver O'Grady, a California parishioner who sexually abused children throughout the 1970s and '80s.
Panic on the Playground
In Todd Field's Little Children, the screen adaptation of the novel by Tom Perrotta, it's clear that the children in question are not those in the strollers, but the ones pushing them. Children is a story of suburban dissatisfaction.
Bloody 'ell!
With a new album out and a national tour, Ben Kweller certainly is a busy fellow. Sacrificing valuable time for baby clothes shopping at a Cincinnati Old Navy, the one-man band takes a few moments to talk to Street about bloody noses, intellectual property, and even his music. Street: On your new album you play all the instruments yourself, was that something you planned on doing much prior to recording, or when exactly was that decision made? Kweller: It happened at the last minute.
