Entertainment News Archive: ‘Edukators’ teach themselves about trust
08-12-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

Director Hans Weingartner, who co-wrote “The Edukators” with Katharina Held, has given us a leisurely and engaging tour of the present state of youthful idealism in Germany. Whi le their contemporaries engage in conventional protest marches ag

Music Academy: A sparkling ‘Cosi’
08-12-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

W.A. Mozart’s sunniest opera was served up as a kind of dessert soufflé by the Music Academy of the West last weekend - a sweet culmination to the summer’s music season.

“Cosi fan tutte” was beautifully sung by stars of the Academy’s vocal program, at the Lobero Theatre, with Marilyn Horne - voice program director - in attendance at the Sunday matinee. The

Sonic Spotlight: Mercury Rising
08-12-2005
By Carter Yarbrough, Special to the Voice

There are break dancers at the Mercury, as well as loads of music, upcoming:
“The Attractives and Big Boy Napoleon” tomorrow, the 13th -Dawn O’Brien (owner/ matriarch).
And, across the street, I see rumblings of life at the long-dorma

‘Great Raid’ bogs down in its historical authenticity
08-12-2005
By Gabe D' Annunzio, Special to the Voice

A lot of the questions raised by the arrival of the new based-on-a-true-story film, “The Great Raid,” are more interesting than the film itself. Why, for instance, should a movie showing the Japanese as ruthless, murderous, even sadistic conquerors be

‘Dukes’ a lesson in being simultaneously over-the-top and tedious
08-12-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Hollywood continues this summer’s obsession with retro remakes, this time pulling out and dusting off “The Dukes of Hazzard,” starring Johnny Knoxville and Sean William Scott as cousins Luke and Bo Duke, Jessica Simpson as Daisy Duke, Burt Reynolds as

Arts& Entertainment Previews
08-12-2005

Eagles landing at the Bowl

Perhaps the greatest American rock and roll band, ever, the Eagles, will be playing a concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl at 7 p.m. next Tuesday, August 16. Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Don Felder, and Timothy B. Schmidt will take the stage at the

‘Four Brothers’ a 1960s western with urban attitude
08-19-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Director John Singleton lifts the template from the dusty roads of the Wild West and lays it on the icy streets of Detroit in his new film “Four Brothers,” a tale of outlaws, murderers, shootouts and revenge.

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese Gib

‘Beautiful Country’ follows a specific consequence of Vietnam War
08-19-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

“The Beautiful Country” is about a young man in Vietnam, son of a Vietnamese mother and an American GI whom he has not seen since he was an infant, who decides that if he wants a life of his own, he has to go to America. The story of hi

Music Academy: Ending with a Slavic flourish
08-19-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

The Music Academy of the West’s Festival Orchestra played its swan song at the Lobero Saturday night, concluding this summer season with a stunning Russian program.

The young musicians performed under the baton of Russian Maestro Alexander Lazarev, making a return appearance after his successful visit last year. The orchestra chose two guaranteed crowd ple

‘Skeleton Key’ drips with atmosphere, drowns in obscurity
08-19-2005
By Gabe D' Annunzio, Special to the Voice

“The Skeleton Key” has been getting a lot of good press, and in a way I can see the point of the praise. It looks really good, with its rain-soaked bayous, huge trees draping Spanish moss, and its decaying old mansion so closely and affectionate

Sonic Spotlight: Good Land Hoping
08-19-2005
By Carter Yarbrough, Special to the Voice

Still riled up from Fiasco the Merc. Charges on with a vibrant musical agenda. Saturdays are especially wild! Last Saturday featured Blesk opening for Big Boy Napoleon, and Thursday offered entertainment from an authentic master of the tabla.

Ho

Arts & Entertainment previews
08-19-2005

Dr. Laura Schlessinger eschews false humility

The popular and outspoken Dr. Laura Schlessinger will present a show at the Lobero Theatre at 8 p.m. this Friday and Saturday, August 19-20.

“Dr. Laura: In My NEVER To Be Humble Opinion” will be a two-act one-woman theatrical event that

'Saint Ralph' works a miracle or two
08-26-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Just when I thought I had gotten all crusty with cynicism-the fate of many a former Catholic schoolkid-along comes "Saint Ralph," a Canadian comedy about a pubescent Catholic schoolboy staking all he has on a footrace and a miracle.

Few films are

Camerata Pacifica raises a glass
08-26-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Camerata Pacifica and its artistic director, Adrian Spence-always game to try something new-last week took a shot at combining the cocktail hour with chamber music.

The affable Spence greeted a full house at Roy's, the downtown bistro usually given over to less serious music. He told the 5:30 p.m. crowd that "Camerata Pacifica's Happy Hour" was an experime

'Junebug' goes South, with empathy
08-26-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

"Junebug" is a small, astonishing movie-about the South, and Outsider art, and cultures banging up against each other-with a first-time director and a remarkable cast.

Phil Morrison, the director, and Angus MacLachlan, the writer, have created a quiet

'Dirty Deeds' pushes high school comedy envelope, a little
08-26-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

It is tempting to guess that Jon Land and Jonathan Thies, who wrote "Dirty Deeds," have never been to an American public high school. On the other hand, it seems entirely possible that they are still attending one.

The story involves

Arts & Entertainment previews
08-26-2005

Bruce Robison Sings Like Hell

Bruce Robison, one of the best of a new breed of singer songwriters (according to Billboard), will join the Sings Like Hell gang with a concert at the Lobero Theater at 8 p.m. this Saturday, August 27.

Robison's songs are sought by country stars like the Dixie Chicks ("Travelin' Soldier"), Tim McGraw and Faith Hill ("Angry All the Time") and George Str

‘Brothers Grimm’ a treat for the eye, a bafflement for the mind
09-02-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Children’s stories come to grotesque life in “The Brothers Grimm,” starring Matt Damon and Heath Ledger as Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, two brothers who play themselves off as 19th century ghostbusters in French-occupied Germany, only to come face to face

‘Asylum’ is well-done, but obscure
09-02-2005
By Gabe D’Annunzio, Special to the Voice

Born in London in 1950, author Patrick McGrath grew up on the grounds of Broadmoor Hospital, Britain’s largest top-security mental hospital, where for many years his father was medical superintendent. Since his novel, “Asylum,” chronicles the fortunes

Sonic Spotlight: Luna de Fuego
09-02-2005
By Carter Yarbrough, Special to the Voice

Last Thursday evening the Chumash Casino was ignited to new heights with the (“Gypsy”) “Kings” of Latin music. They offered many old favorites, like, “Volare,” and played many new hits from the new release, such as: “Galaxia,” Amor d’Un Dia,” “Gyp

Arts & Entertainment previews
09-02-2005

Einstein meets Picasso in PCPA play

PCPA TheatreFest’s production of Steve Martin’s comedy “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” moves from Santa Maria to the Festival Theater in Solvang this Friday, September 2, for a 2-week run that ends September 18.

Martin’s clever concoction about

‘Gardener’ needs a new driving wheel
09-09-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Drector

John Le Carre’s novel, “The Constant Gardener”-and the movie made from it by the Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles-charges the pharmaceutical companies with murder and the British government with shameful complicity.

The scene of the

‘November’ muddies the water of fate
09-09-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

“November” tells a type of story more or less invented by Edgar Allen Poe and brought to perfection by Ambrose Bierce before he vanished into Pancho Villa’s uprising in 1916: a compelling narrative constantly undercuts itself by causing the rea

‘2046’: days of future passed
09-09-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Director Wong Kar-wai has taken us down time’s dark corridors before (2000’s “In the Mood for Love”); his latest film, “2046,” makes a quantum leap, both backward and forward.

The same elements as the wrenching “In the Mood for Love” are present: a l

Sonic Spotlight: Hillsides Music Festival
09-09-2005
By Carter Yarbrough, Special to the Voice

Well the Spotlight falls on Ventura this Sunday, after last weekend’s Reggae Fest at Seaside Park, this weekend offers . . .

The Ventura Hillsides Conservancy will host the 2005 Ventura Hillsides Music Festival on Sunday, September 11, 2-4 p.m., in

Wit’s a-poppin’at PCPA/Solvang
09-09-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

When Steve Martin was cracking us up as a wild and crazy guy on SNL, who knew that his goofy persona concealed such a sparkling wit and sweet philosophy?

Example: his effervescent comedy “Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” now gracing the PCPA Theater in S

‘Thunder’ aims low, scores a solid hit
09-09-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Based on a short story by Ray Bradbury, and directed by Peter Hyams (“2010”) “A Sound of Thunder” follows time safari guide Travis Ryer (Edward Burns) as he struggles to fix the consequences of a mistake made in prehistory that results in evolution g

Arts & Entertainment previews
09-09-2005

Next week belongs to the Center Stage

The Center Stage Theater in the Paseo Nuevo Mall in downtown Santa Barbara is the venue of virtually every performance event in the coming week-unless, like the PCPA production of Steve Martin’s “Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” the event has al

‘Unfinished Life’ echoes in the mind
09-16-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

A battered woman is forced to run for help to her resentful father in law, igniting past grievances and reopening old wounds in the film “An Unfinished Life,” directed by Lasse Hallstrom (“What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” “My Life as a Dog”).

W

‘Emily Rose’ looks at both sides of exorcism
09-16-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Say the word ‘exorcism’ and the first thing that comes to mind is the twisty-headed pea soup spewing young girl in the 1973 film based on the book by William Peter Blatty. Thankfully, there’s little of that in Scott Derrickson’s “The Exorcism of E

‘Baxter’ celebrates the also rans
09-16-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

“The Baxter” has so many strikes against it-the title is the least of them-that I have put myself out finding worthy things in it. It is a hymn to low-keyed lives, and Michael Showalter-who wrote, directed, and is the star of “The Baxter”-clearly

Arts & Entertainment Previews
09-16-2005

Circle Bar-B visits ‘The Murder Room’

The next production of the Circle Bar b Dinner Theatre will be Jack Sharkey’s comic mystery, “The Murder Room,” directed by Directed by Jim Cook, and starring Matt Cooper, Gerry Hansen, Jamie Hixon, Trammell Scott, Jim Sirianni and Leslie St

‘Lord of War’ boasts virtuoso performance by Cage
09-23-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

And now for something that could be scarier than any of the horror or sci-fi disaster films we’ve seen all summer: Nicholas Cage stars as Yuri Orlov, a Ukrainian-born American gunrunner with the uncanny ability to move massive amounts of weaponry

Camerata takes it to next level
09-23-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Camerata Pacifica launched its 16th season last week with such a splurge that the organization may very well find it hard to match in its concerts to come.

Playing from the stage of the cozy Victoria Street Theatre, the musicians gave admirable readi

Sonic Spotlight- From the heavens to below
09-23-2005
By Carter Yarbrough, Special to the Voice

Having bounced back from their first album and international tour “STELLASTARR*” is again touring, YEAH!! Tonight with special guests “The Morning After Girls.” Their current campaign is to deliver “Harmonies for the Haunted,” a multifaceted gem o

‘Mr. Vengeance’ offends the senses, very slowly
09-23-2005
By Gabe D' Annunzio, Special to the Voice

Korean director Park Chan-wook had a big commercial hit with his film, “Joint Security Area.” His studio gave him a much bigger budget and he came up with “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,” a handsome, thoroughly discomforting revenge thriller that offers none of the usual satisfactions of the genre-Tony Scott’s “Man on Fire,” with Denzel Washington is the go

Arts & Entertainment previews
09-23-2005
The Queen of Alt-Country and pure harmony comes to town

The popular singer-songwriter series, Sings Like Hell have joined forces with UCSB Arts & Lectures to present Emmylou Harris and Buddy Miller in concert at the Arlington Theatre at 8 p.m. Tuesday, September 27. Blessed with an angel’s

‘Corpse Bride’ offers 76 minutes of Burton magic
09-30-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Tim Burton is perhaps the only person who can pull off something simultaneously morbid and sweet like "Corpse Bride," his latest offering. Unlike the sinister psychedelic extravaganza that was "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," with its obvious

‘Holy Girl’ a breath-taking enigma
09-30-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

In the Argentine film, "The Holy Girl," writer/director Lucrecia Martel explores the burgeoning sexuality and religious fervor of two teenage girls, Amalia (Maria Alché) and her best friend, Josefina (Julieta Zylberberg).

Amalia lives n the t

'Touch the Sound' seeks to turn audio into visual
09-30-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

"Touch the Sound" is a documentary about the Scottish avant-garde percussionist Evelyn Glennie, who was a soloist last year with the Santa Barbara Symphony. Director Thomas Riedelsheimer has a fairly specific and limited goal in making his film, which is to put us insofar as possible inside Glennie’s sound world. This is more difficult than you m

‘Murder Room’ explores the funny side of homicide
09-30-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Staff Reporter

After the introductions were made, the birthday and wedding anniversary greetings wished, and everybody had settled in, the folks at the Circle Bar B Theater treated us to an afternoon of murder.

It’s a story we’ve all heard before: a stunning woman who may or may not be a gold digger marries a wealthy elderly gentleman who dies mysteriously after the wedding

Arts & Entertainment previews
09-30-2005
Ensemble Theatre stages ‘ Humble Boy’

The venerable Ensemble Theatre Company of Santa Barbara will open their 2005-2006 season with a new production of Charlotte Jones’s award-winning comedy "Humble Boy," the story of a young astrophysicist who returns home for his bee-keeper father

Polanski triumphs with Dickens adaptation
10-07-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

As expected, Roman Polanski comes through with something exquisite in his rendering of the Dickens classic, “Oliver Twist.” A master of ambience, Polanski manages to pull together a film that spans the breadth of society in 19th century England without

Family matters a-bubble at Ensemble
10-07-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

“Humble Boy,” Ensemble Theatre Company’s present offering at the Alhecama Theatre, is a British comedy with overtones of “Hamlet” and a setting straight out of “Miss Marple.”

It makes for a pungent blend, although at two-and-a-half hours it runs a little long. The setting is a seemingly idyllic country house in England’s Cotswolds, set in an absolutely sum

‘History of Violence’
10-07-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

The seduction of a David Cronenberg film works by establishing an intensely-sometimes sordidly-naturalistic mis-en-scene. The realism of the filming vouches for the authenticity of the characters and the story. The actors are harshly lit, and s

Arts& Entertainment Previews
10-07-2005

New theater company offers ‘Exits & Entrances’

Santa Barbara Theatre, the city’s new professional theater company, opens its inaugural 2005-2006 season with Athol Fugard’s play, “Exits and Entrances,” which revolves around the friendship between a young playwright and an aging a

‘Wallace & Gromit’ set the audience all a-giggle
10-14-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Creator Nick Park ("Chicken Run," "Creature Comforts") and crew once again stretch the limits of clay in the newly-released, "Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit," with audiences giggling throughout the entire film.

Beloved characters

‘Thumbsucker’ has brilliance and clichés in equal measure
10-14-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

I have to admit I was a long time getting around to watching "Thumbsucker." I am pretty sick of stories about bright adolescents growing up in dysfunctional families. Such films are generally written and directed by the same person, and they

‘Exits and Entrances’ powered by Higgins’s performance
10-14-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

The inaugural production of the new Santa Barbara Theatre Co. re-unites the personnel of the World Premiere production at the Fountain Theater in Los Angeles of "Exits and Entrances," by Athol Fugard.

Partaking somewhat of Ronald Harwood’s "The Dresser," somewhat of David Mamet’s "A Life in the Theater," "Exits" is a two-character . . . what?

MirrorMask: Special-Effects-R-Us
10-21-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Thirteen-year-old fans of fantasy and special effects will have a ball at “MirrorMask,” but younger children and grown-ups may not fare so well.

The tagline for this 100-minute extravaganza is “Enter a world where dreams are real.” It plunges its heroi

The ‘Kids’ are not all right
10-21-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

This movie is pretty unbelievable-when it is not being boring or downright offensive-but the hardest thing to believe about it is the “inspired by a true story” tag. There are a lot of adjectives I might be tempted to apply to “Kids in America,” but “true” is definitely not one of them. What it is is an illustrated tour of the decline and fall of Ame

‘Tennessee Monkey Trial’ means well, standing still
10-21-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

I liked nearly everything about “The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial” except sitting through it. There was so much high-powered acting talent on stage, and the subject was so compelling and utterly relevant to, as T. S. Eliot said, “where we have, in a manner of speaking, got to,” that I fully expected to be spellbound and swallowed until the final curt

Music season begins at the top
10-21-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

The Santa Barbara Symphony opened its 53rd season over the weekend with a diverse program led by yet another worthy candidate for the job of permanent conductor.

Joana Carneiro, 29, already a sensation in her native Portugal, led the orchestra through works by composers as varied as contemporary Peter Maxwell Davies and 20th century Russian giant Sergei Ra

‘Domino’ chops itself into tiny pieces
10-21-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

One has to applaud Keira Knightley for being brave enough to take on a role as unconventional as the title character in Tony Scott’s newest offering, “Domino.” The daughter of actor Laurence Harvey, Domino was a Ford model turned bounty hunter, givin

Arts & Entertainment previews
10-21-2005
One Sings Like Hell, so does the other

The popular singer-songwriter showcase Sings Like Hell will present a double bill of singing strummers at 8 p.m. Saturday October 22, in the Lobero Theater.

Grammy winning singer songwriter and guitar slinger Dave Alvin returns to the Lobero

‘Squid and the Whale’ shows the end of a world in detail
10-28-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial

DirectorNoah Baumbach’s films have a flavor all their own. He seems to be traversing the same terrain as Woody Allen -- Jewish intellectuals in Brooklyn -- but the two men’s films bear scarcely any resemblance to each other.

Baumbach’s male characters

Clooney’s ‘Good Night’ is a classic political melodrama
10-28-2005
By Gabe D' Annunzio, Special to the Voice

David Strathairn plays the heroic broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow, and George Clooney plays his congenial boss, Fred Friendly, in Clooney’s film, “Good Night, and Good Luck.” The film dramatizes the time in 1953 when Murrow and Friendly drag

Music Club offers a trio with brio
10-28-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

The Santa Barbara Music Club audience heard a season-opening concert of true classics on Saturday, ending with Peter Schickele’s sincerely serious - but still amusing - “Serenade for Three.”

Schickele, better known as musical satirist P.D.Q. Bach, was not kidding when he wrote this trio in 1993, as violinist Emil Torick explained. Torick enlisted Nancy Mat

State Street Ballet redefines ‘Carmen’
10-28-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

The Gypsy seductress Carmen, who shocked 19th century Paris opera lovers, still wields her magic in the State Street Ballet’s new creation by choreographer William Soleau.

The ballet’s latest production opened the company’s fall season over the weekend at the Lobero with two performances of Soleau’s fiery work. It starred Jennifer Batbouta in the leading r

Hoffman taps a cosmic connection in ‘Capote’
10-28-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

“Capote” is not a conventional biographical film covering the whole life of the novelist and playwright Truman Capote. It is much more restricted in scope, and way more affecting in its impact. The film is simply the story of how the diminutive,

‘Doom’ turns audience into lost zombies
10-28-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

For about ten dollars, you too can watch a hundred minutes of The Rock’s mad dog stare and all its variations. “Doom,” the new sci-fi movie from cinematographer-turned-director Andrzej Bartkowiak (“Cradle 2 the Grave”) is also part zombie, part slasher, and all big guns.

It’s based on a premise that’s become so trite that it (wisely) gave up trying to b

Preview: The Bad Plus brings their subversive jazz to the Lobero
10-28-2005

The hippest alternative jazz trio in America comes to the Lobero. Audacious and rule breaking, these bad boys of jazz have the essential jazzmen’s ability to improvise, a classical way with melody and phrasing, and the elephantine touch of rockers. They crunch and sometimes pulverize swing to let improvisational freedom shine. Jazz purists may tremble but the vanguard will rejoice! Easily the m

‘Prime’ urges us to fly, then shoots us down
11-04-2005
By Gabe D’Annunzio, Special to the Voice

The fact that the theme of “Prime” -- a romance between a 37-year-old woman and a 23-year-old man -- is still controversial is a measure of the double standard that still functions in our society with respect to the age differential of lovers.

Write

Music, love, tragedy, at Arlington
11-04-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Some might call it redundant, but for opera lovers who filled the Arlington Theatre Friday night, it was a treasure-trove of Puccini’s most beloved arias.

Opera Santa Barbara presented “Le Donne Di Giacomo Puccini” (“The Women of Puccini”), a program of beloved arias from the Italian composer’s operas. The program was weighted toward such favorites as “Mad

‘Weather Man’ swirls with clouds of dark laughter
11-04-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter
Nicolas Cage is David Spritz, a Chicago TV meteorologist with a few storms of his own to weather, in Gore Verbinski’s “The Weather Man.”

It’s a darkly funny movie, capitalizing on the ironies of mid-life and the American Dream. Spritz is a blin

Spend ‘Christmas’ on the rez
11-04-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Somewhere between “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Bad Santa,” there’s “Christmas In the Clouds,” a sweetly sentimental film with a slightly sardonic undertone.

This gentle and funny film took honors at the Sundance Festival - hardly surprising, s

Arts & Entertainment previews
11-04-2005

Life imitates art imitates life in UCSB play

Theatre UCSB opens its 2005-2006 season of drama and dance with “bobrauschenbergamerica,” a raucous play written by Charles L. Mee, in the UCSB Performing Arts Theatre (no late seating). “bobrauschenbergamerica” brings the ideas of v

‘Kiss Kiss’ a cornucopia of guilty pleasures
11-11-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

A gay private eye (Val Kilmer), a small-time thief posing as an actor (Robert Downey Jr.), and a struggling actress (Michelle Monaghan) team up to solve a convoluted case in Los Angeles in the noirish “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.”

Writer/director Shane B

‘Protocols’ -- the lie that never dies
11-11-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Documentary maker Marc Levin’s film about the upsurge in anti-Semitism after 9/11 - “Protocols of Zion” - is a valiant attempt to grapple with the lie that seems likely to outlive the truth.

According to Levin, shortly after 9/11, a Manhattan taxi driver

‘Innocent Voices” recalls what we’d rather forget
11-11-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

Luis Mandoki’s first Spanish-language film in 18 years is “Innocent Voices,” a harrowing, affecting melodrama about a family (mother and two children) trying to stay alive and healthy during the 12-year war that devastated the tiny Central Americ

‘bobrauschenbergamerica’ is everybody’s USA
11-11-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

Pauline Kael once wrote that movies are the American theater. We watch them so we can talk about them.

Charles L. Mee’s “bobrauschenbergamerica” - ending its 2-weekend run at UCSB’s Performing Arts Theater this Friday and Saturday - aims to d

Licitra, like love, conquers all
11-11-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editorial

The world would be a sorry place indeed without Italian tenors, and fortunately a newly-minted one named Salvatore Licitra has appeared on the scene.

He made his Santa Barbara debut last Sunday at the Lobero Theatre, to a packed house ready to receive a worthy successor to Luciano Pavarotti. Licitra did not disappoint.

The young tenor had an advantage

Arts & Entertainment previews
11-11-2005
Dos Pueblos’s ‘Moby Dick’ turns Melville around

Dos Pueblos High School’s production of “Moby Dick -- the Musical,” by the creative team of Robert Longden (book, lyrics, and music), Martin Koch (musical supervisor and orchestrations), and Hereward Kaye (music and additional lyrics), will be d

‘Zathura’ sucks you in, then spits you out
11-18-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

This follow-up to 1995’s “Jumanji” is not so much a sequel as it is a clone -- a state of the art, science fiction clone based on the same premise: kids find an old game, play it, and crazy things start happening.

It’s still a meaty premise, one t

‘Derailed’ darkly suspenseful but unconvincing
11-18-2005
By Gabe D’Annunzio, Special to the Voice

“Derailed” was the first American project for Swedish filmmaker Mikael Håfström, which accounts for both good and bad qualities in the film.

The good parts are the freshness of his vision in the way he looks at a big American city -- in this case

Youth, ardor animate Symphony
11-18-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

The Santa Barbara Symphony, engaged in a search for a new conductor, on Sunday showcased not only an outstanding candidate for the job, Daniel Meyer, but an incomparable soloist, cellist Zuill Bailey.

There is no such thing as a perfect concert, but this one came close, with music by Mozart, Shostakovich and Dvorak. The orchestra was in peak form, and the

Current Sounds shows a kinder, gentler side of contemporary music
11-18-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

Well, I guess I have staved off the charge of fuddy-duddyism one more time -- I attended my first concert by Current Sounds, the local association dedicated to the performance of work by living composers. I have to admit that I felt it would be more of a duty than a pleasure -- living up to my oft-repeated statement that to avoid becoming a museu

Arts & Entertainment previews
11-18-2005
Chamber Choir celebrates Mary, and others

At 8 p.m. this Friday, November 18, the UCSB Chamber Choir and University Singers conducted by Michel Marc Gervais, will join forces to present a concert, in St. Anthony’s Seminary Chapel (2300 Garden St), of some of the most beautiful a cappel

‘Walk the Line’ exalts the Carter-Cash romance
11-25-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

With shades of “Ray,” the Ray Charles biopic permeating this film, it’s tempting to think that “Walk the Line” is just another riff on the theme of man-sells-soul-to-devil-for-outrageous-fame-and-his-eventual-redemption.

It is, and it isn’t. “

Harry and Co. play up and play the game in ‘Goblet’
11-25-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

“Romanticism,” wrote the critic Geoffrey Scott, “ . . . idealises the distant, both of time and place; it identifies beauty with strangeness. . . . It is always idealistic, casting on the screen of an imaginary past the projection of its unfulfilled desires. Its most typical form is the cult of the extinct.”

He might have added that it is profoundl

‘Bee Season’ takes spirituality to a new level - of shallowness
11-25-2005
by Olivia Kienzel, Special to the Voice

If the last effort from directing team Scott McGehee and David Siegel was “The Deep End,” their latest work, “Bee Season,” might be fairly dubbed “Kiddie Pool.” It’s not so much because this story focuses equally on two children-who could have been seriou

Heavenly voices for hurtful times
11-25-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

The Santa Barbara Master Chorale opened its 21st season over the weekend with Gabriel Fauré’s beloved Requiem and Joseph Haydn’s Mass in Time of War.

These are sacred pieces about profound matters, and the chorus and orchestra gave them their full due. Led by long-time Music Director Phillip McLendon, the singers and musicians produced a finely nuanced, po

Sonic Spotlight- From the heavens to below
11-25-2005
By Carter Yarbrough, Special to the Voice

Majestic Blues - a Benefit Concert for Howard Freiberg

As you probably know, concert promoter Howard Freiberg (pictured at right) has been diagnosed with a radical form of cancer known as Lymphoma. As you probably also know, chemotherapy trea

‘Little Chinese Seamstress’ looks back on a romantic and perilous time
12-02-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

Dai Sijie’s "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress," a film adaptation of his own best-selling autobiographical novel, is set in China during the Cultural Revolution of the 1970s. It is the story of Luo (Chen Kun) and Ma (Liu Ye), two cultured

UCSB group harvests music grown in Everest’s shadow
12-02-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

USCB’s vibrant cultural tapestry showed its South Asian colors Monday night with a concert of music from India and Nepal, performed in the intimate Karl Geiringer Hall.
Student players were guided and inspired by Ham Nath Upadhyaya, a musician from Nepal who spends about nine months at the Isla Vista campus every year, according to Rob Wallace. Wallace, a

Ballets Russes - love and rememberence
12-02-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

In the documentary "Ballets Russes," dance defies its image as the most fragile of the arts, presenting a roster of the still vital old people who once gave ballet to America.
The surviving members of the fabled "Ballets Russes" - a theatrical force f

‘Ice Harvest’ a disappointing offspring with a great pedigree
12-02-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Taking advantage of the holiday season is Harold Ramis’s ("Analyze That") comedy, "The Ice Harvest," starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton as two less than competent thieves trying to pull off a holiday heist.

Cusack (Charlie Arglist) and Thornton (Vic Cavanaugh) are born to do straight-faced quirky, and there’s plenty of this in the film, but tha

‘Fourth Wall’ shows Ensemble back on top
12-09-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

"The Fourth Wall," by A. R. Gurney, is a long way from a masterpiece, but it makes a more than adequate vehicle to take the Ensemble Theater company back into the front ranks of local theater companies - thanks to the deft, subtle direction o

Joan Baez conjures memories of war, hope
12-09-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

The flashbacks to Vietnam resulting from the Iraqi war were brought home powerfully last week in the appearance of 1960s folk star Joan Baez at the Lobero.

The long, lustrous black hair is now silver and cropped short. The peasant blouse has been replaced with a tailored jacket and scarf. The voice is a little darker and rougher. But the times, they really

‘Aeon Flux’ trades violence for elegance and comes out on top
12-09-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

In yet another sci-fi film about people saving the world in tight black clothing, Charlize Theron takes on the role of Aeon Flux, a futuristic assassin sent to kill the leader of the ruling regime.

The film is based on a cartoon that was part of MTV’s

Aulos and Baird evoke early Christmas
12-09-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

A rare and engaging Christmas concert ushered in the season on Sunday at Trinity Episcopal Church, with the appearance of the Aulos Ensemble and soprano Julianne Baird.

The Aulos quintet is composed of first-rate musicians, playing the warm wood instruments of the Baroque period. The players are all graduates of Juilliard, and each individual boasts additi

Arts & Entertainment previews
12-09-2005

Speaking Of Stories roasts some Holiday Chestnuts

The popular Speaking of Stories Christmas show returns with readings by Tony Miratti and Ed Romine! Tony will perform "SantaLand Diaries" by David Sedaris, while Ed brings to life "The Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote. Add in some

Sonic Spotlight: Looking for the Sound
12-09-2005
By Carter Yarbrough, Special to the Voice

Just caught some CA high mountain-air bluegrass from the likes of "The Hot Buttered Rum String Band" last Thursday. Plus I got some great Americana from, Vince Herman, the front man of Leftover Salmon is on the road spreading his good timepickin’ and foot stompin’ sounds throughout the West Coast, also at SOhO.

Steve Kimock Band is touring to feature b

Emerson Quartet opens brilliantly, runs out of steam
12-16-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

The Emerson Quartet had me fooled for the first half of their December 9 concert at the Music Academy of the West. When I heard them last year, at Campbell Hall, I was impressed with their letter-perfect performance, but had trouble keeping awak

’Narnia’ spectacular, but disappointing treatment of a great book
12-16-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

As I write this, I feel like I’m telling some kid there is no Santa Claus. I loved the Narnia books and was eagerly anticipating this film, definitely wanting to like it. This 140-minute Hallmark card, however, barely revives C.S. Lewis’ much-beloved

Sonic Spotlight: Majestic Aquabats Invasion
12-16-2005
By Carter Yarbrough, Special to the Voice

That’s right, all you aqua-groms & grunion. Run on down to the Majestic Theatre in Ventura for some surfadelic madness that would make most grown men cringe. The Aquabats' latest release is titled "Charge," and I suggest you hit the 101 (Southbound mama) and do just that this Saturday 12/17. Just don’t have a "Meltdown"; watch out for the "Fashion Zombie

In ‘Syriana’ oil tars everything it touches
12-16-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Fathers and sons, blood and oil, deceit and corruption - "Syriana" weaves these themes into a dense tapestry of a political thriller that rewards close attention.

The film was directed and co-written by Stephen Gaghan, the screenwriter for the similar

‘Ushpizin’ offers warm look at closed community
12-16-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

"Ushpizin" is an Aramaic word meaning "guests." The new Israel movie of that name is set in the Orthodox Jewish community of Jerusalem. The protagonist, Moshe (Shuli Rand) was once a secular Jew, but he has rediscovered his faith and become an

‘King Kong’ delivers more than it promises
12-23-2005
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

Peter Jackson’s “King Kong” is a stupendous, overwhelming movie experience. Jackson is the unrivaled master of special effects - even Spielberg and Lucas pale to insignificance beside him - and the world he creates is beautiful and awe-inspiring in

Sumptuous ‘Geisha’ misses several big points
12-23-2005
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Although I couldn’t believe for one second that Ziyi Zhang, Gong Li, and Michelle Yeoh were geishas, their film “Memoirs of a Geisha” was a opulent visual experience coupled with heart-rending romance.

It’s not that any of the female leads weren’t t

Quire of Voyces in rare Noel form
12-23-2005
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

An austerely beautiful Christmas concert by the Quire of Voyces was sold out Sunday afternoon, and some people had to be turned away at the doors of St. Anthony’s Seminary Chapel.

The popularity of the group is owed in part to Nathan J. Kreitzer, the founder and artistic director of the Quire, which sings under the sponsorship of the Santa Barbara City Col

‘Brokeback Mountain’s breathtaking heights not to be missed
12-23-2005
By Olivia Kienzel, Special to the Voice

Having probably heard one or two things about “Brokeback Mountain,” some of you may have concerns that it will be too far outside of your own experience to allow you to relate to it. Don’t make such a quick misjudgment: this stunning film is more im

2005 arts highlights
12-30-2005

From left: Soprano Robin Follman gets into the spirit of Opera Santa Barbara’

More highlights
12-30-2005
From left: Members of the AXIS Dance Company, some of whom have disabilities, perform

Notable films
12-30-2005
Left, George Clooney had a spectacular year, writing, directing, and playing Fred Friendly in the gripping docudrama, “Goodnight, and Good Luck” (pictured), and producing and starring in the

‘Dick and Jane’ lampoons a multitude of corporate ills
01-06-2006
By Gabe D' Annunzio, Special to the Voice

The first version of "Fun with Dick and Jane" was made in 1977. It was directed by the Canadian Ted Kotcheff, just after he made his immortal "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz." The earlier version starred George Segal and Jane Fonda, and was

Symphony New Year glitters
01-06-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

The Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra always provides plenty of pop and fizz at its annual New Year’s Eve Concert, but there was something a little extra this year.

Guest conductor Richard Kaufman, well-known as a master of the pops concert, waited until after the intermission to introduce a special "guest-guest" conductor. Patricia Gregory, devoted suppor

‘Munich’ long, obvious, and very powerful
01-06-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Both predictable and compelling, Steven Spielberg’s "Munich" is a story of the true price of revenge set in the aftermath of the slaying of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics. Eric Bana ("Hulk") stars as Avner, a Mossad officer who becomes

Sonic Spotlight: Mountain House "Divine Ball"
01-06-2006
By Carter Yarbrough, Special to the Voice

My New Years Eve celebration was the best I’ve enjoyed. Especially, since my near fatal injury, last year. Though my revelry was decisively more contained, I wasn’t slowing anybody else down. The theme was to come as a representative of your favor

Arts & Entertainment previews
01-06-2006

Pico Iyer talks with Mark Salzman at UCSB

Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer, cellist and martial artist Mark Salzman will discuss his work with esteemed author Pico Iyer ("The Glo

It’s all in the game for ‘Grandma’s Boy’
01-13-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Anyone looking for cheap laughs in a movie that doesn’t tax the intellect could do worse than “Grandma’s Boy,” a stoner comedy celebrating eternal youth — or immaturity, or something.

Adam Sandler has production credits, and his brand of juvenile a

'Hostel' delivers the goods, unfortunately
01-13-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

If you haven't gotten enough squeamishness from the "Saw" franchise, extreme bloodletting from Asian horror cinema, or death and dismemberment from the nightly news, you're in luck because Eli Roth ("Cabin Fever") has generously volunteered to taint o

‘Casanova’ a cure for what ails us
01-13-2006
By Olivia Kienzel, Special to the Voice

Serious drama and scrupulously researched biopic it ain’t, but “Casanova” sure is an antidote to any winter blahs you might have managed to contract. With its sumptuous costumes, its bright pacing, and its refusal to take anything too seriously, I fo

Glenn Hening: Surfing's Iconoclast
01-13-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Highly articulate and with a sardonic wit, Glenn Hening is ready to take on the juggernaut that is the commercial surf industry - by himself, if he has to.

"It's astounding the way [companies like Volcom and Quicksilver] do business because, as it turns out, the surf industry is not the surf industry, it's clothing companies with a very good hook . . .

'Match Point' revisits the scene of 'Crimes'
01-13-2006
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

In "Match Point," Woody Allen translates the main theme of his mostly great "Crimes and Misdemeanors" -- there is no God, nobody is watching, you can get away with murder -- from the milieu of Jewish intellectuals of the earlier film to the m

Sonic Spotlight
01-13-2006
By Carter Yarbrough, Special to the Voice

This year is off to a smashing start. Last Tuesday night I was treated to a special performance by Antara Blasius, who is going it her own way after an extended and mutually beneficial partnership with both the C.E.C. and bandmate Delilah. She sounded vibrantly strong and strummed out some new material with renewed vigor. She was followed by a brash trio

Arts & Entertainment previews
01-13-2006
Camerata Pacifica showcases modern Celts

Camerata Pacifica first program of the new year features their principal violinist the pretty Irish lass, Catherine Leonard. The South Coast performances of the concert will take place at 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. in Victoria Hall (Victoria and Chapala)

‘New World’ haunts and thrills
01-20-2006
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Carpenter

In 33 years, writer-director Terence Malick has made only four feature films: “Badlands” (1973), “Days of Heaven” (1978), “The Thin Red Line” (1998), and “The New World,” which was given a limited release at the end of 2005, and will open acro

‘End of the Spear’ blesses the peacemakers
01-20-2006
By Gabe D' Annumzio, Special to the Voice

“End of the Spear” is the second film Jim Hanon has made about the time in 1956 when five Christian missionaries from the United States went down to the Amazon basin of Ecuador to contact the fierce and homicidal Waodani Tribe. (Hanon’s first film was

Budapest plays a ‘Titan’ of a concert
01-20-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Putting works by Richard Wagner and Gustav Mahler on the same program gave listeners at the Arlington Theatre last weekend a chance to compare the character of these mighty Teutons.

The Budapest Festival Orchestra offered pieces by the two masters, along with Felix Mendelssohn’s exquisite Violin Concerto in e minor, Opus 64. The young French virtuoso Renau

‘Tristan and Isolde’ has a void at its center
01-20-2006
By Oivia Kienzel, Special to the Voice

I’ll admit it: I’m prejudiced. Before I even walked into “Tristan and Isolde,” I was thinking to myself, “Why on earth would anyone put James Franco in this role?” Though perfectly cast as a jerky loser in the TV show “Freaks and Geeks,” I thought he w

‘Last Holiday’ runs on Latifah’s star power
01-20-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

After finding out she has a rare disease and only three weeks to live, shy, unassuming Georgia Byrd (Queen Latifah) leaves her job as a department store clerk and books herself into a posh European hotel to live out the last days of her life in extra

Sonic Spotlight
01-20-2006
By Carter Yarbrough, Special to the Voice

Touring with a high stem new CD, “Peculiar,” which gives this SKA rebels something to chant them down produced in Jeff “Django” Baker New Jersey studio. Rumor has it they’ll be skankin’ our direction soon.

Last week I was treated to “The Bastard

Arts & Entertainment previews
01-20-2006

Bridgewater swings at Campbell

Actress and renowned jazz vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater, accompanied by the knockout 15-piece Hollywood Jazz Orchestra, will perform the classic Ella Fitzgerald songbook at 8 p.m. Saturday, January 21 at UCSB Campbell Hall. The show will largely draw f

'Evolution' - 2nd verse, same as the first
01-27-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

The heroes in tight black clothing and trench coats aesthetic shows no sign of abating, as shown in "Underworld: Evolution," a sequel to the 2003 film starring Kate Beckinsale as Selene, the vampire who falls in love with her mortal enemy, who hap

Arts & Entertainment previews
01-27-2006

Reza Aslan to talk with Jack Miles about Islam

Two acclaimed thinkers about religion-Reza Aslan and Jack Miles-will conduct an on-stage conversation about the state of Islam at 3 p.m. Sunday, January 29 at Victoria Hall Theater, 33 W. Victoria Street, Santa Barbara. The publication

‘Matador’ wins both ears and the tail
02-03-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Pierce Brosnan steps out of his usual suavity and into something less comfortable (but way funnier) in “The Matador,” a film about an assassin who comes undone and attaches his sociopathic self to the first regular guy (Greg Kinnear) that comes along

‘Caché’ piles mystery on mystery
02-03-2006
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

The aptly named “Caché” (Hidden), which opens today at the Riviera, is a disturbingly ambivalent mystery. It starts out looking like one of the films Andy Warhol made in the 1960s (“Sleep,” “Empire”) - a fixed camera records the comings and goings

State St. Ballet scores a ‘Beauty’
02-03-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

State Street Ballet’s “Beauty and the Beast” - based on the avant-garde 1946 film of Jean Cocteau - brought beautiful dance to town last weekend, and something more.

The company showed both courage and originality in creating this work in 2000, and ha

Sonic Spotlight
02-03-2006
By Carter Yarbrough, Special to the Voice

Ulysses Jazz has been an icon of the downtown live music thing, appearing for packed houses all for FREE. Frank Franks on the banjo serves to somehow congeal the multi- chemist musical potion. There music will transport you to a different place and time.

For another displacingly pleasant show check out New Orleans Piano Legend: Henry Butler! The SB Blu

‘Nanny McPhee’ will make you behave
02-03-2006
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

When Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson) arrives at the Brown household, she is, in her own person, a sight to make children behave. Draped in relentless black, leaning on a crooked cane, Nanny’s chin sports two horrendous black warts, her nose is a hid

Youth, verve and, of course, Mozart
02-03-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Conductor Mir Kabaretti and violinist Jennifer Koh brought youthful verve and considerable talent to their appearance with the Santa Barbara Symphony at the Arlington Theatre.

Kabaretti, an Israeli with a wealth of conducting honors to his name, is one of the finalists in the search for a successor to the Symphony’s departing leader, Gisele Ben-Dor. Tall a

‘Transamerica’ crosses all the right lines
02-03-2006
By Olivia Kienzel, Special to the Voice

Neither angry polemic nor cozy family story nor campy caricature, first-time director-writer Duncan Tucker and his actors managed to make “Transamerica” into what it was least likely to be: a pretty normal road trip film about an important journe

'Imagine Me & You' proves gays can be boring too
02-10-2006
By Olivia Kienzel, Special to the Voice

It is interesting that films with gay themes are now so much a part of the mainstream that some of them are just as predictable, shallow, and unexciting as any other date movie.

I suppose that, when the people who made "Imagine Me & You" envisioned

No news is good news in 'Something New'
02-10-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Just like Kenya McQueen, the uptight African American career woman played by Sanaa Lathan, I resisted the urge to turn to sap at the slightest indication of romance. "Something New," if anything, is formulaic enough for you to see what's coming a mile away.

And like her, I still got bowled over by it. Go figure.

Coming at us at that time of year when

'Falcon' is fond and funny
02-10-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

"The Night of the Falcon" is a breakthrough for local filmmaker Ted Mills, an affectionate and witty look at the nuttiness of the creative process.

This short film has been given two additional screenings during its rotation in the Santa Barbara Intern

Sonic Spotlight
02-10-2006
By Carter Yarbrough, Special to the Voice

After a thrilling night with Rebecca Kleinman's stellar all-female trio, "Feminina" - flute, mandolin, and percussion which has a wonderfully backyard/world-beat flavor - I walked into the clamoring finale from the latest band to blow up from our own backyard, "Holden." Touring in support of their nationwide hit "When You're here." They left the crowd an

Arts & Entertainment previews
02-10-2006
Ensemble production invites all to ‘Touch the Names’

Santa Barbara’s premier theater company, the Ensemble Theater, will present the West Coast premiere of the stunning piece “Touch the Names,” by Broadway writer-director Randal Myler and blues singer-composer Chic Streetman, starting

‘Curious George’ precious but not too
02-17-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Little kids will be excited, and their parents nostalgic, as “Curious George” makes the rounds onscreen. “Finding Nemo” or “Robots” it’s not, but the old school graphics have a charm of their own.

Will Ferrell is the voice of the Man in the Yellow H

‘Firewall’ covers old ground in novel ways
02-17-2006
By Gabe D' Annunzio, Special to the Voice

The plot of “Firewall” is: the hero’s family held hostage, under sentence of death, unless he does what the villain demands of him. Harrison Ford, the hero, plays Jack Stanfield, a cyber-security expert at a mid-sized commercial bank in Seattle. Wh

“Final Destination 3” stinks up the screen
02-17-2006
By Olivia Kienzel, Special to the Voice

“Final Destination 3,” how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways…. Let’s see, there’s the unbelievably stupid script and the uninspired direction. The fact that the only thing the filmmakers seemed to concern themselves with was how to devise the most gratuitiously bloody, intricate, unbelievable, and horrifying deaths they possibly could. The way the film

‘Touch the Names’ touches the heart
02-17-2006
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

“Touch the Names” is a powerful piece of theater, a veritable oratorio of grief.

It is not a play. There is no dramatic conflict; there is no story. Everything has already happened. The invisible fourth wall, between the audience and the stage,

Leahy keeps it in the family - with a Celtic flair
02-17-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Simply-named Leahy, the popular Celtic family band from Canada, brought a rowdy good time to Campbell Hall on Sunday, delighting a full house of listeners.

The band managed to fill Campbell Hall on Sunday - with fans who stomped, whooped, and cheered th

‘Indian’ takes us on a wild ride with an old man
02-24-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Anthony Hopkins stars as Burt Munro, a man with a plan to set the fastest speed on land. “The World’s Fastest Indian” is an ode to underdogs and dreamers everywhere, as it follows the true story of Munro and his 1920 Indian motorcycle’s journey from

‘Three Burials’ chronicles injustice, revenge, and redemption
02-24-2006
By Gabe D' Annunzio, Special to the Voice

Rancher Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones) is joking and shooting the breeze in the barn with some of his hands when a young vaquero rides his wonderful horse into the square of daylight formed by the doorway and announces he is looking for work. He says his name is Melquiades Estrada (Julio Cedillo) and he is “just a cowboy.” Pete takes an instant liking t

Opera manifests a fiery ‘Tosca’
02-24-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

If there is a quintessential Italian opera, it is “Tosca” - and Opera Santa Barbara is giving it a full measure of passion and fire during its current Puccini Festival.

Opening night last Saturday saw a handsomely dressed crowd at the Lobero Theatre; the festival runs through March 5. Along with repeats of “Tosca,” the festival will include performances o

Symphony, Bidini tackle Prokofiev
02-24-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Italian pianist Fabio Bidini joined the Santa Barbara Symphony last weekend in a masterly performance of Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26.

The concert, at the Arlington, was also the opportunity for Australian conductor Kynan Johns to make his bid to succeed Gisele Ben-Dor at leader of the Symphony. Johns acquitted himself well at

‘White Countess’ a beautiful tale of the past recaptured
02-24-2006
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

“The White Countess” is a charming and haunting fable about Mr. Jackson (Ralph Fiennes), a retired American diplomat living in Shanghai in the late 1930s, and about Sofia (Natasha Richardson), a Russian countess who fled her home during the 191

‘Nightwatch’ gives vampires an East-Euro spin
03-03-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Here’s the thing about good versus evil movies: we’ve seen it all before. Whether they’re supernatural beings, or military powers, or resistance fighters in space, it always comes down to the fate of the world, and two or three characters around w

Symphony, Bidini tackle Prokofiev
03-03-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Italian pianist Fabio Bidini joined the Santa Barbara Symphony recently in a masterly performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26.

The concert, at the Arlington, was also the opportunity for Australian conductor Kynan Johns to make his bid to succeed Gisele Ben-Dor as leader of the Symphony. Johns acquitted himself well at the

Opera demonstrates Puccini’s versatility
03-03-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Opera Santa Barbara continued its Puccini Festival Saturday at the Lobero with two one-act operas - one utterly captivating, the other less so.

Puccini premiered the two works - “Suor Angelica” and “Gianni Schicchi” - with New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1918. The former was doleful in the extreme, albeit with excellent singing. The latter was a hoot, als

Arts & Entertainment previews
03-03-2006

Bulgarian Chorus to mesmerize South Coast

The 22-member Bulgarian State National Radio and Television Chorus-known as Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares-one of the premier women’s choirs worldwide, will make its Santa Barbara debut at 8 p.m. Monday, March 6 in UCSB Campbell Hall. Known for dramatic adaptations of folk singing styles and spine-chilling harmonies, punctuated by whoops and qua

‘Ultraviolet’ great-looking nonsense
03-10-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

A sci-fi production meets a fashion show in Kurt Wimmer’s “Ultraviolet,” starring Milla Jovovich as the vengeful post-apocalyptic vampire-warrior Violet.

It’s a gorgeous production, to be sure. Everything is engineered to make Jovovich impossi

Belcea Quartet Glows at Lobero
03-10-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

The Belcea Quartet, the young English ensemble that has dazzled chamber music circles in England and Europe, brought its exceptional sound to the Lobero Theatre on Monday night. Their program included Mozart’s “Hoffmeister” Quartet in D Major, K. 499, Benjamin Britten’s Quartet No. 3, Opus 94, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s towering Quartet No. 3 in F Major, Opu

‘Bog of Cats’ oozes into Slough of Despond
03-10-2006
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

“By the Bog of Cats,” by Marina Carr, aspires to be an Irish equivalent of the myth of Medea - who, when rejected by her lover, killed her two children by him and then herself.

The Theatre UCSB production of Carr’s play is directed by a great the

Arts & Entertainment previews
03-10-2006
ECM concert takes aim at forever

UCSB’s Ensemble for Contemporary Music (ECM), under the direction of Jeremy Haladyna, will present their winter concert at 8 p.m. next Thursday, March 16, in Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall.

The concert gets its title, “Amarantos: Eternal Flower,” from

'Why We Fight' tells it like it was and is
03-17-2006
By Gabe D' Annunzio, Special to the Voice

In “Why We Fight,” documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki tells the story of the rise to dominance of the so-called “military industrial complex,” and why and how the nation goes to war. Named for Frank Capra’s famed series of Defense Department films (

Vin Diesel makes 'Find Me Guilty' memorable and funny
03-17-2006
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

Back in 1987, when Rudy Giuliani was a grandstanding prosecutor crusading against the mob, an extensive investigation into the activities of the Lucchese crime family led to charges being filed against most of the key members of the gang, leading

Kabaretti Takes Symphony Baton
03-17-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

The Santa Barbara Symphony has a new young music director, Nir Kabaretti, who will succeed 12-year veteran Giselle Ben-Dor, starting this July.

Kabaretti, 38, was introduced Saturday night at the gala Symphony ball, themed “M is for Maestro,” at Montecito Country Club. The tall, energetic maestro was brought to the podium and introduced to the more than 30

'Libertine' is memorable, but so is its squalor
03-17-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

He is John Wilmot (Johnny Depp), Second Earl of Rochester, and he does not want you to like him.

Indeed you won’t, but if you can get past all the grunge and vulgarity, you might begrudgingly admire the bad boy of King Charles II’s (John Malkovic

Synthetic ‘Spitfire Grill’ moves to real tears
03-17-2006
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

“The Spitfire Grill” began as a film by Lee David Zlotoff, starring Ellen Burstyn, Alison Elliot and Marcia Gay Harden. It won the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival in 1996. In 2000, James Valcq and Fred Alley transformed the film into a stage musical, and it is this which has received an exciting, moving production by the City College The

‘V for Vendetta’ holds a funhouse mirror to our present
03-24-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

It’s dystopian, it’s subversive, and it’s uncomfortably timely: “V for Vendetta,” the Wachowskis’ newest film, finally got released last week, and it hits like a ton of bricks.

Religiously zealous, power-hungry politicians rule a future England, u

‘Heart of Gold’ is gold clear through
03-24-2006
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

“Neil Young: Heart of Gold” is the great singer-songwriter’s provisional last will and testament. After being diagnosed with a brain aneurysm, and before the procedure that would mend it, Young wrote enough songs for a new album, to be calle

Symphony paints Finnish darkness, Czech joy
03-24-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Gisele Ben-Dor returned to the podium of the Santa Barbara Symphony last weekend with a slightly off-beat program that made the most of the orchestra’s polished sound.

The keystone of the program was Antonin Dvorak’s exuberant love song to America, the Symphony No. 9 in e minor, Opus 95, “From the New World.” The great Czech composer came to the United Sta

Arts & Entertainment previews
03-24-2006
Reports of Twain’s death are exaggerated

Hal Holbrook returns to the Lobero in his now legendary one-man show, “Mark Twain Tonight,” featuring the wit, wisdom and downright cantankerousness of America’s greatest humorist, Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. “Mark Twain”). Twain was “politically inc

‘Inside Man’ delivers suspense and drama without gore
03-31-2006
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

Spike Lee’s “The Inside Man,” is a long and complex thriller about a bank robbery, hostages, a shameful deed from the past, and the efforts of a police detective under a cloud to redeem himself and make “Detective 1st Grade.” Race is only a small

‘Ask the Dust’ looks better than it is
03-31-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Director Robert Towne brings out the dry, gritty, bleachingly sunlit world of Depression-era southern California in his adaptation of John Fante’s novel, “Ask the Dust.”

It’s beautiful in that sort of stark, depressing, everything-is-dying-slowly kind

Mother Russia’s Own Rachs the Arlington
03-31-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

The Russian National Orchestra, which came into being just as the Soviet Union was collapsing, brought its thundering Slavic fervor to the Arlington on Saturday night.

The program, under the auspices of the Community Arts Music Assn. (CAMA), was prototypically Russian, two selections by Sergei Rachmaninoff and one by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. The Russian National

‘Mark Twain Tonight’ still good as gold
03-31-2006
By Gabe D' Annunzio, Special to the Voice

Hal Holbrook’s one-man show “Mark Twain Tonight” has now been on the boards for more than 50 years. As the performance of it last Friday at the Lobero made abundantly clear, it is just as wonderful and spellbinding now as it was then, as it has been a

‘Sophie Scholl’ reminds us of the peril of dissent
04-07-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

The film opens with Sophie Scholl (Julia Jentsch, “Downfall”) and her friend surreptitiously listening to the radio. It’s jazz, that crazy subversive music prohibited by Nazi Germany, and she’s singing along quietly but happily.

That’s virtually the

‘Canto General’ a stirring call to arms
04-07-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Songs of resistance and social change were the flavor of the Santa Barbara Master Chorale’s performance last Sunday afternoon at the First Presbyterian Church. Blending the words of Chilean poet and Nobel Prize winner Pablo Neruda with the music of Mikis Theodorakis, the politically active film composer behind “Z,” and “Zorba the Greek,” “Canto General,”

‘Lonesome Jim’ finds poetry in the everyday
04-07-2006
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

“Lonesome Jim” is Steve Buscemi’s third run at directing a feature film, after 1996’s “Trees Lounge” and 2000’s “Animal Factory,” though in the meantime he directed the famous “Pine Barrens” episode of HBO’s “The Sopranos” before joining the

State Street Scores A Coup
04-07-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

State Street Ballet last weekend introduced Artistic Director Rodney Gustafson’s new work, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and it proved to be an absolute delight.

Gustafson chose Felix Mendelssohn’s exquisite music, rather than the annoying score of the same name by Benjamin Britten. The work premiered in two performances at the Lobero Theatre.

Silvia Rota

‘Crossing the Bridge’ is a bass-player’s Istanbul
04-07-2006
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

“Crossing the Bridge - The Sound of Istanbul” is a tour of the great world city of Istanbul through the glass of its popular music scene. Film-maker Fatih Akin, born in Hamburg to Turkish parents, made a name for himself as a director with the film, “Head On,” but he announces on the sound track during the opening moments of this documentary, that he

Arts & Entertainment previews
04-07-2006
Young wizard pianist to wow audience at UCSB

At 8 p.m. next Tuesday, April 11, UCSB Arts & Lectures will present a recital by 25-year-old wonder-pianist Yundi Li, the 2000 International Chopin Piano Competition top honors winner (youngest ever to take that prize). The Frederick Chopin

‘Joyeux Noël’ a hymn to a lost world
04-14-2006
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

Christian Carion’s “Joyeux Noël” (Merry Christmas) is a movie to break your heart.

It was good to be reminded that the so-called “Christmas Truce” of 1914 was not a sentimental legend but a well-documented historical fact. Hundreds of Fren

Ben-Dor’s last tango on the South Coast
04-14-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Giselle Ben-Dor, in her penultimate appearance as conductor of the Santa Barbara Symphony, last Sunday led the orchestra in a charming program reminiscent of English promenade concerts.

In her long-standing tradition of bringing Latin American music to the Arlington Theatre, Ben-Dor invited bandoneon virtuoso Raul Jaurena to perform Astor Piazzolla’s C

Morlan Higgins makes ‘Hughie’ unforgettable
04-14-2006
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

We are in the lobby of a small hotel near Broadway, in Manhattan. It is a little after 3 a.m., on a day in the summer of 1928. The Night Clerk (Gregory Sanders) is having trouble keeping alert, but then “Erie” Smith (Morlan Higgins) comes in

‘Mambazo’ fills Campbell with joy
04-14-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

Ladysmith Black Mambazo is one of those groups you wish you could hang out with because they look like they’re really having a good time. Since the roughly 900 of us couldn’t all be on the stage with them at once, we were fortunate to have them spread their a capella message of “peace, love, and harmony” at Campbell Hall last April 6th.

“Emotional,”

Arts & Entertainment previews
04-14-2006
SB Chamber Orchestra gets back to Wolfgang

The Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra has been dedicating their whole 2005-2006 season to a celebration of the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who turned 250 last January. They called the season “Mostly Mozart,” however, and last month they offered a concert with Beethoven and Brahms but no Mozart.

In next Tuesday’s concert in the Lobero Theate

Sonic Spotlight
04-14-2006
By Carter Yarbrough, Special to the Voice

Longtime local rock family, “Villalobos,” especially Rey on guitar, is a major player in this band which also features Duncan Wright on “lead and ambient guitars”, James Garza on Bass and Matthew Talmage covers drums and percussion. Their ten song CD “Volcano and Heart” is definitely worth having. Rumor has it their doing both a European and a U.S.

‘La Mujer’ cheats and pouts so stylishly
04-21-2006
By Sonia Fernandez, Voice Staff Reporter

In “La Mujer de mi Hermano,” the sexy new Mexican film, Barbara Mori stars as Zoe, a housewife bored with her ultra-successful metrosexual husband’s (Christian Meier) inattentiveness, and decides to embark on an affair with his just as hunky but definitely more deshabille younger brother Gonzalo (Manolo Cardona).

Every aspect of every shot in this f

‘Dublin Carol’ follows a family’s path to redemption
04-21-2006
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

Despite the word “Carol” in the title, and the fact that the protagonist has a series of Christmas Eve encounters which transform his life - what’s left of it - Conor McPherson’s “Dublin Carol” is not really an updating of Dickens’s cl

'Friends With Money' tells all about rich, empty lives
04-21-2006
By Gerald Carpenter, Voice Editorial Director

Writer-director Nicole Holofcener managed to keep me interested and sympathetic through her new "Friends with Money," but it was a near thing. Holofcener is a keen and insightful observer of the affluent white middle class in Los Angeles. Tell

Ohyama, Dick, SBCO do Mozart proud
04-21-2006
By Margo Kline, Voice Managing Editor

Confirming that there can never be too much of a good thing, the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra provided a full feast of Mozart Tuesday night at the Lobero.

Who better to celebrate the 250th birthday of music’s golden child than this orchestra? An

‘Akeelah’ casts spell
04-28-2006
By Gabe D’Annunzio, Special to the Voice

If you are in search of a movie to see with your kids — a movie that your children can enjoy without forcing you to endure several kinds of Hollywood torture — then you simply cannot do better than to take them to “Akeelah and the Bee.” It is about a

‘Chiaroscuro’ short on highs and lows
04-28-2006
By Margo K