The Monday After: Prayer for Pees
Operation: Save Our City From Itself prayer rally
Welcome to this subpar edition of the 520 blog, The Monday After. This is our attempt to blast through our Monday morning hangovers to offer you some quickie reviews of all the things we’re pretty sure we got into this past week, including gigs, concerts, movies, plays, and restaurants. Pop a couple of ibuprofens and enjoy.
Whenever the goin' gets tough here in East Tennessee, you can always count on the tough gettin' their butts to church. And then forming an army.
In response to some recent murders in Knoxville, local religious leaders from varying faiths have formed a coalition to fight the war on homicide. "Operation: Save Our City" is still in its preliminary war-room stage, but once the attack plan is drawn, this non-denominational operation will "implement programs to help curb the violence across the city." Yet, according to WATE, violence isn't so much on the rise. In fact, the murder rate seems to be dropping, and the crime rate really isn't any worse than it ever has been.
Instead of this reactionary "operation" to save our city from a mistakenly perceived descent into crime and murder, how 'bout we focus on more tangible atrocities, like the fact that for the second week in a row, a Knoxville story has made News of the Weird files the world over. Last week, it was the father who made his son wear a sandwich board to school proclaiming his drug habit. This week, it was the mom who complained about the drunk golfers who keep urinating right by her house, even though they can see her videotaping them for evidence.
We'd like to see a coalition of teachers and social workers form their own army. "Operation: Save Our City From Itself" might do wonders in reducing our town's propensity at making the Bizarre Section's headlines.
And now for our weekly rankings!
This week's key:
= Operation: Sucked A Lot.
= Golfer peed on your crepe myrtle.
= City gets saved, but then starts acting all preachy.
= Videotaped golfer is really cute.
= Videotaped golfer is a celebrity; tabloids pay out millions.
Iris DeMent at the Bijou ()
Sometimes it's good to be reminded that not all music people are show people. Such was the case at the Iris DeMent show at the Bijou on Saturday. I have long admired her songwriting and unique vocal style, but was (for some reason) surprised to learn that the stage is not where she shines. Amid an evening of forgotten keys, false starts on songs and awkward pauses between numbers, Iris still managed to charm the almost-full theatre with her enchanting songwriting and delivery. It just took me awhile to remember that it's her music that we all paid to hear, and not Spectacular Spectacular. Once I adjusted my focus, the very gifted and honest Iris DeMent had my complete focus. -S.S.
Fracture ()
Fracture is the story of a homicidal genius (Tony Hopkins) who really gets off at effing with the mind of up-and-coming D.A. (Ryan Gosling) who is prosecuting said genius for the murder of his wife. This film isn't worth much ink, so I'll keep it brief. Hopkins does his typical crazy genius schtick, and Gosling plays the exact same character here that he played in Half-Nelson. I liked him Half-Nelson. I despised him in Fracture. Playing every scene like you're hungover, delivering every line with a mumble, and filling in every spare second with some sort of idiosyncratic tic does NOT a compelling character make. Despite the boredom of their characters, the film could have survived with a suspenseful plot. Instead, the film sinks with a whole lot of waiting around for the D.A. to figure out the one and only twist to the plot. The film isn't a thriller, it isn't a character study, and it isn't worth a ten-spot to go see. Blah. -J.B.
See you next week!