When the evening news just isn’t enough

Have you noticed the lack of international news broadcast these days? You probably weren’t even aware there were other happenings around the world worth noting. Worldfocus, broadcasted on KERA 13 at 11:30 p.m. weekdays here in the DFW, picks up the slack left by the mainstream media when it comes to worldly affairs. Worldfocus partners with other news organizations around the world to present its viewers with thought provoking and unique reports. You’re likely to receive news here that you wouldn’t get from any other source. Worldfocus just recently did a series on universal health care that profiled the health care systems in Canada, Singapore, and Brazil. You can view these reports and others on worldfocus.org. This is journalism at its best if you ask me and I am journalism major so you should ask. :)

-Yvonne

Bunker Hill: Be There or Be Square (8 pm)

2614 N. Elm Street, Denton, TX, that is where I will be tonight. If you like houses, if you like punks, if you like both… than… you will be there too! The Hex Dispensers, Fungi Girls, Occult Detective Club, Bad Sports will be there too!! I’ve wanted to see these Fungi Girls I’ve heard so much about and Hex Dispensers should be fun.

-Yvonne

Czech and See Che: Four hours well spent

Benicio Del Toro is a great actor by any measure, but as I sat in the theater Saturday night I didn’t think to myself “Why, that Benicio is giving a great performance.” Del Toro WAS Ernesto Che Guevara and I didn’t mind spending four and a half hours watching him help overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista or attempting to lead a similar revolution in Bolivia. The movie is split into two parts: The Argentine and Guerrilla. If you hear four hour long movie and get scared just think you are really seeing two movies, two excellent, well made, and riveting movies at that. Che is most certainly a controversial figure, who many either love or despise. This film doesn’t set out to make you do either. It is based in part on Che’s own journals, Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War and Bolivian Diary. The film is very present oriented. It doesn’t bother filling in the viewer with details of what Che’s life consisted of during the period before the time frame in which the film takes place or the time in between which the two parts of the movie occur. The film focuses on present events within in contents of the film and on Che’s current goals. If we learn anything from this film it’s that Guevara was a determined, goal orientated man.
The soundtrack, which incorporates Cuban, Argentinean, and Bolivian sounds, is lovely. I highly recommend you go Czech out this film. The two parts are being presented back two back as a special roadside screeni ng at The Magnolia Theater in Dallas with screenings at 1:30 pm and 7:30 pm. At the screening you receive a special Roadside Edition guide, so don’t be afraid of the weather and go see it!

-Yvonne

PS: Keep a lookout for Lou Diamond Phillips who has a small role in the second part of the film as a Bolivian communist party leader. Another Latino role. Oh Lou! Will ever get to play a Filipino character?

Artchives! from Sierra: This is for multi-media folks

Kurt Schwitter’s Ohne Titel/Untitled Self Portrait (1937-1938)


Trendin’ Typography


Whether I see mixed art forms used in a catalogued Hobby Lobby- branded -collage maker; (Supplied with snippets picz of ample flappers, and early 20th century French stamps) Or pasted consortiums in the Fort Worth Community Art Museum! (Sometimes the Modern, as well.)

Collages have always been something that always struck me as a very creative format! Who ever knew something so broken was such an definitive art?
I always thought the most memorable of the typographies were those of the DaDa/Anti-Art movement.


and Oh, A brazen lot they were! I still wonder what it would be like to chillax with Bahaus in the Cabaret Voltaire...but here are some eyecandy goods:




More Modern multi-media, montage makers! (Or Post-Modern, or Post-Post Modern??)













































Mary Emma Hawthrone & Sophie Kern

Eduardo Recife

Must see movie- Sierra

70's British Talking Head Starlet Versus America's Infamous Presidential Felon

This movie is pretty damn good, and should be a more notable Oscar winning film for this year IMO.

Often people view historical figures with unidimensional portrayals, even to the point of dehumanizing them completely as mere caricatures upon how they shaped and influenced their generation.
This happens for pretty substantial reasons of course, however, with this film- Morgan’s rendering of both Nixon (Frank Langella) and Frost (Michael Sheen) are exemplary and not so shortsighted.

This movie is about when TV personality David Frost had reaped about 60,000 dollars in an agreement to interviewing Nixon, (Being inspired by this idea after knowing the amount of people who tuned in to Nixon’s resignation speech in 1974. The interviews took place in 1977)

Frost’s associates happen to be Swifty Lazar, John Brit, Bob Zelnick, and James Reston Jr. who’s objective is to have Nixon to admit of the crimes he’s been accused of. (Anything regarding the Watergate scandal and wiretapping.)
Frost wants badly to have some remarkable almost interrogational interview that has never been attempted before. Especially realizing Nixon was pardoned and about to exile himself of to an sumptuous West Coast locale; This kind of illicit exoneration couldn't go without some "hard-hitting" trial.

In the duration of Frosts’ various interviews he begins with biting, direct disapproving questions (“Why did you burn the tapes?/Why did you cover up? Etc,) presented toward Nixon (As well as graphic footage of Vietnam and Cambodia etc,) at first Nixon strayed from the core of the question with gracious yet, vague answers that made him seem more admirable.

Eventually, in a built up of unfounded questions, Frost finally seizes moments where he gets Nixon’s stuttering and contradictories together where Nixon finally breaks down with the acrimonious trailer-worthy rebuttal.

The confluence of pothered shame and sorrow of the Ex-President’s expressions performed by Langella are outstanding. No one can really fathom that kind emotion “I let the American People Down…..and that’s a burden I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my life.”

This is a great film that captures a less myopic sense of Nixon asa man of criminal connections but also a forlorn man- who understands he has failed at one of the most grandiose responsibility’s ever.

Everyone please, go see it. Truly an Incredible film.

Is Radiohead going to be there? No? Well then neither will I.

(Sure ACL was a couple of months ago but better late than never!)

Never again. Well, not unless Thom Yorke and company are there. Never again will I attend Austin City Limits and maybe my boycott will extend to all music festivals. I haven’t decided yet. It’s not that I didn’t have a “good time”. I have just come to the conclusion that I would rather spend the $160 I spent on a 3 day pass (This is not including the cost of food. $3 for a coke? I think I’ll pass) on individual shows. It really boils down to the fact that I simply don’t enjoy the music festival atmosphere/experience. Your day consists of running from stage to stage in attempt to see as many of the bands you WANT to see as you can, while hopefully securing a spot close enough to where you can distinguish band member from equipment. All the while you are surrounded by 15 year olds who are either drunk or high or both and who, by the way they are dressed, are apparently under the impression that they are hippies. They probably don’t even know what a hippie is or should I say was. By the end of the day, if you managed not pass out from the heat, your feet are covered in calluses and you find that you have never been in area with such a high concentration of douche bags, because I’ll tell you this right now: All the cool hip people who really care about music are smart enough not to go to these things. They, my friend, are at the after shows. The ACL crowd DOES enjoy the atmosphere. I’m sure half those people would go to ACL if the headliner was Hannah Montana.
I don’t regret my decision to go to ACL. I met The MARS VOLTA for heaven’s sake. It took a lot of determination and let’s be honest luck. The tour bus was conveniently located by one of the exits. This brings me to another one of my points in the case for shows over festivals. At shows not only are you more likely to be front and center, but meeting the band is much more likely. One more thing worth noting, I personally don’t find a performance enjoyable unless I am fairly close to the stage and have room for dancing. At ACL, Beck was a raisin from my point of view and I was a sardine amongst all those people. Come next year or any year for that matter, don’t expect to find me in that sardine can unless Radiohead is performing exclusively there. I only really went this year to see my main men Omar and Cedric anyway.

(I saw some awesome artists but I missed twice as many. That’s the cruelty of festivals, knowing that yards away from you is a band that under normal circumstances you would give you sister’s right arm to see. It’s pick and choose mates. Here’s a list of bands that where on the line up but do to the fact that I didn’t see them I have decided they were never in Austin to begin with.Hot Chip, The Swell Season, Jenny Lewis, Yeasayer, Manu Chao, Iron and Wine, The Raconteurs, Okkervil River, Band of Horses, and the list sadly goes on.)

-Y

Photo: Best Friends-Me, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, and Diane