Painting the town Greg

Longtime local artist Greg Burns keeps up with the ever-changing city.

Visual Arts
Patrick Crain
Somewhere there exists a run of prints of a one-off Greg Burns piece containing a small detail that makes it rare. At first blush, it looks familiar enough: a rendering of the iconic Townley’s milk-bottle grocery store on Classen Boulevard.

 

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Locked and loaded

The hard rock of the UK’s Young Guns comes out a-blazing in its first major U.S. tour.

Music
Joshua Boydston
Young Guns with Seether, Sick Puppies and Kyng
7 p.m. Saturday
Diamond Ballroom
8001 S. Eastern
diamondballroom.net
677-9169
$32.50-$34

 

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The Wrath of God

Thou shalt not screw with Robert Mitchum.

Western
Rod Lott
What a kick it is to see Robert Mitchum biting into a stogie and laying waste to a room with a machine gun. Because, really, how often does a man of the cloth do that? No wonder the 1972 quasi-Western is titled The Wrath of God. The film takes place in a South American town so brutal and dismal that, as one character reasons, "If God had wanted to give the world an enema, he'd've stuck the nozzle in here."

 

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1

And stumbles.

Action
Rod Lott
In 1986, writer and artist Frank Miller changed the comic-book industry forever with the four-issue series that became the graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns. Its sour disposition and gritty attitude was arguably the darkest depiction of Batman the world had seen, paving the way for the caped crusader’s move to big-screen blockbuster three years later.

 

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Hostel / Hostel: Part II

Hurt so good.

Horror
Rod Lott
Few critics are unable to see through the violence and admit there's a real artfulness at work in Eli Roth's pair of Hostel films, both now available in their unrated director's cuts on a single, budget-priced Blu-ray from Mill Creek Entertainment.

 

Thursday, September 27, 2012

The Barrens

Something in Jersey is more demonic than Snooki.

Horror
Rod Lott
In a post-Saw world, Darren Lynn Bousman quietly has been making a series of horror films more in line with scary movies of the 1970s than the torture-porn genre he helped usher in. Already this year, DVD has brought us his superlative Mother's Day remake and the low-key demonic pic 11-11-11, and now The Barrens. It's just too bad they've all been denied wide theatrical releases.

 

Monday, October 1, 2012

Peace, Love & Misunderstanding

You'll want to punch a hippie.

Drama
Phil Bacharach
Nothing can bring out one’s inner Richard Nixon like a flight of baby-boomer whimsy that rubs your nose in 1960s nostalgia. Peace, Love & Misunderstanding, a gentle-minded paean to the Woodstock generation, might just make you want to punch a hippie.

 

Monday, October 1, 2012

Jimmy LaFave — Depending on the Distance

Country
Joshua Boydston
Few musicians ever get the chance to forge their own path, blazing musical territory previously unexplored. Stillwater singer-songwriter Jimmy LaFave is one of them, helping etch out a place for the Red Dirt genre within the scope of American music.

 

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Owens’ field

Local artist Romy Owens has earned a gig that’s literally high-profile: For the next year, her studio is streetside in the Skirvin Hilton.

Visual Arts
Shelly Hickman
In its storied, 101-year history, the Skirvin Hilton Hotel has accommodated some of the most influential people in the world, but no one until now — other than its legendary ghost, Effie, of course — stays for an entire year.

 

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Theater of blood

In reviving the Grand Guignol tradition, Reduxion sets the stage for murder.

Performing Arts
Rod Lott
Night of Grand Guignol: French Theatre of Horror
8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, through Oct. 27
Reduxion Theatre
1613 N. Broadway
reduxiontheatre.com
651-3191
$15-$18

 

Wednesday, October 3, 2012