Bruce Bratton hosts University Grapevine, linking local and campus issues, every Tuesday 7:30-8:30 p.m. on KZSC 88.1 fm.
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MEA CULPA VERY MUCH. Dutiful and observant readers noted that I made some erroneous and unintended insinuations in last week's column about endorsing Ted Lempert and Joe Simitian. What needs to be made extra clear is that City Council member Ed Porter, County Supervisor Mardi Wormhoudt, Assemblyman John Laird, and Fred Keeley have not made any endorsements as of this date. Besides that don't forget the SCAN meeting on Monday December 8th. Ted Lempert will be there and Joe S. has been invited too. There will be an endorsement made and the meetings at LONDON Nelson Community Center at 6 p.m.
MADDENING MOVIE. As you could have guessed Cat in The Hat was the big weekend grosser in more ways than one. I think the reason that the film did so well on opening weekend is that parents are desperate for a good film to take the kids to se. Then too the little monsters see all the hype and product tie- ins and demand to see the film. Mike Myers and everything about the film is miserable and embarrassing. I went to an early morning screening and the theatre was three quarters filled with moms and kids. To see The Cat pull off one gross stunt after another and have the entire audience remain silent was sad. There isn't a decent laugh in the film. As some critic said any actor could have put on the cat suit and done the part. Obviously it'll be a good rental but save your theatre money.
THE BARRY TAYLOR STORY. As you may have read on The Sentinel's front page and page A29 of last Sunday's Chronicle. Barry Taylor 47, was arrested at her Capitola home Thursday (11/20) and awaits possible extradition to France. She was convicted in absentia for murdering her boyfriend's estranged wife. Barry Taylor has many friends in the area, I consider myself one of them. She invited me to lunch maybe two years ago and told me all about the murder scene, and how it happened. Barry used to be the Public Relations Director for The Santa Cruz County Fair, and she did a great job. I can't remember if I met her through artist and paper crafter John Babcock who was married to Barry's sister and we met at their wedding at The Pogonip or through John Tuck who was an even closer friend to Barry than I was. The murder happened in 1993; Barry did five years in jail waiting for her trial and was released in 1998. Barry has a law degree and graduated from UCLA. She used to have a cabin in Boulder Creek, and to put it mildly I am amazed at this entire story. Barry told me and the French courts that she was in her boyfriends home alone. His ex broke in and in an insane attack attacked Barry, Barry defended herself. The result was that Roxanne Pavegeau's body was found with 20 wounds to the skull, some multiple skull fractures and brain lesions. The story goes on from there. Barry said she was defending herself, and I believe her completely. I'll keep you posted, especially if I can reach Barry before she goes to France.
LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION. No matter what the title is Looney Tunes is NOT back in action. The real life greedy monsters threw in every great Looney Tunes character you can remember and still this is one bad film. Yosemite Sam races around vainly. Wile E. Coyote tries to get laughs; even good ol Road Runner draws blanks. In addition there's Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny as lead characters, Elmer Fudd, Tasmanian Devil, Brendan Fraser, Jenna Elfman, and poor Steve Martin who has never tried harder to be funny and shares the flop count. Such a shame and a waste of those characters, some of whom have been with us 60 or 70 years.
LATE BREAKING NOOSE. The Barry Taylor Story, part 2. I spoke with two attorney friends about the above mentioned Barry Taylor and her French problems. One offered the opinion that because of international politics and the rarity of extraditions between the USA and France that some political dealings may be in process here. Like Roman Polanski being wanted in the USA and him staying abroad. In an aside, one attorney suggested or even predicted that Michael Jackson may decide to leave Neverland USA and live overseas and avoid extradition. Then the other attorney said that Barry's having been tried in absentia in France is really rare and suggested that there's more to this case then has been printed. I'll let you know if I hear more.
SHEILA MALONE ART. Go to the County Building's fifth floor now through January 5th 2004 and see Sheila Malone's exhibit of her paintings from her Madonna & Child series. Sheila's paintings are not just beautiful but there's a depth of meaning especially in this series. Don't miss them. Yes, the County building is the second ugliest building in Santa Cruz, but go there just this once.
THE CASE OF THE BLUE LAGOON. Don't you wish you could find out the truth about whether or not our police department was guilty of harassing the Blue Lagoon Cocktail Lounge? The story of the police cars lined up at the Metro Bus station with their headlights shining at the club's front door must have been noticed by hundreds of people. Just when you think Santa Cruz is somehow different than other places, tsk, and tsk.
THE FRANS LANTING GALLERY. I just spoke with Frans and yes he is opening a new studio and permanent gallery at 207 McPherson Street (suite D) deep in the heart of Westside Santa Cruz. McPherson Street runs parallel to, and is one block toward the ocean from Mission Street. It'll be open starting Friday, December 12th. The phone number if you want to check out the hours and days is 429-1331.
ANOTHER NICE KUCINICH MOVE. The local supporters raised more than $60,000 for Dennis Kucinich through his appearances here last week. What was real class and a human touch Dennis phoned the group at their meeting a few days later to personally thank them for their work. I have yet to meet anyone who's heard Kucinich in person not want to vote for him. Whether they'll get a chance or not is another matter.
DREAM INN = DREAM OUT? Just the mere chance that the second most ugly building in Santa Cruz might be torn down is exciting. I always forget the new name for the Dream Inn West Coast Something or other. Now that they re talking about tearing down or re building and adding on another 85 rooms has a bunch of locals all excited. Remember it was the building of the Dream Inn that established the height limit for beach side developments such as Loggers Revenges and Drop Towers and other such money makers. There's also the talk about a new double decker parking lot across the street from the hotel. The feasibility study that must be at least honestly done should prove whether or not our community can handle a new development of this size AND THE TRAFFIC TOO!
QUAINT QUOTES. "Maybe this World is another planet's hell." -Aldous Huxley. "Talent does what it can; Genius does what it must." -Edward George Bulwer-Lytton. "I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it." -Groucho Marx
Bruce critiques films every Friday on KZSC-FM (88.1) on The Bushwhacker Breakfast Club at 8am.
It's free! Click here.
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TED LEMPERT vs. JOE SIMITIAN. Whew, this race for State Senate District 11 is really heating up. (The Back Story) A while back when Fred Keeley was trying to figure out where his political future was going he asked both Ted Lempert and Joe Simitian to hold off from getting their political endorsements from elected officials in Santa Cruz County in their race for State Senate. Lempert was professional and honored Keeley's request. Joe Simitian paid no attention to Keeley's request and got his local endorsements. So today you can read or hear that Simitian has endorsements from all of The Santa Cruz City Council, and all (except one) of the County of Supervisors. It'll be amazing to see if any of them switch and endorse both candidates. Loyal Democrat Kate Minott sent out an email to everybody on the Democratic Women's Club asking them to endorse Ted Lempert. Mike Rotkin, a Simitian supporter, while stating he didn't know what the DWC mailing policy is, objected to Minott's use of the list. What he didn't admit was that his Simitian people have been emailing and snail mailing The Democratic Women's Club for months. Both Lempert and Simitian are going after club endorsements like the DWC and the People's Democratic Club. The PDC will have both Lempert and Simitian in a debate Thursday, December 4, 7:30 at the LONDON Nelson Community Center. After the debate there will be an endorsement vote. The 11th Senate District stretches along the coast and includes Santa Cruz City, Live Oak and parts of Aptos. Me? I'm endorsing Ted Lempert all the way. Late breaking news: Simitian won the Democratic Women's Club endorsement Wednesday at noon. The winning votes were proxy votes.
THE AULOS ENSEMBLE. UCSC's Arts & Lectures is presenting this world renowned quintet who is making their first appearance here. They've been playing early music and early (baroque) instruments since 1973. They'll be performing works by J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach and Johann Christian Bach. They'll also play Georg Bohm and Antonio Vivaldi pieces. After the concert there'll be a discussion with the artists. You can learn more about the Aulos Ensemble at www.aulos.org. The concert is Sunday November 23, 8 p.m. in the UCSC Music Center Recital Hall. Get tickets right away because the UCSC Box-office is really tough to deal with on the weekends. Call 459-2159. Remember too that there's a $2 parking charge at the UCSC parking lot, which seems ridiculous.
SANTA CRUZ NEIGHBORS. I've been attending these Santa Cruz Neighbors monthly meetings since July and I still haven't figured them out. Consider this: they have stated many times in the last two meetings that they aren't political, they invite the public in notices in the Sentinel, and at each meeting they encourage members to bring friends. At their last meeting (Nov. 18) Dave Britton, one of three members of the steering committee, asked in a very forceful way for Robert Norse to stop recording the meeting. All meetings are held in the Police Building meeting room. I think that fact alone makes them public meetings and therefore recordable. Britton afterwards really confused me by saying that they didn't want the rabble to attend, only neighbors. He also stated he didn't like any notices in The Sentinel. He states that they aren't political and are not part of the City government and yet Norm Daly of the City Planning Department in his presentation showed us diagrams placing the Santa Cruz Neighbors executive committee right there as part of the City Of Santa Cruz Neighborhood Services Team. Norse, by the way didn't say a word or disrupt anything. Sound confusing? I'm confused, but I'll keep attending. Debbie Elston, another of the three steering committee members, was one of the driving forces behind the petition presented to the City Council reopening the debate on an eastern access for UCSC.
EL TEATRO CAMPESINO AND CHRISTMAS. El Teatro has been presenting Christmas plays in the historic Old Mission of San Juan Bautista for many years. This year they're doing La Pastorela, a medieval Shepard's morality play. It's a super spectacle, full of color, wild singing, flamboyant costuming, devils, and it's a battle between good and evil. It's all in Spanish and that makes it even better. I've seen the play in past years and can promise you that if you go to San Juan Bautista during the Christmas season, you'll never forget this experience. It plays Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 8 p.m. and Sunday matinees at 4 p.m. from Friday November 28 through December 21. You heard the warning before but it's true here: all performances are usually sold out before the show date. Call (831) 623-2444 for tickets. Check out El Teatro Campesino's website at www.elteatrocampesino.com. It's handicapped accessible, as Terry Brickley would want me to say.
HOLIDAY HEADS UP. Watch for special only in Santa Cruz holiday productions of The Emperor's New Clothes at UCSC 11/21-12/14 459-2159, Tandy Beal's The New Nut at Watsonville's Mello Center 11/28-11/30 459-2159, The Ballet Arts Center's Velveteen Rabbit at the Mello Center 12/13 (3pm and 7pm) 438-9447.
THE MARRIAGE. Once each fall UCSC's Theatre Arts Department produces an especially challenging play. These plays are usually very demanding, daunting, and the playwrights mostly have international reputations. This year's absolutely magnificent production was Witold Gombrowicz's The Marriage. The plot as we see it is about a soldier returning home after the war. What we don't exactly see, but experience, is the soldier's interpretation of his reality, the inner relationship of his self to other humans. Or as one critic put it: "the inter-human church". Well anyway it was deep, the direction by Blake Morris was excellent, and Ian Riley who played the lead role of Henry was as moving and professional as any I've seen. Five or more stars for certain.
MOVIE MONOLOGUE. Like everybody else I went to see Master and Commander; Far Side of the World hoping and expecting to see the greatest movie ever made. Russell Crowe, sailing ships, no sex, little violence - how could it go wrong? The first part of this extravaganza was great moviemaking. Then just after the middle part it became just another pretty good film and it ended that way. But we were set up for a sequel, so maybe that will be great all the way through. Due to a schedule change I walked in on the last 14 minutes of Love Actually, starring Hugh Grant, and don't have a clue what it's about. I'll see the beginning tomorrow. It's an odd social comment that Grant got busted for that specific sexual indiscretion only a few years ago and now he's playing Britain's Prime Minister! Scary Movie 3 left me absolutely bored and amazed that people with some kind of sense could make such an incredible waste. I've used this second hand line before, but I've seen better scum on a pond. Shattered Glass is the true story of Stephen Glass, the reporter who faked many stories for The New Republic, Rolling Stone, Harper's and George. His lies were discovered and exposed by an online publication; he got fired and is now working as an attorney. I'm not sure of the moral behind this film, but it is an intriguing film - especially if you've ever written professionally.
SCAN GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING. Ted Lempert has already accepted SCAN's invitation to their December 8th meeting. Joe Simitian has been invited, and this will be a candidate's presentation, followed by a Q & A, followed by an endorsement. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., the meeting, which will also elect steering committee members, begins at 6. State Senate Candidates will speak around 7 p.m. The reason these candidates are appearing around these parts so often is that they need our district to win the election. The meeting will be at LONDON Nelson Community Center. I'm glad to see that the People's Democratic Club of Santa Cruz County spells London Nelson's name properly - it's the least we can do to honor our local legend.
QUAINT QUOTES. These are from the collection of Dr. Gabriel Robins, University of Virginia. He's got hundreds. "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." -Martin Luther King Jr. "Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed." -George Burns. Here's a great one that'll work right now: "If you are going through hell, keep going." -Sir Winston Churchill.
Bruce critiques films every Friday on KZSC-FM (88.1) on The Bushwhacker Breakfast Club at 8am.
It's free! Click here.
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NEW HOMES IN SANTA CRUZ. Let's all watch the new apartments going up very carefully. Let's see we have the Cathcart and Pacific apartments. There are the Bill Brooks apartments over on Soquel, the Pacific Shores Apartments out on Shaffer Road, and lately they decided to build more apartments on the Wilson property where Trader Tots used to be. There has been great hue and cry about much needed housing in our county and city. There has also been much financial and political encouragement for the ever-eager developers to build these places. Now somebody has to insist that all these apartments go only to Santa Cruzans IF there's ever going to be a change in the desperate housing crisis in these parts. Watch and see how much out of town advertising is placed for these places. If you're still speaking to any of the City Councilpersons tell them they need to follow up on these developers who have been making such big promises.
THE REAL TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. I liked the latest Texas Chainsaw Massacre film. It isn't as inventive or wildly paced as the 1974 original but it's still a cut above the average horror film. What I didn't know was that the film was based on the true story of Ed Gein. Ed lived and killed on a death farm in Plainfield, Wisconsin back about November of 1957. Good old Ed sawed up his victims and made furniture, lampshades, wastebaskets, armchairs, a belt of nipples, and a suit out of their skins. So the movie actually toned down Ed's deadly hobby. Norman Bates (Psycho) was based on Ed Gein, so was Buffalo Bill the serial killer in the Silence of The Lambs based on Ed. G. Buffalo Bill wore women's skin like a transvestite according to the books.
SOME GOOD NEWS. Let's thank Pat and Roland Rebele for their gift of $62,500 to the Homeless Services Center. Not only was that gift needed, but it proves that just because Roland was a big player in the newspaper business he's not all bad.
GuvDavis choice of Mark Stone to replace County Supervisor Jeff Almquist in the insanely designed 5th district was a good one. Let's try to remember GuvDavis did one thing right.
SOME SAD NEWS. Send good wishes to Henry Mello. Henry was in the hospital this week with some heart problems. It's possible that he may not be able to play piano at the Grey Bears Annual Holiday dinner at the Civic, but we'll save a place for him. Jesse Nickell (Construction manager for Barry Swenson Developers) took a bad motorcycle spill about a month ago. Broke his shin bone tore some skin about his left eye, and the estimable Dr. Schwartz patched him up nicely. He's been riding motorcycles for 32 years. Yes he had a full faced helmet but wasn't wearing his knee/ shin guards or goggles which must prove something. Too bad about Polar Bear Ice Cream Shop on Soquel closing. At least the ice cream will continue. For me it was the annual Pumpkin flavor that changed my life, in a good but heavier way.
GIRL SCOUTS AND BEAVERS. Did you read about Girl Scout Troop 34 in Anchorage getting busted by PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) for trapping and skinning beavers? The little devils are trapping beavers, making their cute little harmless pelts into hats and mittens. Then they're going to eat the meat (according to the Sentinel 11/12/03). I don't know if they're going to sell the pelts door to door but it sure would be better than selling those junk food cookies. Before you get all riled up over this, what if the local Girl Scouts started trapping and skinning our gophers and raccoons? Now that would definitely be a good deed. Our area population of raccoons and gophers is way out of control... we need help and The Girl Scouts could do it. Santa Cruz could start a whole new fashion fad based on raccoon fur. Think about it.
LATE BREAKING NOSE. This isn't the scoop on our area's only professional boxing I would have had last week but the internet works very slowly as I'm learning. Jerry Hoffman has just about completed the 6 bout card for the Riot at The Hyatt in Monterey Saturday, November 29th. Local favorite Carina Moreno (of Moreno's Taco fame) will be fighting Michelle Gatewood from Spokane Washington in a 4 rounder. Govanny Diaz fights Gary Owens from Oakland, also a four rounder. Ricardo Junez is up against Jorge Diaz (Govanny's brother) a four rounder. Ryan Davis takes on James Buggs for six rounds and the main event has Ricardo Baragan, 9-2 from San Jose versus Freddy Castro 7-6 from San Pedro. Jerry Hoffman's 12 Sports Productions consistently creates exciting matches and they are well balanced. Doors open at 6:30 first bout at 7:30. Call 831- 688-1604 to charge tickets by phone. If you follow The Sweet Science you know that Hoffman's Hyatt Riots always sell out and there's only two per year. Don't wait any longer.
LADY MACBETH OF MTSENSK, THE OPERA. Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) only wrote two operas and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is a genuine masterpiece. The San Francisco Opera production has four more shows to go 11/14,17,20 and 22, try to see and hear it. It's a poor choice for a title the lead isn't at all like Lady Macbeth, nor is the plot. It's the music combined with the acting and magnificent singing and a politically charged plot full of lust and cold cruelty that makes this opera one of the finest I've seen. Call the opera box office at (415) 864-3330 or go to www.sfopera.com to get more about the plot the cast and ticket availability.
BOYCOTT SAFEWAY. The Monterey Bay Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO is calling for a statewide day of solidarity action to challenge Safeway's effort to erode labor's healthcare. Don't shop at Safeway on Saturday November 22. Tell your friends, family and co-workers not to shop there that day too. The only real reason to shop at Safeway is for Mae Ploy Sweet Chilli Sauce from Thailand, and you can plan ahead for that. Call the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council to see how you can help or at least tell your checkers that the labor movement is standing with their union in its fight to HOLD THE LINE ON HEALTHCARE.
FACT CHECKER WAS SICK LAST WEEK. A local friend who enjoyed S.F. Opera's production of Verdi's Don Carlos mentioned in passing that Don Carlos was Verdi's second last opera, and I repeated that last week. Eagle eyed Scott MacClelland who never sleeps emailed to say Verdi's last opera was Falstaff preceded by Otello, preceded by Aida, preceded by Don Carlos. Remember that order just in case you're asked. I'm going to give Scott something appropriate for Christmas.
PETITION TO STOP UCSC's EASTERN ACCESS. The Westside Neighbors got some signatures together and gave them to the City Council. What these petitions are really about is an attempt to restart the campaign to ram a highway through the Pogonip property to provide an eastern access to UCSC. Former mayor/city council person Katherine Beiers says this isn't an issue because the University and the city agreed to not bring up the access topic for 20 years if the city withdrew their objections to UC's latest parking garage. The Keep the Greenbelt Green group is working hard to make sure the hard fought green belt is protected. Folks like Paul Lee, Kaitilin Gaffney, Debbie Bulger, Richard Stover, Ryan Coonerty, Sue Powell, Celia and Peter Scott and many more such activists are attending KTGG meetings. Check out the website www.sensibletransportation.org, you'll find a petition and a flyer after you click on Eastern access. They'll be presenting their petitions to the city council on December 9th in the afternoon. Yes, they'll be doing a visual demonstration on the Pogonip property. Call 425-1890 for more information.
CULTURAL STUFF. The Santa Cruz Chamber Players are presenting an evening titled From Babylon to Boston. It'll be musics from the Renaissance to the 20th Century. Palestrina, Milhaud, Ralph Vaughn Williams, Astor Piazzola and composers like that. The concert is Saturday night the 15th at 8 p.m. at the Resurrection Church 7600 Soquel Drive call 426-3238 or go to www.scchamberplayers.org. Mozart's Requiem will be performed at UCSC November 14, 15 & 21, 22. The 14, 15 concerts feature Sylvia Jenkins playing Mozart's Piano Concerto 24 and Beethoven's Coriolan Overture. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the concerts are at 7:30, Professor Nicole Paiment conducts. Reserved seating tickets at 459-2159 or http://events.ucsc.edu/tickets.
MOVIES MORE OR LESS. Grandson, mom, son in law and I all had a good time watching Will Ferrell in Elf. Some scenes are hilarious, most are cute, and one or two bits are even inspired! Go see it. I think Station Agent is a miserable waste of film stock. The acting especially by Patricia Clarkson is forced and uninspired. The plot about a dwarf is more forced and hokey than any I've sat through in years. I emailed the president of The Little People of America to see what the little people think of this film, so far no reply. It's another feel good film, similar to Radio and those Academy Award winners where we get a chance to stare at folks with challenges. I enjoyed Matrix Revolutions. It was a flop of an ending to a trio of films that had such a promising beginning. It makes no sense and doesn't attempt to as far as I could see. For me the battle scenes between Matrix and the forces of Zion are some of the most exciting science fiction scenes ever created on film. The battle, the designs of the scene, the look of the machines and the pacing brought me back to my earliest days of reading sci-fi. Just go for the ride. Don't miss The Dante Alighieri Society's screening of Mille Bolle Blu, a 1993 Italian film directed by Leone Pompucci. It's set in 1961 as Italy was changing into a more modern society. It's at the Rio, 7 p.m. $5 go to www.folkplanet.com or call 423-3900 for info on the Society.
CLOSING QUOTES. Insatiable reader Henry Josef Kloiber sends these little quotes. "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." -Sir Winston Churchill. "Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." -Napoleon Bonaparte. "I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better." You better read that again, it's a keeper. We need quotes like these to mull over while we're waiting to see just how bad Schwarzenegger is going to be, right?
Bruce critiques films every Friday on KZSC-FM (88.1) on The Bushwhacker Breakfast Club at 8am.
It's free! Click here.
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OUR NEW SUPERVISOR. Everybody's holding their breaths waiting to see who Gov. Grey will appoint in Jeff Almquist's place. Don Dietrich, Jim Haney and Mark Stone are the guess getters. We'll probably hear about one day before the Nov. 17 deadline.
OPERA REVIEW. The San Francisco Opera's production of Verdi's Don Carlos has a couple of clinkers. But it is also Verdi's finest opera in terms of his music and the absolutely divine arrangements of voices. Written just before his last opera Othello , Don Carlos has an exceedingly complex plot of father versus son for the love of a woman. The family jealousy and fighting plot led the S.F. Opera program writer to include a quote from the 1950's poet Philip Larkin, as they applied so perfectly to Carlos.
They fuck you up, your mom and dad.Don't throw anything at the lead tenor but just enjoy the music. There have been two false alarms at the Opera House in the last week so get a seat near an exit, and remember the opera is four hours and twenty minutes long. The remaining performances are Nov. 7, 13.16, and 19. Call (415) 864-3330 or go to their great website www.sfopera.com
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you up with the faults they had,
and add some extra just for you.
MORE DE ANZA WOES. I didn't have time to check this out but remember that you read it here first. Well maybe you should forget where you read it, just in case. But I heard that MHC the Chicago mobile home conglomerate who owns De Anza Mobile Home Park are going to raise the water and sewer rates on those poor residents.
NEW SANTA CRUZ BOOK RELEASED. Bruce MacGregor who wrote The Birth of California Narrow Gauge will be presenting a slide show and talk at the Museum of Art & History. Bruce has written extensively on the topic of railroads in our area so his lecture will contain great photographs and probably newly unearthed knowledge about our railroad past history. Railroads enabled our county to sell our lumber and later our cement. How they were built and how they were used is fascinating. See the book at the Museum store or meet and have Bruce sign your copy at his talk on Saturday. It's free and will be at 10am.
UCSC TRAFFIC PROBLEM. I'm taking Shelley Stamp's Weimar Cinema film class up at UCSC. I am on campus around noon every Tuesday and Thursday. I want to tell you that the traffic is easily as bad as Highway One and bumper to bumper around noon especially at the corner of McLaughlin and Hagar Drive. That's near the Bay Tree Bookstore and Cowell College. Those drives are only two lanes and now MRC Greenwood is talking about increasing the enrollment!! Wonder how UC will handle this traffic problem? The heavily used busses can't move through traffic now, so adding more without outlawing cars entirely won't help. We'll see, we'll see.
ELEPHANT, THE MOVIE. Gus Van Sant directed Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, Gerry and somehow he did Finding Forrester and even the remake of Psycho. This is to say Van Sant has an incredible range as a director and his newest film Elephant proves just that. The title Elephant is from the original book and refers to the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. This film like Pisces Moon's Never The Sinner, is based on senseless killing by two young boys. We have to think about the Columbine high school killings as we watch Elephant, but Elephant is fictional. If you need traditional plot lines and a neatly resolved ending this isn't your film. If you want to get a different perspective on today's high school students and see some very creative directing by all means go see Elephant opening next Friday along with Station Agent at the Nick. Don't worry about missing Bill Murray's Lost In Translation it's moving to the Nick and opening November 21st.
NOT A TRICK QUESTION. I've asked this before, and many more folks are asking it now. After all the money is spent and all the traffic is screwed up for years, how long before a widened Highway One will be just as jammed as it is now? No one has ever answered the other question where is an example of a brand new or newly widened freeway that hasn't become completely jammed in less than a year?
THE BAND PLAYS ON. The nearly legendary Hot Damn String Band will be making their once per year performance Friday night at Bookshop Santa Cruz's 37 birthday party. We start playing at 7:30 then break for birthday cake and ice cream around 8:15 and then party on til later. This is also the annual 20% off everything sale, so you can't miss. The Hot Damn String Band plays mostly bluegrass and cornball tunes. Jim Reynolds is on guitar, Annie Steinhart on fiddle, Dave Magram banjo, and yours truly on washtub bass and washboard. See you there.
OUR SYMPHONY. The Santa Cruz Symphony hasn't sounded as good as it does now in the more than three decades I've been attending. John Larry Granger has brought these musicians into great musical shape. I just learned that all auditions for the symphony are done blindfolded so they are hired for talent not because they do or don't come from Santa Cruz. This Saturday they are playing music by Von Suppe, Bartok, and Bizet at 8 p.m. in the Civic. There's a free talk at 7 p.m. in the Civic about the music. At 2 p.m. John Larry Granger and the evening's violist Eric Nowlin are talking about how an orchestra works, and how conductors keep them all working together. Call 420-5260 for tickets to both events or go online at www.santacruzsymphony.org
MORE FILMS. Robert Downey does a sparkling, and I mean sparkling performance as the lead in The Singing Detective. Even though the script was rewritten for this movie by Dennis Potter who wrote the original BBC script it just doesn't have the cleverness and suave touch of genius that the 1986 version contained. This version feels forced and like it took a lot of work to make it smart, but do go, it's fun. My Life Without Me is guaranteed to make you feel sad awfully sad. We get to watch a young woman decide what to do with her life when she's told she's going to die from cancer in two months. If you're planning on dying anytime soon this film will provide a few ideas to mull over before the big day or night. The acting is right on target, the photography is unnecessarily hand held and jiggly but it is still worth your time to see. In The Cut is a mystery, I mean I'm still trying to decide if I liked it or not. It's an artsy who dunnit, but like Mystic River you can't figure who the killer is because you're not given enough facts until the end. The style of the film, plus Meg Ryan's and Mark Ruffalo's acting and Jane Campion's directing, makes it mostly exciting to watch. There is a lot of nudity, sex, and swearing, real swearing, in it so go warned.
Bruce critiques films every Friday on KZSC-FM (88.1) on The Bushwhacker Breakfast Club at 8am.
It's free! Click here.
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