Contagion, The Warrior
CONTAGION **1/2 An entertaining if unwieldy cross between a PSA and one of those all-star idiocies from the 1970s — those disaster flicks involving hijacked planes, hurtling meteors or towering infernos — Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion tracks the entire cycle of a disease that begins with one person and ends with the deaths of millions of…
Fighting the next war
TEN YEARS LATER, you have to say he was pretty much right about a couple of things. His philosophy was an epic fail on everything else: superstition instead of science, treating women as chattel, embracing medieval theocracy, targeting civilians, valuing death more than life, etc. The list goes on. But when Osama Bin Laden said…
Ox tails, chicken, and pork chops, oh my
Circa 1875 tweaks With the coming change of seasons, it’s inevitable that menus at Savannah’s better restaurants will be tweaked to reflect seasonal ingredients –– and our cravings for heartier dishes. I got a sneak peek of one of those dishes last week at Circa 1875. Th menu of this elegant little Whitaker Street eatery…
Fall Arts: Visual arts
Mary Lum: “Shifting Perspective” — Paintings and collages. Through Sept. 30 at SCAD’s Alexander Hall Gallery on Indian St. Reception and artist talk Sept. 23, 5:30 p.m. Ossabaw: Works on Paper and Wood – Through Sept. 25 at Atwells Art & Frame, 228 W. Broughton St. Opening reception: Sept. 8, 7 p.m. Betsy Cain: In…
Fall Arts: Concerts
September Drive–By Truckers. Patterson Hood and his crew of hard–rocking southern songsters have a long–awaited date in the Trustees Theater Sept. 8. Savannah Philharmonic Orchestra. Re: the date, the season opener consists almost entirely of music by American composers. Sept. 11, Lucas Theatre. Darius Rucker. Don’t call him Hootie, folks, because the Big Blowfish has…
Fall Arts: Theater and performance
September The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later. Bay Street Theatre and director Travis Harold Coles in the Savannah premiere of a drama torn from the headlines (see story in this issue). Sept. 16–25 at Bay Street Theatre/Club One. The Bald Soprano. Ionesco’s absurdist masterpiece from theater students of Savannah State University, Sept. 15–17. Angels in…
Levels of hell
The first things I noticed about Chuck Sereika were his eyes – dark blue, distant, and sunken, set back as if they were determined to put distance between Chuck Sereika and the rest of the world. When he looked at you, it wasn’t as if his eyes were focused on you. They were looking right…
Fall Arts: Festivals
September Fiesta Latina: Sept. 10. That’s this very Saturday, on River Street and Rousakis Plaza. From 11 a.m. until 8 p.m., multi–cultural food and frivolity, with music from Orquesta con Clase, Iraida Valdivia, Fusion Latina, Diego Val, Orgullo Paname dance troupe and others. Savannah Pride Festival: Sept 10. One of the city’s most well–attended Forsyth…
That’s the spirit
The Savannah Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus is a beast with two brains. On the artistic side, there’s Peter Shannon, who programs the season and conducts the band and the vocalists. The business brain belongs to executive director David Pratt. For the third year in a row, the orchestra’s season–opening concert, The American Spirit, has been…
Crime & punishment
On Oct. 7, 1998, University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten and tortured in a rural area of Laramie. He died in a hospital five days later, never having regained consciousness. The political science major was murdered by two fellow Laramie residents, young men who knew that Shepard was gay and had targeted…
Burning Mansions, Now You See Them
BURNING MANSIONS At 10 p.m. Thursday, Sept 8 Retro on Congress, 125 W. Congress St. Effingham County native Jonathan Murphy is just 25, yet he’s clearly got an old soul. His singing voice was tilled and nurtured by his childhood adulation of great vocalists from Jackie Wilson to Otis Redding to Paul Rodgers, and he…
A review: ‘Rebirth’
“I’ll always grieve,” says Tanya Villanueva Tepper in the closing moments of Rebirth. “But it doesn’t stop me from living a life of joy.” Tepper lost her firefighter fiancée on Sept. 11, 2001. In director Jim Whitaker’s documentary film, she is one of five people, all of them personally affected – and deeply traumatized -…
Fall Arts: Film Screenings
Rebirth. Director Jim Whitaker’s acclaimed 9/11 documentary (reviewed in this issue). At 2, 5 and 8 p.m. Sept. 11, Muse Arts Warehouse. Movies Savannah Missed (MSM). Surviving Hitler: A Love Story. A documentary about a German Jew who joins the resistance and becomes an active participant in Operation Valkyrie, the plot to assassinate Hitler. Sept.…
Worst gun safety practice ever
Charges have been filed against the man who admitted leaving a pistol within reach of a 2–year–old boy who remains in critical condition. Ron Allen is charged with second degree cruelty to a child and reckless conduct after the accidental shooting of Jayden Simmons. Allen turned himself in without incident. The mother of the child,…
Test drive Italian Pinot Grigios
Fueled by a seemingly endless taste for refreshing Pinot Grigio, Italy has nudged past France, according to the European Commission, and captured the title of World’s Biggest Producer of Wine. France, obviously, considers itself the mother country of wine production. However, the diverse wine making landscape of Italy –– from mega producers to tiny mom–and–pop…
Mark Your Calendar: A big bag of rocks?
Given past Rock ‘n Roll Marathons, where the likes of Bret Michaels, Blues Traveler, Journey and even Seal have performed for tired but adrenalized runners, many of us were expecting that Savannah would get someone from the respectable has–been closet, along the lines of Smash Mouth, or R.E.O. Speedwagon, or maybe even Molly Hatchet. On…
