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BREACH Based on the true story of Robert Hansen, who, for sixteen years, was a spy for Russia. In this story, Eric O’Neill (Ryan Phillippe) is a young agent who gets into a power play with his boss Hansen and is recruited by Kate Burroughs (Laura Linney) to help bring him down. Rated PG13 BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA Jesse Aaron is a fifth grader who has hopes of becoming the fastest runner in his class. His hopes are dashed when a new girl, Leslie Burke, outruns everybody, including him. However, Jess and Leslie become friends and discover a magical kingdom in the forest where they reign together as king and queen. Starring AnnaSophia Robb and Josh Hutcherson. Rated PG DADDy’S LITTLE GIRL In this Tyler Perry comedy a successful female attorney falls in love with a janitor, the single father of three daughters, over the objections of her father. Starring: Gabrielle Union, Idris Elba, Louis Gossett Jr., Tasha Smith, Gary Anthony Sturgis. Rated PG13 EPIC MOVIE In the spirit of Scary Movie and Date Movie, a parody that spoofs recent megablockbusters. The comedy centers itself around four orphans who visit a chocolate factory and are transported to the wonderful land of Gnarnia, after stumbling upon an enchanted wardrobe. There they battle pirates, encounter earnest wizards and attempt to defeat Gnarnia’s dastardly White Bitch. Rated PG-13 GHOST RIDER Based on a Marvel comic book character, a motorcycle stunt man named Johnny Blaze who gives up his soul to become a hellblazing vigilante to fight against the power hungry Blackheart, the son of the devil. Starring Nicolas Cage. Rated PG-13 HANNIBAL RISING So what was Hannibal Lecter like as a kid through his teens? This movie answers that question. The young genius learned many scientific fields such as medicine and chemistry. He also was a talented artist and musician as well as a forensic expert. The story opens in WWII in a medieval castle in Lithuania built by Hannibal’s forebear, Hannibal the Grim. The budding serial killer survives the horrors of the war and escapes the Soviet aftermath to find refuge in France. His horrific memories of the war combined with his psychopathy drive his future murder lust. Rated R MUSIC & LyRICS Hugh Grant stars as a washed up rock singer who is given a couple of days to compose a chart-topping hit for an admiring teen sensation. The only problem is, he has never written lyrics, so he teams up with a younger woman (Drew Barrymore) who has a flair for words. Together they make great music. Rated PG-13 NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM A hapless security guard, Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) accidently invokes an ancient curse that causes the animals and insects on display to come to life. Also starring Dick VanDyke and Mickey Rooney. Rated PG NORBIT Eddie Murphy plays multiple roles as Norbit, Rasputia, and Mr. Wong in this nutty comedy. A mild mannered guy (Murphy) is engaged to a large figured woman (Murphy). In his dreams, he meets his ideal woman (Thandie Newton) and schemes to find a way to be with her, not his bulbous fiancée. But she has other ideas. Rated PG-13 RENO 911!: MIAMI The goofy cops from the TV series have made a feature film of their loopy brand of police comedy. Set in Miami, the Reno cops continued pg 9 8 march 8-14, 2007 | entertaining u newspaper blades and babes 300 movie review by kellie abRaHamSon KAbrahamson1@aol.com A- Rated R 117 min. Nearly everyone I know has been dying to see 300 since the very first trailer was unveiled. As with any film that is highly anticipated by large numbers of people, I for one always find myself a bit weary. How can any movie meet such high expectations? Well, I’m pleased to report that 300 is, in fact, one that does just that. The film will be in theaters nationwide this Friday and I predict it will be a runaway hit at the box office. Spartan King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) is forced to go to war with Persia after the wicked, self-proclaimed God-man, King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) threatens to destroy their way of life if they don’t pledge their allegiance to him. Unable to get approval from the council to send their army into battle, Leonidas rounds up 300 of his most loyal men to go up against Persia’s one million-strong soldiers. As they march toward their battlefield, they soon realize they are being followed by a hunchback named Ephialtes (Andrew Tiernan) who is desperate to be a Spartan solider. When he is rebuffed by Leonidas, Ephialtes turns his back on them and gives the Persians everything they need to take down the Spartans. Meanwhile, a crooked politician named Theron (Dominic West) is wielding his influence with the council, prompting them to deny Leonidas’ aid and, consequently, condemning them all to death. Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey), Leonidas’ wife, is given the uphill task of convincing the council to overturn their decision. Like the first film to be derived from Frank Miller’s work, Sin City, most of the film was shot with the actors standing in front of bluescreens. Using CGI, Snyder and his team created a stunning version of Sparta that feels as gritty and dreary as it must have been. The film is a shot-by-shot adaptation of Miller’s graphic novel and at times you can really take notice of it, even if you’ve never picked the book THE SCA GOES SPARTAN At the preview showing of 300, several members of the Society for Creative Anachronism showed up in full Greek, Roman or Spartan garb. If you haven’t heard of the SCA, you’ve probably seen one of their members if you’ve ever been to a Medieval Faire. The organization, which has chapters worldwide, is dedicated to researching and recreating the Middle Ages in the present. They will, however, seek to include anything in Western Culture prior to 1600A.D. They re-create ages past “as they ought to have been.” Wearing near Hollywood versions of Roman legionnaire outfits, Medieval wench frocks and the more comfortable versions of Elizabethan era garb, they meet and socialize, often holding jousts and dances. Authenticity isn’t the watchword of the society, though it does seek to educate people about the past. The SCA traces its origins to a theme party organized in Berkeley, California circa 1966. It went from a party to a parade down Telegraph Avenue as a “protest against the 20 th Century.” The partygoers had such fun that they decided it was something they wanted to do again, and in a more organized fashion. By ’68 the first official chapter of the SCA was founded. Since then, the idea has spread and people have started chapters around the world. The organization of the SCA is Feudal in nature, with each area representing a fiefdom under up before. The film is rated R for good reason. The violence is non-stop and there is some nudity, so try and keep young kids away from this flick. At the screening I attended, the stakes were high for 300. The second the lights went down, people were cheering, anticipating a truly great film. Luckily for everyone, the movie delivers what the audience hoped: lots of cool fight scenes, plenty of blood and an intense underdog story that never once disappoints. A less-than-sappy love story gives viewers a break from all of the gore, which is a nice distraction from all that CGI blood. Speaking of which, with any film that relies heavily on CGI, people tend to worry that the digital images may look out of place. Turns out, those people worried for nothing. I was never once distracted by the computer-generated scenery or characters. The story itself, which is based on the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, is incredibly engrossing and well paced, allowing the viewer to be drawn in and stay drawn in for the film’s entire 117 minutes. Each and every actor did an exceptional job with their roles, perfectly personifying their hardshelled characters with just enough subtlety to make them appealing. While a handful of the characters felt a bit over-the-top, Butler’s Leonidas in particular, given the film’s graphic novel roots it’s more than understandable, it’s expected. The Ephialtes character is, admittedly, a tad unintentionally funny, and not just because of his grotesque appearance. The role is just a bit too similar to Gollum from the Lord of the Rings films. His appearance does manage to take you out of the story somewhat, but the diversion can be easily overlooked, given the rest of the film’s overwhelming positives. I rarely find myself reaching for my phone to recommend a movie to my friends moments after seeing it. After seeing 300, I did just that. Fans of Sin City and Frank Miller and those the slightest bit curious about this gritty period piece should make their way to the theater this weekend. This is a film that really delivers in every possible category. The reaction at the prescreening is proof of that. As the final credits began to roll, the entire theater clapped and began singing 300’s praises as they made their way out. I never heard a single negative comment from anyone around me. That really says it all. a larger kingdom. “Knowne World” of the SCA is divided into eighteen kingdoms, each with a King and Queen, a Prince and Princess, and a council or Curia of Great Officers who handle the day to day business of running the kingdom. The local chapter of the SCA is The Shire of Castlemere, which serves the Duval/ Jacksonville area. If you’d like to join, or want more info, go tocastlemere.org
have yourself a retro fun time at the Playtime Drive-In Theatre by eRin tHuRSby scopes1925@msn.com The number of drive-ins in Florida had always been higher than other states, perhaps because of the sunny weather, and Florida was one of the first states to have a drive-in movie theater. Although Florida experienced the same peak years as the rest of the country (1955-1959), the numbers never declined as much as the rest of the states. As late as ’79, when the majority of the theaters in other states had gone bust, Florida still had over 100 drive-in theaters operating. Many were located in small Florida towns as well as bigger cities. Many of the drive-in theaters here in Florida have had to do double-duty in order to stay in business. Our lone drive-in here in Jacksonville is the Playtime Triple Family Drive-In, located between Connecting Road and Wesconnett Blvd on Blanding. This theater has had some interesting times in different capacities. In the ‘90s, according to owner Frank Birchfield, it served as a drive-in church. “A local minister used to hold the service through the PA system car radio…He would stand up front and preach with a microphone that picked everything up.” says Birchfield. Although the drive-in hasn’t been a church since around ’95, it still does double duty as a flea market on Wednesday-Saturday from 6AM-3PM on Wednesday and 7AM-3PM Thursday-Saturday. Info: Playtime Triple Family Drive-In (904) 771- 2300, 6300 Blanding Blvd - Jacksonville, FL 32244 PLAyTIME TRIPLE FAMILy SHOWINGS Norbit 7PM Reno 911 8:30PM Abandoned 7PM Ghost Rider 8:40PM Wild Hogs 7PM & 8:30PM THE RIGHT TO BARE BUTTS Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville Did you know that the University Drive-In Theatre (since closed) was involved in a First Amendment case that went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1975? Apparently, the theater was running an R rated film known as Class of ’74 AKA Gabriella, Gabriella, which violated a city ordinance for exhibiting a motion picture, visible from public streets, in which “female buttocks and bare breasts were shown.” The Supreme Court upheld the right of the theater and theater manager Richard Erznoznik to show some T & A on the drive-in screen. The case brief for this ruling is often required reading for law students, even today. DRIVE-INS OF THE PAST: WHAT ARE THEy NOW? University Drive-In became a Public Library (near Farah’s on University) The Southside Drive-In became a Gentleman’s Club. The Midway on Beach Blvd. and The Fox on Normandy was sold to Wal-Mart. The Atlantic, which could be found at Atlantic and University is now a Publix. WHy DRIVE-IN? FLy IN! The drive-in craze was so huge that there were all sorts of variations on the basic drive-in model we’ve come to love. In ’48 Ed Brown’s Drive-In and Fly-In of Asbury Park, New Jersey opened to accommodate 500 cars and 25 airplanes. Planes were lined up in the back row because they were too high for people in cars to see over and the owner provided towing back to the airfield next to the theater. DRIVE-IN HISTORy It was 1933 when Richard M. Hollingshead combined his love of movies and cars by hanging a sheet in his backyard and projecting movies onto it with a 1928 Kodak projector mounted on the hood of his car. With just $30,000, Hollingshead opened the first drive-in on Tuesday June 6, 1933 on Crescent Boulevard in Camden, New Jersey. The price of admission was 25 cents for the car and 25 cents per person. Hollingshead had several bugs to workout, namely how to park the cars so that they could see around each other and how to transmit the sound to all the cars. The first commercial drive-in movie theater simply had very large speakers. This proved to be problem to the neighbors, who found it too loud, too late and the people in the cars in the back row had trouble hearing the dialogue. They eventually solved the problem with speakers for each car and later local radio frequencies the cars could tune to. By the 1940s drive-ins were gaining in popularity, with only a small slowdown during WWII as a result of rationing. With the advent of the family oriented baby boom in post-War America, there were a staggering five thousand drive-ins across the U.S. by the end of the 1950s. To put the number in perspective, if you replaced all the Wal-Marts in the country right now with drive-in movie theaters, you’d still need to add 22 more per state (over a thousand) to get to the number of drive-ins we had in the 1950s. The largest drive-ins could host about three thousand cars, with shuttles or golf carts to take you back to your car from the concession stand or other activities. Doors would sometimes open 3 hours in advance for things like talent shows, pony rides and other kid-friendly activities. Since concessions were the big money maker, they made sure to include intermissions, which upped concession sales. The glut of drive-ins began stagnating and then declining in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Fewer and fewer families were coming to the drive-ins, so they began to cater to the exploitation movie crowd as well as to teenagers looking for something to have on in the background as they made out. By the ‘80s VHS and Cable sounded what seemed like a death knell for the drive-ins. More and more drive-ins were sold or left abandoned. In the 1990’s a taste for nostalgia brought a slight upswing in the number of drive-ins, with some of the theaters that survived adding screens because of demand. The number still dropped over the decade, but the market for drive-ins is much more stable than it was over the past three decades. Today, though we’re still losing drive-ins to development and lack of profits, communities are more likely to see them as the treasures they are and work for their preservation. are called in to save the day after a terrorist attack Lawrence, disrupts a and national John police Travolta convention play a group in Miami of yuppie Beach biker during wannabes spring break. who seek Rated adventure R on the open road on their Harleys. The unlikely suburban bikers get more than STOMP they bargained THE yARD for A when troubled they 19 tangle year with old step a New Mexico dancer gang loses called his younger the Del brother Fuegos. in Rated Los Angeles. PG-13 His grief turns him to minor crime. But in court, he is ZODIAC able to bypass Based jail on Robert by enrolling Graysmith’s in Truth book University,an which all-black chronicles college the in Atlanta exhaustive where search his dance for the talents self proclaimed are sought Zodiac after by serial two killer campus who fraternities terrorized to San win the Francisco national step during show the competition. 1960s and 1970s. Rated The PG-13 story is told through the eyes of the detectives working the case SWEET and LAND a journalist When who Lars becomes Torvik’s obsessed grandmother with Inge the dies case. in 2004, Despite he the is faced intense with publicity a decision--sell the Zodiac the was never family caught. farm on Rated which R she lived since 1920, or cling to the legacy of the land. Seeking advice, he turns to the memory of Inge and the stories that she had passed special on to him. Starring showings Alan Cumming, Ned Beatty, Lois Smith, Tim Guinee, Elizabeth Reaser. Rated PG THE WIZARD OF OZ The THE 1939 ABANDONED classic, The An Wizard American of Oz, woman written searching by L. Frank for her Baum birth and parents starring learns Judy she Garland, has inherited Frank Morgan, a house Ray in the Bolger, middle Jack of Haley a forest and in Bert a remote Lahr, area will be of Russia. shown throughout She meets the a mysterious week at AMC man Orange who claims Park 24 to Theater be her as brother, part of a the twin Wizard she never of Oz knew. Week at Together Orange they Park find the Mall. house I have holds heard secrets rumors to a that past one they of don’t the Munchkins, remember. Minhart Together Rabbi they will are be forced making to relive a special a series appearance of horrifying this events Saturday, and shocking 3/10, at murders the mall. that For occurred movie times just call after 904.264.3888. they were born, in the place they were supposed to die. Rated R MOCA Jacksonville Film Series Film THE Fatales: ASTRONAUT A Celebration FARMER of Billy Independent Bob Thornton Women stars Directors as a NASA astronaut who is forced to retire so he can MOCA save his will family be paying farm. tribute However, to female his dream filmmakers of going into each space Wednesday still burns throughout in his soul. the And month so, he of begins March. the This impossible stellar sampling dream of of building captivating his own independent rocket despite films explores the governments contemporary threats filmmaking to stop him. by women Rated PG from around the world. Wednesday, March 14 THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND A Scottish doctor travels to Uganda to do humanitarian work. In a chance meeting with Idi Amin, the new strong man of Uganda, he develops a friendship with the dictator, who invites the doctor to be his personal physician. The money is great and he lives large, but as Amin goes mad with power, the doctor is trapped and desperately tries to escape the country. Forest Whitaker received a Golden Globe for his performance as Idi Amin. Rated R THE MESSENGERS The Solomon family move from Chicago for the wide-open-spaces of a North Dakota farm. As the family enjoys the tranquil life of the farm, Jess 16, finds out there is something strange in the field of sunflowers when she and her brother Ben 3, begin seeing ominous apparitions. Rated PG-13 THE NUMBER 23 Jim Carrey stars as Walter Sparrow, a man who becomes obsessed with a book titled The Number 23, that appears to be based on his life but ends with a murder that has yet to happen. The more Walter investigates the premise of the book, relating it to his life, the crazier he becomes. Rated R THE qUEEN A revealing, witty portrait of the British royal family in crisis immediately following the death of Princess Diana. The setting for this fictional account of real events is no less than the private chambers of the Royal Family and the British government in the wake of the sudden death of Princess Diana in August of 1997. The result is an intimate, yet thematically epic, battle between private and public, responsibility and emotion, custom and action - as a grieving nation waits to see what its leaders will do. This movie won a Golden Globe for Best Screenplay and Helen Mirren won a Golden Globe for Best Actress. Starring: Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell, Sylvia Syms, Helen McCrory. Rated PG-13 WILD HOGS Tim Allen, William H. Macy, Martin th THE STORy OF THE WEEPING CAMEL will be screened. This film is Directed by Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni and filmed in Mongolia/Germany, in Mongolian with English subtitles; 2003, rated PG. Combining drama and documentary, The Story Of The Weeping Camel is a lovingly observed and fascinating journal of dayto-day survival in the Mongolian Gobi desert. For a family of herders who happily eke out their living in this remote dustbowl, crisis comes in the shape of an all-white newborn camel rejected by its mother after an agonizing birth. The family undertakes the rearing of the calf by hand, but the longer he’s denied his mother’s milk, the more likely it is the little camel will die. Tickets are $6 for members and $8 for nonmembers. If you are not already a MOCA member, take advantage of our Film Series membership special – join the Museum the night of the movie and then watch the show for free! Info: 366-6911 Midnight Movie EL TOPO March 23,24 at midnight at the San Marco Theatre. After not being screened in North America for over twenty years due to some disagreement between the rights owner and the filmmaker we finally get to see this and The Holy Mountain on the big screen with brand new 35MM prints. El Topo seems to come from another dimension - a spaghetti western that goes off the deep end. Once seen who could ever forget the “Master” gunslinger with arms but no legs strapped on another gunslinger with legs but no arms! The game of Russian roulette that leads to a small tot taking a shot to the noggin. The sheer otherworldliness of the mountain freaks descending on the town to be blown to smithereens. One viewing of El Topo will result in images being burnt into your brain for the rest of your years - the images are that powerful. A frustrating, nervy, wonder of a film. Info: 396-4845 SPIDER-MAN 2 will be playing at the World Golf Hall of Fame IMAX® for a Special Engagement - In Spider- Man 2, two years have passed since Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) walked away from his longtime love continued pg 10 eujacksonville.com | march 8-14, 2007 9
Page 1 and 2: JACKSONVILLE the king has arrived D
Page 3 and 4: table of contents feature Spring Br
Page 5 and 6: calvin Newborn He played on B.B. Ki
Page 7: may/december Venus movie review by
Page 11 and 12: eujacksonville.com | march 8-14, 20
Page 13 and 14: iveting plot, hip actors The Black
Page 15 and 16: making the ordinary extraordinary M
Page 17 and 18: eujacksonville.com | march 8-14, 20
Page 19 and 20: 30 things to do this spring break b
Page 21 and 22: musical changeling Chad Jasmine at
Page 23 and 24: modern bluegrass interview with Cad
Page 25 and 26: the symphony goes west the Masterwo
Page 27 and 28: on the rocks an art showcase at the
Page 29 and 30: pack of lies Theatre Jacksonville r
Page 31: Random thoughts from a cluttered mi

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