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Italiano Barra di Vino
Opened in early 2007, Bar Bambino offers a casual, wine-centric option for Italophiles basking in the recent addition of a slew of high-minded Italian restaurants in San Francisco (SPQR, Farina, Ducca, and Perbacco to name a few). Here, owner Christopher Losa seeks to lure the diner with a visually tantalizing interior. Better yet, Losa has assembled a selection of fine nibblets that touch on the cuisines of Italy -- everything from "salumi" boards to meaty pastas, paninis and piattis.
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Childhood is Chiller
Seattle's twinkly-psychedelic duo Arthur & Yu includes neither an Arthur nor a Yu (no Belle, no Sebastian; no Iron, no Wine). "Arthur" and "Yu" are childhood handles long dormant until Grant "Arthur" Olsen and Sonya "Yu" Wescott dusted them off and revived them in a music-making frenzy. Although, like their music, the two are more laid back than the word "frenzy" seems to imply.
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Released Independently, 10/13/07
I love a good head-to-the-beach-on-a-sunny-Sunday CD and Big Blue Marble's new creation, Natchez, doesn't disappoint. Whilst I hate to use the word "boppy" to describe any great pop/rock album, bop is really what you want to do to the music.
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Released on EMI UK, 9/18/07
Fans of KT Tunstall's will not be disappointed with her latest release Drastic Fantastic!. This Scottish journeywoman wows her audience again with her blend of easy-strum rock-pop-bop. The album is like listening to a soundtrack illuminating a moment of script from television or film. It is more intimate than "Dawson's Creek" but as embraceable as say, "Grey's Anatomy".
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Released on Geffen Records, 9/18/2007
I can't recall exactly when I first heard The Crystal Method. Maybe it was the Gap khakis commercial nearly ten years ago. Maybe it was a track from a movie soundtrack. Maybe it was some other product endorsement. But, I do remember The Crystal Method made a big impression on me and in short order I picked up Vegas and played it so many times that I wore the disc out. How ironic that the name of the band is a play on words for one of the most addictive illicit substances out there; the tracks on Vegas could easily be described as addictive.
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Can't Stop the Beat
For a venue buried in an alley between Mission and Market and 5th and 6th Streets, The Mezzanine is tough to ignore. Armed with too many lighting rigs, disco balls and bars, the venue provides a cavernous home for party-rock and its excesses.
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Another Compelling Turn by George Clooney
Longtime screenwriter Tony Gilroy's (the Bourne trilogy, Proof of Life, Armageddon) first feature-length film as a director, Michael Clayton, is both a smart, tautly paced thriller that works on most every level and George Clooney's latest star turn.
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A Near Heartbreaker
There was a time in the not so distant past when any comedy that included the involvement of one (or both) of the Farrelly brothers virtually guaranteed a comedy of galactic, epic proportions. Films like Kingpin and There's Something About Mary and, arguably, Dumb and Dumber fall into this category. However, since There's Something About Mary, the Farrelly brothers just haven't quite been able to put together a comedy as consistently and as creatively funny as the aforementioned. Unfortunately, their latest effort, The Heartbreak Kid is no exception.
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An American Legend, Methodically Debunked
Andrew Dominik's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford tells the story of one of America's most infamous outlaws, a fearless robber who, thanks to a sympathetic press, became an unlikely folk hero. As cunning as he was elusive, the leader of the notorious James Gang artfully dodged the authorities for years until one of his trusted accomplices, Robert Ford, murdered him. Dominik's film captures the details of their saga in exhaustive but fascinating detail, and though it features sporadic bursts of brutality, it is neither sensational nor cartoonishly biased.
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Love in the Time of Calamity
Despite the already notorious sex scenes that have earned it the MPAA's dreaded NC-17 rating, Ang Lee's Lust, Caution is a throwback to the cinema of the 40s, an epic romance set against the backdrop of the Second World War. It has been criticized by some for being too cautious, for surrounding moments of graphic intimacy with arid melodrama, but that's missing the point.
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Curb Your Expectations
Jeff Garlin may not boast the most commanding presence, but he is easily likable. As Larry David's hopelessly loyal agent on "Curb Your Enthusiasm", he brings a tiny dose of warmth to a world reigned by paranoia, deceit and distrust. He is the calm at the center of David's endlessly raging storm, greeting calamitous absurdity with a goofy grin. It's a shame, then, that I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With is such a slight, lifeless affair.
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The Train to Nowhere
When this train pulls into the station, you may not want to board. One of the more anticipated films of the year, The Darjeeling Limited is just that -- limited. The movie is a disappointing road trip flick in which three spoiled, clueless, sorry saps travel by train through India while trying to absorb its "spiritual essence" via osmosis.
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Slow and Tortuous
Something has obviously gone wrong in a movie when the viewers begin to lose sympathy for the main character. And something has gone horribly awry if the viewers begin to root for the character to fail or die or meet his/her comeuppance, especially when that character, as is the case in the Indian film Vanaja, a 15-year old girl who's been raped. It sounds unbearably harsh, but the title character, Vanaja, is so exasperating, bratty, spoiled and unlikable that you will find yourself completely unsympathetic to her plight.
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Old Haunts and New Visions
The Limn Gallery presents the Beijing-based art duo The Gao Brothers' first solo exhibition in San Francisco in a small, but conceptually dense collection that samples their oeuvre from the past decade. The brothers, Gao Zhen and Gao Qiang, began their collaboration in the 80s as Chinese artists were producing more socially engaged and avant-garde inspired works and achieved international acclaim by the mid-90s.
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Creating Illuminating Works of Art
While sitting in church as a kid, I'd often daydreamed about the life of the biblical characters that were depicted in the tall stained glass windows. That is one of the original purposes of stained glass in churches: to teach the lessons of the bible to illiterate members of the congregation. In addition, the beauty of the light streaming through the glass was meant to inspire as pilgrims made their journey. Basically, its purpose is to invoke a different state of mind, one different from daily life.
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