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Paul Pope makes comics that reads like movies. His characters are hotter than you'll find in any graphic novel and more human than you'll find in any Lower East Side bar. Having made his name with the sweaty urban nightmares Heavy Liquid and 100%, Pope now moves seamlessly between mainstream and indie, stretching the boundaries of each. Batman Year 100 — a four-issue miniseries released Feb. 15 — reimagines Gotham City in the year 2039, and it's a more thrilling experience than Christopher Nolan's recent film. This fall, Pulphope, a collection of Pope's work and writings, will be published. Let it improve the landscape of your coffee table and your mind. — MM
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Surrounded by smart-ass men on The Daily Show, Samantha Bee has mastered a whole new kind of social dynamic. It's not one-of-the-guys, nor the cute girl among nerds (although she is cute), nor the maternal one (although she just gave birth this month to a daughter). Rather, she's the girl in kindergarten everyone had a crush on. Jon Stewart and company seem to get all moony over her in the most platonically enchanted way. She earned our admiration back during the election when she cursed out an assembled survey group of the undecided. Let's hope her maternity leave is short. — AC |
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Houston rapper Mike Jones's song "Back Then" ("They used to love to diss me, now they rush to hug and kiss me") is as funny as it is cocky, in part because his name is so much less dramatic than his peers'. "Mike Jones" doesn't have an ounce of swagger in it, but he makes up for the unprepossessing moniker by repeating it ten billion times. He's not much for brevity, but he's got heart in abundance. According to his website, he has a tattoo on his arm that reads: "If you don't work you don't eat, you don't grind you don't shine. Anything my routine, 90% grind, 10% sleep. I grind so much I hardly get sleep. I'm not comfortable sleeping, but I dream, Mike Jones." Jones is so charming, he's partly responsible for people thinking those crazy grillz are a good idea. — AC
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There are a bunch of new money books geared to twentysomethings out this year, but we'll stick with Suze Orman's Guide for the Young, Fabulous and Broke. With her whiter than white teeth, frosted hair and piercing stare, Suze Orman scares us. But we can't help admiring her for her absolutely practical advice (it's better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb than in the middle of one you don't, even if you have to lean on your credit cards for a while to make ends meet) and her tough love for callers to her show with deadbeat boyfriends, sisters and kids. "People first, then money, then things," says Orman. In practice, this means Roth IRAs are good and co-signing for a loan is not. Her fashion sense might not be acute — she's overly fond of leopard prints and lamé — we'll trust her on the important stuff. — AC
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Sting, Prince, Seal and a raft of other singular musicians have trusted Sanaa Hamri with their videos. In 2005, she began her foray into feature-length film with an interracial romantic comedy called Something New, which premieres this month. The Moroccan Times hailed Hamri as that country's first Hollywood success story. The interracial coupling standard has been explored on the big screen for decades, from Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, to the decidedly non-instant-classic remake Starring Ashton Kutcher and Zoe Saldana. In between, everyone from Archie Bunker to Spike Lee has tossed in their two cents. Hamri's debut promises to bring something fresh to the genre - it's premise is sincere instead of purely comedic, and if her light touch with the music industry's A-list in any indication, it won't be didactic either. — WD
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Imagine waking up on your sixteenth birthday to the news that your father is headed to jail for four years. How would you cope? Carrie Levy made more than 500 images, which have been crafted into the hauntingly beautiful photo memoir 51 Months. Levy pushed the work into a conceptual realm, depicting the psychological space of incarceration. The result is a series of portraits of her father and nude, anonymous figures that redefines the notion of repose. She's turned a personal tragedy and a ubiquitous photographic style into something raw, touching and new. — RH |
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One of the great thrills of this theater season was seeing Jennifer Jason Leigh's debauched, chain-smoking character in Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party get drunker and drunker, finally groping a married guest in front of his meek wife. The New Group, which has been staging deliriously fun productions of Leigh's work since 1995, turned out a terrific, star-studded Hurlyburly in 2005 and proffered Avenue Q in 2003. They have a gift for staging shows that are at once sexy and smart, which star always-liked-them actors like Miss Leigh having what looks like the most fun they've ever had. — AC
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If you haven't seen Sally Potter's film Yes, you haven't seen one of the hottest couplings of 2005. The film stars Joan Allen, an icy, scary, undeniably sexy woman, and Simon Abkarian, her smoldering, soft-speaking foil. In 2005, Nerve interviewed Allen about the film, but the slightly less famous Abkarian hasn't enjoyed nearly the same level of notice. Born in France and raised in Lebanon, his turn as Allen's Arab lover is fantastic — unnervingly complex and executed with brutal realism. His performance brings to life several of the many unmentioned unpleasantries that accompany the uneven power dynamic between Arabs and Americans as individuals. In 2005, by IMDb's count, he had roles in no less than five French films. We can imagine there were five very happy actresses in France this year. — WD |
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The premise of Liu Zheng's series The Chinese seems almost impossibly broad: Zheng set out to document nothing less than modern Chinese society, and her work zooms from prison inmates to corpses to transsexuals to hospital patients to wax figures without so much as a breath. It's almost asphyxiating to view, but in this case, the lack of air feels good. It helps us understand what it means for a society to move rapidly between traditional culture and modernization, from horror and disbelief to delight and erotic attraction. — RH |
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Offstage, she's just a charming blond from Manhattan, Kansas. Onstage, belter Bridget Everett has what may be the filthiest mouth in New York. Her relentlessly funny, amazingly dirty cabaret show, "At Least It's Pink" (the title refers to her large vagina), has been making the rounds in NYC and is about to debut at the Aspen Comedy Festival. With Kenny Mellman of Kiki and Herb on piano, Everett sings about teen love gone wrong, BM4WM chat rooms and her ass. (Her showstopper is called "Canhole.") In performance, Everett has been known to destroy furniture, flash her breasts and molest men on the aisle. She's a holy terror, but a very talented one. You can listen to a few songs here. — AC
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Paul Pope makes comics that reads like movies. His characters are hotter than you'll find in any graphic novel and more human than you'll find in any Lower East Side bar. Having made his name with the sweaty urban nightmares Heavy Liquid and 100%, Pope now moves seamlessly between mainstream and indie, stretching the boundaries of each. Batman Year 100 — a four-issue miniseries released Feb. 15 — reimagines Gotham City in the year 2039, and it's a more thrilling experience than Christopher Nolan's recent film. This fall, Pulphope, a collection of Pope's work and writings, will be published. Let it improve the landscape of your coffee table and your mind. — MM
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Surrounded by smart-ass men on The Daily Show, Samantha Bee has mastered a whole new kind of social dynamic. It's not one-of-the-guys, nor the cute girl among nerds (although she is cute), nor the maternal one (although she just gave birth this month to a daughter). Rather, she's the girl in kindergarten everyone had a crush on. Jon Stewart and company seem to get all moony over her in the most platonically enchanted way. She earned our admiration back during the election when she cursed out an assembled survey group of the undecided. Let's hope her maternity leave is short. — AC |
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Houston rapper Mike Jones's song "Back Then" ("They used to love to diss me, now they rush to hug and kiss me") is as funny as it is cocky, in part because his name is so much less dramatic than his peers'. "Mike Jones" doesn't have an ounce of swagger in it, but he makes up for the unprepossessing moniker by repeating it ten billion times. He's not much for brevity, but he's got heart in abundance. According to his website, he has a tattoo on his arm that reads: "If you don't work you don't eat, you don't grind you don't shine. Anything my routine, 90% grind, 10% sleep. I grind so much I hardly get sleep. I'm not comfortable sleeping, but I dream, Mike Jones." Jones is so charming, he's partly responsible for people thinking those crazy grillz are a good idea. — AC
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|
|
There are a bunch of new money books geared to twentysomethings out this year, but we'll stick with Suze Orman's Guide for the Young, Fabulous and Broke. With her whiter than white teeth, frosted hair and piercing stare, Suze Orman scares us. But we can't help admiring her for her absolutely practical advice (it's better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb than in the middle of one you don't, even if you have to lean on your credit cards for a while to make ends meet) and her tough love for callers to her show with deadbeat boyfriends, sisters and kids. "People first, then money, then things," says Orman. In practice, this means Roth IRAs are good and co-signing for a loan is not. Her fashion sense might not be acute — she's overly fond of leopard prints and lamé — we'll trust her on the important stuff. — AC
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|
Sting, Prince, Seal and a raft of other singular musicians have trusted Sanaa Hamri with their videos. In 2005, she began her foray into feature-length film with an interracial romantic comedy called Something New, which premieres this month. The Moroccan Times hailed Hamri as that country's first Hollywood success story. The interracial coupling standard has been explored on the big screen for decades, from Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, to the decidedly non-instant-classic remake Starring Ashton Kutcher and Zoe Saldana. In between, everyone from Archie Bunker to Spike Lee has tossed in their two cents. Hamri's debut promises to bring something fresh to the genre - it's premise is sincere instead of purely comedic, and if her light touch with the music industry's A-list in any indication, it won't be didactic either. — WD
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Imagine waking up on your sixteenth birthday to the news that your father is headed to jail for four years. How would you cope? Carrie Levy made more than 500 images, which have been crafted into the hauntingly beautiful photo memoir 51 Months. Levy pushed the work into a conceptual realm, depicting the psychological space of incarceration. The result is a series of portraits of her father and nude, anonymous figures that redefines the notion of repose. She's turned a personal tragedy and a ubiquitous photographic style into something raw, touching and new. — RH |
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|
One of the great thrills of this theater season was seeing Jennifer Jason Leigh's debauched, chain-smoking character in Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party get drunker and drunker, finally groping a married guest in front of his meek wife. The New Group, which has been staging deliriously fun productions of Leigh's work since 1995, turned out a terrific, star-studded Hurlyburly in 2005 and proffered Avenue Q in 2003. They have a gift for staging shows that are at once sexy and smart, which star always-liked-them actors like Miss Leigh having what looks like the most fun they've ever had. — AC
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If you haven't seen Sally Potter's film Yes, you haven't seen one of the hottest couplings of 2005. The film stars Joan Allen, an icy, scary, undeniably sexy woman, and Simon Abkarian, her smoldering, soft-speaking foil. In 2005, Nerve interviewed Allen about the film, but the slightly less famous Abkarian hasn't enjoyed nearly the same level of notice. Born in France and raised in Lebanon, his turn as Allen's Arab lover is fantastic — unnervingly complex and executed with brutal realism. His performance brings to life several of the many unmentioned unpleasantries that accompany the uneven power dynamic between Arabs and Americans as individuals. In 2005, by IMDb's count, he had roles in no less than five French films. We can imagine there were five very happy actresses in France this year. — WD |
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|
The premise of Liu Zheng's series The Chinese seems almost impossibly broad: Zheng set out to document nothing less than modern Chinese society, and her work zooms from prison inmates to corpses to transsexuals to hospital patients to wax figures without so much as a breath. It's almost asphyxiating to view, but in this case, the lack of air feels good. It helps us understand what it means for a society to move rapidly between traditional culture and modernization, from horror and disbelief to delight and erotic attraction. — RH |
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|
Offstage, she's just a charming blond from Manhattan, Kansas. Onstage, belter Bridget Everett has what may be the filthiest mouth in New York. Her relentlessly funny, amazingly dirty cabaret show, "At Least It's Pink" (the title refers to her large vagina), has been making the rounds in NYC and is about to debut at the Aspen Comedy Festival. With Kenny Mellman of Kiki and Herb on piano, Everett sings about teen love gone wrong, BM4WM chat rooms and her ass. (Her showstopper is called "Canhole.") In performance, Everett has been known to destroy furniture, flash her breasts and molest men on the aisle. She's a holy terror, but a very talented one. You can listen to a few songs here. — AC
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