Interview articles from July 2002

Interview archives from July 2002

Letters.
July 1, 2002... MO' MAYER Dear Interview, I was so excited to discover you had an interview with John Mayer in your April [2002] issue, and by Elton John, no less! I have been following Mayer and listening to his music for a couple of years now, and...

Fireworks at play: Interview presents; A new work created especially for independence day.(Chris Johanson)(Brief Article)(Illustration)
July 1, 2002... Last year, the Fourth of July felt the same as it had for years: barbecues, beer and bottle rockets overriding any notion of what the date meant historically, or might stand for in the 21st century. But because the ideas behind the holiday are...

Marc Blucas. (Movie Tip).(Brief Article)(Interview)
July 1, 2002... JOCK. BOOKWORM. HEARTTHROB? A former boyfriend and combatant of TV's Buffy, Marc Blucas makes it clear that he isn't a dumb jock in Tinseltown. Though the 63' actor played basketball alongside current NBA MVP Tim Duncan at Wake Forest...

Michelle Williams: this former teen queen's got a whole new scene. (Actress Profile).(Brief Article)(Interview)
July 1, 2002... SCOTT LYLE COHEN: Tell me about this English moment you're having. [Williams laughs] After years of playing the all-American girl on TV's Dawson's Creek and a few film roles, in your new movie, Me Without You, and your current Off-Broadway...

Road to perdition. (Preview).
July 1, 2002... (DreamWorks) Directed by Sam Mendes Amidst all the summertime popcorn fun comes this highly touted and much-anticipated follow-up to American Beauty [1999] from British theater ace Mendes. A moody and intense 1930s gangster epic, it...

Men in Black II. (Preview).
July 1, 2002... (Columbia Pictures) Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld Alien-cleansing is the goal of mortician-clad special agent Jay (Will Smith), who must convince his memory-impaired former partner, Kay (Tommy Lee Jones), to rejoin the force. Their...

Minority report. (Preview).
July 1, 2002... (20th Century Fox) Directed by Steven Spielberg Tom Cruise is a cop on the run in the year 2054, a time when infallible psychics finger future felons. (If only they could do the same for stock market winners.) Samantha Morton and Colin...

Mr. Deeds. (Preview).
July 1, 2002... (Columbia Pictures) Directed by Steven Brill Adam Sandier plays an aw-shucks small-town guy who inherits his uncle's New York media empire, and Winona Ryder is the tabloid reporter out to lampoon him in this remake of Mr. Deeds Goes to...

Lovely & amazing. (Review).
July 1, 2002... (Lions Gate Films) Directed by Nicole Holofcener Jane Marks (Brenda Blethyn) and her three daughters (Catherine Keener, Emily Mortimer and 10-year-old Raven Goodwin) share a peculiar blend of insecurity, cynicism and humor. In her...

Sunshine state. (Review).
July 1, 2002... (Sony Pictures Classics) Directed by John Sayles Novelistic and as sprawling as a Florida subdivision, Sayles' drama tackles the push-me-pull-you relationship between developers and locals in a southeastern backwater. Two strong women...

Pumpkin.
July 1, 2002... (MGM/UA) Directed by Tony R. Abrams and Adam Larson Broder Pumpkin wants to be a comedy about acceptance and unconventional love, but instead it comes off as a mean-spirited swipe at such easy targets as sororities and the disabled....

Never again.
July 1, 2002... (USA Films) Directed by Eric Schaeffer Stubbornly independent, 50-something New Yorkers Grace (Jill Clayburgh) and Christopher (Jeffrey Tambor) resolve never to fall in love again--until they meet each other. After a promising first...

Stephen Sprouse: what's new in red, white & blue. (Designer Splash).(Brief Article)(Interview)
July 1, 2002... JOANNA JACOVINI: Hi, Stephen. This is Joanna. STEPHEN SPROUSE: Hi, how are you? JJ: I'm all right. So, I know that you've designed a special line of products for Target. How did you hook up with them? SS: My friend, Sonia Kashuk,...

Jarvis Church: he helped Nelly Furtado fly. will he soar solo? (Music Buzz).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... While Nelly Furtado calls his music Marvin Gaye from Mars," Jarvis Church, the Grammy-nominated producer of Furtado's Whoa Nelly, actually hails from Toronto, by way of Jamaica. But with just one spin of Church's forthcoming debut, Shake It Off...

Rosey: she used to look for great new voices. Then she found her own. (Music Spotlight).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... "I was always getting into fights and stuff," says bewitching new singer-songwriter Rosey. "But I've learned how to turn my anger into something healthier." That rebellious spirit undulates through Dirty Child (Island Records), Rosey's haunting...

Eminem: the Eminem show (Aftermath/Interscope). (Sound Advice).
July 1, 2002... Like a fighter who goes straight for the bruises and just keeps pounding, Eminem can't resist hot-button issues. Sonically, this album has a clean, almost antiseptic sound-but who needs a complex tapestry of samples to distract you when you've...

Oakenfold: Bunkka (Maverick). (Sound Advice).
July 1, 2002... Oakenfold brought his A-list friends but none of their hit-making mojo to this, his first album of original material after years as a club DJ. Kudos for creating some worthy alternative rock textures instead of the expected melodic trance. But...

The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (Warner Brothers). (Sound Advice).
July 1, 2002... The Flaming Lips have been hiding out in the dusty heat of Oklahoma for almost two decades, making odd, beautiful music. Now they've added catchy sci-fi electro pop grooves to their playfully experimental sound. The result? The sound of the...

Counting Crows: Hard Candy (Geffen). (Sound Advice).
July 1, 2002... Fine song craft, crisp production and Adam Duritz' surprisingly sunny disposition make for a healthy dose of pure summer pleasure. While there are a few brief forays into '80s-era synth-pop and even Tropicalia, the Crows mostly stick to the...

Nelly: Nellyville (Universal). (Sound Advice).
July 1, 2002... St. Louis superstar Nelly raps, sings, squeaks and howls his way through an onomatopoeiaheavy sophomore album. Mellow, stomach-shaking bass keeps dizzy bounce-style beats grounded. Returning a favor, Justin Timberlake cameos but gets drowned...

Sonic Youth: Murray Street (DGC). (Sound Advice).
July 1, 2002... Sonic Youth's most focused and accessible album in years takes its name from the address of the band's Echo Canyon studio near Ground Zero. With multi-instrumentalist Jim O'Rourke joining as a full-time member, New York's legendary...

Guided By Voices: Universal Truths and Cycles (Matador). (Sound Advice).
July 1, 2002... Guided By Voices use cliched rock formulas the way hip-hop producers use samples, making things you've heard a hundred times sound fresh and strange. Here they blend punk and grunge rifts with orchestral flourishes and psychedelic harmonies, a...

Oasis: Heathen Chemistry (Epic). (Sound Advice).
July 1, 2002... The latest from the Brothers Gallagher finds them solidly in Stones mode and heading into Aerosmith territory with snarling, bluesy rockers, over-the-top power ballads and some psychedelic shimmers reminiscent of, yes, That Other Band....

The The: Mind Bomb (Epic/Legacy). (Sound Advice).
July 1, 2002... This newly reissued album is an eerie, moving pop meditation on religious intolerance, xenophobia, misguided patriotism and fear. It instructs a post 9/11 world with dance-floor shimmy and protest-rally fervor. Samples of muezzins, preachers,...

Julia Fordham: Concrete Love (Vanguard). (Sound Advice).
July 1, 2002... Fordham rings her well-written lyrics through the four-octave bell of her voice on this lavish harmony of soul, pop and R&B. A couple of tracks chime without resonance, but with help from India.Arie, Joe Henry and Billy Preston, she strikes...

Augustus Pablo: East of the River Nile (Shanachie). (Sound Advice).
July 1, 2002... This new 25th-anniversary edition of one of dub music's seminal albums is spacious enough to move into, and as intoxicating as the sacramental herb Pablo was always puffing. He died three years ago, but the devout Rastafarian's mournful...

Jenny Holzer: A major-league artist is on the line, with her eye on the world. (Calling in from the Road).(Brief Article)(Interview)
July 1, 2002... For more than 20 years, Jenny Holzer has been using words and language to create art that speaks volumes. With a clear vision of the possibilities offered by emerging technology, she has been pointing the way with electronic signs and large...

Catherine Millet: galleries by day. Orgies by night. Only in Paris, kids. (Book Shocker).(Interview)
July 1, 2002... For any individual to write a memoir of their sex life with the candor and precision demonstrated in The Sexual Life of Catherine M. (just out from Grove Press) would be reason enough to sit up and take notice. But when that individual is a...

Shots in the dark: growing up ain't easy. Two new movies show why. (Movie Column).
July 1, 2002... Two new films echo and reecho each other as howls from the torture chambers of the female psyche. Michelle Williams steals both as the longsuffering best friend of a voraciously needy fellow university student who manipulates and betrays her....

Fran Drescher: they say laughter is the best medicine. (Health & Humor Column).(Brief Article)(Interview)
July 1, 2002... KATHY CAMPBELL: Why did you feel you had to write your new book (Cancer Schmancer, Warner Books) about your battle with uterine cancer? FRAN DRESCHER: Because I didn't want what happened to me to happen to you. It took me two years to get...

Lying versus honesty. (Food for thought Column).(Camille Paglia on academic plagiarism)(Brief Article)(Interview)
July 1, 2002... INGRID SISCHY: What about all the plagiarism in academia and publishing lately? It's not just lying. It's cheating, intentional or not. But let's not pretend that lying is a whole new ball game for writers. It has to do with sell-creation,...

All the dish: where to go when you want a little soul.(four restaurants, Manhattan, New York)
July 1, 2002... If anything good could be said to have come out of the events of September 11, it's that the world got to see something most New Yorkers have known for years--that beneath the city's brusque exterior beats as warm a heart as ever was. It is,...

Letter from the editor July. (View).
July 1, 2002... This month we open the issue on page 16 with an artwork of fireworks, created especially for Interview by artist Chris Johanson. Not only are the fireworks symbolic of America's big July holiday, Independence Day, they also could be thought of...

Emily Mortimer: tired of movies where all the explosiveness comes from special effects? Try this actress.(Interview)
July 1, 2002... In the most troubling scene in Nicole Holofcener's new film Lovely & Amazing, a neurotic Hollywood actress, vividly played by Emily Mortimer, stands naked in front of the star (Dermot Mulroney) she has just slept with and asks him to describe...

The loft as lab art story: what happens when a photographer invites four young strangers to live together for a month in an empty loft? Presenting a happening by Carter Smith.(Interview)
July 1, 2002... TONY MOXHAM: How did you come up with the initial concept for Squat? CARTER SMITH: It started when Daniel Peddle, who's a friend of mine and owner of The Secret Gallery [in Red Hook, Brooklyn] asked me to do a show. I wanted to create an...

Kate Bosworth: going with the flow. Finding your own way. Shirtless, jobless and happy as a clam. Surfing is bigger than ever.(Interview)
July 1, 2002... Due in theaters next month, Blue Crush, the first surf movie of the new century, couldn't have better timing. Across America, from coast to coast and the heartland in between, surfing's enjoying a new wave of popularity, embraced as much for...

A magazine movie.(Illustration)(Short Story)
July 1, 2002... In downtown New York a young woman sits on her bed with a laptop. The small, untidy room is dark. She is absorbed in the in formation on the screen and the decisions she has to make. She wears no makeup and her hair is quite a study in...

Gerard Butler: slaying dragons in one thing-what about audiences and critics?(Brief Article)(Interview)
July 1, 2002... An actor with a bright future, Gerard Butler is passionate about the past. Not necessarily his rambunctious own, but instead, the fantastical legends and lore of his Scottish homeland. His brogue peppered with expletives, his wry smile full of...

Samantha Morton: Cruise and Spielberg were nice, but here's what she's really excited about.(Interview)
July 1, 2002... When we caught up with Samantha Morton, she was resting in Italy--no doubt preparing for the onslaught of attention that will focus on her after the opening of Minority Report, with its unsettling futuristic story and formidable collaborators....