Interview articles from March 2007

Interview archives from March 2007

The dream comes true.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... Dear Interview, I was a big fan of Jennifer Hudson on season three of American Idol and had to remind myself not to take it personally when she was voted off the show near the end, so I am relishing her sudden rise to fame with her...

Marching to his own strummer.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... Dear Interview, I'm a huge fan of John Mayer's new album [Continuum], so I read his interview in your December/January issue with a lot of interest. What a treat to learn a little about what went into this well-rounded and, above all,...

Fresh as a lily.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... Dear Interview, If Lily Allen [December/January 2007] is half as refreshing as her interview with Angela McCluskey is, then I need to rush out and buy her album. There aren't that many recording artists today that are as uncensored as...

The long and the short of it.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... Dear Interview, I thought Rinko Kikuchi was a revelation in the new film Babel when I saw it a few weeks ago--brave, touching, inspiring--so I was thrilled to discover there was a piece on her in your new issue [December/January 2007]....

A beautiful mind.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... Dear Interview, What a delight to read Ingrid Sischy's interview with Jennifer Connelly in your December/ January issue. I, for one, did not know a whole lot about "blood diamonds" and the Kimberley Process before reading the interview, so...

Future eyes: looking animated for spring.(LOOK OF THE MONTH)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Jessica Rabbit's hand-span waist, Cruella de Vil's perfectly double-processed skunk-striped hair, and Betty Boop's enviable lashes--the beauty options available to our animated heroines can often seem significantly better than the ones...

Mika: it took a year of silence for this singer to find his voice.(MUSIC BREAKOUT)(Interview)(Biography)
March 1, 2007... Pop singer Mika found his voice through silence. When he was 9, war erupted In the Middle East, and he emigrated with his mother from Beirut to Paris to London while his father, a businessman, was held hostage at an embassy In Kuwait. Mika's...

Joanna Newsom: the genre-bustng harpist who is bringing classical music into the messiness of 21st-century life.(MUSIC NOISEMAKER)(Interview)
March 1, 2007... Joanna Newsom's first solo album, The Milk-Eyed Mender, was the surprise hit of 2004. After all, who would expect a classically trained harpist with an ethereal voice and a case full of folk songs to briskly move the merchandise? Yet Newsom...

Bill Condon: more than 25 years ago, Dreamgirls hit Broadway like a lightning bolt. Now, it's electrifying the big screen. Here, Bill Condon--the director behind the dream.(RENEGADE DIRECTOR SPECIAL)(Interview)
March 1, 2007... Bringing the stage musical Dreamgirls to the big screen has clearly taken a lot out of its adapter, writer-director Bill Condon. Though he's still wide-eyed, boyish, and polite, there are a few flecks of gray in his hair and a bemused...

Guillermo del Toro: how the fable-spinning filmmaker behind the fantastical movie pan's labyrinth said yes to adventure and no to boundaries.(RENEGADE DIRECTOR SPECIAL)(Interview)
March 1, 2007... Even having lost a substantial amount of weight, writer-director Guillermo del Toro has the massive, forthright presence of a bull--a friendly bull, Ferdinand as a film director--contrasted with the amused wariness of a matador. And his easy...

Elvis Perkins: how loss on top of loss made for a debut that tells it like it is.(InterMAN)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Elvis Perkins is a singer-songwriter who can speak from both head and heart in equal measure. That fusion, as well as some seriously beautiful melodies, is on display in Perkins's new album, Ash Wednesday (XL). The title refers to the difficult...

Cracking up: fashion has literally become a mirror of the times.(DAZZLING DEVELOPMENT)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... For spring, many fashion designers are holding up mirrors to the rest of the world. From Marc Jacobs's gem-encrusted tote to mirrored heels from Cesare Paciotti and Salvatore Ferragamo, this season's bling-blingiest looks are reflecting and...

Retail therapy: a prescription for fashion emergencies.(CAPSULE COLLECTION)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Whether they come in the form of capsules, tablets, or good old-fashioned pills, those colorful, candylike bits have long been an irresistible pop-culture motif. In the style realm, the public fascination with Jacqueline Kennedy's simple...

Gaspard Ulliel: from serial scene-stealer to serious leading man.(MOVIE HEAT)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... When director Peter Webber asked Gaspard Ulliel to play Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter, the 22-year-old French actor hesitated. "A risky choice coming after Anthony Hopkins," Ulliel explains. He was swayed, though, by the fact that he wouldn't...

Carice Van Houten: a career influenced by Laurel and Hardy, Shakespeare and Sharon Stone.(MOVIE BUZZ)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... The new movie Black Book not only represents a homecoming for director Paul Verhoeven, making a film in the Netherlands for the first time in decades, but it also introduces to the rest of the world the fearsomely talented Dutch actress Carice...

April Hernandez: most actresses want to be on people's minds. She wants to change them.(MOVIE TIP)(Interview)(Biography)
March 1, 2007... After five minutes onstage at New York Comedy Club, April Hernandez had a vision--she saw herself as a female John Leguizamo. Three years later she left the Bronx neighborhood where she grew up, her boyfriend, and her job as a front-desk...

Jonathan Tucker: an actor who has danced in ballet tights, brawled in mobster fights, and is about to reach new heights.(MARCH PREDICTION)(Interview)
March 1, 2007... "It's just such a devil's deal they give you in this business," says actor Jonathan Tucker about the kind of fame that stars like Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon (both of whom he admires) have achieved. "1 was on a plane today with this woman,...

Alice Eve: her sidesplitting performance puts the spark in the season's quirkiest college movie.(ONE TO WATCH)(Interview)(Biography)
March 1, 2007... "There's nothing weird about playing a character called Alice," says 25-year-old actress Alice Eve. "It's just that I played two characters in a row with my name. I used to joke that it was unimaginative casting." This past summer in London,...

Dan Colen: flying the flag for art's possibilities.(STUDIO VIEW)
March 1, 2007... Recently heralded as a torchbearer for the downtown art scene along with close friends and cohort artists Dash Snow, Ryan McGinley, and Aaron Young, Dan Colen has a lot more smoldering than being one of the latest "It" guys. The New Jersey...

Standouts of independence.(SHOWTIME)(Magnum in Motion photo exhibition)(The Air Is on Fire, David Lynch's exhibition)
March 1, 2007... MAGNUM IN MOTION... AND A TRAVELING EXHIBITION SHOWCASES THE FILM WORK OF SOME PHOTOGRAPHERS WHO COULD NEVER SIT STILL When one thinks of the Magnum photo agency, one does not think of movies. Groundbreaking photojournalism? Yes. Fierce...

Elephant dancing: the who, the what, the wow, and the why.(MUSIC COLUMN)(Lou Reed)
March 1, 2007... At St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn last mid-December, it was the sense of event that lifted every aspect of Lou Reed's first-time staging of his notorious 1973 album Berlin up to the ceiling--where Julian Schnabel had hung a huge, ugly green...

Shots in the dark: idealism--a return engagement at a theater near you.(MOVIE COLUMN)
March 1, 2007... Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten salutes the leader of the Clash, who was "idealistic to a fault," according to the brochure for the Sundance Film Festival, where Julien Temple's documentary was screened in January. But Strummer wasn't a...

All the dish: New York City gets its just desserts.(FOOD COLUMN)(Kyotofu; Room 4 Dessert; ChikaLicious)(Restaurant review)
March 1, 2007... It may have begun as an anomaly, a bold move by a restaurateur thinking out of the box, but the appeal of the dessert-only destination has steadily caught on, multiplying into a veritable landslide of grapefruit sorbet and whipped fromage...

Air: Pocket Symphony (Astralwerks).(Sound recording review)
March 1, 2007... The French duo Air often get pegged as mere chill-out stylists, but this, their fourth studio album, should get them noticed as serious (if irreverent) composers. While the band's electronic songs at first seem soothing, in fact they're packed...

The View: Hats Off to the Buskers (1965/Columbia).(Sound recording review)
March 1, 2007... This Dundee, Scotland, quartet was "discovered" when drummer Steve Morrison was arrested alongside Babyshambles front man Pete Doherty for driving the wrong way down a one-way street. But the tabloid notoriety hasn't hurt, leading as it did to...

Yoko Ono: Yes, I'm a Witch (Astralwerks).(Sound recording review)
March 1, 2007... The title track both acknowledges Ono's detractors while poking fun at them, but other songs here do the real refuting. Always interested as much in innovative process as in the resulting sound, Ono has asked a strange and amazing list of...

Clap your hands say yeah: Some Loud Thunder (self-released).(Sound recording review)
March 1, 2007... This grassroots conglomerate made many critics' lists for 2005, lauded as a true indie band with their self-produced, self-marketed, and self-titled debut. Now on their second record--released in the same fashion, using word of mouth more than...

Sondre Lerche: Phantom Punch (Astralwerks).(Sound recording review)
March 1, 2007... Having recently toured with Elvis Costello, the Norwegian singer-songwriter has absorbed all of the master craftsman's cliche-killing melodic brilliance and injected his own off-kilter energy into the writing process. Most of these songs were...

LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver (DFA/Capitol).(Sound recording review)
March 1, 2007... James Murphy remains the avatar of the dance-rock revival, and LCD's sophomore effort shows that he hasn't lost his edge. Sound of Silver doesn't feature any tracks as barn-burning as the 2005 dance-floor hit "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House."...

Arcade Fire: Neon Bible (Merge).(Sound recording review)
March 1, 2007... Since their 2004 debut, Funeral, these Canadian imports seem to have spent a little more time in America's heartland and now reenter the studio with a harsh critique. Win Butler's voice is less shrill here and more solid, with a soulful,...

Norah Jones: Not Too Late (Blue Note).(Sound recording review)
March 1, 2007... On her third album, Norah Jones edges away from her soft-jazz persona with a few left-field moves. "Wish I Could" and "My Dear Country" are explicitly political songs; indie troubadour M. Ward appears on one track; and "Sinkin' Soon" has a...

Zodiac.(Movie review)
March 1, 2007... Preview: ZODIAC (Paramount) Directed by David Fincher Loosely based on the book by former San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist Robert Graysmith about the Zodiac killer who terrorized the Bay Area in the late 60s/early 70s, David Fincher's...

300.(Movie review)
March 1, 2007... Preview: 300 (Warner Bros.) Directed by Zack Snyder According to the legend of the Battle of Thermopylae, 300 Spartans died while holding off a million marauding Persians. Their sacrifice would inspire the other Greek city-states to band...

The Namesake.(Movie review)
March 1, 2007... Review: THE NAMESAKE (Fox Searchlight) Directed by Mira Nair Actors known for splatter comedy are rarely given a chance to show a serious side, so when one of them crosses over, it is cause for celebration. Case in point: Kal Penn, familiar...

Avenue Montaigne.(Movie review)
March 1, 2007... Review: AVENUE MONTAIGNE (ThinkFilm) Directed by Daniele Thompson Writer-director Daniele Thompson follows up her whimsical Jet Lag (2002) with the lighter-than-air ensemble comedy Avenue Montaigne, which concerns the romantic comings and...

The Wind That Shakes The Barley.(Movie review)
March 1, 2007... Review: THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY (IFC First Take) Directed by Ken Loach Director Ken Loach, whose furiously naturalistic shooting style produced 1970's Kes, finally won the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or for this wrenching,...

Black Snake Moan.(Movie review)
March 1, 2007... Review: BLACK SNAKE MOAN (Paramount Vantage) Directed by Craig Brewer The sight of an underwear-clad Christina Ricci chained to a radiator should be sufficient evidence that there's something different about Hustle & Flow (2005) director...

Becoming Judy Chicago: interview presents an exclusive excerpt on an unforgettable chapter in consciousness-raising.(VIEW WOMAN)(Excerpt)
March 1, 2007... At the height of the feminist movement--but when feminism was still really a dirty word--Judy Chicago created The Dinner Party, an ambitious, daring, controversial megawork of art that captured the time with laser-like precision by honoring the...

View: letter from the editor March 2007.(Editorial)
March 1, 2007... A few months ago I received an e-mail from an old pal, Martha Wilson, who happens to be one of the New York art world's most authentic experimental spirits, and the conversation harked back to our lives in the late '70s. She reported that the...

Brad Pitt: like a modern-day Harry Houdini, he's fought free of the pinup cell block, the sitcom handcuffs, and the sealed box of one-dimensional roles. Now, with what some are calling his most mature performance to date--in Babel, one of the awards season's most talked-about movies--we asked Elvis Mitchell to pin down the secrets of Brad Pitt's success (escape not an option).(Interview)
March 1, 2007... When Brad Pitt arrives for our conversation at the Sunset Tower Hotel in L.A. and peels off his motorcycle gear, you get a sense of how he much likes to tease and play with people's reactions. "Man, when I'm riding with the helmet on, I'm...

Isla: she wrote romance novels, went to clown school, and became Borat's beloved. So what other surprises does Isla Fisher have up her sleeve?(Interview)
March 1, 2007... For a woman who stands only 5 feet 2 inches, Isla Fisher can sure hold her own with the big boys. In Wedding Crashers (2005), she proved a more-than-worthy foil for her fast-talking co-star, 6-foot-5-inch Vince Vaughn, transforming the simple...

Take Harlem's heartbeat, make a drumbeat.(List)
March 1, 2007... The best fashions do more than just refer to an era. They evoke a mood, a life, a place so vividly that you can almost put yourself there. Call us crazy, but this season's looks transport us to the smoky Harlem clubs of the Jazz Age, a time...

All the world's a stage: interview presents a gallery of four performers who are sure bets to spice up the script on Oscar night.(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... JENNIFER HUDSON'S BEST LINE AS EFFIE WHITE, THE SOULFUL AND DETERMINED UNDERDOG WHO STEALS THE SHOW IN DREAMGIRLS: "AND I AM TELLING YOU I'M NOT GOING!" AS 79TH ACADEMY AWARDS HOST WITH THE MOST ELLEN DEGENERES HAS SAID: "YOU KNOW...

Amy Winehouse: sensation Amy Winehouse is coming your way.(Interview)
March 1, 2007... STEPHEN MOOALLEM: I was listening to your new album, Back to Black [Universal Republic], and one of the big things that I noticed was that the songwriting seems very influenced by pop and R&B from the 1960s--you know, those three-minute...

Dominic Cooper: with a mischief maker's mug and a veteran's poise, he's making big noise.(Interview)
March 1, 2007... Following a two-and-a-half-year run as the class Instigator Dakin in The History Boys--which included a Tony-winning stint on Broadway, a Drama Desk nomination of his own, and finally a movie adaptation--Dominic Cooper is putting the high...

Joss Stone.(Interview SHOWCASE)(Interview)
March 1, 2007... INTERVIEW: Tell us about your new album. It's your third record. Why did you title it Introducing Joss Stone [Virgin Records]? JOSS STONE: Because this is the first record that I got to make with nobody buggin' me. I've grasped that the...

Forest Whitaker: how his acclaimed performance as one of the most brutal dictators in modern history forced forest Whitaker to dig deep.(Interview)
March 1, 2007... JIM JARMUSCH: So, you're still surviving all this? I'm looking at all these awards you've been winning here: the New York Film Critics Circle; the National Board of Review; the L.A. Film Critics Association; the Chicago Film Critics Award. Then...

Lush life.(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Spring is a time for exuberance. The sun wakes from its winter discontent, trees blossom bloom, and birds (not all of them feathered) don their flashiest outfits. So, too season fashion's spirit is all about making you wake from your wintry...

Tripped the light fantastic.(PAGE 5)
March 1, 2007... 1 MOCA's Bonnie Clearwater and the Milwaukee Art Museum's Joseph Ketner at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, for the opening of the museum's exhibition "Elusive Signs: Bruce Nauman Works With Light" 2 Calvin Klein and Interview's...