Interview articles from May 2002

Interview archives from May 2002

Letters.
May 1, 2002... PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM Dear Interview, I absolutely loved the interview by Samuel L. Jackson with Halle Berry [March 2002]! Although I'm glad each celebrity interviewer has their own style (making every interview a double interview), I...

Achtung, baby! by Julia Chaplin: Why a Berlin state of mind, now. (Trendspotting).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... City kids don't deal with uncertain times and terrorism by baking apple pies and wearing somber, loose-fitting frocks. Instead, the hedonistic mood right now has much more in common with the 1973 film Cabaret, which chronicled the fishnet-clad...

Rhys Ifans by Elizabeth Weitzman: The actor with a mad poet lurking inside. (This Month's Cult Movie Man).(Brief Article)(Interview)(Illustration)
May 1, 2002... "Comedy is at its mast effective," declares actor Rhys Ifans, "when it's at its most subversive." He should know: As the star of the current Human Nature, Ifans wickedly colludes with writer Charlie Kaufman and director Michel Gondry in pulling...

Elvis Costello by Dimitri Ehrlich: Music's master craftsman shares his songwriting secrets. (This Month's Musical Dynamite).(Interview)(Illustration)
May 1, 2002... DIMITRI EHRLICH: In addition to your new album. When I Was Cruel [Island Records], you recently did a short tour for the Concerts for a Landmine Free World in Europe, you're currently the artist in residence at UCLA Live. you're collaborating...

Lady may by Dimitri Ehrlich: Rap that's bound for stereos, and unbound from stereotypes. (Music Spotlight).(Illustration)(Interview)
May 1, 2002... It seemed for a while that Lil' Kim, Foxy Brown and Trina had started a kind of arms race in hiphop, in which each tried to outdo the others in terms of brazen sexuality. Lady May doesn't play that game. Her debut album, May Day (Arista), is as...

French Kicks by Eva Neuberg: In any language, they get feet tapping. (Music Tip).(Brief Article)(Illustration)(Interview)
May 1, 2002... While many guitar bands project either surly indifference or fresh-faced earnestness, New York's French Kicks know how to mix the rough with the smooth. They blend chiming, moody guitars and driving rhythms with the sweetest of vocal harmonies....

Yeah yeah yeahs by Carlo McCormick: When it comes to bar bands, the big apple bears fruit. (Happening Music).(Brief Article)(Illustration)(Interview)
May 1, 2002... With an optimism to match the triply emphatic enthusiasm of their name, Yeah Yeah Yeahs are an over-the-top embodiment of the spirited energy that has recently transformed New York City's rock underground. As the success of bands like the...

ED Harcourt by Marc Weingarten: He played cocktail tunes in evening wear. now, he has his day. (Music Buzz).(Brief Article)(Illustration)(Interview)
May 1, 2002... "I'm a bit pissed at the moment," says Ed Harcourt--not the most auspicious opening line for an interview. It seems that the power has shut down at Peter Gabriel's Real World studios near Bath, England, and the studio where Harcourt is...

Scissor sisters by Tony Moxham: Taking off where the B-52'S Landed. (Underground Music).(Brief Article)(Interview)
May 1, 2002... On a recent Saturday in Manhattan, downtown disco revivalists the Scissor Sisters performed at the notorious East Village gay bar The Cock. "It was a regular night there," says front man Jake Shears, "but we were three freaks onstage playing...

The jon spencer blues explosion. (Sound Advice).
May 1, 2002... Plastic Fang (Matador) After a four-year absence, original indie white boy meta-blues ironists return at exactly the right time--with exactly the wrong record. Just as the White Stripes and the Dirt Bombs are fomenting a real blues...

Moby. (Sound Advice).
May 1, 2002... 18 (V2) Moby's new release hits like sonic serotonin. Gospel vocals and hip-hop beats fuse smoothly with soaring violins and '80s synths, in a pleasurable but ennui-inducing melange. Like a spooky ghost in the machine, this search engine...

Heather Nova. (Sound Advice).
May 1, 2002... South (V2) Heather Nova's airy folk pop ranges from melodious to feverish; but her sentiments are unerringly earnest. Nova's soul-affirming soprano is as reliably soothing as chamomile... but sometimes one wants a martini.

The Breeders. (Sound Advice).
May 1, 2002... Title TK (4AD/Elektra) After a decade of silence, the Breeders return victorious with a swaggering and unapologetic resurrection of 'surf's up" pop and guitar rock punch. Meaty bass, big drums, bright chords and throaty, tough-girl sweet...

Warren Zevon. (Sound Advice).
May 1, 2002... My Ride's Here (Artemis) Zevon's always been hyper-literate, and now he's gotten literal about it, collaborating with poets and writers including Hunter S. Thompson (word nerd Dave Letterman even chimes in on one song). He's got lots of...

Goo goo dolls. (Sound Advice).(Gutterflower)
May 1, 2002... Gutterflower (Warner Bros.) The rock music equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster, this album promises to satisfy the masses with crisp hooks, gritty guitar work and SUV driving rhythms. Like an actor with overly white teeth and a penchant...

Toshi reagon. (Sound Advice).
May 1, 2002... Toshi (Razor & Tie) New York's best-kept secret plays a righteous brand of FM rock flavored with a pinch of granola and heapings of soul. These songs of love and hate are sung with no-nonsense wisdom. One spin of this disc and you, too,...

John Forte. (Sound Advice).
May 1, 2002... I, John (Transparent Music) The former Fugees producer successfully blends rock and balladry with the occasional rhyme, adding flavor from collaborators including Carly Simon and Tricky. Having recorded this introspective but musically...

Paul Westerberg. (Sound Advice).
May 1, 2002... Stereo/Mono (Vagrant Records) Paul Westerberg's bruised wit and drunken romanticism haven't sounded this relevant in years. On the acoustic Stereo and the electric Mono, the former Replacements head boy has finally learned to relax again,...

Luna. (Sound Advice).
May 1, 2002... Romantica (Jetset) The key ingredient of any Luna album is atmosphere, and this, their sixth studio effort, has enough to make an audiophile drool. Riding waves of reverberant guitar, the songs are less consequential than the sonics, but...

Wilco. (Soudn Advice).
May 1, 2002... Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Nonesuch) Wilco's fourth album moves alt-country into the digital age. Barbed with lo-fi electronica, these songs stroll in the sunny lilt of pure pop but wander into noise and feedback as lead singer Jeff Tweedy's...

JP Munro by David Rimanelli: Discovering an artist while the paint is still wet. (Artist Spotlight).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... There's more than a whiff of conscious archaism in Los Angeles-based artist JP Munro's canvases. For one, they are rendered in oil rather than acrylic, the medium most typically chosen by contemporary painters. But Munro's choice of paints...

In support of spidermania by Dimitri Ehrlich: Caught in the web and loving it. (Look of the Month).
May 1, 2002... Arachnids get a bad rap. But in the animal kingdom, there is no more extravagant class act than the spider. Like rock stars, spiders are active at night. Like precious gems, the eyes of the wolf spider refract light, causing meadows to twinkle....

Zac posen by Rene Ricard: 21 And getting the critics all worked up. (Fashion News).(Brief Article)(Interview)
May 1, 2002... The young hero who goes into the world and returns home with his fortune made has a sister legend that details an even more arduous quest: The youth who slays the dragon of his hometown. Zac Posen is that rarest of all things: He was born and...

Christian Kane by Nicole Vecchiarelli: Introducing an actor with luck, looks and a serious charm factor. (Movie Spotlight).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... Christian Kane thinks he might be the luckiest guy in Hollywood. In the current movie Life or Something Like It and next year's Just Married, the 27-year-old plays opposite Angelina Jolie and Brittany Murphy, respectively. "It was a blessing,"...

Elizabeth Banks by Henry Cabot Beck: Sailing into the movie business, on a yacht with madonna no less. (Movie Scoop).(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... "When I was in college I was accused of being a goody two-shoes," says 28-year-old Elizabeth Banks, former Harvest Queen from the western Massachusetts town of Pittsfield. "But," she adds, "every goody two-shoes has a bad side." Case in...

Bart and Billy's excellent adventure: The director, the movie star and their diary. (Behind the Scenes).(Bart Freundlich and Billy Crudup)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... World Traveler, writer-director Bart Freundlich's second feature, tells the story of a New York architect who leaves his comfortable life and loving family in search of something more. After shooting was completed in Alabama and Oregon, a...

Ismail Merchant by Zia Jaffrey: He was going into banking, but made the world his business. (View Man).(Brief Article)(Interview)
May 1, 2002... The story of what happened when my mother, Madhur Jaffrey, and my father, Saeed, struggling actors in New York in the 1950s, first met Ismail Merchant, is now a legend within our family. Ismail, a dashing 22-year-old former business student...

Preview: Spider-man. (Movies: Reviews, Previews, Our Views).
May 1, 2002... Directed by Sam Raimi What happens when the biggest nerd in high school gains the proportionate strength of a spider and a healthy dose of self-esteem? As played by Tobey Maguire, he dresses up in a spandex suit and leaps around Manhattan...

Preview: Life or something like it. (Movies: Reviews, Previews, Our Views).
May 1, 2002... Directed by Stephen Herek Here Angelina Jolie takes her first stab at romantic comedy. When her 1V reporter interviews psychic hobo Tony Shalhoub, who opens her eyes to the shallowness of her life, Jolie opens her heart to an interoffice...

Preview: The scorpion king. (Movies: Reviews, Previews, Our Views).
May 1, 2002... Directed by Chuck Russell The third installment of The Mummy series is a prequel set in legendary Gomorrah. A peasant assassin, played by the WWF's superstar slab of muscle The Rock, stops an evil ruler by kidnapping his sorceress (Kelly...

Preview: Hollywood ending. (Movies: Reviews, Previews, Our Views).
May 1, 2002... Directed by Woody Allen A Hollywood director (Allen) is hired by a studio honcho (Treat Williams) to helm a movie starring the exec's new girlfriend (Tea Leoni), who happens to be the director's ex-wife. The buzz says that Hollywood is...

Review: The salton sea. (Movies: Reviews, Previews, Our Views).
May 1, 2002... Directed by D.J. Caruso Val Kilmer plays a speed freak out to avenge the death of his wife--the innocent victim of a dealer! cop shoot-out. Despite the all-too-familiar visual devices (the beginning borrows heavily from Trainspotting,...

Review: Rain. (Movies: Reviews, Previews, Our Views).
May 1, 2002... Directed by Christine Jeffs Jeffs' debut is a melancholy exploration of sexual awakening and disappointment. A family's holiday turns tragic as Mom and Dad exchange familial responsibility for drinking and infidelity, causing their...

Chairmen of the 'board. (Movies: Reviews, Previews, Our Views).
May 1, 2002... Within a span of years in the early 1970s, in three distinct comers of the globe, street kids were unleashing a creative energy that would ignite three separate popular movements: While the punk scene was percolating in London and the seeds of...

Nicole Krauss BY Diane Baroni: A book about losing memory and finding oneself. (Book Buzz).(Man Walks into a Room)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... When I decided that I wanted to write a novel, I literally sat down and said, 'I'm not going to get up till I think of an idea,'" says Nicole Krauss, author of this month's Man Walks into a Room (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday). Luckily, the idea...

Days between stations by Greil Marcus: Their songs have stop signs but the band never slows down. (Music Column).
May 1, 2002... Elizabeth Elmore's late 1990s band Sarge was like its songs--moving fast, burning up the ground they left behind. The Champaign, Illinois, quartet put out Charcoal, The Glass Intact and Distant--the last a record not distinguished by a version...

Shots in the dark by Graham Fuller: Finding scraps of heaven when life is hell. (Movie Column).
May 1, 2002... Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's A Canterbury Tale (1944), which happens to be my favorite film, is set in a rural English village during World War II. An effulgent, lyrical detective story with a Freudian premise, it's about a man who...

All the dish by Brad Goldfarb: Lettuce Entertain you... with avocado, chopped tomato and lots more. (Food Column).(best restaurants for dinner salads)(Brief Article)(Directory)
May 1, 2002... Meal-sized salads have long been a staple of American restaurants, but with the official arrival of warm weather, it seems a fitting moment to celebrate our national salad days, in all their springtime splendor. Here are nine of the city's...

View: Letter from the Editor may.(twin towers of light at World Trade Centre site)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... "Look behind you--isn't it amazing?" Jose Rodriguez asked me the other night as I rode in the back of his taxi, heading up Greenwich Street in the West Village on my way home. Rodriguez defines "the New York taxi driver" to a tee. He's an...

Jimmy Fallon interview by Mick Jagger: The comic who gave Saturday night live new life opens up to rock's most famous mouth.(Interview)
May 1, 2002... JIMMY FALLON: Mick! How are you? MICK JAGGER: I'm fine, how are you? JF: I'm doing really good. So you're in Paris? It's awesome over there. I went there once. MJ: Did you? JF: Yes. It was pretty fun. MJ: It's spring in...

Kylie: As the world goes berserk for her sexy disco--again.(Kylie Minogue)(Brief Article)(Interview)
May 1, 2002... Suddenly everybody's talking about Kylie Minogue in that overnight success sort of way--at least here in America. Even though she's been a superstar--working on television, in film and as a recording artist--since Britney was a little kid, the...

Denim the new jean theory.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2002... KOTO BOLOFO When the news first broke that scientists had finally cracked the human gene code, we thought: So? Wasn't the jean code cracked years ago? (No white jeans after Labor Day, and only break out the acid-washed ones for '80s nights...

Oliver Martinez: Liberte, egalite, sensualite-enter a new international heartthrob.(Interview)
May 1, 2002... Though he's been a star in France since the early '90s, and had a small role in Julian Schnabel's award-winning film Before Night Falls, Olivier Martinez makes his U.S. presence known on a large scale in Adrian Lyne's new Unfaithful. The...

Sheryl Crow: Fighting for artists' rights, making soundtracks for hot summer nights.(Interview)
May 1, 2002... India.Arie "I ain't taking shit off no one," sings Sheryl Crow in the opening moments of her new album C'mon, C'mon (A&M/Interscope). She may have started her career seated on a piano bench, but Crow definitely doesn't take matters sitting...

Catherine Keener: She doesn't play the hollywood game. But she's winning it.(Interview)
May 1, 2002... JENNIFER ANISTON: Hi, Keener. CATHERINE KEENER: Hi, honey. JA: So my dear, I have my first question ready for you. CK: Oh my God, you really did your homework on this. [Aniston laughs] You know, I just came back from the U.S....

Darren Hayes: Out of savage garden and finding eden on his own.(Interview)
May 1, 2002... Darren Hayes, 30, formerly one half of the Australian pop duo Savage Garden, has made a frankly positive new record--Spin (Columbia)--synth-pop dance music and romantic ballads with some refreshingly dirty lyrics here and there. As an artist...