Interview articles from November 2006

Interview archives from November 2006

The cutting edge?(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2006... Dear Interview, Your publication is one I love to go through page by page, and this comes as an observation I have made particularly while going through the latest issue: For quite some time now, I have noted that any time a man between...

In the court of controversy.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2006... Dear Interview, I found several of Kirsten Dunst's [September 2006] comments about what it was like to make Marie Antoinette incredibly eloquent, particularly when she said that during filming she felt more like the doomed queen's ghost or...

The Jay and the Crowe.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2006... Dear Interview, What a brilliant idea it was pairing Russell Crowe with Jay Leno in your September issue! After reading for only a few moments, I realized how truly inspired it was. I loved how Leno's humor and light touch helped to soften...

Bette, Bette, quite contrary.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2006... Dear Interview, It was such a welcome surprise to find Graham Fuller's (previously unpublished) interview with the late, great Bette Davis in your September issue. My goodness, what a pistol she was! Razor sharp, inspiring, glamorous, and...

Here's to a bigger frame.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2006... Dear Interview, You don't have to live in New York to know that many people think of the Big Apple as the center of the art world. Well, your September portfolio of artists from Los Angeles certainly makes a compelling case for the other...

Wintry Wink: let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.(LOOK OF THE MONTH)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Like the snow-dusted eyelashes of an Eskimo or the bewitching gaze of Narnia's witch, white eyelashes and snowy lids are possibly beauty's most enchanting and seasonally appropriate feature. Tearing down the traditional makeup wisdom that blue...

Joseph Cross: exchanging tips with older stars, getting directors to cry, making movies that blow his father away: it's all in a day's work for this young actor.(NOVEMBER ONE TO WATCH)(Interview)
November 1, 2006... With a supporting role in Flags of Our Fathers, and the starring role in Ryan Murphy's adaptation of Augusten Burroughs's memoir Running with Scissors (2002), this clean-cut 20-year-old from the New York City area is set to become a very...

Shareefa: once upon a time, she seemed more likely to become the best singer on her cell block than one of hip-hop's biggest new voices. Not anymore.(THIS MONTH'S ONE TO LISTEN OUT FOR)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Usually, it's the gangsta rappers that have prison records, not the R&B singers. But Shareefa is not your typical image-conscious soul diva. "I really don't sugarcoat nothing," says the 23-year-old from North Carolina-via-New Jersey. Extra...

Kaye Donachie: introducing an artist who paints the underbelly of Utopian visions.(ART SPOTLIGHT)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Kaye Donachie's paintings have a watery quality with contrasting hazy colors saturating the canvas in luminosity or swallowing it up in darkness. Many of her works depict groups of people together in a way that conveys some sort of communal...

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu: how the fearless director captured all the anxiety, xenophobia, violence, and globalism of the world today into his new film Babel, a movie that spans three continents, four countries, and an array of languages and cultures--and now has people talking Oscar.(ViewMAN)(Interview)
November 1, 2006... In just three films--Amores Perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), and now his latest film, Babel--director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has married a master's filmmaking technique to soulfulness. Along the way, he has created a storytelling style with...

Rebecca Hall: for this young actress, landing choice roles is like pulling rabbits out of a hat.(MOVIE NEWS)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Sitting in her London apartment, newcomer Rebecca Hall explains her role in The Prestige, Christopher Nolan's movie about competing magicians. "I was starstruck just to be involved in The Prestige, which is silly, considering the family I grew...

Lee Pace: this Oklahoma boy seems to know that the heartland yields more than jsut apple pie.(MOVIE TIP)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... In the just-released Infamous, Lee Pace plays Dick Hickock, one of the murderers immortalized in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, but don't think that just because you've read it or seen last year's Capote you know everything about Pace's...

Sister act: Renee Nemerov Brown, Diane Arbus's sister, has spent her life carving out her own identity. But she does not deny the shadows that darkened their childhood, and which her sister could not escape.(DISCOVERY CORNER)(Interview)
November 1, 2006... Diane Arbus is celebrated for her haunting photographs of nudists, drag queens, celebrities, and suburban couples. But since her 1971 suicide, her life and death have only become bigger enigmas. Few people know that she had a younger sister,...

Bridge over troubled water: a harrowing documentary captures the desperate people drawn to one of our most revered national landmarks.(THE POWER OF PLACE)(Interview)
November 1, 2006... About three minutes into The Bridge--just before the title appears--a man in a red baseball cap steps over the guardrail of the Golden Gate Bridge and hurls himself into the turbulent water below. Filmmaker Eric Steel trained cameras at the...

History--Italian style.(HAPPY ANNIVERSARY)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... From the iconic double-G logo and horse-bit hardware to the still-covetable bamboohandled handbags and green-and-red striped webbing, Gucci has over its 85-year history become one of the world's most instantly recognizable fashion brands. This...

Check yourself! You take the high road, and I'll take the low road, and I'll be in Scotland before you.(FASHION CLASSIC)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Talk about an identity crisis. Tartan is not only walking the line between sharp and regimental versus fierce and independent, it's also dancing a jig. Nothing says tartan like a bellowing brigade of bagpipers, or an orderly line of...

Derek Luke: in Catch a Fire, one is the oppressor and the other the oppressed, but offscreen both Derek Luke and Tim Robbins had to confront the demons of South Africa's turbulent past.(THIS MONTH'S DARING DUO)(Interview)
November 1, 2006... Few actors have made as big an impression in as short a period of time as Jersey City native Derek Luke has since starring in his first film Antwone Fisher (2002), and he hasn't stumbled since, starring in Friday Night Lights (2004) and Glory...

Edie Sedgwick: the girl people just can't get enough of.(A LIFE IN PICTURES)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Edie Sedgwick was untrained in everything except in life. She blew into New York City in 1964 from Santa Barbara, California, by way of Boston and landed smack in the middle of Andy Warhol's universe; with her effortless sense of style and...

Robert Wilson: the singular talent of a true original.(TRAILBLAZER)(Interview)
November 1, 2006... Few people can be said to have created a new art form. Robert Wilson has. During his career as a "theater artist," he has staged dramatic work, dance, and opera using stunning minimalist backdrops and sometimes frenetic, at other times...

Tokyo Police Club: this experimental art-rock band may be sneaking up on the big record companies, but chances are you'll hear them coming a mile away.(MUSIC SCOOP)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... "Leaning time is drumming time--at no given point should anyone be standing still," says Greg Alsop, drummer for the atonal thrashrock band Tokyo Police Club, describing his group's live show, a postpunk frenzy of billowing red flags, hand...

EL Perro Del Mar: El Perro Del Mar (Control Group).(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Swedish singer Sarah Assbring takes the stage name El Perro Del Mar in an ode to a dog she found walking on the beach in Africa that somehow brought her out of a long mental slump. Though the canine may have licked her wounds, it couldn't chase...

John Legend: Once Again (G.O.O.D./Sony Urban/Columbia).(Sound recording review)
November 1, 2006... Whether you're a punchy boxer or a dilated club kid or simply an ex-church-piano-player-cum-R&B-caballero-with-something-to-prove, when you call yourself "John Legend," you better be able to back it up. But on this follow-up to his...

Nina Simone: Remixed and Re-imagined (Sony Legacy).(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Nina Simone has proven a favorite sample source for the kind of coffee-table chill-out grooves that remain the de rigueur sonic wallpaper in stylish hotels. That's because her talent never could be constrained by genre, so it's no wonder it...

The Blood Brothers: Young Machetes (V2).(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Screechy, antiauthoritarian, and teeming in angst, Seattle quintet the Blood Brothers follow up their 2004 album Crimes with a record that fortifies their capacity for thought as well as rebellion. Front men Jordan Blilie and Johnny Whitney...

Joanna Newsom: Ys (Drag City).(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Mixed by Jim O'Rourke and with arrangements by Van Dyke Parks, Ys (pronounced "ees") finds singer-harpist Joanna Newsom veering away from the flora and fauna of her freak-folk 2004 debut The Milk-Eyed Mender. While she's offering only five...

Beck: The Information (Island).(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Produced by Nigel Godrich, The Information is probably Beck's most identifiably Beck-like record in years, forgoing the all-or-nothing forays into bossa nova (1998's Mutations), skulking balladry (2002's Sea Change), and willful eclecticism...

Various: The World Is Gone (XL).(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Various--the name of the band, not a description of the album's contents--defies categorization, just like it's moniker. This British production duo collide a world of disparate elements for evocative impact on this mesmeric debut. The World Is...

Elephant Dancing by Greil Marcus: the who, the what, the how, and the why.(MUSIC PICKS)
November 1, 2006... 1 THE DRONES Gala Mill (ATP/R) I was attracted to this solely because the title of the band's last album, Wait Long by the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By, echoes two of my favorite band names: When People Were...

Bobby.(Preview)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... (Weinstein) Directed by Emilio Estevez An ensemble drama with a cast that includes William H. Macy, Anthony Hopkins, Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, Lindsay Lohan, Martin Sheen, and Christian Slater, Emilio Estevez's Bobby tells the story of 22...

Casino Royale.(Preview)(Movie review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... (Columbia) Directed by Martin Campbell Craig. Daniel Craig. That's what the buzz for the next installment of the James Bond flicks has focused on. (Actually, it's the first installment, in which we see Bond earn his double-0 status.) Will...

Stranger Than Fiction.(Preview)(Movie review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... (Columbia) Directed by Marc Forster Will Ferrell stars as Harold Crick, a bored-with-himself IRS agent who discovers that the narrator he begins to hear detailing every moment of his life is not a figment of his imagination, but rather the...

Fast Food Nation.(Movie review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... (Fox Searchlight) Directed by Richard Linklater Inspired by the muckraking 2001 book by Eric Schlosser, this film about the fast-food industry--another ensemble piece--is centered around a slaughterhouse in a small town. There's the...

Volver.(Movie review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... (Sony Classics) Directed by Pedro Almodovar Penelope Cruz gives a career performance (earthy, dynamic) as Raimunda, whose dead mother (Carmen Maura from Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, 1988) returns to put her and her sister...

Borat!(Movie review)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... (20th Century) Directed by Larry Charles Based on the character created by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen on Da Ali G Show, Borat! tracks Kazakhstani television personality Borat Sagdiyev--he of the ill-fitting suits and Jim Croce...

Shots in the dark: exploring the secret of the Louise Brooks legacy, lacquered Bob and all.(MOVIE COLUMN)
November 1, 2006... As a young man, my grandfather admired the silent star Colleen Moore. It was this box-office phenomenon who, as an incorruptible jazz baby in 1923's Flaming Youth, pioneered the bob haircut. Moore was friendly and pretty but, wrote James Card...

All the dish: one more reason it takes a village.(FOOD COLUMN)
November 1, 2006... One of the loudest complaints made about New York City in recent years has focused on a creeping homogeneity that some say is stripping certain neighborhoods of their character. But while it's irrefutable that the fabric of the city continues...

Ginnifer Goodwin.(Interview SHOWCASE)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Decried for its perceived depiction of Mormonism, heralded for its risky story lines and robust performances, and held up as a cultural touchstone following the recent arrest of the FBI's most-wanted real-life polygamist, Warren Jeffs, the HBO...

Fergie.(Interview)
November 1, 2006... FIVE YEARS AGO, FORMER CHILD ACTOR STACY FERGUSON WAS COLLECTING UNEMPLOYMENT, GRAPPLING WITH A DRUG PROBLEM, AND STRUGGLING TO MAKE THE SOLO ALBUM THAT SHE BELIEVED WOULD GET HER CAREER--AND HER LIFE--BACK OFF THE GROUND. NOW, SEVERAL MILLION...

Brady Quinn.(Interview)
November 1, 2006... WITH A GUN FOR AN ARM, THE MOVES TO FAKE OUT WOULD-BE TACKLERS, AND THE SMARTS TO IMPROVISE ON THE FIELD, THIS LEGEND-IN-THE-MAKING HAS FANS BUZZING, SPORTSWRITERS SUPERLATIVING, AND PRO SCOUTS DROOLING Brady Quinn has a wealth of talent, a...

Vera Vera.(VERA FARMIGA)(Interview)
November 1, 2006... IN AN INDUSTRY THAT LIKES ITS WOMEN TO CONFROM TO CERTAIN OUTMODED IDEALS, VERA FARMIGA IS MAKING A CAREER OUT OF NEITHER LOOKING--NOR ACTING--THE PART Over the last decade, Vera Farmiga has earned the sort of grand affection of the...

Ryan Phillippe.(Cover story)
November 1, 2006... HE MAY GET THE AWARD FOR BEING THE LEAST OVEREXPOSED ACTOR ON HOLLYWOOD'S SO-CALLED A-LIST, BUT WHAT REALLY SETS RYAN PHILLIPPE APART IS THE FACT THAT HE HAS MANAGED TO BECOME A CHARACTER ACTOR DESPITE THAT FACE OF HIS. NOW, WITH THE CLINT...

Sofia: the French court all wearing post-its? That's right.(Interview)
November 1, 2006... She's on her third movie--the woman who was once booed for her role in The Godfather, Part III (1990), the final film in her father's classic trilogy. And once again she's confounding expectations, doing not what other people want but following...

A tale of ten sweaters.(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... IT SEEMS AS THOUGH, FOR THEIR WINTER COLLECTIONS, DESIGNERS HAVE BECOME AS INFATUATED WITH KNIT AS A TALE OF TWO CITIES'S FAMOUS MADAME DEFARGE WAS. FORTUNATELY FOR US, THE RESULTS ARE RADICALLY COZIER THAN THE GUILLOTINE. Models:...

Elton: ever wonder what happened to Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy? They're back.(Interview)
November 1, 2006... In 1975, at the height of their early success, Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin released Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, a risky, singular masterpiece of a concept album about their own struggles with failure on the rise to...

The gang's all here.(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... 1 LA Reid at 40/40 Club in NYC for Beyonce's birthday and album release party, following the MTV Video Music Awards 2 Kelly Rowland at the Beyonce party 3 Beyonce at her birthday and album release party. 4 Rihanna at the Beyonce party 5 Ne-Yo...