Urban Milwaukee

Milwaukee Film Announces The Milwaukee Show Line-up October 23 event to showcase 10 local filmmaker

Milwaukee Film Announces The Milwaukee Show Line-up October 23 event to showcase 10 local filmmakers MILWAUKEE Milwaukee Film announces the line-up for The Milwaukee Show, October 23 at 6:30 p.m. The event will showcase a variety of local short films presented in the main auditorium of Landmark’s Oriental Theatre, 2230 N. Farwell Ave., Milwaukee. The one-night-only screening will feature a collection of 10 films, spanning 90 minutes, and include traditional narrative storytelling, documentary, personal memoir, music video, comedy, experimental and more. The nine competition shorts to be screened were selected from a pool of nearly 70 submissions, more than twice the number received in past years, by an independent panel of judges. The panel included Elfrieda Abbe, Duane Dudek, Steve Hyden, Blyth Meier, Christine Prevetti, Scott Radtke, Bobby Tanzilo and Jessica Zalewski. “Launching our new organization with The Milwaukee Show was no accident,” said Jonathan Jackson, artistic director for Milwaukee Film. “We believe in the talent of the local film scene and wanted to champion that with our inaugural screening. It’s essential that Milwaukee filmmakers are given an annual opportunity to show their work in front of a large audience, at such an incredible venue.” The event will double as the launch party for Milwaukee Film. In addition to showcasing the current filmmaking trends in Milwaukee, The Milwaukee Show will feature an Audience Award and a Jury Award. The Jury Award includes a production prize package valued at over $20,000. Artists Excited To Show Their Films “You know people are working on films in Milwaukee, and this is the night you actually see what they made. It’s the one night everybody in the community meets each other,” said Cris Siqueira, director of the film “Ka-Doo.” Siqueira will be in attendance at the screening, as well as all of the local filmmakers who will be showing their films at The Milwaukee Show. “The cool thing about the last few years is that the film scene in Milwaukee seems like it’s moved from the underground to the surface,” said Andrew Swant and Bobby Ciraldo, the creative team that made “Zombie Killer,” and last year’s Milwaukee International Film Festival sensation “What What.” “It’s kind of like the film festival and the Internet have lifted up this big rock and exposed so many local works to the light of day.” Screening outside of the competition will be the world premiere of “The Waiting Room,” a short film produced by Collaborative Cinema in partnership with Milwaukee Film. “The Waiting Room” was written by local high school student Emily Downes, directed by Tate Bunker, produced by Mark Metcalf and funded by The Richard and Ethel Herzfeld Foundation. Downes won an area-wide contest that nearly 150 high school students participated in. Tickets are available for $10 at the Landmark Oriental Theatre box office, 4-10 p.m. Monday through Thursday; noon-10 p.m. Friday through Sunday. Following The Milwaukee Show guests are invited to join Milwaukee Film staff and supporters at the Discovery World – Pilot House, 500 N. Harbor […]

Oct 15th, 2008 by Howie Goldklang

One Thousand and One

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Theatre Department opened its 2008-2009 season with a Mainstage production of 1001 by Jason Grote. Straying from the standard university fare of well-known and over-produced plays, UWM bravely chose a newer work by a contemporary playwright. This bold move gave voice to some wonderful moments and connections, but ultimately was too imposing for the UWM Theatre Department to grapple with. Jason Grote wrote this play as a reaction to September 11, 2001. However, he is adamant that it is not a 9/11 play. The backbone of the play is the first English translation of The Arabian Nights. Other works and artists are woven in, such as Gustave Flaubert, Jorge Luis Borges and even Monty Python. Some of the literary references will float over the heads of many audience members, however, the comedy of these references is playable at two levels; the audience shouldn’t ever feel as though they missed something. Grote uses the scenes of 9/11 to explore modern racial relationships, but also to tie them back to a common history. 1001 shifts back and forth between several different stories, between space and time and between sparse realistic moments and pure magic. In a brief talk back following opening night, Grote spoke about incorporating magic into his work. His feeling that magic and mysticism can and should be utilized in live theatre is a welcome break from the super-realistic and angst-ridden relationship plays that are currently popular. Grote’s play is by no means straight forward, which proved to be cumbersome for most of the actors. All the actors in 1001 play more than one character. When actors are multi-cast, it can either be delightful and magnificent or confusing and dispirited. Director Rebecca Holderness obviously tried to encourage each actor to discover distinct physical mannerisms for each character, which is key when a single actor portrays several personas. Adrian F. Feliciano did this wonderfully as he played One Eyed Arab, Mostafa and Sinbad. Each character was distinct and crisp. It was also clear that Porsha G. Knapp had a clear understanding of her three characters, Princess Maridah, Juml and Lubna. She was endearing and completely engaged with her work. However, several cast members were not able to keep their characters separate from one another. They seemed to rely on costume changes and alterations to announce that they were now a new person with a new set of beliefs and reactions. While costumes did play an important role, the actors cannot trust in fabric alone to do the work for them-it’s lazy. Holderness may not have gotten the best out of all her actors, but she was able to address Grote’s epic storytelling with humor and ease. Most notable was a scene where Princess Maridah is to be pushed off a great height as punishment from her father. Death is imminent. Instead of trying to stage a realistic death scene, Holderness kept it straight laced until the big push, when Knapp daintily stepped down off the dooming perch, […]

Oct 15th, 2008 by Russ Bickerstaff

Blog Action Day

Milwaukee’s Housing Trust Fund Needs Full Funding

According to the U.S. Census Bureau approximately a quarter of Milwaukeeans live in poverty.

Oct 15th, 2008 by Dave Reid

Game, Set and …

Now hold on. You are not going to hear me say that this election is over. Sure every national poll has Barack Obama ahead and Real Clear Politics has Obama leading McCain in the all important Electoral College competition 313-158 (with 67 up for grabs). The latest poll here in Wisconsin has Obama ahead by 17 points and he’s leading in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, and even Virginia. But three weeks can be a lifetime in politics. Polls have proven to be wrong before, the race issue simmers under the radar screen and angry partisans are calling on John McCain and Sarah Palin to go after Barack Obama with everything they got. The overwhelming evidence does, of course, suggest that Obama is going to win on November 4th. Obama has run an exemplary campaign that built an effective grassroots movement while maintaining a disciplined and focused national organization. The candidate has energized young people unlike anything we have seen since Eugene McCarthy while conveying competence and confidence that appealed to all demographics. Also, national and world events seem to be conspiring in Obama’s favor. Even McCain supporters acknowledge that the more the economy dominates the election, the better it is for Obama. And dominate it has. The catastrophic events that have decimated Wall Street have altered the political landscape overwhelming the Iraq War, health care, and everything else. And, of course, McCain has failed to respond effectively to this barrage of challenges. His selection of Palin as a running mate briefly rejuvenated his campaign by finally giving the Republican base something to cheer. But that bump was short-lived as the economic crisis exploded and Palin’s appeal did McCain little good with independents and undecided voters. Despite all this, I do not wish to engage in a premature post mortem of the election. There are still 21 days left and no one can predict with certainty how this thing will end up. But there are a handful of things that need to be said at this juncture. First, GOTV is all important. All of the fundraising and ads and lawn signs and bumper stickers and office openings and coffees don’t amount to a hill of beans unless folks get out and vote. Again, the Obama campaign appears well-positioned to run an effective GOTV operation with all those offices and volunteers but time will tell. Second, whoever wins will need to launch a Herculean effort to bring our nation together following the election. Remember George W. Bush’s pledge to return civility to Washington? Even he admitted, to Bob Woodward, that he failed at that goal. And it can’t just be lip service or window dressing. Sure, anyone can appoint some likable character from the other party to the new cabinet. The need is for a drastic reconfiguring of the way things are done in Washington, substantively and stylistically. Both Obama and McCain seem to recognize this. It doesn’t just appear in their talking points; it seems imbedded in their DNA. Can […]

Oct 14th, 2008 by Ted Bobrow

Commission Approves Color Change for Downer Garage

The high profile Sydney Hih building and Downer Avenue redevelopment project were the main items on the agenda for this commission meeting. The initial item regarded the proposed interim historic designation for the Sydney Hih building. The developer requested it to be held over and as it had been previously presented the developer had no immediate intention to demolish the building. Although SandraMcSweeney questioned how many times it could be held over and whether or not there was a limit, it was held again.

Oct 14th, 2008 by Dave Reid

Astronaut Artist

My son was about six or seven when Alan Bean blasted off in November 1969, piloting the lunar module of Apollo 12: Destination, moon. Bean became the fourth person to trod there. At age 76, he’s alive and well, and recently had an exhibit of his artworks at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas. Last year I gave my son a signed print of one of Bean’s original moon-related paintings. The originals are going for great big bucks these days…. astronomical, you could say. He left NASA in 1981, figuring his talents were best put to use as a serious painter. An article at www.msnbc.com described his work as “Monet-like,” but that is a bit of a stretch, and could be applied to any and all artists who sway toward impressionism. While the paintings certainly aren’t hyper-realistic, they do speak of a place we will never visit, at least not me. I’ve looked into the depths of Monet’s Lily Pond painting many times at the Chicago Institute of Art, and while it’s worlds away from the moon, perhaps there is a connection, if only through the “remembering” of a specific place in a specific time. Coincidentally, I think Bean was in a group of astronauts who were touring Peru in the early 70s. I happened to also be in Lima, Peru at the time, dining in a splendid restaurant, when the astronauts and their wives strolled in for dinner. Naturally, I got their autographs, but when my son left for college, the treasure was thrown out. I admit I was the thrower. Anyway, the astronauts’ wives were true to their Texas roots when they entered the eatery. The weather was warm (actually Lima is dry as a dessert), but in they came, wearing mink stoles, their hair piled high, looking every bit like tourists, albeit celebrity tourists. At that moment, I was thrilled to be an American. A few weeks later in my Peruvian adventure, I took a train to Machu Pichu and spent a memorable overnight in a spider-trap of a hotel room. The return flight home was equally memorable, punctuated with an earthquake that rippled the runway as the plane lifted skyward. Two weeks later, Lima was devastated by a really big one. I have to chuckle when I think about Bean blasting to the moon and living to paint his memories. The space age seems light-years away. As we prepare to blast off and elect a new President, I’m almost wishing I was on the moon, viewing earth from a safer place.

Oct 13th, 2008 by Stella Cretek

All The Great Books (Abridged)

The sound of the bell signals that class is in session. For audiences attending All The Great Books (Abridged) at Tenth Street Theatre this involves participating in a remedial Western literature course taught by In Tandem Theatre Company. The performance proves to be a humorous hour and forty-five minutes during which classical literature clashes with popular culture for the audience’s entertainment and edification. The production was written by Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor, with additional material by Matthew Croke and Michael Faulkner. These four men combine their collective training in improvisational comedy and Ringling Brothers and Bailey performances with prestigious credentials from the UC-Berkeley and Boston University. As a result, All The Great Books (Abridged) tries to educate a high school class (played by the audience) on the meaning of 86 literary classics through comedy. Every technique from revisiting the Three Stooges to Saturday Night Live skits are used during the play, which sometimes resembles a three ring circus. A coach, a professor/drama teacher, and a young student teacher forge ahead through dramatic presentations of Homer, Dickens, Austen, Hemingway, Joyce, Thoreau and Tolstoy, among 80 others. While this silly supposition offers an evening of continuous laughter, the script also invites the audience to recall these timeless books and their own high school experiences with them. Doug Jarecki, R. Chris Reeder, and Kevin Rich perform superbly with this material, which in less talented hands might fall on deaf ears. These three actors demonstrate camaraderie on stage that carries the evening, an essential ingredient to dramatizing the 1,000 pages plus of War and Peace in five minutes. Each actor showcases a remarkable gift for improvisation and comedic timing, both as a troupe and on an individual level. Reeder’s rendition of poetry combined with phrases “Go gentle into this Gladys Knight” resounds with humor as does Jarecki’s explanation of Little Women chalked on a board with football play by play descriptions. Rich’s one sentence summaries of the last twenty books puts a striking finale to the play, even if his character confuses invincible with invisible when discussing Homer’s Odyssey. There’s also timely political commentary injected into the script previewing election year while Chris Flieller provides skillful technical support. While dispelling the play’s premise that “reading and fun have little to do with literature,” the production also underscores and uncovers the discrepancies between literary knowledge and cultural education, both of which are components to attaining genuine literacy. When one mentions Homer, is it the Greek poet or the character from The Simpsons to which they are referring? Who are the Brothers Grimm, or as the play puts it, The Brothers Gibb? While Great Books espouses humor, at the end taking it over the top, the evening delves into rethinking these legendary books that defined certain cultural concepts and how pop culture delineates contemporary society. Take a seat for an evening at In Tandem’s Western Literature class and ask yourself the question the play posits when explaining Dickens’ beloved A Christmas Carol: Were Marley and […]

Oct 13th, 2008 by Peggy Sue Dunigan

Weekly Bookmarks – Monday, 13. October 2008

JS Online: Complex for homeless revisited JS Online: Editorial: Land deal is key element of UWM plan JS Online: Wind turbines in lake feasible, but energy cost could double JS Online: Gorman to buy two more Pabst buildings JS Online: Pieces of Eight site could become UWM facility JS Online: Milwaukee County panel derails airport privatization Switchboard, from NRDC › Josh Mogerman’s Blog › Water or Oil? Report says tar sands muck up Great Lakes Developer to buy two more prominent Pabst brewery buildings – Small Business Times Gorman to buy two more buildings at Pabst complex – The Business Journal of Milwaukee: JS Online: Milwaukee County executive criticizes tax referendum mailing JS Online: Company that recycles brownfields finds success Common Council approves Goll Mansion condo tower – Small Business Times UWM selects riverfront site for new dorm – Small Business Times Area residents call for campus relocation – Opinion JS Online: Marcus still has plans for downtown movie theater, president says JS Online: Project would add 90 senior apartments on Milwaukee’s northwest side Common Council approves Goll Mansion condo tower – Small Business Times Milwaukee Magazine : Murphy’s Law : Why Sensenbrenner and Petri Voted No The Leader JS Online: Editorial: Win-win with a view

Oct 13th, 2008 by Dave Reid

Sometime’s a Pie’s Just a Pie

It’s Sunday morning and I’ve got one eye on the public affairs programming while I’m getting caught up on the morning news online. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace just failed miserably to maintain decorum between McCain spokesperson Rick Davis and Obama uber flack David Axelrod. Come on, guys, let each other finish. Davis was the aggressor, taking every opportunity to shout over Axelrod. But Axelrod did not employ the proven tactic of simply shouting back “May I finish?” when faced with this kind of interruption. And Wallace just sheepishly grinned as the two combatants yelled at each other leaving viewers unable to understand either. Great television, it wasn’t. Meanwhile, over on CBS Sunday Morning, I caught Steve Hartman’s report on the two Milwaukee-area 50-year-old guys who fulfilled their pledge to each other back in college to do something really wacky when they hit AARP-membership age. They had a pie fight. How silly and how sweet (though the pies were made of shaving not whipped cream). Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writer Jim Stingl first reported this hilarity last month so let’s give credit where credit is due. My search on YouTube failed to turn up any other footage of the Milwaukee festivities but it did lead me to some other variations on the theme. Any discussion of pie fights must, of course, pay tribute to The Three Stooges. Their humor doesn’t do much for me but this routine is a classic. And I also was intrigued to find a remarkable bit of soft porn packaged as an underwear ad. I’m not sure if it’s witty or puerile. I guess, to paraphrase Wallace’s employer, I report, you decide. But wait there’s more. Apparently there was a remake of the old Gilligan’s Island show on TBS that employed the device in an ad entitled “Ginger vs. Mary Ann.” Now I know I’m skating on thin ice here since this kind of objectifying of the human form is highly controversial. Personally, I think it’s funny but I also know that commentary is easy. Being funny is difficult. Here’s a blogger who apparently was offended not only by the TBS ad, but by the decision by The Daily Kos to run it. I guess I find myself siding with Kos and not feeling very offended by this kind of stuff. Of course, it’s all in the eye of the beholder or, as Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart kind of said, obscenity is hard to define but we know it when we see it. Which brings me back to that disgraceful performance on FOX and my thoughts turn to that unlikely philosopher, Rodney King, who asked “Can we all get along?” It’s a long shot, Rodney, but maybe some day. Maybe someday.

Oct 12th, 2008 by Ted Bobrow

Blog Action Day 2008

Poverty

Blog Action Day brings blogs from around the world to discuss an issue of global importance. Last year over 20,000 blogs participated by posting about the environment with the hope of sparking a larger discussion. This year Blog Action Day takes on the complex and troubling issue of poverty.

Oct 11th, 2008 by Dave Reid

Happy Birthday, Number Four

It’s a beautiful fall day, great football weather, which is only fitting since today is Brett Favre’s birthday. It still seems weird, doesn’t it, that Favre suits up Sundays in a jersey that doesn’t belong to the Green Bay Packers. Look, full disclosure here, I grew up in Queens, New York and have always been a Jets fan and I am ecstatic that he’s wearing the Green and White. But I’ve also been rooting for the Packers since moving to Wisconsin in 1999 and I wish them well too. Aaron Rodgers seems like a promising young quarterback and I hope the team shakes off these early season mistakes and roars to the playoffs (much like the Giants did last year). I don’t want to revisit the painful divorce between Favre and Packers management. But I also feel that I have a special obligation to pay tribute to the man today since I happen to share the same birthday. Here’s to you Brett. I hope you get to enjoy some quality time with your family after you’re done prepping for Sunday’s game. And I also hope you dispatch with the Bengals with ease so that you can watch the Pack take on Holmgren’s Seahawks in the late game. As for the rest of you, take a look at this article on the club of Brett’s backups from today’s New York Times. The article mentions some of the great practical jokes that Brett is known for though the Great Times is apparently too classy to mention his legendary flatulence. All in all, a good read.

Oct 10th, 2008 by Ted Bobrow