The “Daggers” just may be one of the finest local bands to step out onto the national scene in recent years. Although their fame has not yet surpassed that of Buffalo favorites Ani DiFranco or the Goo Goo Dolls, they are slowly teetering on the edge of something great.

The Daggers returned home from a West Coast tour, just in time to play a packed Nietzsche’s on Nov. 5. The crowd was varied, yet dedicated and eager, although shy to listen to the band’s hard candy sound.

The band consists of Erin Roberts, lead vocalist and guitarist; Leisha Gray, bassist; and the lone male, Josh Heatley, on drums. These kids get together with their overwhelming talents to produce one hell of a show. They combine their individual energies, with Roberts burning the mic, Heatley killing the drums, and Gray cradling the bass, to form a scathing, ripping punk outfit.

The show featured many tracks from the band’s new CD, “Turn Up the Death.” Songs had consistent beats and rhythms, yet mixed each other up with different feels. You could see how tight and polished this band was becoming. The third song, “Only Love,” featured a reminiscence of a ‘50s bop. Think a twisted, fish-netted Ricki Lake in Hairspray.

The remake of “Our Lips Are Sealed” proved a true crowd pleaser. Yet, this song also provoked a grim response from Roberts.

“Just so you know, Hillary Duff did not write that song,” she said. “We recorded ours for the CD, and then this remake of hers just came out.”

By far, the best song on their new CD and of the show itself was the biting “Stab,” which probably causes grief for Heatley but encourages him to play even harder and crazier.

“This song is for boys we love and sometimes want to stab at the same time,” Roberts explained into the microphone.

“Stab” is a short song, fewer than two minutes in length, but it ferociously showcases the pure musical power of this band. It shows the band’s true working dynamic to combine together as a single unit with super fast play and chaos, producing a track very close to perfection. The extreme changes in tempo provide the most excellent script for disdain and disappointment, seething with climatic energy.

This band has truly emerged with only about a year or so of play together under its collective belts. They bring something true and clean to not only the Buffalo music scene, but the pop-punk scene in general. The Juliet Dagger may visualize pink daydreams, but it warps its image with hard dark rock roots. | Add as favourites (23) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1057

Wine also flows in Alexander, the week’s mega-opening, and it’s unfortunate that the movie doesn’t flow as well. I’ve always admired director Oliver Stone’s work and salute his obvious courage in taking on big issues. He has a storyteller’s gift for melding action and ideas. So it’s unfortunate that I have to report that Alexander is less than the sum of its parts. It’s not a complete success, but it is ambitious and risky. Stone has long been fascinated by Alexander The Great, a young cub who conquered the known world, carving out an empire from Greece to India. The director has things he urgently wants to say about Alexander, but this eagerness outshines the film’s muddled narrative. There are provocative ideas and moderately successful set-pieces, but the movie seems less than a complete draft. The film doesn't feel comfortable with itself. It says a lot, and yet there’s a lot left unspoken. Stone’s personal passion for the subject isn’t captured on screen.

The biggest problem is that in spite of a nearly three hour running time, this sincere movie fails to find a focus for its elusive subject. Stone seems primarily fascinated by two aspects of Alexander’s life: his nationalism and his sexuality. He shows him trying to unite many tribes under a single rule – his. He seems to believe in a One World point-of-view. And we get hints of his willingness to have sex with men. But Stone – obviously forced by the studio – tones done much of the relationship between Alexander and his closest friend Hephaistion, a strikingly beautiful lad, played by the strikingly beautiful Jared Leto, who is always lurking in the shadows, ready to hug and be hugged, but the two are never shown passionately kissing. It’s a cop-out Stone should have stopped in its tracks. In Alexander’s time, men bedded men and nobody cared.

We never really get a fix on whether or not Alexander has united the people his armies have overrun. The movie delivers little depth here. Do those he conquered like Alexander, welcome his rule, care about anything? In fact, they seem like mystery people – crowds of extras without substance. The movie is shockingly void of details. Oh, there’s all the typical pomp and circumstance, but what’s really going on with all the murkiness involving the gay sex, with Alexander’s relationship with his “barbarian” bride with the weird kinship with his angry mother, played with slinky feline undertones by a wildly beautiful Angelina Jolie, who looks like she could eat Alexander and his armies for breakfast? Jolie’s performance revs up the classic 1950s sword and sandal campiness. As for the narration from the character of Ptolemy, it goes on and on and on and is filled with so much detail that you practically fear a pop quiz at the end of the movie. As for Anthony Hopkins’ acting as Ptolemy, well, phoning it in doesn’t begin to describe what Hopkins yawns his way through.

The facts are quickly summarized. Alexander, weakly played by a very miscast and dreadfully uninteresting Colin Farrell. is the son of Philip of Macedonia (a blustery Val Kilmer) and Queen Olympias (Jolie). As a boy, Alexander sees his drunken father virtually rape his mother, who for her part insists the kid’s actual father is Zeus, but she doesn’t fill in the details. Nothing like a little delusion to keep everyone guessing. Little Alexander impresses his father by taming a wild horse, but both mother and son are banished from the kingdom, Olympias advises her son to seize the throne before Philip has him murdered. As things work out, Philip is murdered, and Alexander rules Macedonia. Told by Aristotle (a furry Christopher Plummer) where the known world ends, Alexander discovers in his bloody travels that the world keeps on going and he keeps on conquering. He defeats the Greek city states, the Persians, and all the other folks he encounters until he is finally defeated in India. He dies at age 32. The battle sequence in India with the charging elephants is stunning. The earlier battle sequence at Gaugamela is a bore. It’s blurred by so much dust and sand that it never jells into anything spectacular.

In Stone’s version, Alexander seems incredibly open-minded for a tyrant. There are many, many scenes in which he argues goals and strategy with members of his army. He marries an Asian instead of choosing a Greek girl. He spends eight years in battle, taking with him his army, their families and lovers, their servants and households, in a sort of traveling sideshow of an empire. And always waiting in the shadows is Hephaistion. We are told by Ptolemy that in ancient times, powerful men often took males as their lovers, reserving women for childbearing and acting the accessory – sort of like human jewelry. Alexander seems to be following that tradition to the extent that the studio will permit it. Hephaistion doesn’t even go through the motions of taking a wife; he is always there for Alexander, but for what? They often have the look what might lead into a love scene before it fades out. The rest of the time, they do all that hugging.

As for Alexander's sex life with Roxane (Rosario Dawson), it shouldn’t surprise you that we see a great deal more of her body than Hephaistion’s. Alexander and Roxane have one fiery sex scene that begins with her fighting him off and ends with them engaged in the kind of feral passion where you fear somebody might get bloodied. So basically, they have great sex – at least once. Then we learn that three years pass, and she provides no male heir, although for how little we see of them together, the fault may belong to the Gods.

It's clear enough that Alexander loves Hephaistion and has married Roxane as a political gesture. In that case, it’s a serious miscalculation on Stone’s part to make Hephaistion into an alluring sideline figure who specializes in significant glances – you know, those glances - the significance of which the movie really doesn’t explore. Stone doesn’t have the courage to make Hephaiston as erotic a character as Roxane; therefore, he’s not really following the trail of the story. And then there’s that wacky nonsensical flashback literally tossed into the middle of the narrative involving Philip that doesn’t seem like a flashback at all, but more like material switched from its place in the chronology and inserted later to clarify what Stone’s thinks we might have misunderstood. It sticks out like a badly edited sore thumb. I even quietly commented on it to my seat partner.

As it nears its conclusion, Alexander slows down and peters out. There’s old Ptolemy pontificating about something or other and tying up very loose ends. At this point at the screening I attended, the audience was already starting to head for the exits. Ultimately, the movie is too long for what it delivers, which really isn’t all that much. It’s glossy, but shallow. Stone and company opted to temper the emotional with superficiality. | Add as favourites (25) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 4712

What’s great about DVD and Home Video is the staggering availability of titles you never saw; if you even heard about them. Although there’s nothing like seeing a movie in a theater, seeing a movie at home doesn’t have to be second best, especially if the film is worthwhile and hard-to-find.

The four movies in question are from Great Britain, Thailand, South Africa, and Israel. Their themes are varied and the quality of the filmmaking in all cases is solid. These are not cheesy straight-to-video efforts, but examples of national cinemas that have huge followings in their home countries.

New Year’s Day is from the United Kingdom and it focuses on two teenagers who have to reassess everything that’s important in their lives. On a school ski trip, an avalanche kills a teacher and a group of students, leaving two 16-year old boys as distraught sole survivors. The two are beset with guilt, a pressing survivor’s guilt that shrouds them with despair and angry feelings they’ve never before experienced. Hostility overtakes them; then remorse, and soon their young lives become a rollercoaster of emotions. If things don’t improve, they want to die and make a pact to commit suicide on the next New Year’s Day. This is a tough movie, honest and resolutely open about communication and dread. A popular hit at the Sundance Film Festival, the feature was a huge success in its native U.K. The very well-acted picture stars Andrew Lee Potts, Bobby Barry, and two powerhouse women of the movies: Marianne Jean-Baptiste and the legendary Jacqueline Bissett. It’s directed by Suri Krishnamma from a screenplay by Ralph Brown, most noted as one of the actors in Withnail And I, the comic hit from 1987. New Year’s Day is well worth tracking down.

You don’t have to have seen The Iron Ladies to have some fun watching The Iron Ladies II. This is the high-energy sequel to the colorful saga of an almost exclusively gay/transgendered team of social misfits who have taken on legendary status in both the world of sports and in the gender wars. Call it Bad News Bears Meets Club Marcella. Incorporating fabulism, hilarious comedy, and defiant queer sweat, the talented Ladies rose to prominence winning the national volleyball championship of Thailand. The gist of the new movie is that the hunkiest player on the Ladies team – yes, drag queens can be hunks, abandons the club to start a rival team. So the Ladies go on a whirlwind adventure to China to woo out of retirement a former player who is now a fabulous cabaret star. This really is one of those movies you have to see to believe. But trust me on this one, it’s so well-made and so cleverly directed that it works on a number of levels including, sexual politics, sportsmanship, and the value of loyalty and friendship. The enjoyable movie is written and directed by Yongyoot Thongkongtoon and is in Thai with English subtitles. It’s a hoot.

From South Africa comes a true story and a thrilling one at that. Proteus was an official selection at both the Toronto and Berlin International Film Festivals. The tough-as-nails movie offers a highly combustible combination of sex, race, and politics. And you know what politics was like in South Africa in the 1700s. It wasn’t pretty. Among the inmates in a notorious South African prison are two men. One of the men is Claas Blank, an intelligent black soul whose people have been enslaved by colonial rule. He’s been unjustly imprisoned for stealing cattle. The other man is a mysterious and withdrawn Dutch sailor, Rijkhaart Jacobz, who is in jail for the crime of being homosexual. In eighteenth century South Africa the idea that these two men would begin a sexual affair in a Cape Town penal colony is tantamount to drawing a death sentence, but they do. The movie proceeds with power and quite a few jolts to the psyche. Proteus stars Rouxnet Brown as Claas and Neil Sandilands as the Dutchman. Both deliver solid performances. The rest of the cast is up to the task of this very strong little movie. It’s co-written and co-directed by superstar Canadian filmmakers John Greyson (Lillies and Zero Patience) and Jack Lewis. Be careful when seeking this out. There are other movies called Proteus, but look for this one from 2003. The movie is in English and in Afrikaans and Nama (the native languages are subtitled).

Neglected children often make for interesting central characters in foreign films. From Israel comes Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi, a terrific drama about a teenage boy who has a secret that eventually comes out. The lad has hidden smarts, but he’s so introspective that no one knows, not even his family. Shlomi lives with his overly excitable and essentially useless mother and a very ill grandfather. He has an offbeat musician brother who provides little support. Shlomi also has a sister who has twin children and is married to a sex-obsessed guy who can’t stay off the internet. Although he’s not doing well in school, Shlomi is a truly gifted cook and takes care of virtually all of the household chores. He is the primary – and wondrously loving caregiver - for the elderly grandpa. One day, the school’s principal discovers that Shlomi might actually be a math prodigy, even a genius, and tries to get him into a more suitable curriculum. However, Shlomi is more interested in taking care of his family because that’s the safe and secure life he knows. Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi is written and directed by acclaimed Israeli filmmaker Shemi Zarhin. The movie’s in Hebrew with English subtitles, and it offers a sublime performance by Oshri Cohen as the teenager who needs to take responsibility for the kind of person he is and the kind of life he is going to lead. | Add as favourites (23) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1564