A+E: All the Arts + Entertainment You Can Eat

It Came In the Mail










Press kit for Fox TV's new show, Bones, and returning series, House. Mmm, fake blood and a bony pen!








The One-Minute Critic



The King (3 stars)

By Rich Koslowski




$19.95


Koslowski's graphic novel about a mysterious Elvis impersonator has a lot to say about the power of faith, but goes about it in a sometimes clumsy way. The titular Elvis, who takes Vegas by storm and may or may not be the real thing, imparts wisdom to an over-the-hill reporter looking for the truth about his identity. Koslowski's love of Elvis comes through on every page, and his simple art is a pleasure, but the plotting falls apart at the end and the dialogue is often too simplistic. For a story about a mystery, it ends up a little basic.




Josh Bell









LOCAL CD



The Holy Smokes



The Holy Smokes (2.5 stars)


If Vegas neighborhoods age in dog years, then Vegas bands have the life spans of dogs with radiation poisoning. That have also been shot. For that reason alone, the Holy Smokes are worth a listen, the quartet having been around five years now. They play a mean psychobilly—think Clint Eastwood's nameless drifter putting his heel down on a rattler while squinting in your direction and you'll have the idea. But the sound is thin and muddy at times, a result of their garage/recording studio.




Martin Stein









DVDs



The Blues Brothers: 25th Anniversary Edition (R) (4 stars)


$22.98


Put The Blue Brothers in a time capsule with Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Untouchables and future generations will have enough of Chicago's cultural DNA to create virtual versions of the Windy City in solar systems yet to be discovered. This two-disc package is valuable mostly for what it adds to the legend behind the film's creation, which at one time held the record for most cars destroyed in a movie. Though much of the mayhem feels a bit stale 25 years later, the many wonderful music-and-dance sequences featuring such giant talents as Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Cab Calloway and James Brown remain among the most entertaining ever filmed. It serves, too, as a reminder of how much John Belushi is missed.



Suicide Girls: The First Tour (NR) (3 stars)


$19.99


The sexy, soft-core Internet phenomenon, SuicideGirls.com, has expanded its pierced and tattooed digital empire into performance, retail and DVD. Motivated as much by Cyndi Lauper's subversive anthem, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," as any punk or riott grrrls sensibility, this outsider community is the latest entity to embrace burlesque as marketing. In person or online, these new-age pinups are far less interested in striptease—especially when used to titillate men—than the joy that comes from self-expression. Indeed, the models seem more obsessed with their breasts than anyone else. Extras include some nicely shot fantasy videos and kooky profiles.



Schultze Gets the Blues (PG) (4 stars)


$29.99


German cinema isn't known for offbeat and quirky comedies. And 30 minutes into this deadpan portrait of an accordionist, it might be hard to predict when the yawns stop and the laughs begin. Patience is rewarded, though, after the retired miner becomes enchanted with zydeco music and is accorded an opportunity to represent his hometown in a pageant in America's bayou country. Schorr seems to have been influenced greatly by Jim Jarmusch, whose minimalist style perfectly suits Schultze's lonely pursuit of personal fulfillment.




Gary Dretzka


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