US – Thursday, March 18
The Grid
The week's releases
Metro staff reviews the latest CDs, DVDs and books for your reading pleasure.
 
Music
‘The age of the freak is almost here’
For the past few years the tourist shops near where the SXSW Music Conference takes place have been selling goods emblazoned with the axiom “Keep Austin Weird.” And if the first night of live music was any indication, visitors, revelers and performers are taking the sentiment to heart. Here are a few of the highlights from Wednesday
 
Music
‘The age of the freak is almost here’
For the past few years the tourist shops near where the SXSW Music Conference takes place have been selling goods emblazoned with the axiom “Keep Austin Weird.” And if the first night of live music was any indication, visitors, revelers and performers are taking the sentiment to heart. Here are a few of the highlights from Wednesday
 
The Word
Bullock gets ‘Blind Side’d by alleged affair
It seemed too crazy to be true — America’s sweetheart Sandra Bullock fell for Jesse James, a heavily tattooed former bodyguard for Slayer turned custom motorcycle maker who was once married to a porn star.
 
Philly Arts
Dreaming up life in a ‘Future City’
Gene Coleman has a recurring dream in which he finds himself in a strange city. “I don’t know where this place is, and I don’t think it’s any place that actually exists,” he says. “But it has these fantastic, almost surrealistic architectural qualities to it.”
 

Photo: SCOTT GARFEILD
Movies
Forest Whitaker has some tough acts to follow
Broad comedy isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when people think of Forest Whitaker. But the Oscar-winning actor saw his latest film, “Our Family Wedding,” as a chance to stretch himself. He sat down with Metro to talk about his process as an actor and surviving a pastry fight with co-star Regina King.
 
Movies
Pattinson: A vampire in Brooklyn
Robert Pattinson has been playing Americans so often that he has forgotten how to talk like a Brit. In his latest, “Remember Me,” the “Twilight” heartthrob stars as a soulful young New Yorker attending NYU, but he insists he didn’t need any help sounding like a native. “I’ve never had a dialect coach or anything,” Pattinson says. “Ironically, I’ve only had a dialect coach for this film I’m doing now, which I’m doing in an English accent. I guess I’ve forgotten how to do an English accent.”
Entertainment
Bobcat is ‘World’s Greatest’ director
If you put together pot brownies, autoerotic asphyxiation, suicide sensationalism and Robin Williams as a high school poetry teacher, it may sound like the makings of an ill-advised sequel to “Dead Poets Society.”
 

Movies
Movie can’t make it past minor ‘League’
REVIEW. Lame Hollywood romantic comedies love women; they just don’t like to identify them by name. We’ve seen  “She’s All That,” “She’s Out of Control,” “She’s the Man” and “She’s the One” in our local cineplexes. If you remember the plot of one of them, gold star for you.
 
Movies
Just say ‘I don’t’
REVIEW. After years of playing an Ugly Betty, it’s under­standable that the lovely America Ferrera suc­cumbed to the all-consuming power of a princess bridal gown. For that, we will forgive her for “Our Family Wedding.”
Movies
Damon’s latest not quite in the ‘Zone’
REVIEW. “Green Zone” wants to be both a complicated drama about the questionable motives behind the U.S. invasion of Iraq and a relentless action thriller. Each element is done well in isolated sequences, but they are awkwardly shoehorned together into a two-hour running time that can barely contain all of the ideas and explosions.
 
Movies
New Pattinson flick not very memorable
REVIEWS. Whether it’s distracting or commendable, “Remember Me” is completely aware of how many times you’ve seen its tricks before. After a kitchen water fight breaks out between Brooding Bookstore Guy (Robert Pattinson) and Plucky Blue- Collar Queens Girl (Emilie de Ravin), they concede that this is the stuff of bad romantic comedies. But this time is different — she bests him with a pot full of spaghetti water before running around in a soaked white T-shirt and eventually making him French toast in oversized PJs.
Movies
An ‘Ugly’ farewell and a role in a ‘Wedding’
It’s time to say so long to “Ugly Betty” as America Ferrera returns to the big screen this month with “Our Family Wedding,” a culture-clash comedy about a Mexican-American law student (Ferrera) who brings her African-American fiancé (Lance Gross) home to meet her caught-off-guard family. It’s the actress’ first film since the announcement that her 4-year-old ABC comedy won’t be returning in the fall.
 
 
 

Photo: GETTY IMAGES
Movies
Tim Burton in ‘Wonderland’
Twenty-five years after his first feature film (“Pee-wee’s Big Adventure”), director Tim Burton has continued to defy categorization, delving into animation, comic books, musicals and ghost stories. But one thing has remained constant: his focus on outsiders, from Pee-wee to Sweeney Todd to Batman to Beetlejuice. And in Disney’s big-budget, 3-D “Alice in Wonderland,” Burton takes on one of literature’s ultimate outsiders.
 
Movies
And the Oscar goes to ...
Revisiting Wonderland
Can’t get your movie made? Just wing it
A tumble down the rabbit hole
10 is the magic number
And the Oscar goes to ... we’re still not sure
Burton’s ‘Alice’ is not so wonderful
Really the ‘Finest’ Brooklyn can offer?
This week, celebrate girl power
French film able to turn ‘A Prophet’
Movies
Kevin Smith makes a big-studio comedy
Because sanity is so overrated
Surprised? ‘Cop Out’ takes the easy route
She’s got range, and she uses it
Extra, read all about it!
Meet the new sidekick from ‘Shutter Island’
Standing tall on the shoulders of giants
‘Shutter Island’ a score for Scorsese
On the wild side
Shah Rukh Khan strives to downplay controversy
 
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Music
MMMpod
The March MMMpod features conversation and music from Surfer Blood and The Allman Brothers Band (There's a double-bill you're not too likely to see. However, Gregg Allman does mention Hannah Montana!). We also speak with Vampire Weekend and the Dropkick Murphys.
 
 
 
Metro Life Panel
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