Culturopolis

FILM COFFEE ACHIEVERS Black Gold goes behind the scenes of our coffee jones TRANSGENDER BIAS Out on Film searches for a new niche ART DOMESTIC GODDESSES Teresa Bramlette Reeves and Lillian Blades at Sandler Hudson STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS Beep Beep Gallery plays it by ear

FILM DRUG WORN Tideland flops, Down to the Bone flips ART LIFE OVER DEATH In his latest performance-art piece, Ben Fain skewers those who hold the key FASHION STATEMENT To a T at MODA

FILM SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS American Hardcore moshes around the early '80s punk scene ROYAL FLUSH Mirren offers a revealing portrait of The Queen ARTS SUDDEN IMPACT Sometimes, art is so powerful it moves us to tears

FILM LET THEM EAT COOL Finding the fashion of Marie Antoinette's passion UNCOMFORTABLY NUMB Little Children trots out to the 'burbs ARTS ART SCHOOL Linda Armstrong and Stan Woodard at Spruill

FILM KILLING WITH KINDNESS Keeping Mum LEFT FEELING COLD Second telling of the Truman show falls flat PERFORMANCE ANXIETY John Cameron Mitchell rides Shortbus to the ground ARTS OLD SOUTH David Yoakley Mitchell remembers a time and place VIVE LE LOUVRE! The High makes a striking French connection with its latest exhibition

FILM CAMPFIRE AND BRIMSTONE Turning just-born Christians into foot soldiers TIME FLIES Scratching the seven-year itch with 49 Up ARTS TRICK PHOTOGRAPHY Photographer Suellen Parker generates and manipulates TOY STORY Plastic Culture: How Japanese Toys Captured the World

FILM IRON-ON REVOLUTIONARY Honoring the man over the icon AMERICAN UNDERDOG Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore? ARTS BEARING WITNESS Red Was the Midnight at the MLK Jr. National Historic Site HOUSE WORKS Intimate Rituals of Daily Life at the Signature Shop & Gallery

FILM A VOTE FOR PEDRO Festival of Almodóvar films reveals a passion for perversion — and morality ART COLOR-CONSCIOUS Race translates into an art of obsession this fall DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE Pat Courtney pillories the culture industry at Sandler Hudson

FILM UNLUCKIEST NUMBER Welcome to the nightmare world of 13 Tzameti TO SIR, WITH DRUGS A teacher with a message -- and an addiction ART CHILD OF NATURE Ruud Van Empel explores an exotic World

FILM PUSH AND PULL The Pusher trilogy delivers a sweet addiction MOMMIES DEAREST Queens a light, flamboyant romp ART HAIL TO THE CHIEFS Diana Walker: Photojournalist at the Carter Center

FILM GIRL, YOU'LL BE A WOMAN -- SOON A young teen grapples with sex and sexuality on the eve of her Quinceañera CREATURE FEATURE Underground cinema at Eyedrum BOYS BEHAVING BADLY Sometimes it's hard to Trust the Man ART BIRDS OF A FEATHER Steven Kenny's latest work finds nature as a muse

FILM UNDERGROUND CAMPAIGN Third annual Atlanta Underground Film Festival attacks the senses, and sensibilities, from all angles SCRIPT TEASE Idlewild 's stunning set pieces often clash with its clichéd story ART THE BLACK ARTS Peter Beste at Yo Yo Boutique & Gallery ART TO A 'T' Artists find an entirely new canvas — on their shirts

FILM WATERY GRAVE Spike Lee's documentary shows how democracy died in Hurricane Katrina's dark flood THE LONG FAREWELL Ocean again plays big role in Ozon's latest

FILM CLOSE SHAVE With the scrape of a razor, La Moustache takes on a new look INDIE FAMILY VALUES Little Miss Sunshine is eclipsed by its own quirkiness ART BLOOD TYPE Exhibits embody Young Blood charm as gallery ponders its future TREE HUGGERS Forest Primeval at The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia

FILM MISERY LOVES COMPANY Robin Williams risks attention deficit as The Night Listener THRILLA IN MANILA Cavite moves and zips and pulsates -- but to what end? ART PLAYING AGAINST TYPE Stereo Propaganda captures and then redefines racist imagery

Seeing the first children’s movie in a long time that doesn’t turn my stomach, The Ant Bully , I am only reminded of how noxious and base the majority of swill made for children is; the cinematic equivalent of Cheez Wiz. I am personally not a fan of the Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell genres of lad-yukks, but so many children’s films are virtually cut from the same cloth: an inane series of fart jokes and casual violence and abject stupidity. The Ant Bully , thankfully has the strength of character to actually say something (though there is also the requisite potty-humor), and offers insight into our culture of bullying individualism and isolation in the human world contrasted with the community and cooperation of the ant world. The message about bullying, and how might does not make right must be a real muddle for parents to explain to their wee things post-screening when the subject of Iraq comes up. It’s ironic how the moral lessons we teach our children are so rarely our own. It a

ESCAPE FROM BEVERY HILLS (This review of Wassup Rockers was not published in print because the distributor canceled its Atlanta opening) In their skin tight jeans and scoliosis posture, the South Central, L.A. kids in Wassup Rockers could be any alienated band of outsiders from the Fifties juvenile delinquents to the British punks. But the most fascinating feature of the Latino high school skate punks chronicled in Wassup Rockers is their hybridity, a blur of previous generations' musical and sartorial fascinations and their own; a mix of Dogtown skate punk; anemic, black-haired Ramones screw-up; and Latino cool. With Quiceanera we seem to have entered a new era of Latino chic. Charismatic pretty boy Jonathan (Jonathan Velasquez) leads a gang of Salvadoran and Guatemalan cohorts: Milton (a.k.a. Spermball), Porky, Louie, Carlos, Eddie and Kico who prowl the streets of South Central as the Hispaniclicious subjects of Larry Clark's ( Kids , Bully ) adoration. The antiestablish

FILM YESTERDAY'S NEWS Woody Allen digs into his clip files for his latest Scoop ART THINKING BLOBALLY, ACTING LOCALLY The High's showcase of New Photography is a large-scale smash

FILM WATER-LOGGED Shyamalan loses his touch with surreality in Lady in the Water NATURAL PORN KILLER Sérgio Machado tries to dress up Lower City as art-house fare ART AUTHENTIC ARTIFICE Chris Scarborough delights in really fake imagery

FILM DARK HORIZON Richard Linklater goes back to the drawing board in A Scanner Darkly ART TALK ABOUT THE WORK On the eve of the National Black Arts Festival, artists see a changing landscape in Atlanta

HARD ROAD Fact blends with fiction in docudrama The Road to Guantánamo EVERYDAY PEOPLE Fall to Grace FULL MOON RISING Landscapes shows a folk artist fully embracing the vision thing

FASHION VICTIMS Prada's devilishly one-dimensional women make for ill fit THE DEVIL YOU KNOW The King goes Deep South -- but how deep? IN THE HERE & NOW Just months in Atlanta, Cinqué Hicks is already making a mark in the art world EAST MEETS WEST Fusion is the name of the game in Red Beans and Rice

MASTER BUILDER Sydney Pollack sizes up architect Frank Gehry BY THE NUMBERS Quick: What's an eight-letter word for 'diverting'? NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND Mike Wsol's commentary works from the bottom up

EXTREME MAKEOVER The Beauty Academy of Kabul schools Westerners on Afghanistan

WEAK SIGNAL A Prairie Home Companion struggles with radio-free Americana IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK Photographer Sarah Hobbs experiments with weird science

BREAKING THE WAVES Matthew Barney and Björk get metaphysical on the high seas THE MORE THE MERRIER Atlanta arts collaborative gets it on in forthcoming retrospective

SADDLE SORE An imitation cowboy woos an underage filly Down in the Valley SMACK DAB Clean balances real emotion with penchant for style

SEX AND THE INDIE GIRL Somersault fails to break classic teen drama formula KING OF PAIN Four new DVD releases from masterful director Michael Haneke

I was born in Jimmy Stewart's hometown of Indiana, Pennsylvania and received my B.A. in film studies from the University of Florida and my M.A. in film studies from Emory University. My master's thesis on exploitation film became a book, Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Film co-authored with fellow lowbrow connoisseur and husband Bret Wood. I am the staff art and film critic for Atlanta’s alternative newsweekly Creative Loafing. My writing has appeared in Elle, Atlanta magazine, Sculpture, Art in America, Artnews, Playboy online and Art Papers . I have curated exhibitions for the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and the VSA Arts for All Gallery. I have received multiple Green Eyeshade Awards for criticism and feature reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists. That's the one I send out when someone needs a string of professional citations. I am also, though I would never tell anyone I work for, a confirmed misanthrope who nevertheless se