Culturopolis

The uproarious comedy Cedar Rapids comes from the blushing cinema of embarrassment that gave us Cyrus and The 40 Year Old Virgin . At the film’s center: a 34-year-old sunny geek Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) convinced selling insurance is an expression of god’s love. As heartily as he sells that message, you almost begin to believe it. You don’t know whether to hug him or give him a wedgie. Is Lippe arrested? Baby-fied? Filmmaker Miguel Arteta ( Chuck & Buck , The Good Girl ) doesn’t make any bones about the stunted but poignant status of its orphan hero, who has lost both parents and looks to his boss for nurturing. Lippe even has a Mrs. Robinson, the over-age hottie Macy Vaderhei (Sigourney Weaver) who, wait for it — used to be his seventh-grade teacher. Can you say m...

There is something innately fascinating about hidden worlds: the subway tunnels that underlie cities; the phosphorescent creatures lurking in the ocean's sunless depths; the insular subcultures of bikers and circus folk. New Orleans photographer Lisette de Boisblanc's photos in Taken by the Fog at Jennifer Schwartz Gallery (which moves to the Westside this month) document a hidden world, too, one that serves as a metaphor for the similar intangibles that lurk inside our own flesh casings. Something between a photographer and a scientist (in fact, the artist once worked in science), de Boisblanc has X-rayed a bevy of her grandmother's dolls against an inky black background. The images bear a distinct resemblance to Man Ray...