PHOTO BY ANTHONY MAIR
Waiter Mergim Riza of the award-winning Joe Vicari’s Andiamo Italian Steakhouse.
NIGHTLIFE
PARTIES
PALMS POOL
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PHOTOS BY TOBY ACUNA
October 3–9, 2013
The Palms
NIGHTLIFE
PARTIES
TAO BEACH The Venetian [ UPCOMING ]
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PHOTOS BY POWERS IMAGERY
October 3–9, 2013
Oct. 4 Javier Alba spins Oct. 5 D-Miles spins Oct. 6 Sunday Brunch with sounds by MK
NIGHTLIFE
PARTIES
WET REPUBLIC MGM Grand [ UPCOMING ]
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PHOTOS BY DEREK DEGNER AND JOE FURY
October 3–9, 2013
Oct. 5 Laidback Luke spins Oct. 6 Steve Aoki spins Oct. 12 Nervo spins
NIGHTLIFE
PARTIES
MARQUEE
The Cosmopolitan [ UPCOMING ]
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PHOTOS BY POWERS IMAGERY
October 3–9, 2013
Oct. 4 Arty spins Oct. 11 Armin van Buuren spins Oct. 12 Tritonal spins
NIGHTLIFE
PARTIES
1 OAK
The Mirage [ UPCOMING ]
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PHOTOS BY BOBBY JAMEIDAR AND TEDDY FUJIMOTO
October 3–9, 2013
Oct. 5 DJ Que spins Oct. 8 One of a Kind Tuesdays Oct. 10 Haute Thursdays
NIGHTLIFE
PARTIES
ARTISAN
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PHOTOS BY BOBBY JAMEIDAR AND TEDDY FUJIMOTO
October 3–9, 2013
1501 W. Sahara Ave.
SCENE DINING
Twist’s Will Costello pairs a 2011 Batic Zaria from Slovenia with a dish of crayfish with Champagne-onion syrup, morel cream and purple chai flower.
TASTING NOTES The 2011 Zaria is unique: stone fruit with a sherry-like component and a little volatile acidity. A certain amount of cloudiness in the glass nods to its unfiltered, unfined, hands-off winemaking style. Raw honey-colored under most light, when a full glass is poured and the light catches it, it’s obvious why some refer to this style as “orange wine”—a result of production methods. Costello explains, “This is a wine for food.” To that end, he often pairs it with Twist’s saffron risotto. Costello appreciates the “roasted apricots [and] baked peach” aromas in the wine, as well as its aging floral notes. I found a caramelized fruit component,
A Simple Twist of Plate In search of the perfect pairing, dinner takes a lef turn at Twist by Pierre Gagnaire By Christopher Calicott
October 3–9, 2013
➧ ON THE 23rd FLOOR of the Man-
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darin Oriental is Twist, a restaurant with a unique culinary angle and incredible Strip views. A spectacular combination of industrial and organic aesthetics, the experience is spearheaded by chef Pierre Gagnaire. Managing the wine program at Twist is recent Las Vegas import Will Costello Originally from San Diego, Costello’s credentials include the Addison restaurant at the Grand Del Mar. His phi-
losophy there, which continues at Twist, is to include everyone on the service staff in wine education and the wine program. Twist is Gagnaire’s frst American restaurant, and it augments his strong base in Europe. Known for using an array of spices from around the world, Gagnaire challenges and inspires sommeliers such as Costello. Recently, Gagnaire’s Alsatianstyled sauerkraut dish with foie gras gave Costello a
number of French possibilities. He paired it with a cream sherry from Spain, as Costello felt the foie would be accentuated by a sweet wine, but the sauerkraut demanded something different than a straightforward sweet Bordeaux pairing. The combinations are constantly changing, and as such, are always fresh. Costello notes, “Nothing stays on the bythe-glass menu more than … 34 bottles.” (Two go into the cellar to build long-term
wine-list selections.) wine, which is fermented and For Twist’s Grand Tasting aged in terracotta amphorae menu, the entry-level wine buried underground and offering matches each of lined with beeswax. This 2011 six courses with a different Batic Zaria ($22 per glass or grape varietal from a differ$95 per bottle)—a blend of ent country. Costello’s goal is pinela, rebula, zelen and other to expose the guest to wines varietals that are fermented that are varied and give a together—visually indicates wide-ranging experience. its natural winemaking apHowever, Costello does proach: As the entire process include a few familiarly takes place in amphorae, it’s favored options such as the exposed to more air than 2010 Bernard Baudry Chinon normal, giving it a unique Les Granges. This Cabernet color and slight cloudiness, Franc-based French wine indicating an ancient style. has a nice herbal quality that Costello enjoys sharing wines makes Costello think green— like this with a look, aroma “green tobacco … and moss. and taste that give Twist’s It’s very, very green.” For me, customers something new to the wine ($17 per glass or $75 talk about. per bottle) adds a bit of bubblegum aroma Twist’s six-course Grand as well. Tasting menu is $175; for TWIST BY To go beyond the the less ravenous, there PIERRE customers’ expectais a four-course $135 GAGNAIRE tions, Costello weds option. There are two a Gagnaire signawine pairing levels for the In Mandarin ture dish—crayfsh six-course menu: $120 Oriental, with Champagnefor the standard pairing 590-8888. onion syrup, morel and $225 for the Grand Open 6-10 cream and an edible Pairing. Or, for a no-limit p.m. Tue-Thu, purple chai fower wine experience, Twist 6-10:30 p.m. garnish—with a natuoffers the Lucky Number Fri-Sat. rally made Slovenian Seven Pairing for $777.
PHOTOS BY ELIZABETH BUEHRING
as well, that adds to this unique wine’s character.
DINING
DRINKING
Sweet Victory
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74 Drinking buddies: Vesper bartenders Rodger Gillespie and Lillian Hargrove catch up over a round of their winning cocktails.
Find the recipe for Hargrove and Gillespie’s winning cocktails at VegasSeven. com/Cocktail-Culture.
PHOTO BY KIN LUI
October 3–9, 2013
THE FIRST TIME is always the hardest. You might tremble. You might drop something—especially if people are watching. No, cocktail competitions are defnitely not for everyone. Vesper bartender Lillian Hargrove understands, especially now that she has her frst competition under her belt, as well as her frst win. “Even when I auditioned for the Cosmopolitan, I shook the second I stepped up to the well,” Hargrove says, “and all I had to make was a margarita and a Manhattan!” If she was nervous, it didn’t show when a confdent Hargrove won over the judges at the United States Bartenders’ Guild’s Campari competition with her Bitter Prelude, Happy Ending cocktail (pictured, right), a spirit-forward aperitivostyle cocktail of Campari, Espolón reposado, Cynar and Lillet Rosé. Also from Vesper, Rodger Gillespie is having a banner year: One day in March, he won both the Don Julio Tequila Challenge (see Page 29) and the Las Vegas Cocktail Classic. And the day after Hargrove’s win, Gillespie took frst in the Nevada fnals of Bombay Sapphire’s Most Imaginative Bartender Competition with his Grain of Salt cocktail (far left). But ... salt? “When people think your idea sounds weird,” he says, “you are probably on the right track.” It made the national top 10, where Gillespie was given 2¾ hours and $300 to come up with a brand-new cocktail for 400 people; the Apple of My Eye (Bombay Sapphire, spiced poached-apple vermouth, Aperol and lemon) clinched his People’s Choice win. Look for Gillespie in GQ’s December issue.
Freeman screens PollyGrind submissions with his “PollyGrind Girls”—from left, Corinne Garfield, Taylor Kilgore and Tommie Lee Vegas— who will be costumed and will interact with festival-goers.
“ONE OF THE UNIQUE THINGS ABOUT POLLYGRIND IS THAT I’LL SHOW FILMS OTHER FESTIVALS ARE AFRAID TO SHOW. POLLYGRIND CUTS AWAY A LOT OF THE GLITZ AND DIVA-NESS OF BIGGER FESTIVALS.” – Chad Clinton Freeman
to pull off an event with so many moving parts, year after year. After spending time with him, though, it becomes obvious that he’s uncomfortable with the idea of loosening control over any aspect of the festival’s operations. “It’s something I love and
put all of myself into it,” Freeman says. “It’s like a really obsessive hobby.” In previous years, Freeman has tried to expand the scope of PollyGrind through strategic partnerships, but those didn’t always work out well. He held a screening of
Albert Pyun’s Road to Hell at Rave Motion Pictures’ Town Square location (now an AMC Theatre) last year, but despite an impressive turnout of 200 people, miscommunications with management and the lack of additional personnel marred its success. In 2011,
he teamed up with the Neon Reverb music festival to promote a series of shorts and documentaries at Theatre7, but those screenings were counterprogrammed against Neon Reverb shows at other venues, and turnout was almost nonexistent.
PHOTO BY CURTIS JOE WALKER
A&E October 3–9, 2013 VEGAS SEVEN
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In a darkened corner booth near the side exit, Chad Clinton Freeman is impatiently checking his cellphone. The husky, long-haired, bespectacled founder of the PollyGrind Film Festival is waiting for a call from Michael Muscal, the first-time director of the “stoner horror movie” Little Fucker. The film isn’t just another entry into PollyGrind’s eclectic programming mix of sub-independent cinema— it’s one for which Freeman is trying to attain distribution under his PollyGrind Presents label, a partnership with B-movie distributor Wild Eye Releasing. Now in its fourth year, the IMDb-qualifying PollyGrind—which returns October 9-13—has built a considerable reputation among the underground flm community as a venue for all sorts of flmmakers to exhibit their creations. Although pigeonholed as a horror festival—something Freeman alternately contends with and resigns himself to—PollyGrind is completely open to all types of flm, regardless of freshness, budget or genre. “Most festivals won’t show a flm unless it was made in the last year,” Freeman says. “To me, if it’s good, if it’s entertaining, if it offers an experience, it doesn’t matter. I just want to show good stuff.” Freeman’s approach to developing the programming for PollyGrind begins with reviewing the entries he receives throughout the submission period, which typically runs from April until mid-July. This year, Freeman says he received 777 entries, the most PollyGrind has ever received. He designates the official selections first (“the stuff I like,” he says), and then builds the schedule around those. “I want to program flms people expect,” he says, then pauses for a moment. “But I don’t want to program flms people expect.” Not only is Freeman the one-man selection committee for PollyGrind, he’s also the sole judge for its awards. He also happens to be the festival’s publicist, webmaster, marketing director, travel planner and projectionist. Freeman calls PollyGrind his “baby,” but it still seems a Herculean task for him alone
MUSIC Brancowitz, second from left.
A&E
wait until you perceive a new emotion, a new amazement in your heart. That’s what we enjoy in our sound, those moments of, “Wow, I’m not sure what’s happening.” How did Wolfgang’s success liberate the band? We knew that people would give us the beneft of the doubt so we could push the envelope a bit. We went a bit too far, which is always a great pleasure.
Phoenix Continues to Rise
Laurent Brancowitz on indie success, their freaky style and fear of artistic failure By Sam Glaser
How does the fear of artistic failure materialize in your creative process? We know that the fear and discomfort [are] very important. It’s like someone walking on a tightrope with a net under him. When you compare it to a guy doing the same thing without the net, it’s a radical difference. The fact that you can fall and die is crucial, it changes everything.
October 3–9, 2013
Growing up in the historic city of Versailles, FRENCH INDIE-ROCKERS PHOENIX enjoyed moderate success for 10 years before fame struck. In France, is there anything 2009, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix won a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album, propelyou fnd shocking about ling the group into mainstream consciousness and festival-headliner slots. This year today’s dance-music Phoenix released their ffth studio album, Bankrupt!, the band’s highest charting album culture? to date, and continued headlining festivals from Coachella to Lollapalooza. Vegas Seven Even when we partied, we hooked up with Phoenix guitarist and keyboardist Laurent “Branco” Brancowitz. Fun were very disconnected to fact: Branco’s previous band, Darlin’, was a trio whose two other members would become the actual dance-party thing. Daft Punk. See Phoenix on October 8 at the Boulevard Pool. Even when we were making music that had some eleuse different formulas and listen back, but a few days ments of dance music, it was Your commercial success make something new. after so we have sort of more an abstraction than came after moving from forgotten our intention. the real activity of going into a major label to an indie You told NPR, “We’re a club. This feeling label. Why? more editors than musiHow does Phoenix of being disconOur music has always cians.” What does that achieve this brief, nected remains. I PHOENIX been a bit weird compared mean? freaky style? enjoy it from the to what’s on the radio and We try to be brief with When we are writoutside. The truth 9 p.m. Oct. 8 what people believe music our music. We keep it kind ing music and we is we are not dancat Boulevard should sound like to be sucof freaky, like magicians come across somePool at the ers, and when [we] cessful. We needed to fnd who want to be amazed by thing that seems Cosmomake music that is the right label, one that was our own magic tricks. You familiar, we realize politan, $35, danceable, it’s from as crazy as us and as fearhave to put yourself in the it is a trend that has Cosmopolithe perspective of less. Big companies tend to position of not really knowalready been done. tanLasVepeople who are sitfollow a formula. But when ing what’s happening, even You have to bypass gas.com. ting on a chair. we make music, we try to if you know the secret. We the moment and
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GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS AND FLAMETHROWERS At the halfway point of Mötley Crüe’s 12-show residency, vocalist Vince Neil says it’s going well. “There’s a lot going on in this show—a lot of fire,” he says about the Crüe’s second residency at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel, which is a “completely different show” than last year’s. The previous one was themed Mötley Crüe in Sin City; this one is titled Mötley Crüe Invites You to an Intimate Evening in Hell. Both feature eternal hits “Kickstart My Heart,” “Girls, Girls, Girls” and “Dr. Feelgood.” This one benefits from the addition of flamethrowers and 30-foot fireballs. Neil, who is busy expanding his Strip Club/restaurant empire with the upcoming opening of Tatuado Bar B Q at Circus Circus, says, “We’re just having fun right now.” This was especially true when a female fan kissed him at a recent performance. So what does Neil recommend you wear to Mötley Crüe’s three remaining shows (Oct. 4-6, $45 and up)? “A Mötley Crüe T-shirt.” – Cindi Moon Reed
PEROXIDE POP, HORROR RAP, ROMAN METAL
I’m writing this minutes before I’m scheduled to meet actress Linda Blair, who starred as a demon-possessed girl in The Exorcist I and II. When I was a kid, my parents wouldn’t let me see the films. So I spun the soundtrack on vinyl, listening to Blair’s dialogue and imagining the visual horrors that awaited me. By the time you read this, Blair should’ve signed my vinyl jackets at the Las Vegas Comic Expo. A dream fulfilled. Enough about my musty record collection. Here’s what’s happening this week in underground rock. Blond sisters Jennifer and Jessie Clavin comprise garage-pop duo Bleached. In April, the siblings released their first album, Ride Your Heart. It earned positive reviews for a late-’70s New York punk style that bridges the years between the Shangri-Las and the Donnas. Fans of Best Coast and the White Stripes will appreciate Bleached’s minimalist approach—even though the Clavin girls tour with a live drummer and bassist. If you dig the gritty indie-surf sound that’s in vogue (Wavves, Ty Segall), your eardrums will hang ten at 9 p.m. October 3 at Beauty Bar. Another duo, this one by way of Detroit, arrives at LVCS at 8 p.m. October 6. Twiztid is a hip-hop horrorcore act—think of these guys as violent, supernatural gangstarappers who paint their faces white like the Joker. Twiztid’s has recorded studio albums since 1997, their most recent disc being 2012’s Abominationz (released via Insane Clown Posse’s label). Murder and bodilyfluid references abound, which makes this show an ideal Halloween warm-up. Just don’t eat any candy they throw at you. I’m sure it has been razor-bladed. Also on the bill: War Paint, Ekoh. Another Michigan band, We Came As Romans, conquers the Hard Rock Live at 5 p.m. October 7. The 8-year-old group dropped a new disc called Tracing Back Roots, which offers traces of symphonic metal. Romans are aggressive, yet deeply melodic, as evidenced by their radio-friendly yet mosh pit-exploding single “Hope.” Also on the bill: Silverstein, Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!, The Color Morale and Dangerkids. Finally, Radiation City nukes Beauty Bar at 10 p.m. October 9. The Portland, Oregon-based dream-poppers specialize in crashing waves of synths and guitar chords. The standout track on Radiation City’s new album, Animals in the Median, is “Zombies,” which is either about hipster malaise or a fictional plague that wipes out Earth. Maybe both. In any case, it’s catchy, fraught with danger and the video’s rad, too. Your Vegas band releasing a CD soon? Email Jarret_Keene@Yahoo.com.
A&E
CONCERTS
INDIA.ARIE
JW Marriott, Sept. 28 India.Arie opened her headlining set for the Las Vegas Jazz Festival with a prayer in song and then a request of the audience. “I would like you to enjoy what you see here onstage. I would like you to listen with your ears so you can hear the lyrics, which explain how I got here. And I would like you to listen with your heart, so that we may experience together God’s moment perfectly.” The folksy, rootsy and recently shorn chanteuse/guitarist launched into an unhurried journey through the songs of her most recent album, Songversation. Her folk-tinged soul style related
themes of heartbreak, introspection and affirmation that often had female audience members dancing and singing along. The vocal harmonizing between Arie and her backup singers was exquisite, particularly during the moving “Break the Shell.” The exceptional accompanying band featured her longtime collaborator, guitarist Blue Miller, who showcased R&B lines, as well as providing vocals late in the set. The inspirational evening appeared to leave guests with their spirit satisfied and their hearts full of love and hope. ★★★★✩ – Danny Axelrod
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Orleans Showroom, Sept. 29 As opener Robert Davi sang “I’ve Got the World on a String” and the big band swelled behind him, the years fell away until Old Vegas was new again. With his black suit, red pocket square, Eddie Munster hairline, Italian-American accent and pinky ring, Davi’s odes to Frank Sinatra were so authentic they bordered on ghostly. “I don’t know what the hell ‘twerking’ is,” Davi told an audience that likely didn’t know what it was either, “but it won’t be here 60 years from now like Don Rickles is.” If Davi was all about a retiring comfort—convincing the audience that the Old Way was still alive and well somewhere, if only on this showroom stage—Rickles showed that time and age were inconsequential. Sure the 87-year-old comedian danced with a hunched shuffle, but, hell, he was dancing. And
singing. And bopping the bandleader in the “spider” with his microphone. And leading two jarringly anachronistic audience members in a WWII-era reenactment of a Japanese soldier’s hara-kiri. And describing hilariously outrageous sex games with his wife of 48 years with his vigorous, booming delivery (one that lasted 90 minutes on the second night of performing before any hint of hoarseness). “I started in this town 60 years ago in the Sahara,” Rickles reminisced in a rare quiet moment. And it seemed that many of his jokes came from that era … or before. “We have a note?” Rickles received a scrap of paper from the bandleader, read it and quipped, “They found the Lindbergh kid.” It brought down the house. In case the reference was before your time, and it
almost certainly was, the Lindbergh kid was kidnapped and found dead in 1932. Still, the joke felt new. Credit a lifetime of perfected delivery. Also, Rickles kept it fresh by interspersing classic material with unrelenting taunts against his band and audience, especially mocking the underdressed fans. “I came here when it was just dirt and wise guys—now I have you.” When a female fan yelled out, “I love you, Don!” he replied charmingly, “Thank you, sweetheart,” and then deadpanned, “An old hooker. Find out where she’s sitting and shoot her.” “Screw you people, I’m a funny son of a bitch,” declared Mr. Warmth. And he most certainly was entertaining. The Sahara may be gone, but this fixture from the Rat Pack era is still alive and joking. ★★★★★ – Cindi Moon Reed
INDIA ARIE PHOTO BY MYRON HENSEL
October 3–9, 2013
DON RICKLES
POP CULTURE A&E
The Black List Goes Neon
A Hollywood screenwriting powerhouse comes Downtown. Could it mark the beginning of a new era for flm in Vegas?
The Black List, which compiles the best scripts that haven’t been made into movies, has become an annual touchstone for Hollywood movers and shakers. Of the 600 or so scripts that have made the list since 2005, 200 have been produced, three of the last fve won Best Picture Oscars and seven have taken Best Writing Oscars, whether original or adapted. That includes last year’s Original Screenplay winner Django Unchained and Adapted Screenplay winner Argo, which also took Best Picture. Screenwriter Chis Terrio, in fact, said that Ben Affeck found Argo because of its inclusion on the Black List. But the Screenwriters Lab is a new project as the Black List pushes into unexplored territory, becoming a screen-
into the ’70s Los Angeles punk scene to Nick Malik’s Year of the Woodcock!, which follows “a delusional cripple who blackmails his estranged brother into fnding him a date for the biggest night of his life.” It was, of course, an encounter between Leonard and Tony
to be a good writer. And B) your ability to network doesn’t determine whether you’re a good writer or not,” he says. “Most of the great writers I know are terrible networkers, because they’d rather be at home writing. I’d rather work with a writer who’d rather
“FOR US IT’S ABOUT MAKING SURE THE GAP BETWEEN BEING A WORKING SCREENWRITER AND AN ASPIRING SCREENWRITER IS BEING A GOOD SCREENWRITER.” – Franklin Leonard
writing clearinghouse where aspiring writers can upload scripts, and executives can peruse content curated by a collection of former frontline studio script readers. The mentors include Billy Ray (The Hunger Games, Captain Phillips), Kiwi Smith (10 Things I Hate About You, Legally Blonde), Brian Koppelman (Rounders, Runner Runner) and Jenny Lumet (Rachel Getting Married). The participants come from across the country and are working on a wide range of projects, from Jan Arnold’s Afronell, about a teen musician in South Central trying to break
Hsieh that put the wheels in motion. Leonard came to one of Hsieh’s catalyst weekends in April, facilitated by a mutual Harvard classmate, and the entrepreneur offered Leonard use of crash space in the Ogden. Now six months later, that’s where the bulk of the Lab will take place, with mentors and writers pairing off at whatever Downtown locations strike their fancy. “In a world where the Internet exists, there’s no excuse for a culture where people are like ‘We’ll move out to L.A. and start networking.’ A) you shouldn’t have to live in L.A.
be at home writing than at a club talking to an agent trying to get them to sign. For us it’s about making sure the gap between being a working screenwriter and an aspiring screenwriter is being a good screenwriter.” Inarguably, no matter how you feel about the Downtown Project and its sometimes creepily unifed vision for the future of Downtown, this is a win for the area. Whether Las Vegas can ever be a flm mecca is wide open for debate. Movies shoot here all the time, and always will, for location. It will never
function like Pittsburgh or Toronto—convenient metropolitan stand-ins where the skyline is ambiguous enough to pose as Any City, U.S.A. Nor will it ever be Los Angeles or New York City. What Vegas can be, though, is Park City, Utah. Or Austin, Texas. A place with a vibrant enough flm culture to support a strong festival (we’ve done it before) and enough ancillary events (and shoots) to make this a permanent outpost of the movie-making machine—not just a location backdrop for Ocean’s 14, 15 and 16. (Unless that’s the only way we can get Clooney to hang out. He’s so dream—er, cool. He seems really cool to hang out with.) Something like the Screenwriters Lab is a strong step in the right direction, and coupled with our CineVegas past and Las Vegas Film Festival present, proof that the future can accommodate more than what we’ve got going on now. Because otherwise, I’m going to have to go to L.A. to fulfll my lifelong dream of being an extra in the next Star Wars movie, and I really don’t like putting all that wear and tear on my car.
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FOR THE SLOTS-DEPRIVED, lamenting the Gold Spike’s move from boutique casino to Zappos playpen, there’s consolation to be had in at least one area: It’s entirely possible a future Oscar winner will be hashed out there between September 30 and October 5. Six aspiring screenwriters were selected to take part in the inaugural Black List Screenwriters Lab to meet with four screenwriter mentors in Downtown Las Vegas. For a community constantly seeking the heir to CineVegas, this could very well be its spiritual successor in terms of talent and artistic ambition. Franklin Leonard was working as a junior executive in Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way production company in 2005 when he wanted to go on vacation and get a little work done. But instead of grabbing the latest stack of scripts, he sent an email to his colleagues across several companies asking for the best scripts they’d read. The Black List was born. (James Spader’s The Blacklist would have to wait eight years.) “I was reading as many screenplays as I could get my hands on, and the vast majority of them were mediocre to bad. I knew also because I was working for one of the biggest stars in the world, I must be seeing the best material. Most of it still was not good. It left me with this reality that one of two things was happening,” he says. “Either the job was to read terrible material, or the job was to fnd good material and I was bad at my job. One of those two things was happening, neither of them was good, and it probably meant that my mother calling me once a week to ask about law school was something I should take more seriously.”
October 3–9, 2013
By Jason Scavone
stage
X Factor A rocking new topless revue at the Rio is topped of by imagination and style
STRIP POSTSCRIPT: Super superlatives and heightened hype equal promotion for … Criss Angel. Our Master of Self-Regard’s new Spike TV series, Criss Angel BeLIEve, debuts October 15. Surely written by publicists but likely approved by him, a press release includes these rapturous passages: “Criss Angel sets out to confrm he’s the greatest magician of all time. … Each week, Angel will attempt bold and audacious demonstrations never attempted by any mystifer in history. … Viewers will also get a glimpse into Angel’s dangerous and mysterious life. … For over a decade, Criss Angel has dominated the world of magic as the biggest name on the planet. His visionary approach to the art escapes the confnes of tradition and has given birth to a new breed of modern mysticism.” Making massive objects vanish is his forte. Obviously his ego isn’t among them. Got an entertainment tip? Email Steve.Bornfeld@VegasSeven.com.
October 3–9, 2013
accompaniment of Blood, Sweat and Tears’ “Spinning Wheel.” Oversized gift ribbons are knotted across their chesty assets as they frolic in a bed of roses during Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.” Day-Glo G-strings, lingerie and body handprints light up the semidarkness. Nodding to the ’80s, there is writhing across an 8-track-player prop blasting Whitesnake. One woman is fake-fried in a sci-f-style electric chair. Another performs a twirly-legs-only routine, the rest of her body obscured by the curtain. Plus the usual: country-music hoofng, woman in a cage, pole-dancing and more topless yadda-yadda with hottie-hotties. Conceived with panache and inventiveness, X Rocks augments this kitschy genre with an entertaining implant.
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X marks the breasts. Now it gets its Rocks off, too. Another topless mammary entry isn’t news, merely the next chapter in our endless skin epic, Moby Dick Bait. Yet the Rio’s new X Rocks, from the erotic stable of the Stabiles (producers Angela and Matt), adds wit to the tits, a push-up-bra improvement over their last endeavor, The D’s revival of relatively fat-chested (creatively speaking) Raack N Roll. Similar to Raack, fve X Rocks sexpots thrust, grind and slither on the King’s Room stage to earbusting hits by Slash & the Conspirators, Muse, Metallica, Awolnation, Alice in Chains, Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath, among others. Imagination is the difference—clever accompanying videos, intriguing set pieces, nifty lighting. Projected images roll off ladies’ undulating bods like the opening montage of a James Bond fick. Monitors abutting the stage garnish the dancing and breast-ing. Whirling psychedelic images fash by, as do lyric snippets (“My girlfriend’s a dick magnet” from “Bad Girlfriend” by Theory of a Deadman) and segment-setters (“I was chaste; now I’m chased,” as a nice girl goes naughty). Shortly after tits and nips make their inaugural appearance it’s clear X Rocks aims beyond being a whambam-thank-you-boobs bonanza. Numerous numbers are intricately choreographed. Particularly impressive is one set to Alice Cooper’s “The Black Widow” and against a spider web from which dancers hang and gyrate upside down alongside an eerie video of a black widow spider. Tight buns slide across motorcyclestyle chairs outftted with handlebars and headlights. Supple ladies pirouette within and atop a hanging hoop to the
A&E
movies
First-rate Formula Director Ron Howard chronicles an over-the-top racetrack rivalry in 1976 By Michael Phillips
Tribune Media Services it’s big, brash and dramatically it goes in circles. The frst two may be enough for most people, especially if they’re into Formula One racing, to overlook the third. With Rush, director Ron Howard brings a long, earnest career’s worth of expertise to bear on a two-headed Formula One biopic, dramatizing the rivalry between dashingly louche Englishman James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and the rigid, cautious Austrian ace Niki Lauda, portrayed by Daniel Brühl. The Grand Prix competition between Hunt and Lauda in the 1976 racing season, full of tense reversals and scary track conditions all over the world, is more than enough movie for a movie. On a technical and atmospheric level, Howard and his collaborators have a ball with the 1970s-ness of everything, from the hair to the clothes to the widescreen, supersaturated images of blazing color.
For Howard, who started out directing features 36 years ago with Grand Theft Auto, Rush ushers him back into his own past (he was acting on Happy Days on TV during this time) while allowing him to exploit his filmmaking knowledge. There’s a fair amount of digital effects work in the racing sequences, designed to push you ever closer to the high-velocity death lurking around every hairpin curve. Screenwriter Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Queen) has long proved himself adept at intertwining, interdependent biographical studies. In The Queen, for which Helen Mirren won her Oscar, the character of British Prime Minister Tony Blair (played by Michael Sheen) achieved equal narrative importance. In Rush, Morgan treats the men jockeying for position throughout as contrasting pencil sketches of ’70s-era princes behind the wheel. One is a sober, meticulous
Ron Howard was in a Rush to direct a flick about Formula One racing in the 1970s.
character, the other a carouser who must be taught, by life and circumstance, to respect his rival. “Twentyfive people start Formula One,” Lauda explains at the beginning, “and each year, two die. What kind of person does a job like this?” A gut-wrenching crash plays a major part in this story, by factual necessity, though to be sure Howard is not making a documentary here. (For a terrifc Formula One documentary, do yourself a favor and see director Asif Kapadia’s Senna, about the Brazilian Grand Prix racer Ayrton Senna and his rival,
Frenchman Alain Prost.) By nature a cautious and tidy dramatist, screenwriter Morgan’s sensibility is at odds with the material. The writer doesn’t do much of anything with Lauda, establishing him as a by-the-book prig and leaving it at that. Also, the multilingual Brühl (Inglourious Basterds) works hard, but he’s pretty dull onscreen. If the film finds an American audience, it’ll be because of Hemsworth, best known for swingin’ the hammer in Thor. Hunt, a charismatically reckless party boy, is the kind of guy (according to the script, if not real life)
October 3–9, 2013
short reviews
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Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 (PG) ★★★✩✩
Every now and then an animated sequel comes along and surpasses the original, and this is definitely the case with Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2. Enterprising inventor Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) is back. The island of Swallow Falls is evacuated by Live Corp., led by Chester V (Will Forte). But Lockwood’s food replicator is still alive and kicking. Strange and tasty things have been spawned on the island, food-animal hybrids of uncertain bloodthirstiness. Hilarity ensues. This is not your ordinary sequel, it’s great.
Baggage Claim (PG-13) ★✩✩✩✩
In this strained and cliché rom-com, Paula Patton plays Montana, a flight attendant so incensed by her younger sister’s engagement that she vows to find a wed-able date to take to that sister’s nuptials. Her besties (Adam Brody, Jill Scott, etc.) use their professional connections to hurl Montana in the path of her most promising exes, by way of ticket tracking and jumping through the security line. Patton tries incredibly too hard, and the film is just not good.
Prisoners (R) ★★★✩✩
In this dark well-made thriller, Keller Dover’s (Hugh Jackman) daughter and her friend go missing in the Pennsylvania woods on Thanksgiving. At first they seem more misplaced than lost. A frantic search ensues. No one is found. The police are brought in, notably Det. Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal), who gets goaded into action by Dover. Paul Dano worms around as Alex, the chief suspect. Keller becomes judge, jury and potential executioner when he kidnaps Alex. An impressive film with great performances.
who proposes to model Suzy Miller (Olivia Wilde, in a swank variety of enormous hats) mere seconds after they meet. Hemsworth lives for excess, and just as Hunt brought a boozy sort of panache to the sport, Hemsworth conveys genuine enthusiasm for whatever he’s doing onscreen without going over the top. Where the events of 1976 took these two is fascinating history. But Rush, while never dull, rarely feels dramatically alive; it hits its marks dutifully and darts onward. Rush (R) ★★★✩✩
[ by tribune media services ]
Battle of the Year (PG-13) ★★✩✩✩
How long before hip-hop isn’t cool? This is what worries Dante (Laz Alonso), who has to protect his music, dance and fashion by putting American b-boys back on top. He hires his old dance buddy, W.B. (for “Wonder Bread,” and played by Josh Holloway) to recruit and coach a dream team of the best of America’s best to take on the rest of the world. That team consists of assorted arrogant showoffs, including singer Chris Brown in the role of Rooster. You’ve seen this many times before, but this one’s OK.
movies
The Family (R) ★★✩✩✩
This sequel picks up moments after the first one. Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) is a demon-possessed family man. His wife, played by Rose Byrne, returns as his justifiably paranoid spouse, who keeps losing her children. This installment isn’t slovenly, but it’s a jumble. There are too many reliable gotchas, like an invisible someone playing the piano, closet doors opening on their own, etc. It’s no wonder director James Wan has expressed a desire to get out of horror for a while.
This violent action comedy stars Robert De Niro as Giovanni Manzoni, who ratted out his mob pals back in Brooklyn and now has a $20 million price on his head. And he’s in France. Maggie (Michelle Pfeiffer), the long-suffering wife, moves with him to yet another town where they yet again need to fit in. And Tommy Lee Jones takes a turn as a government agent who tries to keep the family alive, and keep the incidents with the locals to a minimum. Director Luc Besson isn’t exactly comfortable with comedy.
Riddick (R) ★★★✩✩
Closed Circuit (R) ★★★✩✩
One Direction: This Is Us (PG)
Getaway (PG-13) ★✩✩✩✩
Vin is back in this installment of the Pitch Black sci-fi franchise. We open on a hot, scrubby planet, where our antihero (Vin Diesel), betrayed by the Necromongers, is left for dead among the beasts of the swamps. Riddick tries to survive in isolation, and eventually the bounty hunters, some old, some new, come for him. Especially good is Katee Sackhoff of Battlestar Galactica. It’s a simple, compact sequel, and it knows its goals and limitations.
★★✩✩✩
Yes, One Direction is still a thing, and, yes, there are plenty of tweens out there who want to see this concert flick. The film captures the five lads that Simon Cowell handpicked as they rocket up the charts and into arenas around the world. Sure, they come off as good lads, running around, bonding on a tour bus across Europe, the occasional stroll down a public street ... until they’re mobbed. All in all, it’s pretty whitewashed and prepackaged, so if you care, you’ll see it. If you don’t, you won’t.
A bomb goes off in London. More than 100 people die. The incident, and so much of daily life, is captured on surveillance cameras. The accused Muslim terrorist is assigned counsel. Martin Rose (Eric Bana) works with his client in a closely watched public trial. But the state has unearthed evidence so sensitive that another private trial is required—and separate counsel (Rebecca Hall). The counselors were lovers once but proceed without revealing it. It’s a pretty good movie, despite its plot holes.
Brent Magna (Ethan Hawke) is a former professional race car driver living in Sofia, Bulgaria. His wife (Rebecca Budig) gets kidnapped on Christmas and held in a warehouse so that a criminal mastermind known as The Voice (Jon Voight) can blackmail Hawke’s character into a series of tasks behind the wheel of a custom Ford Shelby GT500 Super Snake. At one point, Selena Gomez jumps into the passenger seat and attempts to steal back her car. The rest is more of the same weak effort. It’s awkward and pretty lame.
October 3–9, 2013
★★✩✩✩
91 VEGAS SEVEN
Insidious: Chapter 2 (PG-13)
Marketplace
Marketplace
Marketplace
7 QUESTIONS
his friends say that he’s got a four-leaf clover up his butt! [Laughs.] What’s stronger, your baking skills or your business skills? I think it’s equal. I’m obsessive-compulsive. The drive to succeed, whether I’m making a cake or making a deal, is the same. I put the same tools at work, just using different skill sets. If I’m making a cake, it’s with my hands; if I’m trying to make a deal, it’s with my mind, seeing how far I can push things. (Elizabeth Blau interjects): But I know a lot of really good business people, and none of them can bake! [Laughs.] Valastro: Yeah, well, I didn’t go to Harvard Business School! But my business school was running a small business all those years. And I adapt quick—to business, to learning how to make cakes, to cooking, to making TV shows.
The Cake Boss on his new Vegas restaurant, why his TV show was destined for success and why fame will never go to his head By Matt Jacob
October 3–9, 2013
THE ITALIAN DISHES hit the table at a steady pace: turkey meatballs, lasagna, linguine and clams, spaghetti pomodoro, shrimp scampi with pasta, a beautiful whitefsh. This isn’t a feast for many, but rather for two—Buddy Valastro (a.k.a. the Cake Boss) and his wife, Lisa. They’ve come to sample the fare at Buddy V’s, the new restaurant in the Grand Canal Shoppes. On the eve of the October 7 opening, Mr. and Mrs. Cake Boss—who have partnered with Las Vegas restaurateur power couple Elizabeth Blau and Kim Canteenwalla—are here to ensure everything at Buddy V’s tastes just as the Valastro family recipes intended. Maybe a little more of this, a little less of that ...
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Why open your first restaurant here instead of back in Jersey? We’ve been trying to do this for about three years, and we looked at places back home that didn’t work out. I did a couple of [television] shoots out here, and met Mr. [Sheldon] Adelson, and the more we talked, the more it felt like I belonged in the Venetian—the feel, the décor, the style, just even the principles. When you talk to somebody and they’re cut from the same cloth as you— hardworking and self-made— I have a lot of admiration for
people like that. So we just instantly hit it off. The menu is based on old family recipes. So who was in charge of tutoring the chefs? In my Lackawanna [New Jersey bakery] facility, I have a beautiful state-of-the-art kitchen, because I always knew we’d do something with food. So we few in all of the chefs from Vegas, and then we had my whole family there: me, my wife, my mother-in-law, my aunt, my sisters—anybody whom I think are my culinary rock stars—and we all cooked with a different chef. We had a
two-day extravaganza. Watching my old Italian aunt yell at the chef (adopts a thick Italian accent), “No, No! You do it like it like this!” … My family came with their own pans, like, “The only way you can make the manicotti is in this pan!” [Laughs.] Forget about it. It was hilarious. How long after your dad died and you were thrust to the forefront of the family bakery business did you know you’d be able to successfully carry the torch? I struggled, man. But about three years in, I started to see
When did you know Cake Boss would be a hit? I vowed to make it a hit. I’ll never forget the story with my frst agent—never forget it. He came into my offce, and I said, “I have this TV show that’s coming out, and this show is going to be successful.” And he kind of gave me this look like, “I hear this every day.” And I said, “No, you don’t understand my work ethic, my drive. I don’t fail. I’m going to make this happen.” Now, I didn’t think it was going to get as big as it did. But when I do something … tell him, honey (turns to his wife). Lisa: Buddy does not fail. He gives it 110 percent, and it’s usually successful. A lot of
How would your father have reacted had he been alive to see you open this restaurant? He would’ve loved it. If my dad could be here and see me on the Vegas Strip—when I called my wife the other night after seeing the restaurant for the frst time, that’s who I thought of: my parents. At the end of the day, I feel like I’m doing this for a lot of people— I’m doing it for my family, I’m doing it for my friends. I’m just a kid from Hoboken, New Jersey. And now look (gestures to the restaurant). Wow. It’s surreal. I’m living proof that anything is possible.
What’s the Cake Boss’ least favorite cake to eat? Find out at VegasSeven.com/Valastro.
PHOTO BY JIM K. DECKER
Buddy Valastro
that things were on track. And once I got the reins, it was like, “All right, now how do I make this even more successful? I [fgured out] what my dad did, and we got that under control. Now what mark do I want to put on the business?” I was probably 21 years old, and that’s when I started moving toward the big, elaborate cakes.
How diffcult has it been dealing with fame? Honestly, remain humble, remain true to who you are, and never forget who’s really important. Like my wife and I, we’re still very much in love. We have a great relationship, and my kids are so important to me. Am I fattered, and does it feel great when I walk into a room and there are 3,000 people screaming your name? Yeah, it’s a high. But I still remember who I am and where I came from.