RODNEYCARRINGTON

Laughter’s Good

DON’T MAKE ME COME DOWN THERE!

www.RodneyCarrington.com

June 6 – 12For tickets, call 866.740.7711

or visit mgmgrand.com

www.lifeisbeautifulfestival.com

Cirque du Soleil

The Beatles Love • Michael Jackson One • Mystére • “o” • Zarkana • Kà • Zumanity • CRISS ANGEL Believe

Food

Bruce & Eric Bromberg • Scott Conant • • Jonathan Waxman • • Hubert Keller• • Cat Cora • Michael Mina • Chris Cosentino • Rick Moonen • • Kim Canteenwalla• • Jet Tila • Donald Link • T• om ColicchioTTMichael Symon • Aaron• • David Burke • Charlie Palmer • Mary Sue Milliken • Susan Feniger•Paul Bartolotta Sancheza • David Myers • Todd English • Kerry Simon • Carla Pellegrino •André RochatSventt • SVEN • Mede • Marcel Vigneron • Mike Minor • Megan Romano•Elias Cairo • Josh Graves • Jason Tuley • • Rebecca Wilcomb• • Ben HammondGrant MacPherson • Michael Kornick • Natalie Young • • Dan Coughlin• • ean KinoshitaMassimiliano Campanari • Carlos Buscaglia • Vinod-Ahuja • • Manuel Hinojosa•

Bruce & Eric Bromberg • Scott Conant • Jonathan Waxman • Hubert Keller • Cat Cora • Michael Mina • Chris Cosentino • Rick Moonen • Kim Canteenwalla • Jet Tila • Donald Link • Tom ColicchioMichael Symon • Aaron • David Burke • Charlie Palmer Mary Sue Milliken • Susan FenigerPaul Bartolotta Sanchez • David Myers • Todd English • Kerry Simon • Carla Pellegrino André RochatSven • SVEN Mede • Marcel Vigneron • Mike Minor • Megan RomanoElias Cairo • Josh Graves • Jason Tuley • Rebecca Wilcomb • Ben HammondGrant MacPherson • Michael Kornick • Natalie Young • Dan Coughlin • ean KinoshitaMassimiliano Campanari • Carlos Buscaglia • Vinod-Ahuja • Manuel Hinojosa

Beck • Imagine Dragons • Pretty LightsEmpire of the Sun • Passion Pit • Jurassic 5childish gambino • STS9 • Purity Ring • Big Gigantic • Portugal. The ManDanny Brown • Dawes • Andrew McMahon • earl sweatshirt • The Joy Formidable Charli XCX • Living Colour • Allen Stone • Capital Cities • Haim • Youngblood HawkeTwenty One Pilots • ZZ Ward • Poolside • Family of the YearRobert DeLong • wallpaper. • Five Knives • Cayucas • Cosmic SuckerpunchKnocked Up Kids • Moondog matinee • Shalvoy Music • Most Thieves • Rusty Maples • Kid Meets Cougar • Same Sex MaryBeau Hodges Band • DJ 88 • The Dirty Hooks • American Cream • Sabriel • Crazy Chief • Supra • HaleAmanOA crowD of small adventures • Jordan Kate Mitchell • DJ ZO • JOEY PERO AND HIS BAND • Albi Loves Chicken Tenders

childish gambinochildish gambino •• STS9 STS9 • •• Purity RingPurity Ring •• Big Gigantic Big Gigantic• •• Portugal. The ManPortugal. The ManDanny BrownDanny Brown •• DawesDawes •• Andrew McMahonAndrew McMahon •• earl sweatshirt earl sweatshirt• •• The Joy FormidableThe Joy FormidableCharliXCXCharli XCX •• Living Colour Living Colour• •• Allen Stone Allen Stone •• Capital CitiesCapital Cities •• HaimHaim •• Youngblood HawkeYoungblood HawkeTwenty One PilotsTwenty One Pilots •• ZZ WardZZ Ward •• Poolside Poolside • •• Family of the Year Family of the Year•Robert DeLongRobert DeLong wallpaper.• wallpaper. •• Five KnivesFive Knives •• Cayucas Cayucas • •• Cosmic Suckerpunch Cosmic Suckerpunch•Knocked Up KidsKnocked Up Kids •• Moondog matinee Moondog matinee • •• Shalvoy Music Shalvoy Music • •• Most Thieves Most Thieves • •• Rusty Maples Rusty Maples • •• Kid Meets Cougar Kid Meets Cougar• •• Same Sex MarySame Sex MaryBeau Hodges BandBeau Hodges Band •• DJ 88DJ 88 •• The Dirty HooksThe Dirty Hooks •• American CreamAmerican Cream •• SabrielSabriel •• Crazy ChiefCrazy Chief •• SupraSupra •• HaleAmanOHaleAmanOA crowD of small adventuresA crowD of small adventures •• Jordan Kate MitchellJordan Kate Mitchell •• DJ ZODJ ZO •• JOEY PERO AND HIS BAND JOEY PERO AND HIS BAND •• Albi Loves Chicken TendersAlbi Loves Chicken Tenders

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June 15-16 Health, Healing and Happiness Conference at Springs Preserve (Health-Healing-Happiness.com) June 21 Sundown in Downtown at Las Vegas Natural History Museum (LVNHM.org)

Shopping SpreeThe Neon Bazaar pop-up market lit up Down-

town on June 1 with a showcase of homegrown

vendors and their handcrafted goods. El Cortez’s

Jackie Gaughan Plaza served as host, with 50

small businesses displaying items ranging from

beef jerky to custom jewelry, with shops such

as Coterie, Artifact and Gaia Flowers among the

participants. An estimated 1,500 locals stopped

by to shop, including Zappos honcho Tony Hsieh

and Life Is Beautiful festival founder (and this

week’s cover subject) Rehan Choudhry. Insert

Coin(s) owner Christopher LaPorte, food critic

Al Mancini and artist Jerry Misko all took a dip in

the dunk tank, which raised nearly $1,000 for the

Keep Memory Alive foundation.

Gastro Fare. Nurtured Ales. Jukebox Gold.

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SuShi, 88 Cent OySterS and Free dirty COmedyIn Las Vegas we can get an all-you-can-eat

deal by hitting one of about 50 casino buffets

any day of the week, but there are some strong

plays outside the casinos, too. One of the best

is an unlimited sushi deal at Sushi Mon (9770

S. Maryland Pkwy.). This is a powerhouse at

$21.95 for lunch and $26.95 for dinner, with a

big window of availability from 11:45 a.m. to 1

a.m., and a huge selection and high-grade fish.

Anyone who’s done the typical all-you-can-eat

sushi deal knows that there’s almost always

at least one of these elements missing from

the equation, but not here. Remember it’s the

eastside Sushi Mon; the one on the west has

higher prices.

• On Tuesday nights, Rhythm Kitchen (6435

S. Decatur Blvd.) has all-you-can-eat snow

crab legs for $32. Set up in the dining room or

the bar and go to work—you keep eatin’ and

they keep bringin’. The legs are a little bigger

than average for snow, and they’re prepared

perfectly. So you can put a serious dent into

any crab-leg cravings you may be fostering.

The special comes with bread and one side

dish from a choice of about a dozen.

• How about an oyster? Better yet, how about

an oyster for under a dollar? The city’s best oys-

ter deals usually come in at a buck-a-pop, but

you can do even better Mondays through Thurs-

days from noon to 4 p.m. at South Point, where

raw oysters and clams are half price in the Big

Sur Oyster Bar. The normal price for a dozen

oysters on the half shell there is $21, which is

$1.75 per. At half off it’s just $10.50, or 88 cents

apiece, which is the best per-oyster price Las

Vegas has seen in a long time. A dozen littleneck

clams on the half shell are $8.50 (71 cents

apiece). Or get half and half for $9.50.

• Speaking of South Point, it’s hosting a

new, free, late-night, R-rated comedy show

presented by Ralphie May and Gabe Lopez

called The Dirty. The show features different

guest comics weekly, performing at 12:30

a.m. every Saturday (in other words, 30

minutes after midnight on Fridays).

• Through July 14, play six hours of live

poker Sunday through Thursday at the Riviera

and get a free room for the night. On Fridays

and Saturdays, get a reduced rate of $45. Play

can be split between two room occupants, and

hours can be banked.

• Are you holding any Canadian dollars?

The best place to exchange them is the Golden

Gate, where you get a 5 percent bonus in slot

free-play or table-game match play, up to a limit

of $200 per day. Not packing any Loonies? Just

get one of those great shrimp cocktails.

Anthony Curtis is the publisher of the Las Vegas

Advisor and LasVegasAdvisor.com. Illu

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Community Feeling, Down to the Bones

nOt lOng aFter UNLV held a pro-gram called Game Change about “how Brookings Mountain West and the Lincy Institute are Refram-ing Policy in Southern Nevada,” I learned that the Tony Roma’s on East Sahara Avenue had closed.

The confuence of these events got me thinking of how a think tank is like a rib joint. Stay with me, now …

Brookings and Lincy are research centers designed, as Brookings says, to “serve as a platform to bring ideas and expertise together and facilitate … discussions about the West’s future.” Lincy “conducts and supports research that focuses on improving Nevada’s health, educa-tion and social services.”

Brookings presents frequent lec-tures and publications by national scholars on important issues, and gives space and institutional heft to support faculty and others in their research. It promotes economic di-versifcation and collaboration with other experts and regions to im-prove life in the Southwest. Director Rob Lang has become a valuable resource of information and ideas.

The institute has also backed bi-partisan legislation—some of which gets bottled up because of opposi-tion from Northern Nevada—and has provided data for the Legis-lature’s Southern Nevada caucus, which might vote together someday.

Lincy has several initiatives in research and action. Nevada has the nation’s highest percentage of 3- to 5-year-olds not in preschool or kindergarten, and Lincy is working with public and private institutions

to try to fx that. It had another program to determine the gaps in mental health services (the gap that comes to mind is the Grand Can-yon) and improve child welfare.

In other words, Brookings and Lincy provide a place for members of the community to share knowledge and ideas—an enlightened public square of the sort we long needed. These organizations provide what Bill Clinton had in mind when he told a local group that any commu-nity would beneft from gathering locals at round tables and requiring them to sit next to people of opposing views. They just might solve some problems.

OK, so what does this have to do with Tony Roma’s?

Tony Roma’s had tables. It served food. What better way to bring com-munities, ideas and expertise togeth-er than over some tasty barbecue?

Alas, Tony Roma’s at Sahara and Sixth long ago stopped bringing together anything like a critical mass of movers and shakers. But the neighborhood used to be one of the Valley’s most important spots. It seems strange to say in the age of ce-lebrity chefs, but the nearby Sizzler (now gone), Marie Callender’s and Tony Roma’s were literally where the elite would meet to eat. Neighbors knew one another and talked there. They even hatched some projects, political and social.

Tony Roma’s also became a mob hangout, though less noted than some others. While perhaps unworthy of being on the National Register of Historic Places, it is where Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal had gone to pick up food when his car blew up on October 4, 1982, an event depicted—with some embel-lishment—in the flm Casino.

The mob as we knew it is gone, as is the surrounding neighbor-hood, which changed economi-cally (less upper-middle-class) and demographically (more diverse). Committed locals are trying to pre-serve, promote and revive a sense of community in the vicinity through events that bring them together and being active in the greater Down-town area. Sometimes it’s as simple as seeing each other in neigh-borhood hangouts. These days, Downtown areas such as Fremont East provide hope for those kinds of discussions and connections.

So do Brookings and Lincy. They don’t do coffee klatsches, but South-ern Nevada is blessed to have respect-ed, legitimate research centers that connect people and generate new ideas. They refect great progress in the local life of the mind.

The closing of that old Tony Roma’s, then, is an occasion to think about the underappreciated political and cultural role played by simple spots where people of different persua-sions can meet and cut a deal. And perhaps the heir to Roma’s isn’t a restaurant at all, but a pair of think tanks dedicated to the discussion of what ails us—and how to heal it.

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The Return of Sprawl ThinkingWill Las Vegas overbuild again?

By Brian Sodoma

FirsT, The good news: Home and land prices have hit the bottom and bounced. There is plenty of buyer demand, and even condos are hot again. Banks seem more willing to lend. And even with the sobering subtext of scant inventory tied to housing appreciation, we can’t help but think things are getting better.

Meanwhile, we’re working to reinvigorate Downtown. Heck, our biggest local celeb-rity over the past two years isn’t an entertainer or casino mogul, but a shoes-and-tech-nology guy who seems to like the erstwhile Glitter Gulch for its potential as a place to live. As for the suburbs, we’ve entered a phase of helpful infill, with developers finish-ing off abandoned subdivi-sions and bringing a dose of optimism.

Now the bad news: There could be some 60,000 to 80,000 distressed homes coming through the pipeline again. Notices of default are booming, and real estate analysis firm SalesTraq shows more than 60,000 homeown-ers are either past due on their mortgage payments or already in foreclosure right now. This comes at a time when homebuilders are enjoying solid demand for new homes, to the point that they are saying we’ve got an affordable-land drought in the market.

Land prices have climbed from just north of $100,000 an acre in the first quarter of 2011 to more than $170,000 today, and builders, while still far off from their boom-year production, say there’s a need for more land to meet demand. The Bureau of Land Management has about 30,000 acres it could auction in Clark County, according to a recent Las Vegas Review-Journal report, and another 110,000 acres outside of metro Las Vegas.

The agency also recently an-nounced that it was consid-ering selling 134 acres, after a public comment period ending June 13. It’s important to note that the BLM does not make the decision to release land; it is a mere facilitator. Under the division’s joint-selection process, it releases parcels after being approached by a city, which in most cases already has an investor want-ing to buy a particular parcel

by the time it calls the BLM, says BLM spokeswoman Hil-lerie Patton. So it’s safe to say these 134 acres have an inves-tor tied to them—most likely one of your friendly neighbor-hood mega-homebuilding corporations.

The sprawl conversation, long dormant because of the Great Recession, may be awak-ening. The economic down-turn forced this entrepre-neurial city to look inward on

matters of economic growth and development; to think about building real walkable, work-live-play environments in its urban core instead of in fringe destinations.

Undoubtedly, one reason to get the traditional suburban new-home market growing again is to provide jobs. New homes have also helped real estate agents and home-buyers tired of competing against cash investors in a tight exist-

ing-home market. The sprawl solution, though, is overly simplistic and sadly familiar. Buy another chunk of land and pack as many homes onto it as possible to grind out a proft—a “build it and Realtors will come” formula that seems to be working again.

These “solutions” to our immediate challenges are a mere facade of economic activity—moving paper and money around to serve the short-term needs of the few. If the real estate industry wants a robust local economy not just for a few years, but for decades to come, it may have to start working on its long game instead. In any case, before we start deciding that we don’t have enough homes, let’s also consider the impact of those 60,000-80,000 homes still making their way through the resale market as foreclosures or short sales.

Today’s rising new-home prices are infated. Median resale-home prices climbed to $161,000 as of March; the new-home median price is now $235,000. In a stable market, the rule of thumb is that resales should be between 80 and 90 percent of new-home prices. If the market slumps with a dump of resale inventory, there’s plenty of room for a new-home price hit—and, yes, today’s fresh new communities could indeed be home to tomorrow’s fresh new foreclosure casualties.

In this context, questioning our sprawl-for-economic-good mindset is less an envi-ronmental concern than it is the fear of another economic smoke screen. Then again, Las Vegas has always been about image. Maybe what’s happen-ing is just fne—until some very natural economic forces tell us differently.

Then we’ll just have to learn the same lessons all over again. If we choose to, of course.

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AngelA edgeworth isn’t your typical shoe saleswoman. Don’t look for stylishly uncomfort-able footwear in her pediped store, which opened June 1 in Town Square. Oh, Edgeworth is all for style—pediped shoes are nothing if not cute. But the real emphasis is on the health of the small feet that fll those shoes.

After Edgeworth saw a gap in the market when searching for orthopedic-friendly shoes for her newborn daughter,

the Henderson-based mother researched the structure and needs of kids’ feet. She became inspired enough to make a career of what she learned. In 2004 she founded pediped and began designing leather-soled shoes that met her standards. Along the way, pediped was awarded the American Podiat-ric Medical Association Seal of Acceptance for the promotion of healthy foot development. Today, the company makes

120 shoe designs for kids, from newborn to 8 years old.

Since its inception, pediped has sold its shoes in 2,000 retailers nationwide and online through the likes of Amazon and Zappos, but the Town Square store (6593 Las Vegas Blvd., South, 564-2246) is the frst shopping-mall outpost (pediped also sells from its website, pediped.com, and a space next to the company’s headquarters in Henderson).

Happy (and HealtHy) Feet

Pediped toddles into Town Square

By Jessi C. Acuña

Angela Edgeworth with her daughters Caroline (left) and Lauren at the grand opening of pediped in Town Square.

[ designs For all ]

Fashion-Forward and Foot-Friendly

Original Grace, $19. Original Jett, $37. Original Piers, $37. Flex Giselle. $49.

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NatioNal

EvEry wEEk, wEathEr permitting, a crew of starstruck earthlings sets up camp on that agora of Bloomberg New York, the High Line, parking their telescopes just south of the Chelsea Mar-ket. “People like looking up,” said David Kauffman, one of the event’s organizers, sporting a blue windbreaker from a Long Island astronomical society at a recent gathering. “I think that’s a natural human thing.”

Even passersby slowed down to investigate.

The Observer watched three college-age women creep up to the telescopes. “That’s so cool,” one gushed as a stargazer explained that, if it weren’t so cloudy, she’d be able to see Jupiter. One of her compan-ions rattled off the mnemonic “My Very Educated Mother” and tried to puzzle out why she couldn’t see Mars, prompting an

explanation of planetary orbits.“You’re here every Tuesday?”

asked the ringleader. “OK, we’ll be back.”

Space, if you haven’t heard, is having a moment. Both the New York Post and New York magazine have tackled the topic in the last month (with an NYC stargazing guide and a space tourism deep dive, respectively). It wasn’t long ago that shuttle launches were

buried deep in the science sec-tion—unless something went wrong—but these days, when astronaut Chris Hadfeld re-cords a version of “Space Odd-ity” on the International Space Station, it warrants a Today mention and a bit of armchair philosophizing from Matt Lauer: “Kids these days don’t care about space exploration like we did. Maybe this will light a fre under these kids.”

Lauer is mistaken.“There has been an incredible

resurgence of interest in space exploration,” said Bert Ulrich, NASA’s multimedia liaison. The Mars Curiosity rover is a viral sensation, and NASA has amassed 1.3 million followers for the little tweeting robot. Hollywood, meanwhile, can’t sweep science fction epics into theaters fast enough. This year alone has brought, or will bring,

Oblivion, another Star Trek, After Earth, Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium, Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity and Ender’s Game. The Big Bang Theory chugs proftably along on CBS, and there’s talk of a drama about space race-era journalists by the creators of Mad Men.

Even apparel makers are cashing in. In 2011, designer Christopher Kane debuted a line of expensive galaxy-print items. Since then, the trend has fltered down to the most mass-market price points. In the past few weeks, this reporter has spotted galaxy-print leggings in the plus-size section of Forever 21 and in the window of a fast-fashion store in Queens.

It’s not an isolated cultural current, either. The superhero of the moment is Iron Man, a.k.a. Tony Stark, a billionaire in-dustrialist inventor often com-pared to Elon Musk, the founder

Space, ManFrom a new Cosmos to galaxy-print leggings,

the heavens are having a moment

By Kelly FairclothThe New York Observer

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the market that you’re operating in sees it as a point of pride. That’s what dictates long-term success and long-term impact.”

Among many other lessons, Choudhry learned that he wasn’t ready to run a festival. He continued working in marketing development for Caesars in Atlantic City. “I spent a lot of time learning what the landscape was like, what the history was like, what was unique to that city. I just started from there, and it changed what my festival looked like.”

BOOKING THE BOOK & STAGE

Choudhry took that hard-earned wisdom with him to his new job as the Cosmopolitan’s frst en-tertainment director for the resort’s 2010 opening. When he arrived in Las Vegas, he scoured the local scene, looking for any cultural gaps in the “Enter-tainment Capital of the World.” He says that fnding and flling a niche for the Cosmo would provoke “the larger, stronger, emotional and social response than you would [get] just by replicating something that already exists.”

One of the few things the Vegas scene didn’t offer, Choudhry realized, was breakout music acts. These are the unknowns who will be famous by the time they are on their next tour, bands that elevate your cool factor just by being able to say you heard them

back when. Choudhry had such acts perform for no admission charge in Book & Stage, a small sports book/music venue right off the Cosmopolitan’s casino foor. The bands—such as Foster the People, Aloe Blacc, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Fitz and the Tantrums—would play two-to-four-night residencies with two shows a night. The format harkened back to the glory days of Old Vegas lounges, but with up-to-the-moment entertainment. During its two-year run (from the casino’s December 2010 opening through 2012), Book & Stage was the coolest place in town, a free, musical utopia that brought locals back again and again, and drew in tourist passersby. Now that Book & Stage has stopped hosting acts, nothing has re-placed the magic that was, and its absence is still felt.

“Book & Stage at Cosmo was largely my show-piece,” Choudhry says. “It gave the market a way to compete with other major music markets with insight, knowledge and experience with artists. That led to a tremendous amount of loyalty and brand stability. They created a solid foundation to continue to innovate off of. We had a base; we had people waving our fag.”

A PAJAMA-CLAD REVOLUTION

After two years of unmitigated success at the Cos-mopolitan, Choudhry wanted to set up a more cre-ative environment for his team. He planned to tear down the offces and replace them with a collabora-tive open space. He also wanted to add a recording studio, a gym, a yoga studio and a quiet room—all in

the effort of fostering creativity. “And they wouldn’t,” Choudhry says of his employees’ response. “You know how companies go from startup to very corpo-rate—my entire team revolted.”

At a friend’s recommendation, Choudhry took his Cosmo entertainment managers on a tour of the famously whimsical Zappos headquarters in January 2012. The team happened to arrive in the middle of a crisis for the online shoe retailer. Zappos had just been hacked and 24 million accounts had been put at risk, and yet everybody seemed to be so happy. Choudhry asked an employee what was with all the joy, and she answered that it was Pajama Day.

“What the—Pajama Day?” Choudhry mimics his fabbergasted reaction. “She looks at me like I’m an idiot and points around, and everyone is in pajamas.”

It struck a chord with Choudhry that Zappos’ worst day was better than a traditional company’s best day. “I left [the tour], and I called my mother and I told her I need to quit my job,” he says. Choudhry put in his notice within a week, exchang-ing what he describes as “the best job in the enter-tainment industry” for “the best job in the world.”

THE SOUNDS OF SERENDIPITY

It was a long process for Choudhry to realize the goals he made during his illness. “I tried to do it at

Caesars. I tried to do it again at Cosmo, but I didn’t fnd what I was looking for. After Cosmo, I found that I needed to completely get out of working for other people.”

After spending years in the safe embrace of large, proft-centric corporations, Choudhry wanted to create a company that elevated the human expe-rience. So he started Aurelian Marketing Group, a “marketing-strategy agency that specializes in entertainment and event development,” out of his apartment at Panorama Towers, which had foor-to-ceiling views of, what else, the Cosmopolitan. It didn’t quite work.

“I realized it wasn’t the most creative environ-ment,” Choudhry says. “And it wasn’t a really great place for inspiration.”

He decided to work at The Beat Coffeehouse at Emergency Arts, a hotbed for people associated with the Downtown Project (a massive community development effort led by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh). As much as Hsieh and his co-conspirators sing the praises of forced serendipitous encounters, one actually did happen for Choudhry, when he connected with the Downtown Project through a mutual friend. The friend is Tom Ellingson of Fandeavor, a ticketing company that sells VIP experiences for sporting events, which happens to be funded by the Downtown Project. Ellingson introduced Choudhry to Zappos co-founder Fred Mosler in July 2012. A month later Life Is Beautiful was green-lit, a product of a partnership between Aurelian Marketing, the Downtown Project, Another Planet Entertainment and Maktub

Marketing (owned by First Friday’s Joey Vanas). “I have never been a ‘stars align’ kind of person,”

he says. “But I told people recently that I’ve become one. [The Downtown Project] didn’t pick me. I didn’t pick them. We just kind of came together. They will tell you that they weren’t actively seeking a festival producer. I wasn’t looking for a reason to stay in Vegas, nor was I looking for a reason to produce this festival.”

BIRTH OF A FESTIVAL

“It started out as an idea,” Choudhry says of Life Is Beautiful, “but more so as a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to do anything that didn’t matter again.”

As such, Life Is Beautiful is the culmination of a years-long journey that started in a hospital bed. With this festival, Choudhry is able to apply all that he’s learned over his years working in the en-tertainment industry. The first thing he did when he began work on Life Is Beautiful was identify what the Las Vegas community lacked. He discov-ered two basic needs: 1) a tentpole event in which locals could take pride, and 2) a growth engine for the underdeveloped Downtown region. By taking up 15 city blocks and offering national-caliber chefs and musicians, Life Is Beautiful hopes to

achieve both. Choudhry points to the spectacular rise of Austin, Texas, as an example of the growth potential created by a popular festival, such as South by Southwest.

Choudhry’s vision for the perfect moment in the upcoming festival is serendipitous encounters on a large scale. He would like the festival’s four unique categories (music, food, art and learning) to facili-tate a cross-pollination of ideas. “If a person who’s just there for the food—who’s just there to see the 80 chefs and the demos and the lessons, the tastings—if they choose to step out of the culinary experience and go check out music, they’re not just going to a culinary event with stages—they’re stepping into a Lollapalooza. The perfect moment for me is the mo-ment where somebody who only wanted to go for music is now at the culinary village and being served food by [celebrity chef] Scott Conant.”

Choudhry hopes that these moments of discovery radiate out into overlapping epiphanies, echoes of the one that he experienced so many years ago. He envisions a home cook being inspired by the culi-nary fest to pursue a formal career, and an aspiring singer to see hope beyond a hobby by the presence of so many up-and-coming bands. The art and learning legs of the festival, whose lineup will be an-nounced in the coming months, will only add to the energy and serendipity. “What I’d like to be able to do with the festival is teach people on a basic level to do what you’re passionate about,” he says. “Identify your dreams and go chase them.”

And why not? Choudhry’s life is an example of such dreams chased and duly captured.

IT STARTED OUT AS A PROMISE TO MYSELF THAT I WASN’T GOING TO DO ANYTHING THAT DIDN’T MATTER AGAIN.

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Nightlife

When “Cry” was released in 2011, it got huge pick-up in the States. Any thoughts on why “Get Up (Rattle)” did a bit better in the U.K. than here?

Paul: In the clubs and at festi-vals “Rattle” is huge. Whenever we play that song it’s the high-light of our set, even though it was released in 2012. In Europe it became a mainstream song,

No. 1 in the U.K. and Top 10 in several other European coun-tries. I guess the main reason is that dance music has been played on the radio in Europe and not in the U.S. In the U.S., it is very diffcult to get dance music on the radio. You have your exceptions like Calvin Harris and Swedish House Mafa, but it was only [Swedish House Mafa’s] last track that

got on the radio; a lot of their earlier songs weren’t played. It’s still at the beginning point, so I really hope mainstream radio will embrace EDM a little bit more.

From Miami’s Ultra right into Coachella, then playing the second night of operation at Hakkasan Las Vegas—you guys have had a crazy spring.

How do you keep up?Maarten: [Paul’s] grabbing a

beer right now!Paul: I always say that you

have to work hard for it. You can never get lazy or comfort-able with the success. We try to put out great songs, do our best when we perform live and I think in the end that pays off. Our latest single came out May 20, and we have almost fnished the song that’s coming out after that. That’s another really important part of the job as well: to keep putting good music out.

How do your club sets differ from what you’re doing at these festivals?

Maarten: When you play a festival, you always have to take into consideration which other DJs are playing. For instance, if the Swedes are playing, you can’t play any of their songs.

We try to look at that frst, but we also try to do something different than what we do in clubs. Festivals have a different vibe than a club. A club is more intimate, and festivals have larger crowds. So we play more mash-ups to get those bigger crowds moving.

And at EDC Vegas?Paul: We are going to do a

completely new set. It will be very different from our Ultra set, which was one of our best sets in regard to audience ac-ceptance. It’s diffcult to top that, but we love the chal-lenge. We work hard, and we really prepare and will spend a month preparing for EDC Ve-gas. It’s not only the day itself, but you also have the podcast that we record and give away for free, so it lasts a long time. We do not want it to be a copy of the Ultra set.

Bingo Is Their NameThe Bingo Players’ Maarten Hoogstraten and Paul Bäumer cover the

board with back-to-back gigs at Hakkasan and Wet Republic before

returning for Electric Daisy Carnival

By David Morris

For more on the duo’s love for Daft Punk, their con-nection to Michael Jackson’s ghost and what’s to come, visit VegasSeven.com/BingoPlayers.

MaaRten HooGstRaten and Paul Bäumer frst caught our attention two years ago when they released “Cry,” but their no-holds-bar set at this year’s Ultra Music Festival cemented this Dutch duo known as the Bingo Players as an act to watch. Since Ultra, they’ve put out one major banger after the next—frst “Buzzcut” and then “Fuck What You Heard.” We caught up with the pair to chat about their road to success, starting a label and what’s to come. They play Hakkasan on June 14, Wet Re-public on June 15 and Electric Daisy Carnival.

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palms poolThe palms

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June 7 Ditch Fridays feat. Ludacris

June 8 Ditch Saturdays feat. Taboo

June 10 Cabanas for a Cause

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Wet republicMGM Grand

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June 7 SpyOn Hot 100

June 8 Dada Life spins

June 9 Calvin Harris spins

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June 7 Peach Fridays with DJ Stellar

June 8 Thomas Gold spins

June 9 Eric D-Lux spins

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June 14 World Series of Fighting After-Party

June 16 La Martina hosts Fashion Show Sundays

June 18 Dream Team Industry Night

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Body englishHard Rock Hotel

[ Upcoming ]

June 7 Lazy Rich spins

June 9 Richard Beynon spins

June 14 Posso spins

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June 6 Nubase Agency Night feat. Geisha Twins

June 7 Mat Fraser and Julie Atlas Muz perform

June 12 Working Stiff Wednesdays: Food &

Beverage Edition

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dining

➧ There’s a beer in your shot! There’s a shot in your beer! Whether it’s a sake bomb, Irish car bomb or a good old-fashioned boilermaker, “depth charges”—for the uninitiated, that’s any shot dropped into another beverage—are being buoyed by the same rising tide that’s reinvigorating cocktail culture in America. Here are three you should try right now.

The Vesper BombThe menu at Vesper bar

places classics alongside their modern counterparts. But locals and insiders know: The Vesper Bomb ($5) has no peer. A 2-ounce shot of Fernet-Branca sits inverted in 1 ounce of ginger beer … until you remove the shot glass, mixing the two, and away you go. “Fernet Branca is the cocktail connoisseur’s secret handshake,” says property mixologist and Vesper GM Christopher Hopkins. “By ordering it, you alert the bartender that you like avant-garde flavors, and are not scared to push the envelope with your drinking choices.” Hopkins first tried Fernet in San Francisco, where it is typically served with a gin-ger- ale back. “Seeing as how the ginger profile matches so well to the herbaceous nature of Fernet-Branca, the substi-

tution of ginger beer further enhances it by increasing the ginger notes.” You’ll never order a Jägerbomb again. In the Cosmopolitan, 698-7000, CosmopolitanLasVegas.com.

The Thairish Carbomb“We don’t take ourselves too

seriously,” Le Thai co-owner Daniel Coughlin says. He takes a less-is-more approach to a lot of things at his popular hipster enclave, which serves up a small but well-prepared hit list of noodle dishes, soups and stir-fries—Thai street food that echoes Coughlin’s culinary

upbringing by his mother and grandmother. Tricky Thai dishes are renamed for approachability, such as the Awesome Noodles. And when he does shots with his regulars, the Thai Coughlin ($7) pays homage to his half-Thai, half-Irish heritage: ¾ ounce Jameson Irish Whiskey and ¾ ounce Mekhong Spirit of Thailand. Wanna go over to the dark side? Dropped into 6 ounces of PBR, the Thai Coughlin becomes a Thair-ish Carbomb ($10), “a simple classic,” Coughlin says, “meant to get you where you need to

go.” 523 Fremont St., 778-0888, LeThaiVegas.com.

Willy Wonka’s HangoverEven cocktail girls get the

brews. Beer cocktails are increasing in popularity, so when mixologist Juyoung Kang was working on the beer and cocktail programs for Downtown’s Commonwealth cocktail bar, it was inevitable that the two could intersect in a bomb shot with a little attitude. Invert a shot glass of 1 ounce Absolut and ½ ounce Li-cor 43 into 3 ounces of Young’s Double Chocolate Stout for

Willy Wonka’s Hangover ($10), an off-menu special. “I’m known as a classic cocktail bartender,” Kang explains. “Perhaps this shows a fun side of me … I’m just serious about my medicine, as a doctor of spirits should be.” 525 Fremont St., 445-6400, Common-wealthLV.com.

Let’s Get WeirdMove over,

Jägerbomb. ‘Depth

charges’ have never

looked (or tasted)

so good!

By Xania Woodman

The Thairish Carbomb at Le Thai (left) and Willy Wonka’s Hang-over at Commonwealth (below)

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But that’s exactly what Jesse Carson Smigel, 29, who physi-cally resembles a lumberjack, is doing on a Wednesday after-noon. He yanks staples from a curved wall to smooth out the wrinkles in his massive, 24-feet-by-8-feet banner-printed digital rendering, “Kitty Cat Borg Attack: A War Tribute Memorial.”

“We knew what we were get-ting into when we invited Jesse Smigel to do a show,” Patrick Gaffey, cultural program supervisor for the Winchester Cultural Center, had told me minutes earlier with bemuse-ment. “We realized things would be … unusual.”

There’s another unusual aspect of Smigel’s show apart from its title, The Perfect Future Is Sanitary … The Sanitary Future Is PURRRfect. It had been up for more than a week without being fully installed. It could be Smigel’s obvious perfec-tionism that is thwarting his show’s completion. Or maybe it’s the fact that he simply couldn’t secure the right paint to apply to “Star-ship Enterpaws: Prototype Bio-Engineered Living Fleet War Vessel.” It’s a foam space vehicle with a 5-foot wingspan that now hangs from the ceil-ing in the gallery’s center.

A professional carpenter and scenic artist, Smigel studied art at UNLV. (His bachelor of fne arts degree is nearly done.) He has a reputation for work that is eccentric. He has been called an outlaw yard sculptor. He has been called an asshole. He has carved giant gnome lawn ornaments from blocks of Sty-rofoam. He has been commis-sioned by the National Atomic Testing Museum to render the foam likeness of a mushroom cloud. He has attended dinner parties wearing mechanical bunny ears that respond to body temperature, wiggling whenever the conversation turns toward sexual mat-ters. Years ago, over beers, he boasted to me that he was the art curator at Huntridge Tav-ern, the bar in which we were drinking. There was, in fact, very interesting art hanging on the walls.

Despite an impish attitude, Smigel strives to make art that people like. Last year he began painting cats on ice cream cones. He learned how attrac-tive and in-demand his cats were from participating in lo-

cal group exhibits. Eventually he hit on the idea of pitting his cats against Borg cubes. (The Borg are a villainous alien race from Star Trek that pilot space-faring, death-dealing cubes.) He completed a rendering, and the response was so good he decided to base a show on the concept. Inspired by comical sci-f writers such as Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), Smigel imagined a future he wanted to inhabit.

A world that revolved around kitties and advanced technology.

“It went wrong somewhere,” he says. “After thinking about it, I realized the future I want-ed to live in wasn’t a world I could control.”

•••The only entity demon-

strating authority in Smigel’s ruined Earth in the year 4013 is an all-powerful, monolithic corporation known as The Fleet. Humankind is being relegated to transport ships fueled by Catonium. This resource is derived from giant, genetically modifed space cats, which protect the ships from Borg assaults.

Life aboard these vessels isn’t easy for humans. They re-quire special facial creams to generate emotional responses. Cleverly, a two-minute video advertisement for “Smi-Gel

Brand Smile Gel”—get it?—loops on a fat-screen on the gallery wall. In it, a rictus-grimacing, lab-coated Fleet scientist grotesquely and inordinately applies green goo to a Fleet soldier’s mirthless visage. In seconds, his frown turns upside down.

There are propaganda posters urging people to be hygienic and report genetic experiments. “Unclean? Sanitize!” screams one poster. “Keep Clean If You Want To Live” warns another. “I Can Haz Face Hugger?” asks an H.R. Giger-dreamed LOLcat 2,000 years from the future.

More disturbingly, there’s a 7-foot hairless white bear with an oversize human ear sprout-ing from its back. The plastic sculpture is called “Fuzzy Wuzzy Was a Bear: Cloned Primitive Earth Predator Hunt Taxidermy,” and it, too, offers a piece of a larger narrative puzzle. Apparently, in the

future, there is a human elite class that still relishes the thrill of real hunting, made possible thanks to cloning technology.

With its emphasis on artif-cially induced emotions, scary genetic mods and military cor-poratism, Sanitary Future makes it seem like Smigel might have a serious message lurking be-neath the humor. He doesn’t rule out the idea that his show serves as a commentary on our present-day lives. But he also refuses to embrace any com-mitted satirical impulse.

“This isn’t a politically charged show,” Smigel says. “It’s a hypothetical situation. It’s science fction.”

As an example, he makes a comparison between films: Al Gore’s global-warming doc An Inconvenient Truth and Pixar’s WALL-E. Both movies deal with shared issues, but no one would ever evaluate one against the other. It’s the animated film Smigel prefers,

since its message is deeply embedded into a larger fic-tional narrative.

“This is my cute story about a little robot,” he says. “But with cats.”

There’s a robotic cat. An adorable, fuffy-white animatronic feline named Snowball whirrs and purrs inside a Fleet mining resource compartment. Tap on the acrylic sphere and watch her respond.

But the show’s centerpiece is “Kitty Cat Borg Attack.” Photo-shopped images of various cats—some actually cared for by Smigel—show them digging their claws into the cubes as if they were scratching posts. The cat empire-crushing cubes strike back by emit-ting green lasers, causing the kitties to look surprised, their ears laying fat.

•••Those of us who had the

distinctly odd pleasure of

Art

“Kitty Cat Borg Attack: A War Tribute Memorial” (above) and “Cat Stationed Aboard the Fleet Mining and Resource Vessel Nevada: ‘Snowball’” (right).

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attending Smigel’s opening reception on May 31 might have shared a similar expression of astonishment. Especially as a full-on laser-tag battle erupted between costumed Fleet soldiers and the rebel alli-ance led by Smigel himself.

A food riot was under way.“I’m not used to stretching

out one of my puns or jokes this long,” said Smigel a few days before the performance component of his show was conducted. It marked the frst time he incorporated a performance piece into an art show. Before the event, he had spent a $1,000 Internet-order-ing a complete 1986 set of vin-tage, Worlds of Wonder-brand Lazer Tag game kits replete with blasters and sensor vests and helmets. Then he invited the kids from the Winchester skateboard team to dress up as Fleet soldiers. There was a rehearsal, maybe two.

Smigel certainly explored his theatrical side. On the night of the reception, each guest was offered one small cup of water and one small cup containing two Good & Plenty candies—and nothing else. This would be the only food and drink offered at the event.

Smigel played the role of resistance leader, entering the gallery with his gang of rebel fighters. Lazer-tagging com-menced, a physical flurry of beeping and blinking and shoes squeaking. He grabbed the giant container of licorice from the Fleet enforcers, half of which scattered on the floor in the pandemo-nium, and ran out of the gallery and into the Winchester lobby.

Smigel and his liberation force escaped outside, fnding refuge in Winchester’s desert gardens. It was a small victory in an otherwise hilariously dystopian show that defes easy, um, CATegorization.

Jesse Carson smigel’s The PerfeCT fuTure is saniTary…The saniTary fuTure

is PurrrfeCT

10 a.m.-8 p.m. Tue-Fri, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.

Sat through July 12, Winchester

Cultural Center Gallery, 3130 McLeod Dr., 455-7340.

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Music

Tigers, cobras and Foxes

The week’s best underground rock shows

are crowded on June 7. That night, at 10

p.m., local punk bands the Dirty Panties,

the Quitters, the Seriouslys, Tiger Sex and

Gigantic gather at Double Down Saloon. All

these groups have a loose, garage-y bent

that should make them tons of fun to watch.

I haven’t yet caught a set by Tiger Sex, but

people tell me they’re great. Sure, their name

is intriguing, but not something I’m entirely

comfortable Googling right now. I’m still

trying to explain to my wife how a site called

TheDirtyPanties.com ended up in my browser

history. (You’d think being a music writer

would get me out of jail.)

Over at LVCS, meanwhile, long-running in-

dustrial-metal band Fear Factory punches out

its trademark blend of thrash and electronica.

The band’s most recent disc is a concept al-

bum called The Industrialist, which relates the

dystopian sci-fi story of an automaton who no

longer wants to be automated. It doesn’t get

any colder, more mechanized or punishing

than the Factory. So if you need good music

with which to feel very bad, this is your con-

cert. Also on the bill: death-metal band Hate

Eternal, power-metal trio Kobra & the Lotus,

plus Protest and Bi-Polar.

At Triple B at 7 p.m., classic blues-rock

revivalists the Stone Foxes are on the hunt.

This band was supposed to play the venue

back in March but had to cancel and made

good on their promise to reschedule. The

Foxes boast a broad array of influences—gos-

pel, country, R&B. But it all boils down to a

rollickin’ approach to delivering songs that

sound instantly vintage. I deeply admire their

dark, Edgar Allan Poe-referencing “Everybody

Knows,” which features amazing harmonica-

playing. Also on the bill are two Vegas bands:

psychedelic, sax-powered combo Jack & the

B-Fish, and sharper-than-Freddy-Krueger’s-

tackle-box trio The Dirty Hooks.

Local release alert! Coffeehouse-indie

group Szabo is set to release their debut EP

Get Wasted at Artifice at 9 p.m. June 8. Szabo

recorded at the Killers’ own Battle Born Studios,

and from what I’ve heard of the results so far,

the EP is well produced. (Look for my review in

the coming weeks.) Szabo is led by namesake

frontman Elliot Szabo, and the songs are folk-

based and pretty much built around the acoustic

guitar. Which means I’d rather get caffeinated

than wasted while spinning this stuff. Still, I can

easily imagine fans of, say, Jack Johnson get-

ting into this. I’m eager to find out how Szabo

sounds live. Hopefully they rock out a little more

onstage. Also on the bill: Black Belt Karate,

Leather Bound Crooks and Gorilla Heads.

Your Vegas band releasing a CD soon? Email

Jarret_Keene@Yahoo.com. Photo

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noThing says “punk rock” like a Broadway show. OK, not really, but the whole “Are they punk or not?” argument no longer applies to Green Day, which has long been chastised by elitist music critics for being more pop than punk. After more than 25 years of rocking, the band now transcends labels. They’ve earned it.

When I was in eighth grade in 1994-95, none of that label stuff mattered to me—I had yet to become the jaded music snob I am today. My prepubescent Green Day fandom re-mains, hence why I’m super stoked to see their Broadway smash, Ameri-can Idiot, when the touring company makes a stop at The Smith Center on June 11-16. I’m also curious to check out the musical’s band play Green Day covers on June 13 after the stage show at Red Rock Resort.

Admittedly, I haven’t actively sought out any Green Day albums since 1997’s Nimrod—with the excep-tion of the musical’s namesake rock opera. Yet, there’s still the warm,

fuzzy nostalgia when I recall listening to “She” on my Walkman while riding the school bus, or screaming out the lyrics to “Basket Case” while roller-blading around the concrete founda-tions of my half-completed neigh-borhood, which was then way out in the middle of nowhere at Cheyenne Avenue and Fort Apache Road.

Green Day rocked my world, even though I didn’t understand that “All By Myself” (or “The Secret Song” as we called it) was actually about masturbation. Hell, I didn’t even realize that 1994’s Dookie was a refer-ence to the—ahem—runs, nor did I care that the album cover depicted assorted mammals throwing their own shit.

When I rocked the offcial band shirt procured at Hot Topic, I earned mad

middle school street cred with the fannel-wearing, black-lipstick set—the same kids to whom I sold hand-made clay psychedelic mushroom necklaces without having any idea why they dug them so much.

Interestingly enough, it was not my peers who frst exposed me to Green Day, but my father who was nearly 40 years my senior. Dad had an ear for the next hot thing in tunes before the masses did (maybe he listened to a lot of college radio). Dad would record music videos from MTV, turn-ing them into sweet VHS mixes of everything from Billy Idol to Jane’s Addiction. He told me to check out Green Day performing live on TV. “Those guys have a lot of pep,” he said, and bought me the cassette upon our next visit.

Fast-forward to high school, when “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” was our graduation anthem. Needless to say, Green Day was an integral volume in the soundtrack of my youth. So yeah, rip on Green Day if you want, but I’m count-ing down the days to American Idiot. Plus, my dad would have dug it. And my dad was pretty punk in his own way, just like Green Day.

Pop’s Not DeadWhy I’m looking forward to Green Day’s American

Idiot, even if it means we’ve all sold out

By Deanna Rilling

Unlikely Broadway babies: Green Day’s Mike Dirnt, Billie Joe Armstrong and Tré Cool.

green day’s aMerican idioT

The Smith Center, 7:30 p.m. June 11-14, 2 and

7:30 p.m. June 15 and 16, $24 and up, 749-2000, TheSmithCenter.com.

an evening oF idioTs: The aMerican idioT band plays green day

10:30 p.m. June 13 at Red Rock Resort, 21 and older, free, SCLV.com/concerts.

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When Celine, played by Julie Delpy, frst met Ethan Hawke’s Jesse in Before Sunrise back in 1995, on a Budapest-to-Vienna train just made for post-collegiate firtation, one round of small talk led to another, until the talk got a little bigger and phased into bleary-eyed, besotted exchanges about literature and life’s feeting romantic glories.

A lot of the talk was showboat-ing, particularly with Hawke’s aspiring novelist character, whose “act” seemed frequently at odds with the human being underneath the angles and gambits. By the end of director/co-writer Richard Linklater’s beautiful flm, you knew the performers had gone places most movies disallow their ac-tors because most dialogue se-quences—and Before Sunrise, like its sequels, is a single, searching dialogue sequence—cut to the

chase or the resolution.In the second flm, Before

Sunset (2004), Jesse and Celine reunited after their Vienna evening and early morning, when the American visited Paris on a book tour. His novel had a lot to do with the woman, Celine, who got away. Jesse was married with a son by then. By the end of the picture, which (improbably) was just as lovely as the frst, the stars appeared to align these two, though director Linklater’s fadeout was at least a tiny bit ambiguous, enough to provoke one commenter on Internet Movie Database to ask: “Can someone explain the ending of this movie to me?” We’ll all be asking that one someday, as our fnal credits roll.

Before Midnight answers a lot of questions, while adding a distinct element of melancholy. First things frst: Linklater’s

reunion with these characters, and these actors, is well worth your time, especially if you’ve already made their acquain-tance and you’re interested in catching up. As in the ongoing Michael Apted Up documentary series, there’s new light, differ-ent light and shade being cast on the subjects every time.

If Before Midnight is somewhat less special than its predeces-sors, well, it’s tougher to tease out the allure and charm in the depiction of a long-term relationship (though it’s cer-tainly worth trying) than it is to simply ask the question: Are they going to get together? This one’s set in Greece. A writers’ retreat has brought Jesse to Messinia from Paris with Celine and their twin daughters (a screenful of curls played by Jennifer and Charlotte Prior).

At the start, Jesse’s middle school-age son (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick), who has just spent a fne summer with his father’s newish family, is at the airport, heading back to the U.S. and his unseen mother, whom we hear is a “drunk” and “abusive psychologically.” The boy we meet, albeit briefy, hides the shellshock well; he’s a calm, easygoing, if somewhat beaten-down presence compared to his overeager and insecure father.

At dinner with their hosts, Jesse and Celine talk about everything from the ravages of social media to the challenges of their complicated relation-ship (“I’m actually surprised we lasted this long,” Celine says). The chatter becomes somewhat agitated; Celine, between jobs, has grown itchy with her part-ner’s well-practiced Moder-ately Famous Novelist routines. That night their Greek friends babysit the twins so they can get away for a night on their own. And then Before Midnight turns meaner, sadder than the two previous flms. There’s a chill in the air. “Do you ever listen to yourself?” spits an ex-asperated Jesse in the middle of a plausibly hideous argument.

Though this is his most ef-fective screen work to date, I’ve always found Hawke in the Before flms to be effective in a slightly showier and more calculating way than Delpy, who really does appear to be pulling each moment, each hairpin emotional curve, out of her own experience. Partly it’s a technical matter: Hawke, a very busy performer, indulges himself with a few too many improvisatory conversational place-holders, the “uhs” and the “yeah, but sees” and the verbal windups before the pitch. He

has a way of dominating the talk, the way the character is meant to dominate. But Delpy has always challenged Hawke to fnd a simpler, more direct form of acting in Linklater’s flms, which gives them their unique suspense and rolling tension.

Where does this one end? I won’t say, and I can’t yet say the ending works for me, let alone how it might work for the IMDB commenter vexed by the warmer resolution of Before Sunset. What Linklater, Delpy and Hawke have achieved with their trilogy is at once fuidly cinematic and novelistic, with stories behind the stories and possible endings beyond the endings we’re given. These two, like so many of us, believe in the talking cure, even when it becomes a momentary, frac-tious curse. And they really do love each other. Before Midnight doesn’t ask the question directly, thank God, but it en-courages you to wonder: Is that enough? When does the knotty business of living outwit the love? Where will these two be in another nine or 10 years?

And can Linklater actually manage a fourth good movie with these two?

Before Midnight (R) ★★★✩✩

Back to BeforeMore melancholy than its predecessors,

Before Midnight answers unresolved

questions in the Hawke-Delpy relationship

By MICHAEL PHILLIPSTRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES

Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke try the talking (and walking) cure.

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[ by tribune media services ]short reviews

the razzle dazzles, but the smoke never quite hides the mirrors in Now You See Me, a super-slick new magicians’ heist picture that demonstrates, once again, how tough it is to make “magic” work as a movie subject.

A medium that is, by defni-tion, a trick has a very hard time making the illusions real, realistic and anything anyone would be impressed by. Ask The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. Ask The Illusionist.

A quartet of street hustlers and rising stars of the various corners of the magic trade are recruited by a mysterious hoodie-wearing fgure for a series of epic stunts.

Billing themselves as “the Four Horsemen”—misdirection man Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg) and his former assistant Henley (Isla Fisher), “mentalist” Merritt (Woody Harrelson) and card-sharp Jack (Dave Franco)—they proceed to star in magic “events” where they catch the imagina-tion of the world and a super-rich promoter (Michael Caine).

“Tonight,” they announce,

“we’re going to rob a bank.” Which they do, a continent away, raining currency down on an audience that appreci-ates a bank fnally getting its just desserts.

The impossible, physics-defying caper? Remember, Atlas has told us in the narration, “the closer you look, the less you see.”

Mark Ruffalo plays the comi-cally hyperventilating FBI agent always a step behind the Four Horsemen. And Morgan Free-man takes the part of the mys-terious magic expert who may be helping the feds, explaining to them (and the audience) how tricks work. Or maybe he’s playing another game.

A lot is riding on momentum in this Louis Leterrier (Clash of the Titans, The Transporter) thriller. But it never gets up a good head of steam. Free-man and Ruffalo make strong impressions. But there’s little character development. Point-of-view shifts are willy-nilly between the magicians—who start to feel they’re will-ing puppets in some larger scheme—and the cops, while

Ruffalo works himself into a fne comic fury.

It’s a plot-heavy thriller, with too much explaining and need to explain. And without pacing, the

mind wanders into “Wait, how could any entity other than Hol-lywood stage a New York bridge crash like that?” and the like.

For all its showmanship, Now

You See Me has a lot less up its sleeve than it lets on.

Now You See Me (PG-13) ★★★✩✩

After Earth PG-13 ★★★✩✩The latest from M. Night Shyamalan, no

longer “Mr. Plot Twist,” is a two-biller

showcasing the Smiths, Will and Jaden.

Humanity’s treatment of Earth has led to

mass exodus. The planet is overrun by ani-

mals and bugs, all genetically evolved to kill

humans. Cypher (Will Smith) takes his son,

Kitai (Jaden Smith), on security patrol of

Earth, but one crash landing later, father and

son are stuck. Kitai must locate a beacon

and navigate all kinds of danger along the

way. Moderately entertaining.

Fast & Furious 6 PG-13 ★★★★✩The sixth installment of this car-thieves-

with-honor franchise is a surprising and

unlikely delight. Dom (Vin Diesel) wants to

return home to L.A. after stealing $100 mil-

lion in Brazilian drug money. Federal agent

Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), who had been

after Dom and his gang of thieves, actually

needs them to catch a British terrorist. The

gang comes back together for a slew of

incredible chase scenes, ridiculous amounts

of downshifting and full exoneration. Director

Justin Lin knows what he’s doing here.

The Hangover III R ★★✩✩✩ It won’t take long to sleep off the third, highly

forgettable installment of this franchise.

Alan (Zach Galifianakis) buys and acciden-

tally decapitates a (digital) giraffe, giving

his dad (Jeffrey Tambor) a heart attack. The

Wolf Pack (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and

Justin Bartha) drive him to a rehab facility in

Arizona. On the way, they’re carjacked by a

mobster (John Goodman). And of course, Mr.

Chow (Ken Jeong) is around as well. There’s

hardly a laugh in the entire thing.

Star Trek Into Darkness PG-13 ★★★★✩

Director J.J. Abrams’ second installment in

the classic franchise reboot is fantastic. Life

on Earth in the 23rd century is eerily familiar:

a massively destructive act of terrorism sets

into motion a tale that leads, early on, to an

attack on Starfleet; a test of leadership for

James T. Kirk (Chris Pine); and the introduc-

tion of an also-familiar adversary in Khan

(Benedict Cumberbatch). The result is tons of

fun. The Enterprise and its crew have never

looked better.

abracadabra LiteFor a ‘magic’ movie, Now You See Me

isn’t very bewitching

By Roger MooreTribune Media Services

Muted magicians (clockwise from top left): Eisenberg, Fisher, Harrelson and Franco.