PopSmart

Ginny Tonic (sometimes known as Michael Howell) is one of the pack leaders of the East Point Possums (Possi?), who get together each year, throw one helluva drag ball, and raise lots of money for their charity of choice. This year’s beneficiary is the Jerusalem House, which provides more than half of Atlanta’s permanent housing designated for homeless persons living with HIV/AIDS. One of the show’s claims to fame was it was the first show that Gigi Monroe performed before she became Atlanta’s “First Drag Idol” winner from Charlie Brown, according to co-founder Rick Westbrook. Other famous names include Alexandria Martin, Owen McCord, Genre, and Summer Knight.

This year’s East Point Possums party will be held from 8-11 p.m. Saturday, June 14, on the East Point Commons in downtown — near the Corner Tavern, a major supporter of the event. The show also features such familiar performers as Prissy Scilla and the MC, Dina Daintymouth.

We had a chance to catch up with the legendary Ginny Tonic to figure out why the Possums make such friendly pets.

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“And I was plugged in. I had a natural sense of where the two records were spinning. At one point, ‘Assembly Line’ fell off the beat for a split second and I dog-paddled the record backwards. Spin back! Then I punched it forward right on the break … Punch phase! Zuka-Zuka! It sounds like a beat! But the drummer didn’t play it, I did! And the rhythm was still on time!”– Grandmaster Flash, from The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash: My Life, My Beats. The revolutionary DJ spins tales from his book at 7:30 p.m. Tues., June 17, at Borders Books & Music in Buckhead (3637 Peachtree Road).

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In March, Susie McMonagle joined a host of others in replacing the principal cast for the five-time Tony-nominated musical Mamma Mia!, which returns to the Fox Theatre on June 10-15 – just in advance of the movie version starring Meryl Streep that hits theaters July 18. McMonagle plays Donna, a Greek isle bar owner who mulls over the three potential fathers of her daughter on the eve of the 20-year-old’s wedding while ripping through ABBA’s songbook.

Continue reading Speakeasy.

(Photo courtesy KC Public Relations)

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We here at PopSmart are so excited that Caramel — the critically praised Lebanese romantic comedy centered around a beauty shop — is finally being released on DVD (June 17) that we were able to score free copies in advance to give to you, our readers/cult followers.

As reviewed by Curt Holman back in February, Caramel is a heartwarming story of women looking for love in Beirut under some of the more predictable (and not-so-predictable) constraints in living in an at times conservative Arab culture.

In keeping with Steel Magnolias and Beauty Shop, Caramel’s beauty parlor provides the stage for minidramas involving several beauticians and their regulars. Writer/director Nadine Labaki plays Layale, who has an unsatisfying affair with a married man while ignoring the overtures of a neighborhood police officer (Adel Karam). A neurotic actress (Gisèle Aouad) fights the aging process while a warm-hearted seamstress (Sihame Haddad) discovers romance late in life, even though her senile sister makes dating nearly impossible. However predictable, Caramel makes a virtue of its loose structure and unresolved plot threads, giving the film the texture of real life instead of a conventional romantic comedy.

We’ll give away as many copies of Caramel as we can to those who can tell us which famous director Curt Holman compares the movie’s director to when describing the film’s lush cinematography. Email your answers to davidlee.simmons@cln.com, and we’ll hook you up.

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Second-generation Neville brother Ivan Neville has in record time made his DUMPSTAPHUNK outfit the premier funk band in New Orleans. The keyboardist, who often fills in for his uncle Art in the Neville Brothers, leads a stellar lineup featuring syncopation freak (and Dirty Dozen alum) Raymond Webber on drums and the stinging guitar licks of cousin Ian. The 2007 EP, Listen Hear, offers funk as politics (or politics as funk) reminiscent of the Neville Brothers and Meters: “You might as well have a good time … there might not be a next time,” Ivan howls on “Meanwhile.” It’s all punctuated by a spot-on horn section that sets Dumpstaphunk above New Orleans’ formidable funk community, and reassures us that the Nevilles indeed are a family tradition. The band stops off in Atlanta Wed., JUNE 11, before heading up to this weekend’s Bonnaroo festival. Local funkster Goldenfro opens. $15. 8 p.m. Smith’s Olde Bar, 1578 Piedmont Ave. 404-875-1522. www.smithsoldebar.com.

(Photo courtesy Dumpstaphunk)

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For years, I’ve studiously avoided “Top Chef,” Bravo’s reality chef-competition show — which is unusual for me considering my near obsession with practically all things Bravo reality-TV programming. (And in my defense, I do believe the best of the crop, “Project Runway,” is a multi-Emmy nominee, no?)

But “Top Chef” eluded me for years mainly on the argument that there was really no way for me to “judge” whether or not the resultant work was any good. And so, generally speaking, it all came down to the drama, and even during those unavoidable Bravo marathon screenings of the series — helpful at times, annoying the other 90 percent of the time — I just couldn’t get on board. Until now.

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So where is everyone with Adam Sandler? As we head into the weekend and what feels like the zillionth vehicle, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, I’m at a complete loss as to whether to consider Sandler a legitimate comedic talent of his generation. It’s been long enough since his departure from his mugging days on “Saturday Night Live,” and he now has what we haughtily refer to as a “body of work” to start wondering where he belongs in the grand scheme of things. Will Zohan be the decider? I guess we’ll literally have to see.

While the film is checking in at a woeful 35 percent on the old Tomato-meter on Rotten Tomatoes, further research reveals a more divided camp — especially when you start reading the more smarty-pants reviewers. The decided majority opinion falls in with those like the Globe and Mail’s Rick Groen, who writes:

Mess with The Zohan if you like, but be prepared for the consequences. This picture is to comedy what carpet bombing is to aerial warfare: The onslaught is so relentless that occasional direct hits on the funny bone are a statistical guarantee. As for any lingering wounds suffered by the more cerebral parts of the anatomy, chalk them up to collateral damage and consider it the price of laughter, Adam Sandler style.

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James Hong may be the most famous Asian face you’ve never heard of. You may remember him as Wong in last year’s Balls of Fury, or as Chen in the TV series “The Big Bang Theory,” doing the usual stereotypical Asian role that is being examined this month on Turner Classic Movie’s “Race and Hollywood: Asian Images in Hollywood.” He’s also had small roles in some of the great films of his generation, including Mr. Chew in Blade Runner, the butler Kahn in Chinatown, Victor Shu in The Sand Pebbles, and the Japanese general in Airplane!.

You won’t see Hong in his latest role, as Ping, the father of Po (voiced by Jack Black) in Kung Fu Panda, which opens today and was reviewed by Curt Holman in this week’s issue.

I love James Hong, partly because I love character actors (it’s a TV Guide thing; I’ll explain it someday) but also because you can see in his countless performances someone who knows exactly what he’s being called on to do but often tries to pull back just enough to (hopefully) prevent his often stock Asian characters from slipping too far down into the minstrel level. (Check out his performance as the Chinese ambassador in two “West Wing” episodes in 2002 and see him work from a more serious dramatic context.) There’s a certain level of dignity he brings to every performance. The funny thing is, Hong was born in Minneapolis. According to his IMDB profile, the man who got beat out by George Takei for Sulu in “Star Trek” is a founding member and chairman of Asian Pacific American Artists.

Here’s what Curt had to say about Ping in Kung Fu Panda: “Hong’s character is a goose who is Po/Jack Black’s father (adopted, presumably, even though they never actually explain that) and can’t imagine that Po would aspire to anything beyond cooking noodles. It’s a gently comedic performance that’s fairly appealing.”

Here’s a tribute video of Hong talking a little bit about his career …

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The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, the 40th anniversary of which is remembered today, was the first historical moment that had any kind of resonance with me. There remain only fragments of it: plopped on my family’s living-room floor while my family, including my Massachusetts-born father, watched the news coverage. I knew something bad had happened, and I think I remember it being Kennedy’s murder, but mostly something bad. But the more vivid memory came days later, on our way down to South Florida for a summer vacation, when my dad lost it and yelled at us in the back seat while we were playing with each other. His anger and grief had overcome him. That emotion resonates and stays with a person over the years.

That’s history for you, especially when you’re young. Sometimes you only remember swatches of moments, and images. Four decades on, RFK seems to live on in a variety of those swatches. Like his speeches, whether on the campaign trail or after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, in which he did his level best to tamp down on the violence sure to come …

Kennedy, like his brother John, has endured a rather spotty interpretation on film (but for the excellent “American Experience” documentary). He was portrayed with surprising timidity by Linus Roache in the 2002 TV movie, RFK, which failed to capture but a lick of his charisma and depth of feeling. My favorite portrayal comes from Martin Sheen, who at various times has portrayed both brothers but was brilliant in the 1974 TV movie The Missiles of October, about the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. (I can barely remember how Steven Culp portrayed him in Thirteen Days, which was more a vehicle for Kevin Costner as a presidential aide than anything else.) Last year brought us RFK Must Die! The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy, which raises new questions about whether Sirhan B. Sirhan (still serving a life sentence in a California prison) actually pulled the trigger.
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He’s played the First Amish Man in Space, and perhaps even more impressively, former President Jimmy Carter (while Jimmy Carter was in the audience!). Now Matt Horgan, ensemble improviser at Dad’s Garage, puts character to paper in co-scripting (with Travis Sharp) Song of the Living Dead!: A Zombie Musical. The musical, directed by Kate Warner with music composed by Eric Frampton, runs June 6-July 5.

Continue reading Culture Surfing.

(Photo courtesy of Dad’s Garage)

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