Micah Redding: Adventurer

8/25/04 – The Redding Brothers will be returning to Dayton this weekend for a special concert at the A Coffee Affair shop at 4 West Franklin Street. Those of you who came to see the Reddings play at the Dayton Borders last month, be sure to come and bring a friend! The band would love to talk to you again, and they’ll even buy you a drink for coming. For directions, call (937) 436-5100 (A Coffee Affair’s number), or click here for a map and the full address.

08/25/04 – The Redding Brothers debuted their show in Cincinnati last weekend to a great response. The Borders at Eastgate Mall hosted this concert on Saturday, August 21 at 7:30 p.m., and Cincinattians and out-of-towners alike all made their way to Eastgate to see the Redding Brothers debut. Thanks Cincinatti, for a great show! We hope to see you all again at Dayton this weekend!

This weekend, Saturday the 14th (7-9pm), the Reddings will deliver a 2-hour performance at Espresso Euphoria in Barboursville, on Route 60, the exit right after (west of) the Huntington Mall. It’s gonna be great, and MAY even feature Gabe on some NEW instruments!

(Directions: Going West, Take Exit 18 after the Huntington Mall Exit, turn Left, go to the light, turn Right onto Route 60. Follow it until you see a strip mall with a Quiznos on the Left. Espresso Euphoria is in that strip, towards the far end. Here are the official directions.)

A middle-weight suspense movie about the dark side of the Catholic church – and all the beliefs and practices it wanted to forget about. Basically a kind of sidelined priest discovers some underground supernatural creatures that the Church doesn’t really want to believe in anymore, despite the fact that it has some secret knowledge about how to dispatch them.

Long story short – the priest becomes one of these creatures.

Interesting; good, not great.

:) 2 Smiley-Face Stickers.

RM is an abbreviation that means something about being a Mormon missionary. Never would have guessed that this would be a topic for a smart, irreverent, perfectly appropriate and family-friendly comedy that ranks up there with the best of today’s (usually less than appropriate) comedies.

What makes it great is the soundtrack, which consists of redone traditional hymns alongside punk-rock sing-alongs about being a missionary. The irony pushes the soundtrack into True Greatness.

Somehow or another, this movie manages to make fun of everything about Mormons (and a lot of church people, in general), without being offensive or sacrilegious.

It’s not the greatest comedy, but it’s brave, original, and worth watching for the shear pleasure of being able to talk about a movie about Mormons.

Mormons should like it too.

000 Three Cookies.

Waking Life is one of the most interesting movies I’ve watched in a while. First of all, it’s animated. Second of all, the animation is different than anything I’ve seen. They actually recorded the whole movie with live-action actors and cameras and everything; and THEN went back and animated over it. As a result, the animation is very detailed, and follows real-life motion.

Third of all, this movie is basically one big dream sequence…consisting of random people dialoguing on philosophy. At times it’s hilarious, at times profound, and often weird. It deals in depth with the idea of lucid dreaming, and how you can know if you’re living in a dream or not.

If you’re not into philosophy, it’ll probably run a little slow for you; but it is funny just because it has bizarre people randomly discussing bizarre philosophy with strangers, while walking, and while bumping into you as they pass. It even has a guy driving a boat down the highway.

In other words, this is a great movie. Very original.

**** 4 Stars.