Harron's film gets the milieu, the angle and the details right. To properly tell the story of the Manson gang, one needs a certain fellow feeling for the hippies. Without compassion for a life of flamboyant laziness, the Mansons will seem incomprehensible, some unique Southern California plague like pet-eating coyotes, brushfires and the Santa Ana winds. Harron's sympathy for devils was previously seen in her much-praised adaptation of American Psycho (2000) and I Shot Andy Warhol (1996) about the polemicist and street-lunatic Valerie Solanas. Charlie Says is more thoughtful work, less studiously hip than its predecessors. » Read More

In flashbacks we see Joan's youth at Cambridge in the late 1930s; played by the pretty but uninvolving Sophie Cookson, she was a drab science student who got swept into a friendship with a dashing older student, Sonya (Tereza Srbova), and her brother Leo (Tom Hughes). The pair of dazzling foreigners are ardent Communists who try to recruit Joan into the party. Over the course of many decades, Joan is mixed up with them, carrying on an affair with Leo that lasts into the war years. Matters get troublesome when Leo presses Joan to spy for the Party; she's now an assistant to a research scientist (Stephen Campbell Moore). Her boss loves her, but he's trapped in one of those Graham Greene escape-proof marriages. » Read More

While traveling on assignment, Iyer learns about the passing of his wife Hiroko's 91-year-old father. After Iyer returns home, death penetrates everything. Hiroko's widowed mother then grows senile, sometimes unable to remember that her husband of 60 years is actually dead. And then there's the ever-growing estrangement of Hiroko's brother, a Jungian analyst who lives nearby but has long since disowned his family. The rest of the narrative explores how the Japanese deal with death, loss, emotional distance and the relativity of sadness, all through the lens of autumn, with interludes from Thoreau, Basho and Leonard Cohen. "Autumn is the season of subtractions, the Japanese art of taking more and more away to charge the few things that » Read More

Of course, Maker Faire is about more than robots and circuit boards. Expert woodworkers will demonstrate how relevant their craft still is. Matt Berger carves handmade timber skateboards and teardrop trailers, while Cal Poly engineering student Josh Warner shapes bicycle frames out of wood, adding a timeless finish to the classically eco-friendly mode of transportation. This fair is family-friendly, featuring plenty of displays and activities geared toward children. Soap-making, kite-making and multiple Apps for Kids workshops provide space for learning and entertainment. Visitors of all ages can learn how to solder and code, and there are several young innovators participating, such as 15-year-old maker Walden Schafer and his » Read More

As he explains his increasing interest in animal rights and nature conservation, the human skulls in his latest pieces become clearer. One also notices the new line work he has developed over the past several years. He is no longer deploying a crisp band of black as he once did. Rather, the outlines of his figures are squiggly and quivering. Judging from the expressions on the cartoon animals' faces, they are likely shaking with rage or fear. » Read More

The song "Black Juju" by Alice Cooper is blasting at 8am. A cocktail-style table sits in the center of the room, constructed with a circular piece of glass atop some tires from a 1963 Belvedere. I am in the corner drinking a cup of English breakfast from Satori Tea Company. Artwork created with skateboard decks surrounds me. There are no hipsters anywhere. I'm not describing my apartment. This is the newly revamped Circa-A Skate Shop, operated by Bob Schmelzer in downtown San Jose, a swirling-glass retail space across from Hammer Theatre, a business approaching 22 years, making it one of the oldest continuously operating retail establishments in all of downtown. People already come here to get trucks and wheels installed on boards all day » Read More

And even if a woman is a staunch feminist, all "I don't care who the earner in the relationship is," the psychological operating system driving us right now is adapted for ancestral times and the problems that arose then. So it just keeps on keepin' on, pushing a woman to go for men who can "provide," even when she's on the birth controlliest birth control (like a copper IUD). In other words, you are not getting the long end of the stick here, financially or commitment-wise, and evolution has programmed you to be nagged by feelbad emotions until you do something to change that. Your boyfriend, meanwhile, surely has some feelbad of his own. Because men coevolved with women, male psychology leads men to anticipate that female romantic » Read More

According to humorist Dave Barry, "The method of learning Japanese recommended by experts is to be born as a Japanese baby and raised by a Japanese family, in Japan." As you enter an intensely educational phase of your astrological cycle, I suggest you adopt a similar strategy toward learning new skills and mastering unfamiliar knowledge and absorbing fresh information. Immerse yourself in environments that will efficiently and effectively fill you with the teachings you need. A more casual, slapdash approach just won't enable you to take thorough advantage of your current opportunities to expand your repertoire. » Read More

Three levels into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, the evil samurai Shredder makes his first appearance. "My patience is wearing thin," the caped super villain announces from within a sewer. "I'm banishing you to a timewarp from which you'll never return." The next instant, the dreaded Shredder emits a pattern of concentric circles from his forehead, forming a net around the Turtles. An aperture opens in the sky. Sucked in, our heroic reptiles are cast back through time, diverting them from their goal of defeating the evil brain Krang and returning the Statue of Liberty to its rightful place in New York Harbor. » Read More