THE LEFT LANE
Spider-Man goes live
Spider-Man, the comic book hero who has morphed into a major motion picture, is reinventing himself yet again — as a high-tech touring stage production.
"Spider-Man Live!," with flying illusions, trapeze stunts, pyrotechnics and multimedia special effects, will launch a 40-city tour in October at a yet-to-be-disclosed Las Vegas casino.
U.S.E. Productions is mounting the extravaganza in partnership with Marvel Enterprises. The tour will visit Los Angeles, Detroit and Tampa, among other cities.
Alas, Hawai'i is not yet in the web.
— Wayne Harada,
Advertiser entertainment editor
A mother's love
"Just Moms" (Willow Creek, hardback, $14.95) is the sort of book that's quite clearly meant to be tied with a ribbon and placed beside Mom's breakfast plate on Mother's Day. It's a compilation of photographs of animal mothers and children by award-winning wildlife photographers, each paired with a pithy or humorous quotation.
Mililani's Bonnie Louise Kuchler put the book together and was ideally suited to do so: She was a full-time mom to her two children (now grown) and she is the daughter of two professional photographers. (The dedication says, beneath the picture of a lioness toting her baby in her mouth, "For Mom, from your cub.") A "Just Dads" version of the book is just out.
— Wanda A. Adams,
Advertiser book editor
Date with 'Dogtown'
Don't despair if you missed "Dogtown & Z-Boys," the surfing/skateboarding documentary that was a hit at its Hawaii International Film Festival Spring Film Festival debut recently at Signature Dole Cannery Theatres.
If you couldn't get into the screening, have a little patience. Sony Picture Classics, the distributor, has picked May 31 as the general release date for the film, which tracks the Zephyr Team, a renegade group that ultimately wrote the history book on skateboarding. Two of the Z-Boys — Shogo Kubo and Jay Adams — now live in Hawai'i. And, yes, they're still skateboarding.
— Wayne Harada,
Advertiser entertainment editor
