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MAX EFFORTRx Boiler Room at the Shoppes at Mandalay Place

was the site of incredible cuisine and heartfelt stories

for the Jan. 19 kickoff of the Chefs to the Max dinner

series. Held to support Vegas Seven food critic Max

Jacobson, who was critically injured Dec. 23 when a

car hit him while he was crossing a street, the sold-

out dinner drew nearly 100 attendees and featured a

seven-course menu prepared by 21 chefs, including

Rick Moonen, Bobby Flay (1), Mary Sue Milliken (2)

and Susan Feniger (3). Among the attendees were

George Maloof (4), restaurateur Elizabeth Blau, Larry

Ruvo of Southern Wine and Spirits, and chef Kerry

Simon. The evening raised more than $275,000 for

Jacobson’s medical expenses. For updates on the

dinner series, visit Facebook.com/ChefstotheMax.

[ UPCOMING ]

Jan. 26 Love Has No Bounds Benefit Concert for Operation Homefront (HardRockLive.com). Feb. 2 Big Game Day 10k in Downtown Las Vegas (VillageRunner.com.)

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W E L C O M E T O O U R F O U R T H A N N U A L C E L E B R A T I O N O F L A S V E G A N S O N T H E M O V E — A P H O T O G R A P H I C K A L E I D O S C O P E O F O U R C O M M U N I T Y ’ S

D R I V I N G F O R C E S , R I S K - T A K E R S A N D R I S I N G S T A R S

Photography by Anthony Mair, Jon Estrada and Zack W

Photo Direction by Ben Ward

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YEAH, WE’RE SICK of the big headliners playing the same songs over and over, too. But what is an

electronic-music fan in Las Vegas to do? DJ/producer Thom Svast’s new late-night After party can save

the day! But where? Known to some as Utopia, more as Empire Ballroom, After (beginning at 3:30

a.m. on Saturday nights—technically Sunday mornings) has the Strip sounding a whole lot better.

Currently the Tommy Wind Theater, where the magician performs his show in the evenings (turn

off the Strip by Fatburger), multi million-dollar renovations have given the property a major facelift.

(And that’s not just PR B.S.; I saw it with my own eyes). The man bringing the vision to life gives Vegas

Seven the deets before After’s February 1 opening.

What will be the key to making After successful in a nightlife industry that seems to only care about big names on billboards?

A lot of the stuff on the Strip, even with millions and millions of dollars, seems cookie-cutter. With less money, I’ll take pride in making us different. We’re going to market to all people who love music and love good music, whether you’re gay, black, white, Hispanic—it doesn’t matter. Some people at their door are prejudiced against those things. We want people to enjoy themselves and be comfortable in a casual environment.

There are a few other after-hours parties in Las Vegas. What will set After apart?

I think it’s going to be a combination of things. When you go to Body English, they play a lot of hip-hop—we won’t have that at our club. Drai’s? You’re dealing with what currently seems like a very large hip-hop crowd, and then there’s what happened [with a dis-gruntled customer shooting two security guards and kill-ing a third person], a very expensive cover charge, very expensive bottle ser-vice, a very tough door. And Artisan is off the Strip. We have our own niche in what we’re doing.

What is that niche? And why should we dig into underground sounds and not just listen to EDM?

We’ll be one of the only clubs playing at the forefront of music—that’s coming from a person who has been a producer and DJ for years and been around the world several times doing it. To me, EDM is not the forefront of music. EDM takes from the underground. Without the underground, EDM wouldn’t exist because they need something to feed off of. EDM isn’t forward thinking, the underground is; they’re true artists. Those are the people who sit in a room and tinker with their MIDI controllers, Rolands and come up with these new sounds, new sound designs and programs.

Who have you nabbed as resident DJs?

We’ll have two of the great

producer duos in the city: Black Boots are on Ultra and Spacebyrdz just charted on Beatport’s Top 10 deep-house and nu-disco charts, and they own their label, Riff Raff. When we open the patio in March, Brett Rubin will be the third resident.

What about touring talent?I’m already lining up some

amazing acts. We’re going to keep it tech-y and house-y as much as we can, leave the commercial stuff to the big clubs, and let them overpay and gouge the market while I bring the Carlo Lios, The Marco Baileys, Anthony At-tallas, up-and-comers like Hot Since 82, Andhim, Catz ‘N Dogz—I really want those guys who are the forward-thinkers, the legends and the guys who keep the underground moving.

Since After is on the Strip, how much money should we pull out of the ATM?

For the Strip, our bottle prices and drinks will be more affordable, and we’re not going to gouge you on the cover charge. Locals and ladies are always free unless there’s a big special event—but it will be a very low cover charge. We’ll still run specials through text and e-mails to get on the guest list and make it easy and accessible to not have to pay. Of course, all my friends, our industry circle never have to pay—just shoot me a text or call me.

Can people rock their raver gear if they want?

We want people who are different—look at me, I’m tattooed head-to-toe. You can wear your light gloves—I just don’t like the hula-hoops, because then you don’t have room for other people to dance [laughs]. But there is plenty of room, so you can actually hula-hoop in some dark corner. Rave gear? You bring it! I’m not going to say no to it. That’s part of the experience and fun with the underground. Just don’t put your glowsticks on shoestrings and spin them around and hit people in the head. But everything else is cool. Dress how you want; be comfortable with who you are. I’m not a pretentious person; I’m not going to run a pretentious club. Let’s have fun!

Ever After HoursThe legit underground vibe comes alive with

Thom Svast’s new late-night afair

By Deanna Rilling

SCENE

PARTIES

See more photos from this gallery at SPYONVegas.com

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HAZEAria

[ UPCOMING ]

Jan. 23 Selfie Olympics

Feb. 1 Nas performs

Feb. 2 Fabolous performs

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HYDE Bellagio

[ UPCOMING ]

Jan. 25 Two-year anniversary

Jan. 28 Lost Angels Industry Night

Jan. 31 Konflikt spins

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TAOThe Venetian

[ UPCOMING ]

Jan. 23 DJ Five spins

Jan. 24 DJ Turbulence spins

Jan. 25 Vice spins

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PARTIES

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XSEncore

[ UPCOMING ]

Jan. 24 Morgan Page spins

Jan. 25 Sultan and Ned Shepard spin

Jan. 26 Brillz spins

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BODY ENGLISHHard Rock Hotel

[ UPCOMING ]

Jan. 25 Presto One and DJ Spair spin

Jan. 26 USA Sevens Parade of Champions

Jan. 31 DJ Que spins

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MOONThe Palms

[ UPCOMING ]

Jan. 24 Mark Stylz and Lisa Pittman spin

Jan. 28 DJ Pizzo and Kid Conrad spin

Jan. 31 Mark Stylz and Exodus spin

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place embossed with Hieronymus Bosch’s erotic masterpiece “Garden of Earthly Delights” is stunning. Non-matching vintage china and intri-cately engraved cutlery complete the vibe.

The same folded three-page menu is offered in both rooms, printed on elegant parchment, and is affxed with the club’s wax seal. It consists mostly of small, shareable plates, many of which are modern interpretations of classic dishes. (The kitchen is helmed by chef Wesley Holton, who spent three years as executive chef at Wynn’s DB Brasserie, before spending some time cooking in Atlantic City.) You’ll fnd sweetbreads with licorice and root beer jus and delicious decon-structed oysters Rockefeller.

The prices on the frst two pages are deceptively reasonable—al-though small portion sizes make it easy to run up a large bill. If you really want to splurge, however, try the $1,200 whole roasted King crab stuffed with lobsters, or the $275 crown of lamb with cous cous. There’s also a caviar section, with portions ranging from a single ounce to massive kilos that will set you back between $2,000 and $5,000.

If you want to sample caviar without spending that kind of dough, try the caviar and hamachi mini-tacos on a Yukon potato shell, one of the best dishes on the menu. The Heavenly Eggs (egg custard

with truffe served in their shells) are small but deli-cious, as is the tiny helping of rabbit fricassee, a fairly

simple preparation so good I could easily eat a quart.

Among the larger items on the menu, the sea urchin with king crab and umami butter and the loup de mer en croute are particularly good. Of the two pork dishes I’ve tried, the braised version in a bowl of “polenta air” with black truffes is rich and intriguing. But I prefer the tête de cochon: a small, slightly spicy patty of facial meat topped with a slow-poached egg.

Rose.Rabbit.Lie. is serving up creative, almost-perfectly executed cuisine in a unique, fun setting. The service during the soft-opening was slow at times. But an experience with this many moving pieces is go-ing to take awhile to get up to speed. I’m defnitely willing to give them that time.

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[ A SMALL BITE ]

AL’S BRINGS THE ITALIAN BEEF TO LAS VEGASWhen you visit Chicago, you have to try two sandwiches: a Chicago hot dog and Italian beef. The debate over

who makes the best hot dog will rage on forever, but if you want a juicy, thinly sliced beef sandwich topped with

giardiniera or sweet peppers, Al’s Beef is your default destination. And you can now taste the sandwich that’s

been wowing the Windy City since 1938 without leaving the Valley.

Al’s, which began franchising in 2001, opened its first Nevada location at 6840 W. Sahara Avenue on January

20. The chrome building was most recently home to an Indian restaurant, the Bollywood Grill, although it began its

life as a 5 & Diner.

The iconic Italian beef sandwich that Al’s invented has been named one of the Top 10 Sandwiches in America by

Travel + Leisure, declared one of the Best Sandwiches in America by Esquire, and has been featured in Gourmet.

But that’s not the only taste of Chicago the new restaurant brings to town. Look for those Chicago-style hot dogs—

packed with onions, relish, sport peppers, tomatoes, kosher pickles and celery salt—and both Italian and Polish

sausage. – Al Mancini

YEAR OF THE ANCHOVY, A VEGAS PORK INVASION AND THE NEW N9NEI hereby declare 2014 to be year of the an-

chovy. The oft-reviled fish has been the butt of

many a joke. (Nobody thinks that anyone ever

really wants anchovies on a pizza, hence the

use of “extra anchovies” as a euphemism for

Patrick Dempsey’s pizza delivery/gigolo ser-

vice in the 1989 film Loverboy.)

Rebuked for being too fishy on their own,

anchovies have long been used as an accent,

packing an umami punch in items such as

authentic Caesar dressing and Worcestershire

sauce. But I’ve learned to love the little suckers

as they are—whole, briny, intense and packed

with savory fishy flavor. And I’m ecstatic to find

them on more menus here in town.

The deviled eggs at Central (in Caesars Palace,

650-5921) come with half an anchovy atop each

of them, adding another level of pungency to the

yolk mixture. The Spanish love their anchovies,

and Jaleo (in the Cosmopolitan, 698-7000) pres-

ents them to guests among their other tapas,

drizzled in olive oil and with a nice bite to them.

The newly revamped Bartolotta Ristorante di

Mare (in Wynn, 770-3305) is an anchovy advocate

as well, offering a slightly wider version, dressed

with a beautiful, fruity, extra-virgin olive oil. So

yes, I would like extra anchovies, thank you.

Las Vegas may get the All-Star Cochon pork

extravaganza, but if you want to see how chefs

become all-stars, you have to hit up one of the

regional Cochon555 events. On February 23, the

Strip’s own Brian Howard of Comme Ça at the

Cosmopolitan and Jason Neve, culinary director

of B&B Hospitality Group, head to Los Angeles

armed with a 200-pound heritage-breed pig to

compete for the title of Prince of Porc.

Howard, who was recently named corporate

executive chef for David Myers’ Comme Ça Res-

taurant Group (Daniel Ontiveros takes over as

chef de cuisine), has some fun ideas he’s toss-

ing around for his menu, including a Coney Is-

land dog made of a homemade hot dog, pig-face

chili and pig-brain mustard—and quite possibly

a pork-fat bun. Proof once and for all that you

don’t always need bacon to make a dish better.

Meanwhile, N9NE Steakhouse (933-9900)

recently unveiled its new look and menu as

part of the Palms’ $50 million renovation. The

formerly stark-white, neon-lit décor has made

way for darker touches, including a semi-pri-

vate center table, surrounded by sheer drapes,

in the middle of the dining-room floor. Chef

Barry Dakake’s new dishes include braised

Kobe short rib and one old-school classic, a

three-pound lobster Thermidor, topped with

Gruyere and bread crumbs, and finished with

shallots, white wine and herbs. Everything old

becomes new again.

Grace Bascos eats, sleeps, raves and repeats.

Read more from Grace at VegasSeven.com/

DishingWithGrace, as well as on her dining-and-

music blog, FoodPlusTechno.com.

ROSE.RABBIT.LIE.

In the Cosmopolitan, 877-667-0585. Open for dinner 6 p.m.-close, Thu-Sun. Dinner

for two $100-$200.

AL’S MENU PICKS

Caviar Tacos ($15 each), Uni Percatelli ($29), Rabbit

Fricassee ($16), Mussels ($15).

ON THE CHEAP

Crispy Oysters Rockefeller ($4.50 each), Heavenly Eggs

($6 each), Tête de Cochon ($11), Brussels Sprouts ($8).

Caviar tacos and uni and crab percatelli are part of this grand social experiment.

CUSTOM TAILORING & FASHIONABLE READY TO WEAR.

MEASURING BY APPOINTMENT 702.698.7630

CUSTOM TAILORING & FASHIONABLE READY TO WEAR.

MEASURING BY APPOINTMENT 702.698.7630

A&E

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tent to remain merely a friend of the family, landlubber-style, and admire from a dry distance a watery spectacle that will reach the milestone of 4,000 performances on January 31.

Launched this month in tandem with the splashy celebration, Le Rêve tours are available to showgoers. Revealing the mechanics of the Le Rêve pool set—which plunges 27 feet down in the middle in 1.1 million gallons of water—they also provide peeks into the precise backstage ballet of diving, automation, rigging and lighting that keeps the show going swimmingly.

“Some nights it’s Dorothy meets Oz, some nights it’s Alice meets Wonderland,” says Colby Lemmo, one of fve women who portray The Dreamer in a show that’s essentially a dream from which you have to towel off. … Well, not you, just them—a cast of 93 dancers, swim-mers, clowns and “general-ists” from 17 countries, diving to the depths and soaring again toward a ceiling dome on harnesses—using about 1,000 towels per night, which must put a mighty strain on the laundry-service folks. (Ninety-fve loads nightly, by the hotel’s estimate.)

Debuting in 2005, Le Rêve—“The Dream” in French, named after a 1932 Picasso painting—is the non-Cirque du Soleil creation of Franco Dragone, Cirque’s onetime creative director. Crafted as a wordless, abstract pinwheel of aquatic acrobatics and sumptuous but head-scratching tableaus, it initially left patrons and critics adrift in a sea of confusion. Inviting unfattering compari-sons to Dragone’s own O at Bel-lagio, which beat it to the Strip seven years earlier, it earned dismissive snorts, including the label “Cirque du Cliché” from the Los Angeles Times.

“It did have a rocky begin-ning, like every huge show like this,” says Madorma of the pro-duction that reportedly carried a sticker-shock price tag of $35 million for the show and $75 million for the custom theater. Designed so no seat is more than 42 feet from the stage, the venue is intended to create a quasi-immersive experience. (Yes, you might get damp if seated in the “splash zone,” i.e. rows A and B.)

“Some people thought it was too dark in the beginning because sometimes dreams are terrifying,” Madorma says about the early version.

Peppered with vampires and nightmare creatures, among other elements, it centered on a series of dreams by men and women in a barely-there plot, collectively and cryptically described as “a small collection of imperfect dreams.”

Fixes were made to individ-ual segments and the overall tone—particularly when the show went dark from March to June of 2007—to lighten the mood, after Steve Wynn assumed creative control. Scenes, including one in which pregnant women take a plunge into the pool from a dizzy-ing height, were deleted or rethought. Sunny gardens and playful creatures materialized, fantastical moments were inspired by the Sistine Chapel and the Garden of Eden, and a theater redesign pared it down from 2,087 seats to its current,

more intimate confguration.Now, Le Rêve is freshened

every six months. “We’ve cut numbers and added numbers,” says dance director Danita Salamida-Eldridge, who is heading into her eighth year on the job. Le Rêve’s original choreography was created by Giuliano Peparini.

“There hasn’t been a huge change in the choreography, but we’ve changed the inten-tion in some of them, giving it more of a through-line. ‘Eden,’ where we have these beautiful fountains and couples and The Dreamer enters and there are supposed to be refections of her and she walks around the couples. We’ve added more of a connection and humor in the characters.”

Reworking the storyline was also essential. While the show title means “the dream” and

most of us can’t unscramble the disjointed meanings of our nocturnal wanderings, theatergoers are wide awake and in search of a semblance of a narrative through-line.

“As the show has taken on its life, The Dreamer story has be-come much more prevalent,” Madorma says. “When that started, we started to fnd mo-ments, and they were received so well that we built on those. There are dark moments in the show, but it’s more balanced now and you have a real arc in the story.”

In sharpening the struc-ture, the focus shifted to one female dreamer who has both a real-world lover and a dream paramour, and learns the difference between them. “It’s her journey of fnding herself, she starts as a girl and ends as a woman,” says Lemmo.

“Her dream lover is what she envisions as the perfect man—statuesque, gorgeous, gentle and kind. The number ‘Splash’ is the turning point. Every time you’ve seen him, he was suspended in a harness. You’re enthralled, you get to touch him. Then the frst thing he does is throw you on the ground. You’re like, what just happened? The whole number is that, I want him, he doesn’t want me, and at the end, you think, ‘He’s not the person I thought he was and it isn’t what I want at all.’ Then she accepts the proposal from the man she wasn’t sure was the one in the beginning.”

Assuming the role in March 2011, Lemmo found the key to expressing that life lesson in advice from Salamida-Eldridge. “She told me to think of my ex,” says Lemmo about the dream lover who turns out less than dreamy, giggling at the memory. “We had recently broken up. And I was like, ‘Ah, I get it.’”

Emphasizing dance and romance—including ballroom dancing vignettes created in 2007 by Maksim Chmerkovs-kiy of Dancing With the Stars—also helped to tonally turn the tide from downbeat to uplifting. Unlike Lemmo, who has a dance background, many of the performers don’t come by their moves naturally.

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“I’ve had a couple of lIttle mIshaps under the water, and they tell you to just stay calm. If you panIc Is when

you’ll get yourself Into trouble.” — Colby Lemmo, who portrays The Dreamer

Colby Lemmo and Tim Johnson hit both the heights and the depths in Le Rêve, which splashes around a 1,606-seat theater in the round.

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cast, and 88 of them are from high-level sports, they’re Olympians and gymnasts,” Madorma says. “Danita has been able to teach them how to dance and project emotion, and that is no small feat.” Arriving at Le Rêve from the New York theater scene, Salamida-Eldridge was impressed by their artistic evolution.

“It’s pretty cool, seeing the growth,” she says. “I know very few dancers who could pass the strength tests for this show. But to see these big, brawly men moving so grace-fully and portraying this emotion, it’s overwhelming and inspiring.”

Not that it’s simple to earn the chance to even attempt it. Auditions prove grueling to most candidates. Recalling her own in February 2011, Lemmo ticks off the challenges: swim tests, requiring several laps to the bottom of the pool; tread-ing water for 10 minutes with ears above water; dropping 15 feet from a trapeze—all after nearly four hours of dancing. Not enough?

“Then they strength-test you. I thought, ‘Seriously? We’re not done yet?’” Lemmo says. “Then you go through the rope climb and the pull-ups and push-ups, a long jump, head springs—I’m like, ‘What’s a head spring?’”

One more thing, actually. “We push them to where they’re really tired

to see if we can put them in a place that’s uncomfortable and see if they can do a little acting,” Madorma says. “Who is going to retract into themselves and who is going to be an extrovert and try?”

Beyond all the above-the-water exertions, performers must ac-climate themselves to the produc-tion complexities beneath them. Discreetly out of sight, 16 divers assist performers and shift props and other show elements, and 12 infrared cameras monitor the ac-tion for safety. Each cast member is required to earn scuba certifcation. Divers provide breathing regula-tors to submerged performers and swim with them through a tunnel to return backstage.

“[Divers] are choreographed like the artists are choreographed and they have hundreds of duties dur-ing the show, it’s crazy,” Madorma says, noting that performers must execute their moves with absolute precision. “Artists are catapulting 18 feet off [the raised platform] and they have to land in 5 feet of water. They have to go in at an angle and do it in a scooping position. When I hire a kid out of the [NCAA], and they’re a competitive gymnast, they start to get anxiety but it’s second nature after awhile.”

Performers become keenly aware of the scuba challenges during their training, when they are required to run a half dozen or so laps around the stage and then jump in the water to approximate the feeling and tim-ing of breathlessness, while waiting for a diver to arrive with a regulator.

“I had a lot of trust that when I was in the water, someone was going to fnd me, I would always have air when I needed it,” Lemmo says. “I’ve had a couple of little mishaps under the water, and they tell you to just stay calm. If you panic is when you’ll get yourself into trouble. I dive in, my eyes are closed and when I don’t feel any-thing, I just go like this,” she says, wiggling her fngers and fapping her hands up and down in a motion somewhere between mild signaling and For Chrissakes, where the hell are you, gurgle, gurgle?

Concluding the interview and gazing over the lip of the carousel into the shimmering pool with the 360-degree vista, the interviewer real-izes Lemmo’s advice is useful should someone christen him a “part of the family” with one impulsive shove.

Backpedaling from the edge, the inter-viewer instead heads toward the ramp that delivers him to terra frma.

Better safe than soggy.

LE RÊVE

7 and 9:30 p.m. Fri-Tue, Wynn Las Vegas,

$105 and up, 770-9966, WynnLasVegas.com.

BACKSTAGE TOURS

4-5 p.m. Sun-Mon through Feb. 16, Fri-Tue beginning Feb. 23, Wynn Las Vegas, $249 (includes preferred

seating at a 7 p.m. performance, plus Le Rêve

merchandise).

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Music

This ediTion of Soundscraper is mostly aimed at local bands that insist they follow my column. But frst, I’ll share some notable underground rock shows for all you Soundscrapers who’d rather watch a concert than play one:

Over at Double Down Saloon, it’s a showcase weekend for homegrown indie label SquidHat Records, featuring only the best punk-rock, folk-punk and cowpunk bands—many of them signed to SquidHat, whose roster is bulging with Vegas groups. On January 24, the lineup includes Bobby Meader, Surrounded by Thieves, Sounds of Threat, Unfair Fight and Peccadilloes. On January 25, the bill includes Mercy Music (a.k.a. Brendan Scholz), Attack Ships on Fire, War Called Home, Strange Mistress and the People’s Whiskey. Both nights start at 10 p.m., and admission is free. More details at SquidHatRecords.com.

Local melodic-punk trio Shotguns N Gasoline will blow away fans at 5 p.m. January 24 at Eagle Aerie Hall (310 W. Pacifc Ave.) in Henderson. The band released a full-length disc, Premium, this time last year, which somehow slipped my notice. I’m enjoying the album now, especially “The Captain,” with its big-hook cho-rus and tuneful guitar licks. Haven’t seen this three-piece live yet, so I hope they make as much racket as their album suggests.

Here are some opportunities for

you guys and gals to triumph onstage, and on CD:

Zia Record Exchange is curating the eighth volume of its annual You Heard Us Back When local music compila-tion CD series. This one spotlights Phoenix, Tucson and Las Vegas bands, so let’s make sure we’re strongly represented, Sin City rockers! The deadline is March 3, and submission information is available at ZiaRecords.com. The CD’s release date is April

19, National Record Store Day. All pro-ceeds go to charities. I’d better see Rusty Maples, A Crowd of Small Adventures and Mercy Music on this comp, or else!

Las Vegas groups have a few days left—the deadline is January 27—to enter Hard Rock Rising, a battle-of-the-bands organized by Hard Rock and ReverbNation. The top live ensemble travels to Rome to play the Hard Rock Live summer fest, all-expenses paid. (Runner-up gets $10,000 in new gear and equipment.) Local bands can register on the Hard Rock Cafe Las Vegas Facebook page. Then it’s up to voting fans to say which groups graduate to the live-performance phase. A panel of judges reviews the band’s social content to determine the top bands. After fan favorites are selected, the onstage competition gets underway next month right at Hard Rock Live. More details at HardRock.com.

Your Vegas band releasing a CD soon? Email Jarret_Keene@Yahoo.com.

Rising haRd, coMping Zia, spoTlighTing squidhaT

Mercy Music plays the SquidHat Records showcase on Jan 25.

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[ by tribune media services ]short reviews

early, bloggy reviews of Ride Along have rolled in with phrases such as “perfectly acceptable” and “been-there-done-that,” suggesting the likely range of opinion. It’ll probably be a hit: Audiences are getting precisely what they’re promised.

This is the ol’ odd-couple cops routine, rigged up to sup-port the pairing of Ice Cube, in the role of a snarling Atlanta police detective on the trail of a mysterious arms dealer, and Kevin Hart, as the detective’s prospective brother-in-law, a high school security guard with aspirations to join the force.

Hart’s best bits in Ride Along, such as they are and such as it is, hark back to the panicking-ninny routines of many other comedians, from Eddie Cantor to Rush Hour’s Chris Tucker.

The 2001 drama Training Day is name-checked in Ride Along,

and some of the stuff in this di-version isn’t much less vile than anything Denzel Washington got up to in Training Day.

The story has a bizarre undertone. Cube’s character is so creepily protective of his sister, played by Tika Sumpter in various states of decora-tive undress, he comes off like someone who should be tailed, not someone doing the tailing.

Hart’s Ben Barber must prove his worthiness to his future in-law and show he has what it takes to be this movie’s idea of a good cop, measured in how many innocent bystand-ers come in for friendly fre. The rest of the movie is sexual molestation jokes, misjudged brutality and a general glorif-cation of assault weapons. (The flm’s rated PG-13, and it’d be pretty stupid to take anyone under 12.)

The supporting cast features

John Leguizamo and Bryan Callen as Cube’s colleagues and Bruce McGill as the tetchy lieutenant.

Director Tim Story can’t do much with the screenplay, which smells of the eternally

rewritten paste-up job. After Story’s loose, ingratiating work on Barbershop and Think Like a Man, I hoped for something more fun here. Ride Along, trad-ing in too much action and not enough comedy, is best consid-

ered as the latest restaurant to open in an Olive Garden-type chain. No surprises. Pretty much like the last one you went to. Plus lots of breadsticks.

Ride Along (PG-13) ★★✩✩✩

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (PG-13) ★★✩✩✩

Chris Pine plays the CIA analyst portrayed in

previous films by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford

and Ben Affleck, and Pine’s Ryan is ransack-

ing the terrorist’s files digitally elsewhere

while putting the fiancée at risk. Jack Ryan:

Shadow Recruit has plenty of action, almost all

of it staged and edited in the manner of a Paul

Greengrass Bourne movie (handheld frenzy,

without the Greengrass spatial clarity). This is

a Jack Ryan prequel, introducing our hero as

an American grad student, driven to serve as a

Marine after 9/11 changes modern history.

The Nut Job (PG) ★✩✩✩✩Director and co-writer Peter Lepeniotis’ movie

comes from Surly Squirrel, an animated short

the filmmaker made nearly a decade ago. In that

film the titular rodent was an unrepentant punk.

Big problem straight off: tone. The violence isn’t

slapsticky; it’s just violent. Another problem:

Since Surly—even the new, redeemable

model—spends so much time being a flaming

jerk, The Nut Job fights its protagonist’s own

charmlessness. Turning a dislikable character

a little less dislikable by the end credits sets

an awfully low bar for this sort of thing. Kids

deserve better. Even squirrels deserve better.

Lone Survivor (R) ★★★✩✩Roughly half of Lone Survivor is a standard-

issue Hollywood treatment of a recent, bloody

and, tragic 2005 Navy SEAL mission to elimi-

nate an al-Qaida operative in Afghanistan. But

the other half—the hour or so of writer-director

Peter Berg’s film dealing with what happens

when four men are cut off in Taliban country,

scrambling under fire—is gripping stuff, free of

polemics, nerve-wracking in the extreme. Mark

Wahlberg plays Luttrell. Eric Bana plays the

commander back at Bagram Air Field, monitor-

ing what becomes a terrible ambush. The heart

of the film is pure crisis and response.

Her (R) ★★★★✩A delicate, droll masterwork, writer-director

Spike Jonze’s Her sticks its neck out. It tells

a love story about a forlorn writer, played by

refreshingly rage-free and wholly inspired

Joaquin Phoenix, who is remarkable as

Theodore. He buys the latest new gadget, the

iPhone of its day. It is an advanced “operating

system” that is simply a voice. Where does

the love story take Theodore and his new

thrill? Better you find out for yourself. I love

this film. It’s unusually witty science fiction,

and it’s unfashionably sincere, as well as a

work of casual visual inspiration.

cop and rent-a-cop Ice Cube and Kevin Hart play the odd couple

in this action-comedy

By Michael Phillips Tribune Media Services

Cube and Hart need a script with more laughs and less action.

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When you were featured on the cover of Vegas Seven’s 2011 Intriguing People issue, you were al-ready famous. Three years later, how has your life changed?

It’s pretty much work, work, work around here. [The History Channel] just keeps re-upping our show. Besides a couple of months in the summer, we just work all the time. I got a steady girlfriend—

I probably met her shortly after we interviewed. I bought a house. But the fame had already set in, as far as going out and being recognized and stuff. Now I feel like the work is setting in. [Laughs.]

What’s the one possession you’d never pawn?

The new Chum holds no value to material items, but I have a few possessions that I would never pawn. Those would be the few items that my father [a master woods-man] has made. My father passed away two weeks before the show [debuted] on TV. I could never sell or pawn that, but I could pretty much sell or pawn anything else. … If you would’ve asked me six months ago, I would have told you that I would never sell my all-gold Rolex, which I just sold recently. Not because I needed the money, but because I don’t wear it anymore.

I try not to buy shoes any-more, either. You probably know my obsession with shoes. But I’m not buying anything that I don’t need anymore, and I definitely don’t need more shoes.

You’re often spotted sit-ting courtside at UNLV basketball games. How big of a Rebels fan are you?

I love the Rebels. Those boys have a lot of talent. It’s just an unfortunate situa-tion that [they] seem to lack direction out there. I’m not pointing any fingers, and I don’t know what the problem is, but we gotta get that talent to work together. I’ll always root for the boys whether they’re winning or losing. I try to stay till the end of every game. I’m a huge Rebels fan. I have Rebel chucks [Chuck Taylor sneak-ers], the Walmart version—only pair of shoes I ever bought in Walmart.

The last time we spoke, you talked about possibly doing stand-up comedy, or starring in a Pawn Stars spin-off. What’s the status of those ventures?

I think stand-up come-dians are geniuses; I don’t think I could ever do it. As far as starting my own show, who has time for that when you have to do 104 episodes of this television show in 2014? Right now, I’m just focused on Pawn Stars, focused on all the fans we have, trying to give back to them by making great television, and having a great atmosphere when they come to visit. Once this is over, I may reopen the lines and rethink. But at this present time, I breathe, live and bleed Pawn Stars.

What do you think about Pawn Shop Live!, the new Broadway-style play based on the show that debuted earlier this month at the Golden Nugget?

It’s great. We’re even going to be doing guest ap-pearances. I haven’t gotten to see the actual play yet, but I’m hoping that I get to see it soon. Rick [Harrison, owner of Gold & Silver Pawn Shop] went and saw it; he said it’s great. If Rick likes it then it’s gotta be really good, because he’s really critical of anything about the show.

I think it’s going to draw a lot of people Downtown once again. They’ll be able to go to the show and come to the shop, all in the same little stroll.

How is the onscreen Chumlee different than the offscreen Chumlee?

To be honest, I don’t watch the actual show too often. From what I know, it’s pretty close. They show me getting picked on a little bit more than I actually do get picked on. You know, it goes both ways. I do get picked on, but not that bad. They’re not killing me down there. You don’t have to worry about me.

People always say, “Hey, tell them to stop picking on you.” I promise it’s not that bad. I’m giving it right back to Rick. [Laughs.]

You’ve recently dropped 100 pounds. How does it feel?

Amazing. It’s like someone gave you a shot of life. I have more energy. I used to have trouble walking up the stairs to the second foor at work. Now I play basketball for three hours most Sundays. I can run. I can ride a bike as long as I want. I feel like I’m in a new chapter in my life. I’ve still got 50 more to go. I’m try-ing to get down to 175.

You’re going to be a super-model.

I don’t know about that. I’ve still got the same ghoul-ish looks.

What is Chum-lee’s dream job? And why will he

never flip you off? Read the full interview at VegasSeven.com/Chumlee.

Austin ‘Chumlee’ RussellThe Pawn Star on rooting for the Rebels, pawning Rolexes

and dropping 100 pounds

By Cindi Moon Reed

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