Volume 25, Number 23
ON THE COVER:
news
Will AISD abandon its shrinking schools?
BY RACHEL PROCTOR MAY
Special election for Texas House of Representatives,
District 48
Union, management credit Mayor Wynn with success
BY WELLS DUNBAR
Ex-director of water program says he's blowing whistle on pollution; city officials say they're on top of it
BY MICHAEL KING
After day of testimony from psychologists and counselors, district judge rules Marcus McTear has no chance for early parole
BY JORDAN SMITH
Senate candidate Barbara Ann Radnofsky demands incumbent Hutchison 'end the war on children,' lays out proposals for aiding public education
BY LEE NICHOLS
Headlines and Happenings from Austin and Beyond
Give a hand to those Cap Metro workers who fought for you and me
BY MICHAEL KING
Bushites fail to protect troops; and Wall Street divides up
the bonus booty
BY JIM HIGHTOWER
food
Bombay Bistro is the newest Indian venture in town. Is it already the best?
BY MICK VANN
Pamela Boyar is the best, according to the North American Farmers' Direct Marketing Association; plus, our cup runneth over with events you should consider attending
BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD
Food Reviews
A 'Big Night' experience at a modest Argentinean eatery
Go now, before the liquor license and the long lines to get in
music
Unsheathing the Sword's two-fisted 'Age of Winters'
BY AUDRA SCHROEDER
Handsome Joel remembered, inside Anthropos Arts, the
drive to bring Roy Orbison to a postage stamp near you,
and Chuck Berry deep in the heart of Texas.
BY CHRISTOPHER GRAY
The Sword Reviewed
Age of Winters
Paparazzi Lightning
Brothers and Sisters
Militant Babies
Live Shots
Live Shots
Live Shots
screens
At Sundance, the proving ground just got a lot more slippery
BY MARJORIE BAUMGARTEN
At Slamdance, tenderness, anger, and a very steep slope
BY SPENCER PARSONS
The official list will be released early next week, but we've got a credible source on the inside that was able to supply some titles a bit ahead of time
Texas (finally) gets a horror-film convention to call its own
BY MARC SAVLOV
Throughout February
My 'Rollergirls' review: the response; plus, Aaron McGruder deals with 'The Boondocks' backlash
BY BELINDA ACOSTA
Screens Reviews
How Raymond Chandler's coffee can became Stephen J. Cannell's cookie jar, with James Garner as the constant
Film Reviews
Every movie about the Holocaust should be this good, but few are. Heartbreaking and brutal, its tale of two boys training together at an elite school is as intimate and truthful to its characters as it is powerfully topical and politically brave.
It's a shame to again witness Martin Lawrence squander his considerable comic talents under a fat suit and fake breasts in this shoddy sequel.
Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan is here set among Jazz Age expatriates cold-chillin' on the Italian coast, and the result is not quite as dishy as one might hope.
This staid British music-hall drama seems calculated to earn Judi Dench lots of award notices. Mission accomplished.
Think Bridget Jones' lovelorn but marriage-obsessed single woman, only make her a neat-freak, not a basket case, and a comely African-American, not a plumpish, pasty Brit in this genre-tweaking romantic comedy.
This muckraking populist grab bag of a film isn't so much a documentary as it is a harried piece of grassroots agitprop.
The final collaboration between director Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant is a gorgeous slice of Merchant Ivoryisms (thanks in large part to the lushly vertiginous cinematography of DP Christopher Doyle) that nevertheless fails to equal the team’s greatest works.
Anthony Hopkins' great performance as Burt Munro, the real-life New Zealand codger and Indian motorcycle enthusiast who in 1967 set a land speed record that still stands today, is not enough to crash through this unabashedly sentimental wall of schmaltz.
arts & culture
At Austin Playhouse, running Alan Ayckbourn's paired
comedies side-by-side is double the pleasure, double
the fun
BY ROBERT FAIRES
You can see the history of the ancient and modern worlds through the most central of human expressions in the Ransom Center's 'Technologies of Writing' exhibit
BY BARRY PINEO
Kirk Lynn's latest play, 'Major Bang, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dirty Bomb,' wins a bang-up review from Ben Brantley in the 'New York Times'
BY ROBERT FAIRES
The unexpected is to be expected when it comes to FronteraFest's Mi Casa Es Su Teatro, which features everything from monologues to musicals to martial arts in theatres, living rooms, and bathrooms around Austin
BY ROBERT FAIRES
Legendary hoofer Fayard Nicholas of the Nicholas Brothers, recent visitor to Austin for the Soul to Sole Tap Festival and friend of Tapestry Dance Company, has died at age 91
BY ROBERT FAIRES
Arts Reviews
With FronteraFest 2006 in full swing, the January 27 Short Fringe program offered an assortment of theatrical ingenuity, frivolity, and tenderness
The Rude Mechs' 'Get Your War On' provides a fresh reminder of the political outrages of the past four years and a fresh injection of the outrage we may have lost
Different Stages' pairing of Naomi Wallace's 'The Retreating World' and Fraser Grace's 'Gifts of War' offers solo portraits of two victims of war, staged with sensitive simplicity
columns
The paradoxical pleasures of the religious right
BY LOUIS BLACK
Our readers talk back.
Unless my transmission conks out in a place like Bossier City, a guy like me hasn't much chance to hear out a guy like Virgil
BY MICHAEL VENTURA
Stephen returns to his designing roots; plus, the most charming Web sites of late, and the year's fanciest garage sale
BY STEPHEN MACMILLAN MOSER
Not only are eggs delicious, they're also good for you
BY JAMES HEFFLEY, PH.D.
Courtroom conduct and etiquette – can my clothes get me in trouble?
BY LUKE ELLIS
The Nasher Sculpture Garden and the Crow Collection of Asian Art are just two excellent reasons to make a short trip to Dallas to enjoy some world-renowned art
BY GERALD E. MCLEOD
Eat and walk
BY MR. SMARTY PANTS
Our latest batch
Letters to the editor, published daily
sports
Houston 1836 is the name of Houston's MLS team,
Arsenal is upset by the Bolton Wanderers, and more
BY NICK BARBARO