Film Alien Craig Baldwin
Film Alien Craig Baldwin NR. Directed by Various, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Cut and paste film phreak Craig Baldwin returns to Austin with two shows. Alien Anomalies Outta Other Cinema plays at 8pm and is a “best of the Bay Area show” featuring works by Greta Snider, J.X. Williams, Thad Povey,…
Film South Asia Festival Traveling Show
Film South Asia Festival Traveling Show NR. Directed by Various, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Presented by HIMAL, a Kathmandu-based nonprofit, this traveling showcase features 15 documentaries from the Film South Asia Festival in Kathmandu. Films include “The Killing Terraces,” about the burgeoning Maoist movement in the hills of Nepal, and “While…
Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West
Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West 2002, NR, 40 min. Directed by Bruce Neibaur, Narrated by Jeff Bridges, Voices by , Starring . The danger of the uncharted West comes to life in this large-format film produced by National Geographic in honor of the 200th anniversary of the Lewis & Clark expedition. Actors inhabit the…
Flesh and the Devil
Flesh and the Devil 1926, NR, 112 min. Directed by Clarence Brown, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Greta Garbo, Barbara Kent, Lars Hanson, John Gilbert, William Orlamond. Greta Garbo is the siren whose insatiable sexuality threatens to tear apart blood brothers John Gilbert and Lars Hanson in this overheated and melodramatic masterpiece. Flesh…
The Sweetest Thing
The Sweetest Thing 2002, R, 84 min. Directed by Roger Kumble, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Parker Posey, Jason Bateman, Thomas Jane, Selma Blair, Christina Applegate, Cameron Diaz. The Sweetest Thing boasts a new development in the continuing struggle for gender equity in film: Its female characters are just as vulgar, boorish, and…
Asking Questions Later
The Travis County District Attorney’s office announced April 3 that a grand jury declined to indict Travis County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Derek Hill, who shot and killed 19-year-old Tony Martinez during a drug raid in Del Valle. Hill and other members of the TCSO, in conjunction with the Capital Area Narcotics Task Force, had been…
Something to Talk About
Silent but deadly are the grandes dames of pre-talkie Hollywood: Garbo, Bow, Gish, Pickford, Brooks. The Austin Film Society presents a new series honoring their early work.
Book Review
Bohemian Paris: Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse, and the Birth of Modern Artby Dan Franck; translated by Cynthia Hope Liebow Grove, 480 pp., $27.50 “Drop everything,” Andre Breton wrote in 1924. “Drop your wife, drop your mistress/drop your hopes and dreams/Abandon your children in the corner of a wood.” Breton’s poem is deadly earnest advice for the…
Phases and Stages
… And You Will Know Us by the Trail of DeadSource Tags & Codes (Interscope) Saw the video for “Another Morning Stoner” last night. There they were, in all their glory, playing for a packed arena, crowd and band playing tug-of-war with guitars. Cut away to images of the band in John Peel’s studio. Cut…
Notes of an Old Leftist
Lone Star liberal Dave Richards releases his memoir at the Scholz Garten to much fanfare.
An Unsentimental Education
A/V Geek Skip Elsheimer is a curator of a certain brand of pop-culture ephemera: the forgotten “educational” film.
Recommended
The Michener Center’s May graduates will give a reading tonight, Thursday, April 11, at 7:30pm in the Avaya Auditorium in the A.C.E.S. building on the UT campus (at the southeast corner of 24th & Speedway). Their fiction, film, plays, and poetry will be featured. Parking available at UT Parking Garage No. 1 at 24th &…
Phases and Stages
Areola 51 Neither their bad pun of a name nor the cheap porn nature of their self-titled debut’s artwork reconcile themselves with the fact that Areola 51 is actually pretty sweet. Sangre de Toro picadores Brett Bradford (ex-Scratch Acid) and Max Brody (present-Ministry) get in ring with Honky skronk bassist Jeff (“J.D.”) Pinkus and out…
Changing Lanes
Changing Lanes 2002, R, 95 min. Directed by Roger Michell, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring William Hurt, Amanda Peet, Sydney Pollack, Toni Collette, Kim Staunton, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Affleck. Roger Michell’s previous film, the romantic comedy Notting Hill, gave no indication that the director knew his way around the urban suspense drama…
Spreading Mono
According to Randall Duty, the reason Austinites rejected light rail at the ballot box in 2000 wasn’t because they were against mass transit — they were just offered the wrong type of transit. Duty and his fellow activists in the Austin Monorail Project think they know the right kind, and you can probably guess what…
The Educational Archives, Vol. 1: Sex and Drugs
Compiled by Skip Elsheimer A companion piece to the A/V Geeks’ “Social Engineering 101” DVD, this is a nicely packaged disc that contains some pricelessly dated and ridiculously inaccurate information on, of course, sex and drugs. “LSD: Case Study” kicks things off. Filmed as a series of still photos with narration, it’s the tale of…
New in Print
Coffeetable book Great Women of Film touches upon the difficulties women face in Hollywood, but it’s actually an invaluable primer for anyone who wants to work in film.
Phases and Stages
Independence: An Austin Sampler Not since the Rock Opera soundtrack has a local compilation rallied Austin’s teeming minions of freak-rockers with such screeching vengeance. This warbling, 19-song mishmash of punk, metal, twang, and otherwise unclassifiable weirdness leads off with the Spiders’ hard rock opus, “Argument,” followed in quick succession by Powersquid’s irresistibly disturbing “Profound” and…
Second Skin
Second Skin 2000, NR, 100 min. Directed by Gerard Vera, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Cecilia Roth, Ariadna Gil, Jordi Mollá, Javier Bardem. Elena (Gil) is the loving wife, unfailingly true to her husband and son. Alberto (Mollá) is the sad-eyed, secretive husband with a pocketful of crumpled hotel bills. Diego (Bardem), a…
Great Streets, Not So Great Parks
Battle at the park over Riverside Drive
A Blue Ribbon Benefit
Julia Roberts greeted fans outside the Paramount Theatre last Sunday night at the world premiere of filmmaker Barry Tubb’s movie Grand Champion, a children’s picture described by the director as his “love letter to Texas.” Emma Roberts, niece of the Pretty Woman, is one of the child stars of the picture, and the film also…
Page Two
Like all morality-based movements designed to eat away at our most basic freedoms, term limits and campaign finance reform are inherently anti-democratic.
Phases and Stages
AunaSecretly to… (Untouched) As the nü-metal-phobic indie nation continues to bury vocals and riffs under an avalanche of gear trickery, local bands like Auna hearken back to the way things were not so very long ago, back when big riffs and clever melodies were all it took to land a spot on the commercial dial.…
New Best Friend
New Best Friend 2002, R, 91 min. Directed by Zoe Clarke-Williams, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Rachel True, Oliver Hudson, Meredith Monroe, Taye Diggs, Dominique Swain, Meredith Monroe, Mia Kirshner. A remarkably bad film that’s also remarkably entertaining by sheer anti-virtue of its oversexed awfulness, New Best Friend is the trashy teen-sleaze equivalent…
Military Out of Mabry?
A West Austin resident says moving the Texas National Guard out of Camp Mabry would be better for both the neighborhood and military.
Short Cuts
It’s a moviehouse melee as a rumored three more suitors enter into the Great Hills 8 bidding war.
Day Trips
The Durango to Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad in Durango, Colo., chugs up the river valley like a giant yellow and black caterpillar puffing dark smoke out of its head. The beauty of the San Juan Mountains and National Forest passing the steam train’s windows can’t be described in words nor adequately captured on an artist’s…
Phases and Stages
Michael Hall & the WoodpeckersLucky Too (Aznut) Lucky Too is Michael Hall & the Woodpeckers’ second effort. Where the first disc, 2000’s Dead by Dinner, was mostly a collection of Hall’s songs, this is a distinctly band effort. What that means is that not only are songwriting credits spread among guitarist Randy Franklin, keyboard player…
Human Nature
Human Nature 2001, R, 96 min. Directed by Michel Gondry, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Patricia Arquette, Rhys Ifans, Tim Robbins, Miranda Otto, Rosie Perez, Robert Forster, Mary Kay Place. The old nature-vs.-nurture argument takes a beating in this smart absurdist comedy written by Being John Malkovich’s Charlie Kaufman and produced by that…
Naked City
Election Haiku: Victor, Everyman. So was plumber down the street. Run-off victor: Kirk. Good news for SH 130 backers: The state is letting the private sector manage the long-delayed, $1.5 billion highway project. Now, the bad news: The Georgetown-to-Seguin toll road will likely be built by a team led by Fluor Daniel, the engineer/contractors who…
TV Eye
Disappointingly, Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ new sitcom didn’t prove self-fulfilling — no one is watching Watching Ellie. “TV Eye” explains why you should.
Mr. Smarty Pants
The four largest of Jupiter’s moons, in order from outermost inward, are Callisto, Ganymede, Europa, and Io.On Feb. 23, Defenders of the Motherland Day in Russia, it’s not unusual for men to get a full beer stein, a fish, and a kiss from a woman. Defenders of the Motherland Day today honors all of Russia’s…
Phases and Stages
Mike RosenthalMovin’ In (Red Truck) Five, six years ago, when the supernova of punk’s second coming began fading, all the young dudes wiped off the eyeliner and went alt.country. Now, five, six years later, the Ryan Adams of the world have outted themselves as pin-ups for the pure pop now generation. Austin’s Mike Rosenthal looks…
Big Trouble
Big Trouble 2002, PG-13, 85 min. Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Tim Allen, Rene Russo, Stanley Tucci, Tom Sizemore, Janeane Garofalo, Dennis Farina, Jason Lee, Patrick Warburton, Ben Foster, Zooey Deschanel. Based on a novel by beloved humorist Dave Barry, helmed by reliable laffmeister Barry Sonnenfeld (Get Shorty, Men…
Naked City
At long last, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has finalized an ambitious blueprint for managing the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge over the next 15 years. But there’s a hook: The goals outlined in the Comprehensive Conservation Plan are “substantially above current budget levels.” As a result, the federal report states, the guideline will…
The Secret History of Tuna
Tuna isn’t the only Texas town with which actor-writers Jaston Williams and Joe Sears can be closely identified. Austin has played a significant role in the development of their town, and in return Sears and Williams have changed the face of the capital city.
To Your Health
Is earwax supposed to be dry or sticky? Mine seems to be too dry and is hard to remove. Is there a remedy other than having a doctor remove it?
Phases and Stages
Coco Candissi Bricks Have Eyes (Known Rock Figures) Swimming against the reverse peristaltic waves of nostalgia, Austin’s Coco Candissi channels the wine-cooler-fueled exuberance of growing up in the Eighties without making you gag from too much sickly sweetness. A tune like “Niagara” conjures up the latent urge to do a convoluted version of Molly Ringwald’s…
Naked City
It ain’t over till it’s over, but the first reading of the Cedar Door’s disputed zoning request to sell alcohol at its new Toomey Road location scored five winning votes from the City Council last week. It wasn’t exactly a slam-dunk. No one seemed eager to make the motion for its approval, so Daryl Slusher…
A Tuna Almanac: Facts About the Shows and Their Creators
Facts about the Tuna shows and their creators, and a guide to the characters in the plays.
About AIDS
HIV, Hep C, and STD Testing: Free & Easy Have you ever wondered where to go for an HIV test? Does your regular health care provider only offer confidential testing (using your real name), not anonymous (your own name is not known)? Do they provide a trained HIV counselor who can offer risk assessment, prevention…
Phases and Stages
The PeenbeetsThe Peenbeets Get Cancelled (Starco) Having discovered the Peenbeets late, I’m saddened that the Austin band’s second album may be the finale for this River City mini-institution. For nearly a decade, the Peenbeets, led by longtime Chronicle music scribe Greg Beets, have been combining major chords and post-punk irony, capitalizing on the inspired sitcom…
Naked City
By far, the biggest item inked onto today’s (Thursday) City Council agenda is the expected hiring of Toby Futrell as Austin’s real, official, non-interim city manager. Expect much applause. With several other consequential decisions on the table, expect as many thrills and chills as everyone’s favorite saga of recent note: the Villas on Guadalupe, approved…
Who’s Who in Tuna
The three Tuna plays feature a total of 29 citizens of Tuna (Tuners? Tunites? Tunanians?), along with three non-human characters: a dog, an extraterrestrial, and a reporter from Houston. Here are a few snapshots from the municipal memory book, identifying each character and the parts of the Tuna Trilogy in which he or she appears.…
After a Fashion
Some upcoming events to keep you off the street and a little story about your Style Avatar and why he should probably stay off the streets …
Phases and Stages
THE Meat PurveyorsAll Relationships Are Doomed to Fail (Bloodshot) Well, the Meat Purveyors are back, and there isn’t any shame in saying they’ve been missed. Now that they’ve finally gotten around to releasing a new disc, All Relationships Are Doomed to Fail, we can all go back to dancing around the living room in our…
Second Helpings: Burger-Mania, Part Two
Chronicle Food Editor Virginia B. Wood feeds our burger-mania in this week’s Second Helpings.
Naked City
If you’re reading this issue because you’re stuck in a traffic jam and headed toward the LCRA Building for today (Thursday)’s City Council meeting, stop the car! Now! This week, council meets at East Austin’s Conley-Guerrero Senior Activity Center, 808 Nile St. The week’s main event: The expected appointment of Toby Futrell as city manager.…
Rite of Spring: The Austin Fine Arts Festival
Local sculptor Damian Priour talks about being Featured Artist for one of the city’s rites of spring: the Austin Fine Arts Festival.
Coach’s Corner
San Antonio and Dallas are two of the best teams in pro basketball. Their meeting this weekend was just a preview of a playoff showdown.
Phases and Stages
Tommy Shane SteinerThen Came the Night (RCA) Mmmmm, Velveeta. Smooth, consistent, predictable. The debut from Austin-launched hat act Tommy Shane Steiner is typical of contemporary “Hot Country,” except it’s not as good as most. Kicking off with the uptempo “That Just Wouldn’t Be Me,” complete with a solo by session guitar honcho Brent Mason, things…
Phases and Stages
Sara Hickman Faithful Heart (Sleeveless) She’s been making music for a long time now, but Sara Hickman has never made a disc that’s as complete a listening experience as Faithful Heart. A collection of love songs, some original, others from the songbooks of the Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joni Mitchell, Crowded House, Jennifer Warnes, and Nat…
Capitol Chronicle
Everyone in Texas wants better schools, but no one wants to pay the tab.
Articulations
Austin Lyric Opera hires a new managing director, Horton Foote’s The Carpetbagger’s Children is named best new play by America’s theatre critics, and half-price tickets are back at BookPeople.
Minding Your Manners
Though it doesn’t make it into the paper, we do get a fair amount of correspondence via phone, e-mail, or snail mail in which readers air their complaints about experiences in local restaurants. We don’t print it because it’s Chronicle policy not to take a position on business complaints about incidents we didn’t witness and…
Phases and Stages
Texas RedemptorsMilagros (Catfish Jazz) Led by folklorist, record producer, musician, and substance abuse counselor Tary Owens, Texas Redemptors is a band the longtime local musician helped start after he was hit with a perfect storm of infirmity: Hepatitis C, Parkinson’s disease, and diabetes. The band’s moniker comes from the support the Austin musical community –…
Phases and Stages
Michelle ShockedDeep Natural With Dub Natural (Mighty Sound) Michelle Shocked has been playing by her own rules since the start. When she wasn’t squabbling with record labels, she was touring with a wide variety of players and releasing albums that she only was allowed to sell from the stage. Now, she appears with her own…
Austin @ Large: Austin at Large
If Mueller is a model, then why wasn’t it followed with the Villas?
Exhibitionism
Boys will be boys — especially if they’re brothers and they’re written by Sam Shepard. And this offering of True West from 4th &1 does a damned fine job of showing us what that means.
Taking Stock
Food Editor Virginia B. Wood reports from the 17th Annual Texas Hill Country Food & Wine Festival.
Phases and Stages
CindersLive in the ChapelMy Education5 Popes Golden Arm Trio isn’t the only classical crossover group in Austin. In fact, with regular gigs at such unlikely dives as Cafe Marakesh, Beerland, and the Hideout, the mostly extemporaneous string trio Cinders has clearly wrestled the “DIY classical” mantle from Graham Reynolds’ ever-expanding operation. On their debut long…
The Hightower Lowdown
Dubya will save us from pollution — with gas masks; polluters get “greenwashing” awards; the Cardinals pitch St. Louis a screwball.
Exhibitionism
David Douglas Duncan inaugurated the David Douglas Duncan Endowed Lecture Series in Photojournalism by talking about his dog Yo-Yo, a small terrier, and providing the audience with an intimate and entertaining slide show from one of the world’s master photographers.
Food-o-File
What’s cooking in the Central Texas food scene.
Governing Post-Boom Austin
Now that the lawsuits are over, we hope the council campaigns will turn to issues.
Been Around the World
Cine las Americas enters its fifth year as the premier festival of Latino filmmaking … only they’re not calling it “Latino” anymore.
Exhibitionism
The Nushank Theater Collective produces a cast of powerful performers for its production of Oliver Mayer’s glove love drama Blade to the Heat.
Mind Wide Open
D: Fuse, one of the world’s biggest emerging DJs, hails from A-town.
Frailty
Frailty 2002, R, 100 min. Directed by Bill Paxton, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Bill Paxton, Matthew McConaughey, Powers Boothe, Matt O’Leary, Jeremy Sumpter, Luke Askew. What is it about Texas and gothic horror tales? Do we just breed ’em strange and lethal in Texas? Or are the movies responsible for creating this…
Council Contest Primer
A rundown of the upcoming Austin City Council election
Cine Las Americas Schedule
Friday, April 12 As Havana’s oldest Afro-Cuban music venue, La Tropical is like New York City’s Broadway: If musicians can make it there, they can make it anywhere. David Turnley’s documentary of the music hall, La Tropical, reveals how race defines Cuban music in ways that are both affirming and damning. (ADD, 7pm) Screening afterward…
Exhibitionism
Director Johanna McKeon opens her UT Department of Theatre & Dance staging of As You Like It in a court of stylish bleakness, but when she moves it to the Forest of Arden, spring permeates the production and a buzzing, exuberant spirit takes over.
Dancing About Architecture
The rain couldn’t stop the flood of Austin’s outdoor music shows last weekend.
Italian for Beginners
Italian for Beginners 2000, R, 112 min. Directed by Lone Scherfig, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Sara Indrio Jensen, Lars Kaalund, Peter Gantzler, Ann Eleonora Jorgensen, Anette Stovelbaek, Anders W. Berthelsen. Italian for Beginners is an amiable romantic comedy from Denmark that interweaves the lives of several Copenhagen residents. In the midst of…
Run-off Election Night
Primary Run-off Report
The Weakness of the Flesh
Actor Bill Paxton gets behind the camera for his directorial debut, the Texas gothic terror tale, Frailty.
Edward O. Wilson: The Elegant Agitator
In his newest book The Future of Life (Knopf, $22), conservationist philosopher and Harvard professor Edward O. Wilson calmly and with stately dignity aligns himself squarely in the rebel-rousing Henry David Thoreau camp surrounded by the rowdy, hippie-inspired environmentalists who stomp up and down at World Trade Conventions and tie themselves to redwood trees marked…
Women, Scene but Not Heard
In Austin, the line between movies and music is about as thin as a celluloid cell, so take a look at the Austin Film Society’s new series, “Actresses of the Silent Screen” (see Screens story, p.48). The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema at Fourth & Colorado is showing a silent film every Tuesday evening (free) for the…
