The Harmonists
The Harmonists 1997, R, 115 min. Directed by Joseph Vilsmaier, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Katja Riemann, Max Tidof, Heinrich Schafmeister, Heino Ferch, Kai Wiesinger, Meret Becker, Ben Becker, Ulrich Noethen. Based on a true story, The Harmonists relates the trials of a late-1920s/early 1930s pop music sextet as they struggle to achieve…
The Matrix
A blend of pop psychology, cyberpunk lore, and stunning visuals.
The Out-of-Towners
The Out-of-Towners 1999, PG-13, 92 min. Directed by Sam Weisman, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Goldie Hawn, Steve Martin, John Cleese, Mark McKinney. Since most folks’ attitudes about Neil Simon can be plotted somewhere along the vast arc between indifference and near-religious zealotry, this remake of the fondly remembered 1970 original starring Jack…
Public Notice
Although Dewey Winburne — one of the founders of the SXSW Interactive Conference — was part of the Chronicle family, we can’t pretend that we knew him all that well. We have kids at the same elementary school and would run into each other now and again at this school event or that. But Dewey…
Naked City
The Triangle Square development is close to finding a new residential developer for the project, says Cencor Realty’s Tom Terkel, chief developer for the project. Terkel said yesterday that Cincinnati-based Ewing Properties has emerged the frontrunner. The search for a multi-family developer has been going on since Post/West Properties opted out of the project back…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
According to Webster’s dictionary, “jump start” as a verb originated in 1973. Adel M. Al Zarouni of the United Arab Emirates claims to have designed a microwave gun that is so powerful it does not need a battery and can fry flesh. He also claims to have designed a helicopter without a propeller blade on…
Scanlines
D. Douglas Hickox (1979) with Burt Lancaster, Peter O’Toole, Simon Ward, John Mills. Although made 15 years later, this film is actually a prelude to Cy Enfield’s Zulu (Enfield cowrote and coproduced this film). A grand action picture, the film will lose a lot on a smaller screen. Zulu Dawn is set during the Zulu…
Letters at 3AM
illustration by Jason Stout Young poets are beg- gars, begging the poem itself to tell them what it means to be a poet. Young painters beg the same of painting; young novelists, sculptors, dancers, actors, photographers beg the same of their forms. “Shut up and write,” the poem says back. Every art gives the same…
Short Cuts
Phone your employers, write those excuse notes for the kids: Monday, April 5 is King of the Hill Day in Austin — and by all that is just, we think the day should be declared a legal holiday and become the capstone of a three-day weekend … each and every year. We promise we would…
The Coffeehouse Chronicles: Episode 3
The Spider House Neighborhood: North Drag/Hyde Park Address/Phone: 2908 Fruth St./480-9562 Hours: Daily, 7am-2am Munchables: pastry case, salads, bagels Standard Cup o’ Joe: a buck Bean Source: Texas Coffee Traders Crowd: grad students/Hyde Park Artwork: rummage sale portraits, ornamental concrete Soundtrack: Edith Piaf, Yo La Tengo, Chet Baker Bonus Points: Beer and wine, great seating…
The Animated Truth
You may have seen thepremiere of Futurama on Fox last Sunday and listened to all the pre- and post-air chatter, but it still merits repeating: Matt Groening rocks. After all the contentiousness he had to endure to get this project aloft (see last week’s “TV Eye”), Futurama is a triumph for Groening, who stuck to…
Eat the Beetles
Man Eating Bugs: The Art and Science of Eating Insects by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Alusio Ten Speed Press, $19.95 paper The taste is “like nut-flavored scrambled eggs and mild mozzarella, wrapped in a smoky phyllodough pastry.” It sounds absolutely dee-lish right? What if you knew that Peter Menzel was describing a freshly dug and…
That’s Not All She Wrote
A Free Soul Hollywood’s early decades were kind to professional women — at least to those who labored off the screen. If onscreen there was never much doubt that women’s highest aspiration and truest occupation was love (and all the work that went into its preparation, discovery, maintenance, and crisis management), offscreen it was a…
Articulations
“Pleasant surprise” doesn’t begin to do justice to the experience of seeing Stephen Mills’ staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Ballet Austin last week. Enraptured enchantment comes much closer to the mark, for this was a dance of almost supernatural charms which cast its spell on you from the first strains of Felix Mendelssohn’s…
Food-O-File
In what year did the following things occur?: 1. George H. W. Bush was considering a run for president. 2. “Staying Alive” by the Bee Gees was all over AM radio. 3. Magic Johnson was playing basketball at Michigan State. 4. The Deer Hunter was the hot movie ticket. 5. Monica Lewinsky was five years…
“Calling the Shots: Women Screenwriters of the 1930s” Schedule
April 6 Possessed (1931, 76 min.) D: Clarence Brown; screenplay by Lenore J. Coffee, based on a play by Edgar Selwyn; with Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Wallace Ford. Crawford portrays an ambitious factory worker who leaves the drudgery of the small town for the Big Apple. She finds glamour, money, and success as the “kept…
BS4 Improv & Sketch Comedy Fest Schedule
Dobie Theatre MAD TV’s Best of the Best Sketches Presented by Comedy Central Four screenings daily; call 472-FILM MONDAY, APR 5 Noon-2pm, Auditorium Shores King of the Hill Day Barbecue Free barbecue is served up along with lawnmower races, a rib-eating contest, and appearances by actors with the show as Mayor Kirk Watson declares it…
Roly Poly Rolled Sandwiches
3500 Jefferson St., #101, 459-7855 The name sounds like a lunch place for kids, and little tykes would no doubt find the restaurant’s rolled sandwiches tons of fun. However, the cheery new Roly Poly restaurant on 38th Street just off MoPac draws a crowd of mostly businessfolk and area hospital staff eager to partake of…
What Bandwagon?
illustration by Jason Stout Like many women of my age group and economic stratum, I own a personal computer with a CD-ROM player, a coffeepot with a timer, a microwave oven, and a pair of fancy running shoes. What’s different about mine is how much newer they are than everyone else’s. I’m not quite sure…
Picks to Snicker
If they handed out awards for comedic contributions to specific nights of network television (hey, there’s a snappy category to add to the People’s Choice Awards), it’s a cinch that actor Stephen Root would snag this year’s MVP honors for Tuesday. That’s the night he’s been scoring comedic goals week after week on not one,…
To Make a Long Story Short
photograph by John Carrico Wow!” says a dazed Stephen Bruton, looking at a printout of what is essentially his online r�sum� — a page from the All-Music Guide database (http://www.allmusic.com), which sorts information from over 230,000 albums. “The sum of my parts somehow looks larger than I do. I think that’s a good thing.” According…
The Year of the Bunny
illustration by Jason Stout Ah, it’s spring! Never mind that freaky Austin weather has had us swimming since January; spring proper is marked by the arrival of a certain long-eared, short-tailed burrowing mammal. March may come in like a lion and go out like a lamb, but in the meantime it looks a lot like…
Quips & Squealers
CONSPIRACY THEATRE COMPANY: You know it’s all a damn conspiracy, and these guys from Chicago are out to prove it. They take totally unrelated audience suggestions and weave them into a conspiracy by the end of the show. The group comes from an Annoyance Theatre background, and it shows in the no-rules, in-your-face, quick-cuts form…
Dancing About Architecture
There’s been talk. There’s been press. There’ve been umpteen meetings and public hearings. But it’s today (Thursday) that’s set as the day Austin’s City Council finally cast its vote on matters CSC and Liberty Lunch, and frankly, things don’t look good for those who want to keep the Lunch where it is. Our politics department…
Big Stinkin’ International Improv & Sketch Comedy Festival 4
Festival. In Austin, the word can inspire terror. Especially after March, when the three-headed festival beast known as SXSW has held sway over the city for three full weeks. You can see the word in print and it makes you involuntarily begin to shudder. That’s when I break in with my soothing authorial voice and…
All Done Up
Elton John in The Naked and the Dressed: 20 Years of Versace by Avedon Fashion is in a sad state of affairs. We have too much freedom in deciding what to wear, and it’s not a pretty picture. But let’s not beat ourselves up over it too much � it’s not our fault. We’ve been…
Better Too Much Than Not Enough
It’s a little unsettling, to tell the truth. Pick up a copy of Guy Forsyth’s new release, Can You Live Without, and up from the cardboard gatefold stares a steely-eyed musicman in saintly splendor, draped in crimson robes, clutching a butterfly sword in one hand and a bouquet of burning roses in the other. It’s…
Just the Facts
Among the 58 bills that the organization supports, Tillotson and Wentworth singled out a few about which they were most enthusiastic: HB 156 by Rep. Steve Wolens, D-Dallas, which would close the “staff briefings” loophole in the Texas Open Meetings Act by changing the definition of “meeting” to include a gathering at which a quorum…
Oh, Jackie … !
Those little Universe of Fashion books have spawned a new collection called the Universe of Stars, with a definition of “star” that is very broad. However, debuting with Universe of Stars: Jackie by Nicole “No Relation to Party of Five” Salinger ($18.95, Universe Vendome), the series merits mention simply because we’re discussing fashion, and, well,…
On the Lege
He may be no Warren Chisum, but Arlington Rep. Kent Grusendorf would never be mistaken as any kind of friend to gays. So it was all the more surprising when, facing a roomful of some 70 supporters of two bills that would prohibit discrimination against gay public school teachers and students, the dour Republican found…
Postscripts
The fifth annual Austin Superslam will take place Tuesday, April 6 at 8pm at the Electric Lounge, which will be closing on April 10. Winners from the weekly Austin Poetry Slam series, which has been held each Tuesday at the Lounge, will compete against each other, and the top four finishers will become the 1999…
Record Reviews
Wholly Earth (Verve) CASSANDRA WILSON Traveling Miles (Blue Note) In 1982, when Mississippi-born Cassandra Wilson moved to New York City via New Orleans, she apprenticed with two jazz icons, vocalist Abbey Lincoln and bassist Dave Holland. Nearly two decades later, the 44-year-old Wilson, now both of her mentors’ peer, enlists the help of Holland in…
Book Reviews
The Color of Night by David Lindsey Warner Books, $25 hard What’s a spy to do? With the Cold War a retreating memory, retired foreign intelligence officer Harry Strand turns to the intrigue of the international art scene. A reluctant protagonist, Strand struggles with a crisis of meaning after decades in espionage that resulted in…
Just Say No Way
The second public hearing on the famed CSC-downtown project was even more serene and uneventful than last week’s — second verse, same as the first. A little bit shorter … a whole lot worse? Maybe, maybe not. It’s still not clear whether the seeming inevitability of the CSC approval is a triumph of common sense…
Coach’s Corner
Anatomy of a column: Thursday: I’m already worried about next week’s column. I think about covering a Spurs or Rockets game. This, however, requires me to do something. Like get on the Internet and look up a schedule. Overwhelmed, I go to Starbucks and get a latte, hoping for an energy boost. Boosted, I go…
Don’t Fence Me In
Schreiber says the city’s struggle over where to put the day laborers is nothing new. “There was an impromptu site at I-35 and Cesar Chavez for many years but it became a problem for the Palm Elementary School staff,” she says. “This finally came to a head so the city decided to build the Day…
Day Trips
Cross Mountain offers a panoramic viewof Fredericksburg and a view of history. photograph by Gerald E. McLoud The Easter Fires Pageant in Fredericksburg celebrates the 53rd year of the community production that combines local history with the story of the Easter rabbit. Hundreds of local residents work together to stage this annual, uniquely Texan event.…
Safety First
A key element in the program is enforcement of stricter penalties for Class C misdemeanors, such as panhandling, public intoxication, and public camping. Currently such offenses carry a fine of up to $500 or jail time. The city is crafting an ordinance that would establish a community court within the Austin Municipal Court to deal…
Page Two
Beware the Ides of March, my friend, the claws that bite and the jaws that snatch. Now February, sweet February was a special time here at the Chronicle. Lilacs and new grass were bred out of the dead land, inside the sound of bells, the smells of incense and the glow of Lava Lamps guided…
Austin’s Hot Spots
Safe at Any Time is an effort to curb the rise in crime in the area from Town Lake to Koenig Lane and from I-35 to Lake Austin. According to the Austin Police Department, the offenses listed below are on the rise in this region, particularly in the downtown area from Town Lake to Eighth…
