American Graffiti
American Graffiti 1973, PG, 110 min. D: George Lucas; with Richard Dreyfuss, Cindy Williams, Ron Howard, Charles Martin Smith. Once upon a time in what seems like a galaxy far, far away, George Lucas knew how to tell stories about real people in real settings. He hit one out of the ballpark with the magnificent…
The Lady Vanishes
The Lady Vanishes 1938, NR, 97 min. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, Dame May Whitty. This British Hitchcock picture is one of the master’s best. An old woman’s disappearance on a train kicks off an intricate murder mystery. According to critic Pauline Kael,…
Reds
Reds 1981, PG, 195 min. D: Warren Beatty; with Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson. Warren Beatty directs and stars in this dramatic rendering of the life of American journalist John Reed (Ten Days That Shook the World) and his involvement in the Communist Party and the Bolshevik Revolution. The film also recounts Reed’s love…
The 39 Steps
The 39 Steps 1935, NR, 87 min. D: Alfred Hitchcock; with Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll. This classic early Hitchcock is a spy drama laced with comic romantic touches. Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll are handcuffed together throughout most of the film and what begins testily winds up as love.
God Save the Pixel: The Sixteen Color Collection
God Save the Pixel: The Sixteen Color Collection NR. Directed by , Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . God Save the Pixel: The 16 Color Collection and Blood Sweat and Pixels: The Adult Movies of 16 Color are two shows that include the best animated movies in the collection of local Webcasters 16…
Nuyorican Dream
Nuyorican Dream NR, 81 min. Directed by Laurie Collyer, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Three generations of a New York Puerto Rican family are chronicled in this examination of the collision of the American Nightmare and the American Dream.
Removed
Removed NR, 7 min. Directed by Naomi Uman, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . A piece of pornography from the Seventies is used by the filmmaker in “removed.” She applies nail polish and bleach to create a new film in which the woman exists only as an empty animated hole.
Private Movie
Private Movie NR, 6 min. Directed by Naomi Uman, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . “Private Movie” is a three-part love story.
Splice of Life: The Super-Eight Documentary Festival
Splice of Life: The Super-Eight Documentary Festival NR. Directed by , Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Splice of Life: The Super-8 Documentary Festival is the Co-op’s first venture into the Super 8 documentary format. Presented will be a dozen films that seek to capture a detail or a “splice” of life on…
A Little Stiff
A Little Stiff NR, 30 min. Directed by Greg Watkins, Caveh Zahedi, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Patrick Park, Erin Mckim, Greg Watkins, Caveh Zahedi. In addition to co-directing, Zahedi stars in this humorous reflection on love and infatuation, in which a shy and awkward art-school student determines to win the love of…
Blood Sweat and Pixels: The Adult Movies of Sixteen Color
Blood Sweat and Pixels: The Adult Movies of Sixteen Color NR. Directed by , Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . God Save the Pixel: The 16 Color Collection and Blood Sweat and Pixels: The Adult Movies of 16 Color are two shows that include the best animated movies in the collection of local…
Articulations
A busy summer for Austin artists.
Food Poems
If reading this collection of haiku poems with a food theme entices you to cook something wonderful and have great sex, you can thank us later.
Grunt Work
Interview with America’s favorite Gladiator about his band
Naked City
Six months after its well ran dry, Northridge Acres gets a begrudging promise of water from the Austin City Council.
Coming Soon
Mermaids “It made me think of sex as a terribly romantic, but ultimately disappointing, endeavor …” The first time is never what you expected. For Charlotte Flax, the gawky, sexually precocious 15-year-old played by a deliciously innocent Winona Ryder, the first time is a dizzying tumble up the stairs of a darkened church tower, into…
Bless the Child
Bless the Child 2000, R, 110 min. Directed by Chuck Russell, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Kim Basinger, Jimmy Smits, Rufus Sewell, Christina Ricci, Angela Bettis, Ian Holm, Holliston Coleman, Yan Birch, Lumi Cavazos. They say the devil’s in the details; if that’s the case, then Bless the Child ought to be endorsed…
Dirty Words
Roger Gathman delves into local bookstores’ shelves of smut to investigate the collective Gestalt of erotica.
Food-o-File
The amazing roster of new restaurants opening in Austin.
Dancing About Architecture
Monte Montgomery hooks up with big-time booking; Texas Music Group has big plans.
Naked City
TDHCA announces its latest tax credit allocations for low-income housing under unusual scrutiny, but critics of the agency find few improvements or surprises.
Coming Soon
My Own Private Idaho “… clouds unraveling over a mountain, families of fish leaping high out of their rapids, the memories of Mike’s mother holding his head in her lap …” With its shameless attempts at metaphor — at lyricism, even — the scene that plays during the opening credits of Gus Van Sant’s My…
The Five Senses
The Five Senses 1999, R, 105 min. Directed by Jeremy Podeswa, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Brendan Fletcher, Marco Leonardi, Pascale Bussieres, Molly Parker, Nadia Litz, Daniel Macivor, Gabrielle Rose, Philippe Volter, Mary-Louise Parker. Sensitively performed and carefully thought out, The Five Senses is a drama of interwoven characters, all of whom manifest…
Recommended Erotica
Chronicle writer Roger Gathman queries local booksellers and various writers on erotica they recommend.
Liquid Assets
Chronicle wine writer Wes Marshall on the poor, neglected rosé
Record Reviews
James CarterLayin’ in the Cut (Atlantic)James CarterChasin’ the Gypsy (Atlantic) By jazz standards, James Carter is commercially successful, and he’s got some ability, but he’s jive. Carter’s a saxophonist, playing everything from soprano to bass sax, that used to be thought of as a reactionary young lion but is too eclectic to be classified with…
Naked City
Beverly Griffith and Raul Alvarez rain on the mayor�s bond parade by adding a few proposals of their own; Cedar Avenue settlement goes back into mediation.
Coming Soon
Sprung “… both jaw and thong hit the floor …” Rusty Cundieff’s compulsively engaging, surprisingly sweet follow-up to Fear of a Black Hat disappeared almost immediately upon its no-soundtrack-tie-in release. Shame, as Sprung is a really good movie — but then, any movie in which Friday’s John Witherspoon orders a police lineup to grab their…
Wonderland
Wonderland 2000, R, 108 min. Directed by Michael Winterbottom, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Peter Marfleet, Jack Shepherd, Kika Markham, Ian Hart, John Simm, Shirley Henderson, Molly Parker, Gina Mckee. Director Michael Winterbottom’s looking glass could use a spot of Windex and thorough scrubbing. Far from the mesmerizing warped-eye-view and splendid chaos of…
Postscripts
Dave Hamrick is leaving Barnes & Noble to join Taylor Wilson, a recently founded publishing company in Houston but his departure means more for Texas writers than you might at first imagine.
Better Living Through Porno
The six months of unemployment had taken its toll. I had become a talk-show addict, a permanent fixture on our living room couch, leaving the house only to trade my food stamps to friends for Slurpee and beer money. This was Austin, when the job market was as tight as the real estate market is…
Record Reviews
Pip ProudOncer (Emperor Jones) If Foster’s is Australian for beer, Pip Proud is Australian for Syd Barrett. Proud, y’see, put out a handful of albums back in the psychedelic days that never made it up from Down Under. Now he sits around in the Outback (or at least out in his back yard) with a…
Naked City
In a surprisingly uncontentious meeting, the CAMPO board discusses several less prominent, but still important, road and rail-related items.
Coming Soon
Showgirls “… it is as if you are staring directly into the black soul of Joe Eszterhas …” A warning for those in search of another kind of good time: The only thing that will get blown watching Showgirls is your mind. Perhaps one of the best examples that pole-licking strippers aren’t always sexy, this…
The Replacements
The Replacements 2000, PG-13, 114 min. Directed by Howard Deutch, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jack Warden, Ace Yonamine, Brett Cullen, Rhys Ifans, Orlando Jones, Jon Favreau, Jack Warden, Brooke Langton, Gene Hackman, Keanu Reeves. Everybody loves underdogs. Their stories inspire timeless tales, those of individuals who defy the odds, break all barriers,…
Book Reviews
Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs at the Turn of the Millennium Edited by John Bowe, Marisa Bowe, and Sabin Streeter Crown, 548 pp., $25 In their introduction, the editors of Gig remind us that “You’re born, and before too long, you have to start spending most of your time working to sustain yourself.” Since…
Is That a Perfectly Legal, Anatomically Correct Condom Education Model, or Are You Just Happy to See Me?
Cock rings. Anal plugs. Nipple clamps. Dildos. One of these things is not like the others. Can you guess which one? Sure, they’re all sex toys, but only one — the humble dildo — is legally verboten in the state of Texas. According to the Texas Penal Code, which details what devices good, law-abiding Texans…
Record Reviews
Vic Chesnutt & Mr. and Mrs. KeneippMerriment (Backburner) The most immediately noticeable thing about Merriment is the gusto with which Vic Chesnutt opens up his vocal chords and lets loose his enchanting, warbly voice. He charges songs like the title track and the twisted circus tune “Mighty Monkey” with a frustrated passion that brings his…
Naked City
He may be running for president, but some state employees still call him George Jr.
Coming Soon
Scandal “The ‘ooohhhing’ and ‘aaahhhing’ are intense and limbs are flailing …” In this 1989 drama about the government-sex scandal of the early Sixties, Christine Keeler (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer) and Mandy Rice-Davies (Bridget Fonda) are dressing for a night at a knocking shop. The montage is pure early Sixties erotica as these contrasting beauties are fastening…
Off the Bookshelf
Holding Venus by Keith Carter Arena Editions, 152 pp., $65 Much of the world’s true beauty escapes us. We simply don’t look hard enough to see it. Most of the time, we’re too busy seeing past things, scanning our surroundings for that which looks flashy or new or different, perpetually moving on to the next…
Questions I have Been Asked
1. Do you have anything to help keep condoms on? 2. What size shoe do you wear? May I try them on? 3. Do you have anything kinky? I want something kinky to watch. 4. Are you in any of the movies here? 5. Would you like to come sit in my van? 6. Would…
Record Reviews
Dave AlvinPublic Domain (Hightone) Although Dave Alvin is best known as a songwriter, he’s decided for his latest album to record a collection of traditional folk songs — some so old as to be credited to the album’s title. But as one would expect from an artist with Alvin’s integrity and grit, this is not…
Five Steps to a Sluttier You
Online smut shopping: a fashion emergency of the sexy kind
Coming Soon
Out of Sight “Soderbergh takes an almost perverse delight in pushing us to the edge …” Steven Soderbergh understands foreplay. He knows the fun is in the tease — in knowing what you want and knowing you’re going to get it … eventually. The sex scene in his 1999 heist film Out of Sight is…
Off the Bookshelf
Fotografía Pública Photography in Print, 1919-1939 by Horacio Fernandez Aldeasa, 270pp., $55 From the machinist photography of Margaret Bourke-White to the dada of Man Ray to the fashion of Vogue magazine, Fotografía Pública is an alphabetic encyclopedia (with running commentary in both Spanish and English) of photographers, poster artists, publications, and artistic movements from the…
Hot Sweltering Summer Sex Vignettes
Vignettes?! We got yer vignettes hangin’, baby. Right here. Will ya look at this sassy package? Herein lies the real deal, the long schlong, the money shot, baby. Four Chronicle writers and three local illustrators take it off and don’t put you on; they lay it out and then lap it up; they … okay,…
Record Reviews
The BlazersPuro Blazers (Rounder) Since music critics have long compared East L.A.’s Blazers to that hoods’ long-revered gang of elders, Los Lobos, it only follows that the traditionally minded, en Español Puro Blazers will naturally elicit comparisons to the Wolf pack’s landmark La Pistola y el Corazón album from 1988. Drawing from the same deep…
The Sites
The Baroness (www.thebaroness.com) — latex for every occasion W.D. Brame (www.gloria-brame.com) — putting a clamp on it Re:vision clothing (www.nastypig.com) — men’s club and fetishwear for the genetically perfect Stormy Leather (www.stormyleather.com) — divine corsetry Chateau Exotique (www.fetishwear.com) — stripper clothing and exotic costumes The Fetish Factory (www.thefetishfactory.com) — strictly for strippers and drag queens…
Coming Soon
Two Moon Junction “I end up in a liplock with every man I have ever watched this with …” Call this the ultimate in guilty pleasure: a film steaming with sexual tension, hokey script, and shot in intimate soft focus. Director Zalman King, noted for other high-class cinematic hokum such as Wild Orchid and 91é2…
Local Bestsellers
Local bestsellers are based on recent sales at Austin bookstores selected to reflect varied reading interests.
Hot Sweltering Summer Sex Vignettes
Author and semi-regular Chronicle contributor Spike Gillespie (All the Wrong Men and One Perfect Boy) has been working on a new novel called thebelljar.net, about the high-tech nightmare that Austin has become. In it, our heroine, Alice, takes on a job as “the world’s oldest high tech intern” to escape her former career in food…
Record Reviews
Porter WagonerThe Best I’ve Ever Been (Echo) Porter Wagoner? Bet you’d forgotten about this country warhorse, but he’s still around. Back in the days of his pairings with Dolly Parton, Wagoner was often jeered at by country-music haters as the pinnacle of country hokum, with his rhinestoned Nudie suits and hair now favored by Baptist…
Brown Paper Packages
While my esteemed colleague, Mr. S. M., certainly has the online sex market — ahem — nailed, some of you may be thinking to yourselves, “Yes, that’s all well and good, but I am a normal person. Where do normal people go on the Web to find products to turn our proverbial cranks?” Well, there’s…
Coming Soon
The Unbearable Lightness of Being “Suddenly, sex seemed a little less mysterious to me …” Some will point out that the furniture-toppling first encounter between Tomas (Daniel Day-Lewis) and sudden skating partner Tereza (Juliette Binoche) is this movie’s most beautifully erotic scene for its joyful unbridling of Tereza’s pent-up desire. But when I saw this…
Page Two
Welcome to The Austin Chronicle Summer Smut/Back to School issue!
Hot Sweltering Summer Sex Vignettes
Brenner contemplates the going and coming of oral gratification.
Record Reviews
Clem SnideYour Favorite Music (Sire) Morose navel-gazing has never sounded so beautiful. “Your favorite music always makes you sad,” sings songwriter Eef Barzelay on his band’s major label debut, and if that sentiment resonates with you, Clem Snide may just live up to their album’s title. Barzelay’s voice is a marvel, a soft-spoken, country-inflected half-whine…
Reel Women Presents Real Stories
The Reel Women festival is a three-day event showcasing rarely seen work by female filmmakers. In its second year, the fest has added one Saturday afternoon panel — “Discovering Identity Through Film” — and selected all documentaries, different in tone and subject matter. The festival ends Sunday with Katya Bankowsky’s Shadow Boxers, and the award-winning…
Coming Soon
The First Sex Scene You Ever SawErica C. Barnett: Top Gun. It’s true — I was a somewhat sheltered child. To this day, all I really remember about this scene was how mortified I was to be watching it with my parents, who used to swear I’d never see an R-rated movie before I turned…
Pubic Notice
Public Notice gets all hot under the collar for the Chronicle sex issue.
Hot Sweltering Summer Sex Vignettes
Erica Barnett tells a cautionary tale about a dog, a condom, and her mother.
Record Reviews
Ian BrownGolden Greats (Interscope) “Jingle jangle, here’s the jailer,” opines Brown on “Free My Way.” Fitting words for a man who spent six months locked in a Crown-mandated London dungeon after a nasty case of airline disobedience circa 1998. In any event, Brown remains best known stateside as the former lead vocalist of the mind-bogglingly…
Festival Schedule
Friday, August 11 5:30pm: Kick-off party/music by Nancy Scott (Texas Center for Documentary Photography, 2104 E. MLK) 7pm: Naked States 9:30pm: Americanos Saturday, August 12 12:30pm: Panel: “Discovering Identity Through Film” 2:30-4:30pm: Mentoring Sessions 6pm: “Industrial Bodies” & First Person Plural Sunday, August 13 1pm: Children’s/Teen presentation (Austin Childrens Museum) 4:30pm: Shadow Boxers 6:30pm: Closing…
Video Reviews
(“Video Reviews” wishes to thank Encore Movies & Music, I Video, Vulcan Video, and Waterloo Video for their help in providing videos, laser discs, and DVDs.) From Hollywood to Sporting Wood … Remember back when pornography was evil? When only nasty little men who wore raincoats indoors saw the stuff, either by sneaking into a…
After a Fashion
That’s the stuff i really want to hear from a fashion consultant.
Hot Sweltering Summer Sex Vignettes
Stuart Prestidge explores the sex act through the filter of modern slang.
Record Reviews
Iron MaidenBrave New World (Portrait/Columbia) Iron Maiden has impressive numbers: 20-plus years together and over 50 million albums sold. Yet the British band has had its ups and downs, especially in the membership department (only bassist Steve Harris remains from the original lineup). That said, there’s something special about having lead siren Bruce Dickinson and…
Short Cuts
Upcoming events and workshops of interest to the Austin film community.
TV Eye
Two new television shows remind us what it was like to be young: Nickelodeon’s half-hour comedy series The Brothers Garcia and Fox’s “nonfiction drama series,” American High.
Mr. Smarty Pants
Sink your teeth into these five fun facts. Or not. We don’t really care.
Hot Sweltering Summer Sex Vignettes
Drive-In Porno
Beat Box
Nelly, Ruff Ryders, Lil’ Kim, Ice T, Jurassic 5
Coming Soon
From Lady and the Tramp to Showgirls — our staff picks for most memorable sex scenes in film.
¡americanos!: Latino Life in the United States
¡americanos!: Latino Life in the United States NR. Directed by Susan Todd, Andrew Young. Last year, the most popular name in Los Angeles for newborns was Jose. Susan Todd and Andrew Young’s documentary focuses on the undeniable Latino presence in modern America as well as the continuing struggle for Latinos to find their identity (one…
Coach’s Corner
Dennis Miller on MNF? Who cares? In other news: The Spurs and Heat are the NBA’s big winners in the free-agent sweepstakes, and the Cowboys — despite what you may be reading elsewhere — will continue to slide.
Gagging the Right
Republicans muzzled the Religious Right during the GOP convention
Coming Soon
Dirty Dancing “I was convinced that lurking right around the corner was a hot dance instructor from the wrong side of the tracks …” Dirty Dancing is all about buildup. Before they actually wind up in bed, Baby (Jennifer Grey) and Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze) spend weeks of the summer of 1963 engaged in good…
First Person Plural
First Person Plural NR. Directed by Deann Borshay. In the 1960s, the South Korean government was so overwhelmed with orphaned children that they expedited their little ones to families abroad at an unprecendented rate. One of those children was Cha Jung Hee, a little girl adopted by a loving San Francisco family, renamed Deann Borshay,…
Second Helpings: American Cafes
MM Pack surveys some of Austin’s American cafes.
Day Trips
San Antonio streetcar moves to the Northwest
Hot Sweltering Summer Sex Vignettes
Those Fugs: Sharing Dreams, Building Memories
Gorgeous George
George P. Bush capitalizing on Latino roots to stump for Uncle George.
Coming Soon
Fast Times at Ridgemont High “… the coitus here is nothing short of depressing, just as it so often is in first-timer reality.” Amy Heckerling hasn’t done jack for me lately, but in the summer of 1982 her dead-on examination of teen libidinal meltdowns scored in more ways than one. Check it: Not only do…
Naked States
Naked States NR. Directed by Spencer Tunick. Over five months, New York photographer Spencer Tunick toured America, asking people to take off their clothes. Amazingly, it worked, and in this “full frontal feature-length documentary” director-producer Arlene Donnelly interviews the people who dared to bare and the stranger who got them to do it.
Prophet for Our Times
For 10 years, Lisa Crystal Carver has been writing about sex and doing sex-drenched performance pieces under the name Suckdog. But her lifestyle is born of a profound quest for an uncompromised life, a search for truth and adventure that makes her a prophet for our time.
About AIDS
Anecdotal support for using marijuana in HIV disease management gets some scientific backup.
It Takes Two
Asking local musical couples what it’s like to do everything together
In and Out
Controversial sodomy law may be struck down
Coming Soon
Open Your Eyes (Abre Los Ojos) “When Penelope Cruz sits up in her birthday suit and bedroom smile, it’s enough to make any man snap …” César can’t wake up. The rich Spanish playboy’s alarm clock repeats its summons. “Abre los ojos … Abre los ojos … Abre los ojos” it urges in a woman’s…
Shadow Boxers
Shadow Boxers NR. Directed by Katya Bankwosky. This documentary by Katya Bankwosky follows Dutch-born boxer Lucia Rijker’s rise from the 1995 Golden Gloves to her pro bout at the Women’s International Boxing Federation World Title in 1997. Bankowsky enlists plenty of experts, from promoter Bob Arum to Oscar de la Hoya, to explain why she…
Suckdog Reviewed
SuckdogOnward Suckdog Soldiers Er … Just what the hell is going on here? More to the point, what in the hell isn’t going on here? With 44 tracks at just over 66 minutes, this CD is more scattershot than a piss-drunk duck hunter brandishing a 12-gauge. It all seems rather … spontaneous, which I guess…
Hippo Snouts and Hyena Eyeballs
Through the years, Mick Vann explains, just about every edible thing imaginable, and some stuff even the most jaded imagination can barely contemplate, has been used to gird the loins of the hapless horny male. Remember: It’s almost always the guys who feel the need to produce seed.
Lust for Life
Ahhh … the good old daze
Naked City
Chamber releases results of AISD parent satisfaction survey; Larry Faulkner threatens disciplinary action against University of Texas staff members who join sick-out; Log Cabin Republicans happy with strides made in GOP party; Mary Cheney has made several visits to Austin; Green Party secures a spot on the statewide ballot; Libertarian Party presidential candidate Harry Browne…
Coming Soon
Lady and the Tramp “Sometimes the mere whiff of sex imparts more than the act itself ever could …” Just look at them. Proof eternal that the couple that sucks together … has more than just puppy love going on. Sometimes the mere whiff of sex imparts more than the act itself ever could. Implications…
American Pimp
American Pimp 1999, NR, 87 min. Directed by The Hughes Brothers, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Twin brothers Albert and Allen Hughes, who, in their previous films, Menace II Society and Dead Presidents, resisted the temptation to re-create the modern myths of the urban black ghettos yet maintained their commitment to honest,…
Grass
Grass 1999, R, 80 min. Directed by Ron Mann, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Batten down the concessions stand because if this movie doesn’t give the audience a raging case of the munchies, then something’s terribly wrong. Yes, we’re talking about that kind of grass, the weed that’s been both vilified and…
