Stop Making Sense
Jonathan Demme/Talking Heads performance documentary remains one of the very best rock & roll films ever made
The Invisible Man
Rains made his screen debut in the H.G. Wells mad-scientist classic.
Ugetsu
Set in 16th century Japan, this award-winning film is a mixture of rich pageantry, clan wars, and eerie ghost story. The movie relates the story of two peasants who leave their rural homes to seek riches and glory.
Agliff Outdoor Surprise
Agliff Outdoor Surprise NR. Directed by , Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Outdoor Screening of a surprise film kicks off the 12th annual aGLIFF festival. (See next week’s issue for lots more details, or visit http://www.agliff.org for info right now.) It’s gonna be a big ol’ block party and it’s gonna stop…
Marnie
Marnie 1964, NR, 129 min. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery, Di Ane Baker, Louise Latham, Martin Gabel, Alan Napier. Universal Hitchcock Series: For my money, this Freudian tale about a beautiful kleptomaniac and liar is one of Hitchcock’s best accomplishments, certainly one of his most…
Shadow of a Doubt
Shadow of a Doubt 1943, NR, 108 min. D: Alfred Hitchcock; with Joseph Cotten. What happens when a girl discovers her beloved Uncle Charlie is not really the avuncular type? Hitchcock here slices into the heart of Americana and exposes its rotten underbelly.
There’s No Business Like Show Business
There’s No Business Like Show Business 1954, NR, 117 min. Directed by Walter Lang, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Donald O’Connor, Marilyn Monroe, Mitzi Gaynor. Ethel Merman and Marilyn Monroe all in one movie – each doing some of her best work. Credit Irving Berlin.
Women Make Movies
Women Make Movies NR. Directed by Various, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Women Make Movies is a festival showcasing 13 notable short films by women filmmakers. (See related story and film descriptions in this week’s Screens section.) Events also include a kickoff party at GSD&M (828 W. Sixth) on Fri (8/20) at…
Psycho
The Bates Motel is always open in Hitchcock’s enduring horror classic.
2000 Seen by – (Program Three)
2000 Seen by – (Program Three) NR, 95 min. Directed by Various, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Omnibus films, in which various directors contribute short pieces on related subject matter, are often a precarious thing, seeming better in theory than in actualization. 2000 Seen By … is the exception that proves the…
After Life
After Life 2004, NR, 118 min. Directed by Hirokazu Kore-Eda, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Arata, Taketoshi Naito, Erika Oda, Susumu Terajima, Takashi Naito, Hisako Hara, Kyoko Kagawa. They file in one by one, emerging from a hazy white light into the waiting area of what appears to be some drab, pre-computer-age social…
Edge of Seventeen
Edge of Seventeen 1998, NR, 100 min. Directed by David Moreton, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Lea Delaria, Stephanie Mcvay, Andersen Gabrych, Tina Holmes, Chris Stafford. For sexually confused teenager Eric Hunter, the Edge of Seventeen is the razor’s edge: a leap from either side of the precipice may be a plunge. Living…
Detroit Rock City
Four high school bandmates try to get into a KISS concert.
Brokedown Palace
Brokedown Palace 1999, PG-13, 100 min. Directed by Jonathan Kaplan, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Claire Danes, Kate Beckinsale, Bill Pullman, Daniel Lapaine, Lou Diamond Phillips, Amanda De Cadanet, John Doe. Life is full of choices. By way of illustration, you have the option of undergoing a root canal over viewing Brokedown Palace.…
The Sixth Sense
The Sixth Sense 1999, PG-13, 107 min. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Olivia Williams, Toni Collette, Donnie Wahlberg. It’s all too easy to pigeonhole Bruce Willis into one of the many cookie-cutter action roles in which he made his name, but that precludes…
My Son the Fanatic
My Son the Fanatic 1998, R, 86 min. Directed by Udayan Prasad, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Harish Patel, Gopi Desai, Akbar Kurtha, Stellan Skarsgärd, Rachel Griffiths, Om Puri. Cultural and generational conflict provide the backdrop for this unexpected love story. Written by Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid)…
2000 by – (Program Four)
2000 by – (Program Four) NR, 129 min. Directed by Various, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Omnibus films, in which various directors contribute short pieces on related subject matter, are often a precarious thing, seeming better in theory than in actualization. 2000 Seen By … is the exception that proves the general…
Sam Choy’s Island Flavors
by Sam Choy Hyperionx, $27.95 hard Imagine a rotund, Hawaiian Emeril Lagasse, with the humorous, flowery, slangy language and the pyrotheatrics, and you’ve got a good start toward picturing Sam Choy. Chef Choy is considered the most accessible of Hawaii’s super-chefs; he has his own cooking show on NBC Hawaii, can often be seen on…
TV Eye
I’ve been thinking about sex. Not “the act,” mind you, but sex appeal, sex symbols, sexual tension, sex talk, sexploitation, sex kittens. Don’t blame me, blame television (doesn’t everybody?). To be more specific, blame Edith Bunker. Yes, sweet Edith of All in the Family, played endearingly by Jean Stapleton. Cruising through TV land, I happened…
Riding With Bob
The Wills Brothers in the early 1950’s (l-r)Luke Wills, Johnnie Wills, Bob Wills, and Billy Jack Wills All Photos Courtesy of Rosetta Wills Calling an Asleep at the Wheel album “A Tribute to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys” is redundant. For nearly three decades now, that’s all band leader Ray Benson and company have…
A Second Time for Second Grade
Henry and I are standing in the dressing room at Sears. Henry is seven. I am 34. We are mother-son, confidant-confidant, best friends, roommates. We are twins, different sizes, different ages — but we are twins. His eyes reflect mine: So very much the same are they that people stop us to point this fact…
Asleep At The Wheel
Ride With Bob (Dreamworks) Press kits are evil. There are some things even journalists don’t need to know, like that Dreamworks is planning “a major marketing tie-in with Chevy Truck[s] throughout the Southwest” or that “Americana radio will be a target focus format” for Asleep at the Wheel’s second Bob Wills tribute album. One hopes…
Naked City
It may be one of the best bargains in town: the Capital Metro direct service from the new airport to downtown and the University of Texas campus. It’s a 50-cent fare, a 20-minute ride, and virtually a complete secret to anyone wandering through the airport pondering their ground transportation options. CapMetro says airport rules about…
Dancing About Architecture
With the closing of Liberty Lunch over and done with, you’d think this column could finally manage to go a week without a lead story telling of the demise of a popular, longstanding center of live local music. Think again. This week, Steamboat owner Danny Crooks revealed that his club is losing its lease on…
Articulations
The Austin Circle of Theatres has just announced its nominations for the 1998-99 B. Iden Payne Awards, honoring excellence in local stage work from August 1998 through July 1999. A total of 40 productions from 24 companies won nominations in 23 categories covering musicals, non-musical plays, and productions for children. Leading the way was the…
Rosetta, My Rosetta
Rosetta Wills and Ray Benson photograph by John Carrico Three months before she was born, Rosetta Wills was already making headlines. “Unborn Child Reunites Wills and His Bride,” read the Tulsa World on April 3, 1940. The bride, the former Mary Louise Parker, was Bob Wills’ fourth; the child, the soon-to-be Rosetta Wills, his second.…
Transformation Is Its Power
It was Ruth St. Denis, the mother of modern dance in America and also one of the most famous Oriental dancers during the first quarter of this century, that reintroduced the connection between spirituality and dance performance to modern artists. In her many disguises, the stage became her landscape (“a spirit journey to India –…
Sittin’ On Top Of The World
I froze when I recognized Eric Clapton standing a few feet away from me backstage. “Is that Eric Clapton?” I gasped. The photographer standing next to me nodded. “Yes, would you like to meet him? How about a picture with him?” I must have said “yes” because the bright bulb flashed in our faces immediately…
Seeing the Dance
Austin is blessed with a bounty of talented and committed Middle Eastern dancers, and fortunately for them and their fans, they have a number of regular outlets through which they are able to share their artistry. Below is a selected list of upcoming Middle Eastern dance events. –B.P. � Pat Taylor hosts a Middle Eastern…
Tributes
RETURN OF THE GRIEVOUS ANGEL A Tribute to Gram Parsons (Almo) Like Gram Parsons himself, tributes to the rich Southern wastrel with a gift for country music and songwriting are all but doomed. “We hired a piano player,” Roger McGuinn is quoted in the liner notes to Return of the Grievous Angel. “And he turned…
Book Reviews
by Louise Redd Little, Brown & Company, $23 hard Louise Redd’s second novel, Hangover Soup, bears a certain resemblance to Playing the Bones, its successful predecessor. Lacey, the central figure in Playing the Bones, is a smart, well-bred woman with beautiful red hair who strives valiantly to overcome a dismal past. Hangover Soup’s main character,…
Hitting the Books
Council began discussing the proposed budget at last week’s work session. Here’s the rest of the budget schedule of work sessions and three public hearings leading up to adoption in mid-September. All meetings take place in the City Council chambers, 307 W. Second. Aug. 19 9am-noon: Work session on bond program implementation initiative, the September…
Off The Bookshelf
edited by Max Blechman City Lights Books, $15.95 paper According to William Blake, “… this world is all One continued vision or fancy or imagination.” Notice there are no similes. For Blake, the sunrise is “an Innumerable company of angels,” singing praises to God. As the compact and accessible Revolutionary Romanticism makes clear, the heart…
Budget Basics
The city budget has two key components: the Operating Budget, which covers the city government’s operating expenses and revenues, and the Capital Budget, which includes major improvement projects, which are generally funded through bond debt. Within the Operating Budget, the city’s enterprise funds, including the electric and water/wastewater utilities, as well as the airport, make…
Postscripts
Dear Jeff Bezos, Thanks for your personalized e-mail of several weeks ago letting me know that the company you own, Amazon.com, now sells toys and electronics. That was a special note considering that the number of books I have bought at Amazon is: two. And then a few weeks later you must have asked your…
Public Notice
Proof that at least one local organization believes we’re all going to be fine in the Year 2000 is the ambitious and optimistic Assistance League of Austin’s Around Austin 2000 Community Calendar. We love this thing; whenever it’s released we head on over to the HEB (or Tarrytown Pharmacy or North West Hills Pharmacy or…
CEACO Rising
Now that CEACO’s administrative woes have been resolved, CEACO is redoubling its community outreach efforts and recently formed a partnership with the Austin Housing Authority. The housing group is offering its old offices on East Third to CEACO in exchange for the nonprofit group providing youth programs at various area housing developments. CEACO has also…
Spike Through the Heart
Any mother who claims to have the best child ever is, I suppose, a typical mother. Okay then, I was a typical mother. But — not that it was a contest, not that I kept score — I had more than a few people to back me up in my high opinion of Henry. Friends,…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
According to one source, a jiffy is 3.3395 x 10-11 seconds. In the 1992 Los Angeles Times Index, the entry immediately after “marijuana” is “Marin, Cheech” (half the duo of “Cheech and Chong”). Seattle is spending millions of dollars to install bigger ferry seats. People’s butts aren’t fitting like they used to. The sun, which…
Flashback
In addition to the Smart Growth Task Force, the stricter limits have been through the Environmental Board and the Planning Commission twice. They have been repeatedly discussed in meetings where development interests — including RECA — were present. But many landowners still claimed they weren’t aware of the proposed changes until they saw that morning’s…
All the Wrong Men One Perfect Boy: A Memoir
by Spike Gillespie Simon & Schuster, $23 hard “Confusing … nakedness with love,” Spike Gillespie has pretended in her past to be a “guilt-free, take-no-prisoners sex machine.” She delivers honesty — “balls-out honest at all times” is how she describes it — in short spurts throughout All the Wrong Men and One Perfect Boy. She…
Automat
Ba Le Vietnamese Bakery & Deli 8624 N. Lamar, 491-9188 Daily, 8am-8pm Ba Le is at the top of the Vietnamese bakery heap, with extraordinary baguettes and baked sweets. It also produces some of the finest (and least expensive) sandwiches in the city — try the gourmet, meatball, pork roll, or the chicken for a…
A New Social Order
Originally, the equity initiative was to be another prettily packaged deal, announced at a press conference with each council member earnestly reading his or her part. “Equinomics” would be the name, social equity the game. A united council would present a very specific agenda, which would likely be vetted at a few public hearings, tweaked…
About AIDS
Workers are needed to help distribute promotional materials for AIDS Walk Austin ’99. Posters, brochures, and counter displays must be distributed to area businesses to raise awareness about AIDS and the Walk, coming up this fall. Workers must be able to get around town and enjoy talking to people. A commission will be paid on…
Working Assets
“Well, the council aides are trying to get an ordinance passed…” begins Ramona Perrault, aide to Council Member Daryl Slusher. You eagerly lean into the tiny table at the window of Little City, thinking that perhaps after a couple of weeks of begging for the mayor and city council members’ executive assistants — the aides…
Equinomics
The “three legs of the three-legged stool of sustainability.” Council has focused on equity as a priority for this budget season. And under that heading, they’ve identified four primary areas to work on: COUNCIL PRIORITIES: A SAMPLER Mayor Kirk Watson and Council Member Jackie Goodman have each released a blueprint of ideas as a framework…
Coach’s Corner
Everybody needs a real neighbor. Someone with a 20-foot ladder and gas for your mower. He’ll always have a 3/8-inch socket wrench handy because you can never find yours. He has simple, “anybody can do this” solutions to your leaky sink, though if you listen you’ll be without water for a week. His spouse (good…
Food-o-File
Austin/Houston restaurateur Carmelo Mauro began collecting the work of Houston artist Herb Mears nearly 20 years ago and displays it in his restaurants. So when Mauro chose the artwork for a wrap-around mural advertising Carmelo’s on a Capital Metro bus, he chose to memorialize his longtime friend by using one of Mears’ paintings. The colorful…
Neighborhood Watch
Recent Austin resident Anne Lewis tells me she gets her documentary ideas from “living in a place and talking with the people.” The two films she’ll screen at the Alamo on Wednesday, August 18, as this month’s installment of the Texas Documentary Tour, Fast Food Women (1991) and To Save the Land and People (1999),…
Day Trips
Return to the days of fine craftsmanship at Texas Country Designs. photograph by Gerald E. McLeod Joe Covert builds Texas legends. In his Kerrville shop he creates custom furniture made in early Texas-German style. Each piece has the same craftsmanship that defined the work of skilled laborers more than a century and a half ago.…
Mixed Mex in Edge City
photograph by John Anderson Manuel’s Great Hills 10201 Jollyville Rd., 345-1042 Sun-Thu, 11am-10pm; Fri-Sat, 11am-11pm While Smart Growth sinks its sluggish, cumbersome roots into Austin’s aging downtown, an explosive and untamed growth phenomenon is taking place in the Northwest Hills. Although many may fear and loathe an unruly urban sprawl, it is already happening, spreading…
Scanlines
D: Richard Fleischer (1950) with Charles McGraw, William Talman, Steve Brodie, Adele Jergens, Gene Evans, Douglas Fowley. Richard Fleischer’s debut film is an underappreciated noir caper film that, at 70 minutes, hasabsolutely no wasted motion in its direction andno wasted space in the plot. Dave Purvis (Talman) is a master criminal who orchestrates a heist…
Page Two
The constant talk at parties among a certain segment of the city is “lost Austin” — how things are no longer how they used to be. Those nostalgic for the old days, however, should just read editor Richard Oppel’s recent editorials in the Austin American-Statesman to be reminded just how wrong-headed that paper used to…
Texas Land and Cattle Company
6007 N. I-35, 451-6555 1101 S. MoPac, 330-0030 Sun-Thu, 11am-10pm; Fri-Sat, 11am-11pm This friendly Dallas steakhouse chain is doing big business with the family clientele at its newest outlet on the east side of MoPac at the Rollingwood/Westlake exit. We ducked in here one rainy night and scooped up a tin pail of salted peanuts…
Short Cuts
Reel Women’s first annual festival is coming up next weekend, August 20-22, so look in these pages next week for more details on what’s screening. In the meantime, the Reel Women Production Group is holding a Mega Garage Sale Extravaganza at Cafe Mundi (1707 E. Sixth St.) on Saturday, August 14, 9am-2pm, to raise money…
