Notorious
Notorious 1946, NR, 101 min. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains. Bergman and Grant sizzle in this espionage tale written by Ben Hecht. Bergman is an undercover spy whose mission forces her to feign love for Nazi-sympathizer Rains instead of making love with her…
Spellbound
Spellbound 1945, NR, 116 min. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Rhonda Fleming, Leo G. Carroll, Norman Lloyd. This is the one Hitchcock film you can count on all psychology and art students to have seen. The film uses psychiatric methodology to solve a murder for…
QT Quattro Film Series
QT Quattro Film Series NR. Directed by Quentin Tarantino, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . See the schedule for the festival: http://www.auschron.com/issues/dispatch/2000-09-01/screens_feature4.html.
Grand Blond Avec Une Chaussure Noire (The Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe), Le
Grand Blond Avec Une Chaussure Noire (The Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe), Le 1972, PG, 90 min. Directed by Yves Robert, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Pierre Richard, Bernard Blier, Jean Rochefort, Mirielle Darc, Jean Carmet. This wacky French sleuth comedy has two competing secret agents making life hell for one…
Africa’s Elephant Kingdom
Africa’s Elephant Kingdom NR. Directed by Michael Caulfield, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Avery Brooks. Big screen hosts big mammals. This documentary from Discovery Channels Pictures, which focuses on the trek of one extended elephant family, promises to bring the audience “face-to-face with the extraordinary joys and sorrows of elephant life.”
Upon a Time in China and America
Upon a Time in China and America NR, 90 min. Directed by Sammo Hung, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jet Li, Rosamund Kwan, Xin Xin Xiong. Also known as Once Upon a Time in China VI, this sequel was written by Tsui Hark and filmed partially in Texas. Li re-creates the role of…
All the King’s Men
All the King’s Men NR, 109 min. Directed by Robert Rossen, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Broderick Crawford, Joanne Dru, John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge, John Derek. This political allegory adapted from Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is an on-target portrait of a backwoods populist (reminiscent of Huey Long) who becomes the electorate’s…
Easy Rider
Easy Rider 1969, R, 94 min. Directed by Dennis Hopper, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Luke Askew, Toni Basil. This is the movie by which Hollywood discovered the commercial power of “youth culture.” Fonda and Hopper’s now-classic film hit the old guard with the force…
Five Easy Pieces
Five Easy Pieces 1970, R, 98 min. Directed by Bob Rafelson, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Billy Green Bush, Fannie Flagg, Susan Anspach, Sally Struthers, Ralph Waite, Lois Smith. This is one of those “original slacker” stories about a gifted pianist from the privileged classes who chooses to work…
Articulations
Artistic director resignations, more traveling Austin artists, and the missing BS.
Public Notice
After watching two national political conventions in a row, you are probably ready to get real and back to real life, where people help each other and work for the greater good — without corporate backing! Public Notice offers many options for this mid-August week.
Live Shots
Fu Manchu, Speedealer, HonkyStubb’s, August 10 Stop whining about the heat. This is the heart of Texas. It gets hot here. Real hot. For a real long time — each and every year. If you don’t like it, go back to wherever you came from. The rest of us, we’ll just congregate out in the…
Naked City
Council members’ feuding bond proposals are sure to set off a major tectonic event at this week’s council meeting.
Exhibitionism
The Second Austin Latino Comedy Fiesta: A Long WayParamount Theatre, August 12 Teatro Humanidad has come a long way since Rodney Garza started the Latino theatre group six years ago. Back then, the company was happy if it could fill the Santa Cruz Center in East Austin. Now, it has its own annual comedy festival…
Letters at 3AM
George W.’s acceptance speech contained only two sentences to interest and alarm those beyond our borders: “At the earliest possible date, my administration will deploy missile defenses to guard against attack and blackmail. Now is the time, not to defend outdated treaties, but to defend the American people.” He’s talking about the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM)…
Live Shots
30 Odd Foot of GruntsStubb’s, August 11 Before we begin, let me be frank: I went to this show to see Russell Crowe cuss, sweat, and peel off his shirt. I don’t get the 30 Odd Foot of Grunts brand of earnest, big-sky rock & roll, and I know nothing of their work. Hence, I’m…
Win, Lose, or Draw
What 16 Color offers is an incredibly user-friendly template for people interested in making short (15 seconds), Web-based animations. His press release says it best: “Alan Watts dreams of ways to help people procrastinate.”
Exhibitionism
ONE Theatre Company brings some unique touches to Sam Shepard’s Mad Dog Blues, but ultimately, the show is the portrait of a playwright living out his rock star phase — self-indulgent and rather embarrassing.
After a Fashion
This season, it’s all about fashion.
Live Shots
Dixie ChicksFrank Erwin Center, August 12 Given the amount of animal-print attire on display at the Erwin Center, Saturday’s Dixie Chicks show felt a little like being on safari. It also felt like the eighth circle of hell, after the Dallas trio shooed their all-male backup band offstage and commenced a grueling 10-minute slide show…
Gray Matter
Milkshake Media’s Katherine Jones was trained in medical illustration — but with her work on Fight Club and The Cell, she got a lesson in Hollywood.
Exhibitionism
UP, the first piece from Spank, Ellen Bartel’s new dance company, contains moments of lovely counterpoint and top-notch technique, but its repetitiveness and murky intention leave one with too many questions that don’t get answered.
Mr. Smarty Pants
Prairie dogs have housing crunches, too.
That Figures
City Manager Jesus Garza introduces a budget that focuses on roads, utilities, and cops, and skates around a needed tax increase.
Short Cuts
Upcoming events and workshops of interest to the Austin film community.
Day Trips
Remembering Bob Roberts, the dean of Texas barbecue.
Spending by Department
As usual, City Manager Jesus Garza’s priorities are mostly perpendicular to those of the council. Everyone can agree on big new spending by Neighborhood Housing, but while the council focuses on neighborhood planning, social equity, and Smart Growth, the city manager gives the new money to public safety, public works, and back-office functions at City…
Video Reviews
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three D: Joseph Sargent (1974); with Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Hector Elizondo, Martin Balsam, Jerry Stiller. Get Carter D: Mike Hodges (1971); with Michael Caine, Britt Ekland, Ian Hendry, John Osborne. The Seventies were great years for American movies, and especially for the crime film. The stifling effects of…
By the Book
Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource by Marq de Villiers Houghton Mifflin, 288 pp., $26 In Texas, the question of where the water is going to come from is never too far below the surface. True, we build massive dam systems to channel a seemingly endless supply of river water to our major…
Coach’s Corner
Coach, to his own great surprise, has become a huge Harry Potter fan. Quiddich being in the off-season, however, let’s take a brief look at baseball…
Raiding the Reserves
No need to stock up on canned goods yet, but after several years of notable (and perhaps excessive) restraint, the City Manager’s FY2001 budget dips substantially into the city’s reserves. The General Fund will end the year with a zero balance; the last time that happened, it led to talk of a city fiscal crisis.
Video Reviews
Two Girls and a Guy D: James Toback (1998); Robert Downey Jr., Heather Graham, Natasha Gregson Wagner. Before his current stint behind bars, Downey gave a decent performance as Blake, a two-timing thespian in this James Toback film. His respective lovers Carla (Graham) and Lou (Gregson Wagner) meet and soon discover they share his affections.…
The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg
The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg 1998, NR, 95 min. Directed by Aviva Kempner, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . I originally caught this top-drawer example of the art of the documentary film at SXSW two years ago and immediately began telling anyone who would listen to go see it. After all,…
By the Book
The Notorious Dr. August: His Real Life and Crimes: A Novel by Christopher Bram Morrow, 498 pp., $26 “Lies are the oil that keep the machine of the world running smoothly,” Augustus Fitzwilliam Boyd muses near the end of The Notorious Dr. August, Christopher Bram’s poignant historical epic that melds a life’s worth of deceit,…
About AIDS
Those ever-progressive Canadians recently awarded funding to test the “invisible” condom.
Sustaining What?
And what the hell is a Sustainability Fund, anyway? Despite Garza’s proud rhetoric, this new fund — designed to pay for things he thinks are special — appears mostly to be a neat way to put General Fund money (which would normally go to operating expenses) into the Public Works capital budget, and thus goose…
TV Eye
Television’s best girl-power trio isn’t on primetime — it’s the Cartoon Network’s The Powerpuff Girls
The Cell
The Cell 2000, R, 107 min. Directed by Tarsem Singh, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn, Vincent D’Onofrio, Jake Weber, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Dylan Baker, Patrick Bauchau, Gerry Becker. Director of commercials and music videos Tarsem Singh is like a toddler at Christmas: He’s far more interested in messing about with…
By the Book
An Obedient Father: A Novel by Akhil Sharma Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 282 pp., $23 “I wondered whether, if someone else had lived my life, he would have committed the same sins that I had,” says Ram Karan, the “obedient father” and chief narrator of Akhil Sharma’s piercing first novel. Not only is Ram a…
Decidedly Mex-Mex
Jalisco seems to be one of those places that certainly has the right idea, but suffers from poor management, or perhaps just a general carelessness on the part of its staff. Its recipes are fine : the stewed meats, sauces, salsas, rice, and beans are all first-rate. But it’s clear that the kitchen skimps on…
More Taxes, Please
So why, if the tax roll has grown more than 16% in the last year, are we pulling money from under the city’s mattress? Because both Garza and the council think the Lord will strike them dead if they raise property taxes to a logical level. If we simply maintained the rate in place right…
In Person
Who’s dumber: Republicans or Democrats? The official results are in.
Shower
Shower 1999, PG-13, 92 min. Directed by Zhang Yang, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jiang Wu, Pu Cun Xin, Zhu Xu. The shock of the new collides with centuries of meditative tradition in Zhang’s simple, affecting tale of the final days of a Beijing bathhouse. Slated to be torn down to make way…
By the Book
The Toughest Indian in the World by Sherman Alexie Atlantic Monthly Press, 238 pp., $24 Sherman Alexie’s new collection of stories is about bridges and borders — literal ones, cultural ones, racial, class, and sexual ones — and the clumsy, funny, desperate ways we find to cross them, or don’t. You may know Alexie’s award-winning…
The Traditional Drinks of Mexico
Given this year’s incredibly hot Austin summer, you might enjoy trying some of the fabulously refreshing traditional cold drinks of Mexico. Chronicle Cuisines writer Wes Marshall shows you how to concoct them.
Hear, Hear!
This is Fun With the Budget Month at Council, with seven meetings, running through Sept. 13. Here’s the schedule for the next four Thursdays. (Worksessions are at 9am, public hearings 6pm.) The catchy titles for each week’s program are Garza’s and reflect the officially established “council priorities”: • Aug. 17: Public Safety Police, Fire, Emergency…
Page Two
Anarchists being politic?
By the Book
The Eye of Horus: A Novel of Suspense by Carol Thurston Morrow, 384 pp., $24 Arguably the most interesting facet of Carol Thurston’s The Eye of Horus is the history it’s based on. In 1975, the Egyptology powers that be X-rayed the mummy of Tashat, the wife of a Theban noble. Inside her sarcophagus, wedged…
Food-o-File
The details on the upcoming Fourth Annual Texas Fiery Foods Show and the 10th Annual Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Contest.
Trial and Error
Questions raised about whether cards were stacked against Davidians in their civil suit against the federal government.
Autumn in New York
Autumn in New York 2000, PG-13, 105 min. Directed by Joan Chen, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Winona Ryder, Richard Gere, Vera Farmiga, Elaine Stritch, Anthony Lapaglia, Sherry Stringfield, Mary Beth Hurt. The lack of advance press screenings for Autumn in New York should constitute fair warning to all savvy movie fans. However,…
By the Book
The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazzby Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler Oxford University Press, 718 pp., $49.95 Since the first Encyclopedia of Jazz was published decades ago, it’s been the major jazz reference book. With this new edition it remains so. The principal editor here is Ira Gitler, who had been the main assistant of Leonard…
Child’s Play
Writer Kevin Wood discovers that there’s a lot to learn while teaching kids.
A Tale of Two Conspiracies
FLIR tape conspiracy theorists compare notes with the Kennedy assassination theorists
The Original Kings of Comedy
The Original Kings of Comedy 2000, R, 117 min. Directed by Spike Lee, Starring Bernie Mac, Cedric The Entertainer, D.l. Hughley, Steve Harvey. Spike Lee’s new movie is a comedy performance film in the tradition of Richard Pryor’s Live on the Sunset Strip, Eddie Murphy’s Raw, and Martin Lawrence’s You So Crazy. It captures a…
Postscripts
No one denies that the Austin Writers League is growing, but members disagree on how the growth should be handled.
Total Entertainment Package
Rockin’ out with Austin’s Latin-metal crossover darlings
Prying Open the Case of the Missing Door
Mystery surrounds case of missing right-hand door of Mt. Carmel
Cecil B. Demented
Cecil B. Demented 2000, R, 88 min. Directed by John Waters, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Melanie Griffith, Stephen Dorff, Alicia Witt, Adrian Grenier, Erika Lynn Rupli, Eric M. Barry, Zenzele Uzoma, Harriet Dodge, Mike Shannon, Jack Noseworthy, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Larry Gilliard Jr., Mink Stole, Ricki Lake, Patricia Hearst, Kevin Nealon. You say…
Off the Bookshelf
Motherhood Made a Man Out of Me A Novel by Karen Karbo BloomsburyUSA, 288 pp., $23.95 “Motherhood is for women what war is for men,” writes Karen Karbo. Though she is referring to labor, the observation is true for the larger task of motherhood. The conditions — sleep deprivation, sickness, and an unpredictable foe –…
Vallejo Reviewed
VallejoInto the New (Epic/Crescent Moon/550 Music) Twenty-four seconds is all it takes for Vallejo’s major-label debut to bloom. “Welcome to my room with a view,” intones leather-pants-wearing A.J. Vallejo on the album’s explosive title track, classic rock guitars booming like KLBJ FM through your JBLs. “I hope you’ll stay for a while.” It’s an invitation…
Naked City
Cox Enterprises won’t confirm or deny rumors that it’s considering acquiring several area community newspapers owned by Westward Communications; New Times buys FW Weekly; Margaret Thatcher will speak to the Texas Public Policy Foundation next year.
Second Helpings: Tex-Mex Restaurants
Chronicle writer Greg Beets on Austin’s Mexican restuarants.
Off the Bookshelf
People Who Sweat My Middle-Aged Adventures Among Tree Climbers, Mall Walkers, Surfing Housewives, and Other Unlikely Athletes by Robin Chotzinoff Harvest Books, 224 pp., $13 (paper) Westword staff writer Robin Chotzinoff has a magnificent obsession: She must find truly interesting people and document their magnificent obsessions. And the most wonderful part of her single-minded pursuit…
Someday Still Wants More
Austin singer-songwriter Tish Hinojosa is back with a shorter, spunkier ‘do after a four-year absence.
Naked City
Triangle Square plans get approved by the Planning Commission, but not without some haggling and opposition.
Live and Let Live
It’s eye-rolling season again. The nominations for the B. Iden Payne theatre awards are out, and once the local stage set gets a gander at the list of nominees, you can be sure that eyeballs all over town will be pivoting skyward in their sockets, accompanied by exasperated cries of “Oh, please!” and “You mean…
Off the Bookshelf
Lie in the Dark by Dan Fesperman Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 282 pp., $12 (paper) Early on in Lie in the Dark, war journalist Dan Fesperman writes that his stoic heroine Vlado “couldn’t help but marvel at the enduring popularity of murder.” Unfortunately, the remainder of Fesperman’s novel backslides into an uninvolving mystery that proves murder…
Dancing About Architecture
Ritalin Kids sign a record deal; Steve Wertheimer gets wet all over.
Naked City
A prominent Indonesian analyst believes it’s time to investigate alleged payoffs to Indonesian dictator Suharto by New Orleans-based Freeport McMoRan.
B. Iden Payne Award Nominations, 1999-2000
On Monday, August 14, the Austin Circle of Theatres released its nominations for the 1999-2000 B. Iden Payne Awards, the annual theatre honors named for Shakespearean scholar and director B. Iden Payne, who spent his later years in Austin at the University of Texas. This year, 59 productions by 30 different companies were honored with…
Local Bestsellers
Local bestsellers are based on recent sales at Austin bookstores selected to reflect varied reading interests.
Live Shots
Psychedelic FursStubb’s, August 8 One day, every young American who ever owned a pair of parachute pants or had a poster of Molly Ringwald on his or her bedroom wall is going to have to face up to the fact that the Eighties are over and they’re never, ever, ever coming back. (Ever.) That day…
Naked City
Gary Bradley presented his latest land-swap deal to the Save Barton Creek Association this week and received mixed reviews from environmentalists, many of whom are wary of trusting the megadeveloper.
