Oklahoma!
Rodgers and Hammerstein tunes mix with luxurious widescreen cinematography.
The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!
The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! 1966, NR, 126 min. Directed by Norman Jewison, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint, Alan Arkin, Brian Keith, Jonathan Winters, Theodore Bikel, John Phillip Law, Tessie O’Shea, Ben Blue, Michael J. Pollard. This popular Cold War comedy was a riot in…
Fast Food Women
Fast Food Women 1999, NR. Directed by Anne Lewis, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Documentarian Anne Lewis has been making films for over 30 years and has recently moved to Austin. She has long been affiliated with Appalshop, the Appalachian arts and education collective. Fast Food Women is an award-winning film about…
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb 1964, NR, 93 min. D: Stanley Kubrick; with Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Slim Pickens. More lethal than a nuclear-waste dump, Kubrick’s komedy at least kills us with laughter. Decades after its making, this film seems even more insidiously knowing and “on…
Gilda
Gilda 1946, NR, 110 min. Directed by Charles Vidor, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready. Dad loves this movie and so do I. We disagree on our readings and interpretations (he thinks I go overboard and dredge up signs and meanings where there are none). But we are…
Mystery Train
Jarmusch applies his minimalist style to the margins of Memphis as seen through the experiences of three sets of foreigners.
S.O.B.
Edwards’ crowning achievement is a wickedly funny, impeccably cast, ingeniously subversive satire of the Hollywood film industry.
The Lady From Shanghai
The Lady From Shanghai 1948, NR, 87 min. Directed by Orson Welles, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Everett Sloan. Forget Kane. Lady From Shanghai presents Welles at his most finely tuned baroque. The story is a perverse murder mystery/love and power triangle. Hayworth is used to great advantage as…
Mystery Men
Inept amateur superheroes must save the day in this comedy.
The Thomas Crown Affair
The Thomas Crown Affair 1999, R, 109 min. Directed by John McTiernan, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Pierce Brosnan, Rene RussoMark Margolis, Denis Leary, Fritz Weaver, Frankie Faison, Ben Gazzara, Charles Keating, Mark Margolis, Faye Dunaway. Why? Why remake Norman Jewison’s staunchly cool 1968 heist film in such a lackadaisical, uninspired manner? Not…
The Iron Giant
If the top-notch story weren’t enough, the film also boasts some spectacular animation and a great score.
2000 Seen By – (Part One)
2000 Seen By – (Part One) 1999, NR, 60 min. Directed by Hal Hartley, Laurent Cantet, 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…
2000 Seen By – (Part Two)
2000 Seen By – (Part Two) 1999, NR, 61 min. Directed by Abderrahmane Sissako, Ildiko Enyedi, 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…
Dick
Dick 1999, PG-13, 95 min. Directed by Andrew Fleming, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Michelle Williams, Kirsten Dunst, Dan Hedaya, Will Ferrell, Jim Breuer, Dave Foley, Teri Garr, Bruce McCulloch, Harry Shearer, Saul Rubinek, G.D. Spradlin, Devon Gummersall. Cinematic revisionist history has already been sparingly applied to the Nixon years in the form…
Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl
Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl 1999, R, 99 min. Directed by Joan Chen, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Lu Lu, Lopsang, Gao Qiang. Actress Joan Chen (The Last Emperor, Twin Peaks) makes an impressive debut as a film director with this evocative Chinese drama. The story is a period piece set during…
Tunnel Vision
Monday, August 9, the Cleveland Browns officially return to the NFL when they rustle the Dallas Cowboys in the Hall of Fame game in Canton, Ohio. The resurrected dynasty of the late Paul Brown is now controlled by what was once the the bulk of the San Francisco 49ers’ front office. Look for them in…
Bank Shot
All of this adds up to tremendous pressure for independent banks to sell out, leaving slim pickings for consumers who want more than, as Walters puts it, “an ATM on every street corner where you can take out money with a piece of plastic.” Besides convenience, he points out, large banks offer a greater variety…
A Way They’ll Never Be
Suddenly on July 21 it was the 100th anniversary of Ernest Hemingway’s birth. I say “suddenly” because, unlike F. Scott Fitzgerald’s in ’96 or Duke Ellington’s this spring, Hemingway’s 100th birthday came and went with a minimum of observance — no media-hyped academic conferences, no high-profile magazine covers, no retrospectives by marquee-name writers in the…
From the Ground Up
Republican activist and one-time state treasurer candidate David Hartman wasn’t the only banker to pull through the bust of the late 1980s, a time when bank failures were shaking the foundations of Austin’s once-strong economy. But his bank, Hartland, saw success beyond that of any other community bank in Austin, growing in just over 10…
Automat
5416 Parkcrest, 459-9960 Sun-Thu, 11am-10pm; Fri-Sat, 11am-11pm Fun, festive, Italian food with a Southwestern flair. Cafe Spiazzo serves eclectic pastas such as Black Pepper Linguine with Clam Sauce, or Seafood with Ancho-Honey-Lime-Marsala Sauce over Jalape�o Fettucine. The restaurant also features an assortment of pizzas and nightly specials. An expansive wine list will suit many tastes.…
News Flash
Updating our looks at bills in Legislature affecting the news media (see “Media Clips,” April 2 and June 18, 1999): All but one of the bills regarded by the Texas Daily Newspaper Association (TDNA) as a “priority” — either to support or oppose — made their way safely past the governor’s desk and into law.…
Food-o-File
New restaurant menus have been flying off the fax machine! In response to the expanding tastes of their clientele, the Cafe at the Four Seasons (98 San Jacinto, 478-4500) has added some sophisticated new vegetarian entrees such as a Grilled Portobello Mushroom with a Spinach Goat Cheese Cake and a Soy Marinated Tofu Steak with…
Naked City
Edited by Lisa Tozzi, with contributions by Robert Bryce, Kevin Fullerton, and Amy Smith. Off the Desk Seven years ago the editorial page of this paper declared that the “… SOS victory was a triumph of an intelligent, informed populace over a manipulative, self-serving power structure.” My, how times have changed. Today, the writer of…
It’s Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature
The science behind genetic engineering is so complex that even scientists disagree about the inherent dangers. The information about how any cell functions is encoded into single and distinct genes, certain segments of DNA with specific instructions for specific protein production. In front of each gene is a piece of DNA known as a promoter…
Iron Writer
photograph by Todd V. Wolfson Tim McCanlies is not a recluse — you just have to know where to look. The Iron Giant screenwriter’s High Lonesome Ranch sits on a remote 250 acres in southeastern Bastrop County. The winding red dirt road leading to his spread is miles past the only tourist attractions in the…
Articulations
Following up on last week’s story: Sure enough, Austin will see three arts service organizations lose their executive directors this summer. In June, we heard about Number One, Ann Ciccolella, who is leaving her longtime post as the executive director of the Austin Circle of Theatres on August 31 to take the job of managing…
GE Foods: Most Commonly Altered Crops
It’s no coincidence that the first crops chosen for genetic engineering are such items as corn, soybeans, potatoes, canola oil, and cotton. These crops are produced in a volume significant enough to make them financially profitable for manipulation, and they all serve as raw materials or additives for countless other processed or manufactured products. Below…
Director Brad Bird
Warner Bros.’ The Iron Giant is one of the most original animated tales to come along in quite some time — an accomplishment due in no small measure to the skill of director Brad Bird, who cut his teeth working for Disney at the tender age of 14. Impressed by a short animated film the…
The Body Is the Music
Ballet has its origins in folk dance. American popular dance is a fusion of European dance forms and African religious dance. Early dance was part of ceremonial rituals such as marriage, death, and birth. The origins of Middle Eastern dance movements, such as undulating the belly, are said to have been based on the movements…
Gourmet Food Tariffs Hit Chefs In The Kitchen
An irate Jean-Luc Salles called the other afternoon to let me know he’d be faxing me a product advisory he had just received from his specialty produce and gourmet food products supplier, Heart of Texas Produce. The advisory referred Heart of Texas customers to a July 20 story in the Wall Street Journal about the…
Scanlines
D: Alan Smithee (1997) with Ryan O’Neal, Coolio, Chuck D, Eric Idle, Richard Jeni, Sandra Bernhard, Stephen Tobolowsky, Sylvester Stallone, Jackie Chan, Whoopi Goldberg. The film “Hollywood doesn’t want you to see” turns out to be the film none of its stars want you to see, either. This limply written, poorly acted, lamely conceived satire…
Exhibitionism
Zachary Scott Theatre Center’s Kleberg Stage Through Aug 29 Running Time: 2 hrs Director Dave Steakley has joined forces with two comic heavy-hitters, and the result is this jaunty, goofball screamer, less a sustained thriller than two hours of senseless, giddy fun, in which its stars, Martin Burke and Joe York, switch characters, mug mercilessly,…
GE Foods: Getting to Know More
“Most Americans accept science in agriculture not as something that is creating a monster but as something that is making food better and safer.” — tagline from the “A Closer Look” news segment on ABC World News Tonight, July 26, 1999 There are plenty of people who take issue with this sweeping statement; 500,000 of…
Short Cuts
When I read the item in Variety a few months back, it struck me like an affirmation of a long-ago vision. The item said that New York production company Good Machine was working with filmmaker Chris Smith to make a film based on Harvey Pekar’s comic book series American Splendor. Pekar should be familiar to…
Day Trips
A barista is someone who performs the ritual of espresso with panache to produce a coffee drink perfectly tuned to the customer’s preferences. photograph by Gerald E. McLeod At Legal Grounds Coffee Shop the barista is a barrister. David Musslewhite can serve out sound legal advice while making a good cup of joe. The Dallas…
Dancing About Architecture
Well, that’s it. Liberty Lunch, as we knew it, is gone, the victim of a city that had better things to do with its property than let a bunch of freaks play music on it. For some, the real ending was last week, between the Gloriathon and Joe Ely’s after-2am set, but many others called…
Deep Impact?
The verdict is in: Iron Chef(Fri. & Sat., 9pm, Food Network) is one of the most bizarrely entertaining programs to see on TV. I wrote at length about the Japanese import a few columns ago, based on interviews, background information, and conjecture. But even I couldn’t imagine just how strange, funny, and oh-so-very-Japanese the cooking…
Local Bestsellers
Local bestsellers are based on recent sales at Austin bookstores selected to reflect varied reading interests. This week’s list of bestsellers is from Toad Hall Children’s Bookstore, 1206 W. 38th. 1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling 2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling 3. P.S. Longer Letter…
Candy Store Rock
The good thing about Middle America is that it really is in the middle of America. Meaning, if you were Wayne Coyne in the early part of the Eighties, a few years out of high school with a shit job at Long John Silver’s and not a whole lot else to do, it was nice…
Postscripts
Look to Toad Hall’s most recent list of bestsellers (“Local Bestsellers,” p. 49) for corroboration of a recent Publisher’s Weekly article asserting that “hardcover children’s fiction is hot these days” (“The Harry Potter Halo,” July 19). The article largely attributes the buying frenzy to J.K. Rowling, author of the wildly popular Harry Potter series, whose…
They Don’t Have Steven
Steven Drozd photograph by Bradley Beesley The first band I ever saw in Austin, in September 1989, was Janis 18, at the bottom of a Cannibal Club bill with the Wannabes and the Way-Outs. I don’t remember much about the guy behind the drum kit, but I’d be seeing him again. And again. Because a…
The Poetry of Pain
by Ren� Steinke William Morrow & Co., $23 hard What fills the holes dug by lies; what breeds in dank silence; what festers in the crammed and locked closets of the heart: This is the substance of Friendswood native Ren� Steinke’s painful, lyrical first novel, The Fires. “It is less dangerous to burn things than…
Neither Fish nor Fowl
“The fact that I’ve mentioned fish or aquatic life forms maybe four times in my career has indelibly marked me as a fish obsessive,” sputters Robyn Hitchcock, managing to sound at once put off and amused. He’s responding to my offhand comment that there are, in fact, no references to fish, bodies of water, drowned…
About AIDS
There is an overwhelming abundance of information available about HIV and AIDS, and much of it is easily accessed through the computer. But where do you go to get started? Here are three tools which may assist in different ways. Across the U.S., AIDS service organizations such as ASA have (and often produce themselves) a…
Robyn Hitchcock
Jewels for Sophia (Warner Brothers) With his last studio album being a largely acoustic affair, and following the acoustic live soundtrack album Storefront Hitchcock, Robyn Hitchcock’s latest release, is a welcome return to electricity. Diverse and satisfying, the biggest surprise on Jewels for Sophia is the presence on two tracks of Hitchcock’s original lead guitarist…
Page Two
Music editor Raoul Hernandez says he has something of a theme section this week; he notes that both Robyn Hitchcock and Wayne Coyne of Flaming Lips have penned an unusual number of songs about animals, or with animals in the title. And now, they’re going to be on the same bill, Saturday, Aug. 7 at…
Community Banks
The sale of Hartland Bank to a national chain leaves Austin with only five surviving community banks: Chairman / CEO Assets Liberty Bank Eddie Safady $65,965,000 Bank of Texas J. Gordon Muir, Jr. $37,637,000 Franklin Bank John B. Selman $20,865,000 Community State Bank Hank Mitchell $14,960,000 City National Bank Jack A. Collins $14,611,000 Assets as…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Tabasco sauce will make an old penny shine. Scientists at the University of Michigan and the Center for Biologic Nanotechnology have developed a lotion to protect against influenza and other viruses. The late John F. Kennedy Jr. was a Bob Dylan fan. His favorite song was “Chimes of Freedom.” According to the National Weather Service,…
Live Shots
Black Cat, July 29 Rock en Espa�ol. Remember those words. You already know them well, but in a year you’ll know them better. In two years, you may be sick of ’em. At the rock & roll family picnic, Rock en Espa�ol is the loud and brash kid brother, the noisy upstart from down south…
Public Notice
Stand tall? Stand up for what you believe in? Stand off? Stand offish? Stand in? Stand by me? Stand up for a cause? Stand by? Stand out? Standing army? Stand trial? Stand still? Grandstand? Stand in the place where you live (now face north …)? Stand down? Can’t stand it? Stand up? Standing invitation? Standing…
Tug of War
Marketing efforts to entice minority conventioneers to Austin will now be coordinated by the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau, rather than by the city’s several minority chambers of commerce. In the past, the city has paid a couple of hundred thousand a year each to the Hispanic, African American (Capital City), and Asian chambers of…
