Ridicule
An earnest visionary devoted to improving dire conditions back home must play games of wit with the court of Versailles in order to win backing for his drainage project.
Shine
Shine 1996, PG-13, 105 min. Directed by Scott Hicks, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Geoffrey Rush, Noah Taylor, Alex Rafalowicz, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Lynn Redgrave, John Gielgud, Googie Withers. What is it about our mad artists that makes us love them so? Shine now adds the story of Australian pianist David Helfgott to our…
About AIDS
ASA Food Pantry Provides Help During the Holiday Season The winter holiday season is upon us again, and as stressful as it sometimes gets for those of us in good health, can you imagine what it would be like if you weren’t? The holidays can be an especially difficult time for folks living with HIV/AIDS…
Jocks Itch for Cash
illustration by Doug Potter The Stars want the puck out of Reunion Arena. The Spurs think the Alamodome is too big. The Cowboys want to fix the hole in the roof. The Rockets don’t like The Summit, which lacks skyboxes. The bottom-dwelling Mavericks hope a new venue will help Jason Kidd’s lousy shooting. The Astros…
Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night 1996, PG, 125 min. Directed by Trevor Nunn, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Helena Bonham Carter, Richard E. Grant, Nigel Hawthorne, Ben Kingsley, Mel Smith, Imelda Staunton, Toby Stephens, Imogen Stubbs. Too gorgeous for words? That’s how you might be tempted to sum up Trevor Nunn’s film adaptation of this lyrical…
Benefits
Dance, Music & Magic to benefit Lucila Dance Studio, at Niaspace, 2810 S. First, 7-10pm. Cost is $5. 267-2813. TUE 31 New Year`s 2 Party & Breakfast to benefit Christopher House, at Four Seasons Hotel, 98 San Jacinto, 9pm. $75 per person. 473-8566. The Chronicle benefits database extends a year into the future. Call Julie…
Pro Venues
Opened: 1980. Cost: $27 million, paid for with bonds; plus $5 million for renovations in 1987. Venue Owner: City of Dallas. Tenants: Mavericks (NBA); Stars (NHL) Team Owners: Mavericks, H. Ross Perot, Jr.; Stars, Thomas Hicks. Seating: 17,502 for basketball; 16,953 for hockey. No suites. Tickets: $5-$630 for basketball; $14-$110 for hockey. Revenue: Teams pay…
One Fine Day
One Fine Day 1996, PG, 109 min. Directed by Michael Hoffman, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Michelle Pfeiffer, George Clooney, Mae Whitman, Alex D. Linz, Charles Durning, Holland Taylor, Ellen Greene, Amanda Peet. One Fine Day begins as anything but that for divorced Manhattan mom and architect Melanie Parker (Pfeiffer). Kept up without…
Coach’s Corner
On Friday evening, there were two parties. One, the Chronicle’s annual Christmas gala; later, a Clarksville-wine-sipping-sort-of-affair. The Clarksville invitation mentioned something about formal attire and bringing wine. At the Chronicle, anything snappier than cut-offs, shoes with laces and the T-shirt you worked in all day sets you apart as a Manhattan Socialite. My hair was…
Reform on Hold
People outside of Texas wonder how our state government functions with a Legislature that only convenes for four months every two years. (Jealous they might be, but curious nonetheless.) We would be in trouble if we actually had new Legislatures with new issues. Instead, we economize by repeating the same session, with the same intractable…
The Crucible
The Crucible 1996, PG-13, 123 min. Directed by Nicholas Hytner, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder, Paul Scofield, Joan Allen, Bruce Davison, Rob Campbell, Jeffrey Woodard, Frances Conroy, Karron Graves, Charlayne Woodard, Elizabeth Lawrence. Here’s a conundrum: how to film a drama about mass hysteria without the end product becoming…
Day Trips
The longest foot bridge in the world serves a functional and an aesthetic purpose in the life of the citizens of Rusk. Originally built in 1861, the 546-foot-long and four-foot-wide wooden bridge provides the means for residents east of the valley to cross College Creek a block and a half east of the Cherokee County…
The Spirit of Giving
Surely the value of giving is more symbolic than practical. A gift is tangible evidence of your affection for someone, or theirs for you, and whether anyone needs the thing is strictly a side issue. Indeed, it may be that the most cherished gifts are those that the giftee never imagined wanting, much less needing,…
Page Two
Friday, December 13 was the Chronicle’s annual holiday party. We hold it at Chronicle headquarters — though we probably outgrew this location a few years ago — and it is co-hosted by South by Southwest, so all our family and friends come. If the weather is against us, to be huddled in the offices where…
Naked City
As the Electric Utility Department prepares for deregulation, councilmembers have continued to share a common concern — that Mayor Bruce Todd has tried to browbeat city staff into taking a privatization stance. This concern grew with Todd’s behavior last Thursday. Backstage, during council discussion on a staff proposal to prepare the utility for deregulation (see…
Public Notice
Here’s the second half of our list of holiday wishes from area public service organizations. We needn’t remind you that tax time is right around the corner, so give a lot! Many thanks go to Stewart Gallas from AIDS Services of Austin, first for having the idea and then for assisting in compiling the majority…
Shortcuts
by Jen Scoville Coming up on its 10th year, the 1997 Dallas Video Festival will take place at the Dallas Museum of Art the second weekend in January. There are still a few quick days before the new year is upon us, but it’s not too early to make plans to journey up to the…
Mister Smarty Pants Knows
According to one Siberian legend, drinking reindeer blood helps prevent illness and disease. Elephants who are put on hormones to prevent them from becoming pregnant may become moody, broody, and violent. Using hormones is easier than trying to fit them with condoms, however. Recent studies show that more teenagers are using the Ouija board to…
Here Comes the Judge
Looking back, it’s a wonder that Austinite Mike Judge’s stuttering, onanistically inclined whackmasters Beavis and Butt-head ended up on the air at all. This pair of animated 14-year-old dimbulbs were hardly the fare that corporate mega-hitter MTV seemed to be seeking, but after getting their hands on Judge’s nascent work in the groundbreaking Frog Baseball…
An Off-Key Carol
illustration by Jason Stout Half our century ago, in an Egyptian cave, an ancient manuscript was found. Scholars now believe it to be the earliest gospel, The Gospel of Thomas. In it, Jesus says: “Let him who seeks, continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he…
Scanlines
D: Wayne Orr and Paul Reubens; with Reubens, Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Grace Jones, Dinah Shore, Whoopi Goldberg, Cher, Charo, Magic Johnson, the cast of Pee-wee’s Playhouse. VHS Home video Calling this his “special Christmas special,” Pee-wee Herman sets the Playhouse stage for festive fun and frolic as he celebrates Christmas with celebrity friends such…
Food-o-File
by Virginia B. Wood The handsome cadre of kilt-clad young men dashing around town on Saturday, December 7 was not a musical group or a soccer squad; it was Bertram’s chef Peter O’Brien and his groomsmen. “We’re all Scotch-Irish,” explained the bridegroom, “so we each wore our clan colors, or as close as we could…
All I Want for Christmas… Is to Get Through It
illustration by Jason Stout Here’s how I rank Christmases: from bad to worse to move over, turkey, and make room in there for my head. You might not know this if you happened by my house during December. Because every year, for many years, there’s a tree — trimmed with homemade ornaments and gingerbread boys/people/womyn/whatever.…
Articulations
One of the city’s most ardent and influential patrons of the arts was recognized by the UT College of Fine Arts earlier this month. Alfred A. King, who has served as chair for the boards of Austin Lyric Opera and Laguna Gloria Art Museum (now Austin Museum of Art), and for UT’s Fine Arts Advisory…
Tamaladas y Posadas
The Ol� Mexico Association lead their fourth annual posada procession down East Sixth Street, stopping at homes and businessesphotograph by John Anderson I bought my first batch of holiday tamales last weekend from a stand under a tent at the corner of East Seventh Street and Pleasant Valley Road. A neighborhood church organization had prepared…
Bring on the New
illustration by Ben Anglin The year has rolled by quickly, and it’s already time to plan for ringing in the New Year. Some people make resolutions of things they’d like to do or be (which usually last about a week), some eat black-eyed peas for luck, some drink into the wee hours of the morning…
Local Palette
Various Artists Austin Galleries ongoing The plurality of this gallery’s name is fitting; this monolith artspace — 4,000 square feet packed floor-to-ceiling with artwork — is large enough to house a cluster of small galleries. In fact, this hybridization of gallery/antique store is larger than many city museums (including our own, until AMOA’s downtown expansion).…
Dancing About Architecture
Things didn’t look too rosy for the troubled “Home of the Blues,” following rumors of their closure by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) last week and the locked doors on the venue for days afterwards. TABC officer David Ball says that it was the comptroller’s office, not his, that was interested in the club…
Music
ANTONE’S Toni Price, Guy Forsyth, Breedlove AUSTIN MUSIC HALL Robert Earl Keen, Loose Diamonds B-SIDE Seth Walker BABES/BABES STAGESIDE Dale Watson, The Hit, Freak House BACK ROOM Dangerous Toys, Johnny Law, 50 Mission Crush BLACK CAT LOUNGE Lonely Child, Self-Righteous Bros. BROKEN SPOKE Alvin Crow CAROUSEL LOUNGE Rocket 69 CONTINENTAL CLUB 81/2 Souvenirs, Ronnie Dawson…
Plays in Our Stocking
illustration by Robert Faires Dear Santa, Almost didn’t bother you this year, as 1996 has been pretty good to the Austin theatre scene, gift-wise. What with getting a new theatre downtown (the John Henry Faulk at Fourth & Brazos), new offices for the Austin Circle of Theatres and the Box Office, our first bona fide…
Also Playing:
Friday: El Flaco, Electric Lounge Saturday: Geezinslaws, Broken Spoke; Buick Mackane, Steamboat; Storyville, Stubb’s Sunday: Heather Bennett Group, Elephant Room Monday: Elias Haslanger, Cedar Street Tuesday: Hicky, 50 Million, Hole in the Wall
Jude
Jude 1996, R, 122 min. Directed by Michael Winterbottom, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Christopher Eccleston, Kate Winslet, June Whitfield, Liam Cunningham, Rachel Griffiths. Based on Thomas Hardy’s late 19th-century British novel Jude the Obscure, the more simply titled Jude has a strangely contemporary feel to it. Perhaps it’s due to the way…
Making Frank Capra Look Cynical…
My first “Hearth and Soul” column (more than three years ago) began with a quote from Edgar A. Guest: “It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home…” I’d like to amend that a little; it takes either a heap o’ livin’ or a dog or a really good cat. This…
Crisis at the Rape Crisis Center
To some volunteers, the failure of ARCC’s board to award volunteer Rev. James Rigby (above) with a board seat represented a philosophical shift against community activism.photograph by Laura Skelding On the morning of May 3 of this year, Paul Garlinghouse was hunched over his desk at the Austin Rape Crisis Center (ARCC). He was rewriting…
Beavis and Butt-Head Do America
Beavis and Butt-Head Do America 1996, PG-13, 82 min. Directed by Mike Judge, Narrated by , Voices by Mike Judge, Demi Moore, Bruce Willis, Robert Stack, Starring . MTV Films’ second foray into the world of big-screen entertainment (their first was this summer’s hamstrung Joe’s Apartment) takes the network’s most popular animated stars and, uh,…
Little Books
The Christmas clock is ticking away… and you know who you are, you last minute gift-procrastinators, you. Oh yes, some of you are suffering from Mall Anxiety or Fear of Shopping or even just plain Scrooge-like mindset. Never fear, Auntie M is here with a few book titles to ease that pain. The subject is…
Record Reviews
WILL TAYLOR A Peaceful Christmas D.I.Y. meet J.A.Z.Z. Got yerself a holiday? No problem, just have the ol’ master stringman and arranger, Will Taylor, slap a little here, dash a little there — maybe an overdub or two — and presto! Instant 6-song Christmas tape. And it’s still better than those other reindeer games. The…
Scream
Scream 1996, R, 100 min. D: Wes Craven; with Drew Barrymore, Neve Campbell, Skeet Ulrich. A triumphant return to form for Wes Craven, Scream is the kind of psychological slasher film for which horror fans have been waiting years. The stalk ‘n’ slash gorefests of the early to mid-Eighties may be a distant crimson glimmer…
Postscripts
by Lee Nichols & Margaret Moser * SAT, DEC 21: D. Marion Wilkinson, author of Not Between Brothers: An Epic Novel of Texas, will be at Book Stop from 2-4pm for a booksigning. In his book, Wilkinson weaves a gripping tale of fact and fiction of the territory’s often bloody history. * SUN, DEC 29:…
Family Circle
photograph by Todd V. Wolfson The two young women sitting in front of a pile of cocaine in the South Austin duplex probably should have been enemies. One was the live-in girlfriend of the Cajun drug dealer/ne’er-do-well who had supplied the coke, the other was his non-live-in, sometime-girlfriend. The women had only recently developed an…
My Fellow Americans
My Fellow Americans 1996, PG-13, 102 min. Directed by Peter Segal, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jack Lemmon, James Garner, Lauren Bacall, Dan Aykroyd, John Heard, Wilford Brimley. Here’s more evidence — as if the booming sales of those When I Am Old I Shall Wear Purple books weren’t enough — that the…
Books@ear.com
Once upon a time — long before being sold alongside TV sets and vacuum cleaners — computers were huge, ungainly things. They cost far more than one person could afford. Large universities had them. The military had them. Computer scientists labored into the night on terminals connected to them. It was in these eclectic, fluorescent…
EUD’s Self-Help Program
Last Thursday, the council took the first bleary-eyed step towards recovery: “We all have drinking problems,” Gus Garcia admitted to a captive audience. While the elder councilmember was metaphorically highlighting the problems of the Electric Utility Department (EUD), some thought that the self-help program approved for the EUD may indeed indicate excess blood alcohol levels.…
Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent
Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent 1996, R, 97 min. Directed by Christopher Hampton, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Bob Hoskins, Patricia Arquette, Christian Bale. Conspicuously missing from the ranks of 19th- and early 20th-century authors rushed to the screen by a suddenly Mad About Classix Hollywood is Polish-born novelist Joseph Conrad. Christopher Hampton’s…
