Mute Love
Mute Love 1998, NR, 58 min. Directed by Patrice Mallard, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Teja Frank, Barbara O. Jones, Nicole Ari Parker. Director Mallard will be on hand to discuss the making of this film that examines the relationships among three generations of African-American women. The women include a recovering drug addict…
Treasure Island
Treasure Island 1950, NR, 96 min. Directed by Byron Haskin, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Bobby Driscoll, Robert Newton. This live-action Disney rendition of the classic Robert Louis Stevenson tale is a great adventure story and a wonderfully cast film.
Coach’s Corner
Here and There: UT basketball is a great entertainment value, Major League Baseball isn’t. And neither is the NFL, thanks in large part to the lousy refs, who got what they deserved in Cleveland.
Holiday Cards From the Austin Music Scene
Naughty or Nice Girls Ann Cvetkovich (l) and Gretchen Phillips
Phases and Stages
.38 SpecialA Wild-Eyed Christmas Night (CMC International) Another forgotten band attempts to “Hold On Loosely” to the tattered remains of its career, with a “Jingle Bell Rock” that sounds exactly like Hall & Oates’ version, and original material that smacks of leftover B-side melodies with stuck-on Christmassy lyrics. Call it “Heavy Manger Parking Lot.”
Commissioners in the Spotlight
Candidates line up for county commissioner seats.
Requiem for a Landmark
Filmmaker Steve Bilich was blocks away from the World Trade Center on September 11, and documented the tragedy with a 1920 hand-crank Cine-Kodak 16mm camera; the resulting film, Native American in Manhattan, will screen at the Sundance Film Festival.
Mad English
Zebras aren’t reactionaries, although Paul Simon would have us think otherwise. Considered by the medieval mind to be diabolical creatures because of their stripes, they are more likely to “turn on frequently” or “plot in secrecy” than be knee-jerk conservatives. That is, if the revelations regarding “stripes” and striped fabrics unearthed in The Devil’s Cloth:…
Remembrance of Flavors Past
The Food staff lets readers in on their holiday food memories.
Holiday Cards From the Austin Music Scene
Oh Happy Day The Dialtone Records family, starring Matthew Robison (with guitar), the Bells of Joy, and the Texas Trumpets
Phases and Stages
The Big 80’s Christmas(Rhino) When Billy Squier clangs his way through the trebly Fender twang of opener “Christmas Is the Time to Say ‘I Love You,'” The Big 80’s doesn’t seem like such a dreck decade after all. That’s when the Queen himself, Freddie Mercury, gets reverential on “Thank God It’s Christmas,” which segues into…
Who’s the After-Maxey?
Candidates begin throwing hats into the District 51 ring
A Bug’s Life
A new, artificially intelligent toy does little to excite the brain or the blood pressure.
Second Helpings: American Cafes, Part Two
More American cafes in this week’s “Second Helpings”
Remembrance of Flavors Past
Required Culture Under the Pink Chandelier Among the de rigueur holiday season activities at my childhood home on Bedford Street in Midland was the annual pilgrimage across the street to a tea party at which my mother and I would view the Christmas decorations in the home of our neighbors Charles and Arletta Underwood. The…
Holiday Cards From the Austin Music Scene
Singh We of Christmas India Records CEOs Nina Singh and Mark Addison
Phases and Stages
They Might Be GiantsHolidayland! (Restless) Before you TMBG fans go nutting off to the rekkid store clutching your pennybags, take a minute to breathe and repeat to yourself, “This is an EP of previously released material!” Now relax. Actually, there’s one new song among the five, a spunky take on the Sonics’ “Santa Claus,” and…
Naked City
Motorola is set to cut another 9,400 jobs over the next year – including a reported 4,000 jobs from the company’s semiconductor business headquartered in Austin. Dell Computer exec. Ben Bentzin has been angling to run for office for a while, and now he’s made it official. On Wednesday, the wealthy civic leader announced his…
Local Web site Wows ‘Cahiers du Cinema’
Austinite Todd Harbour wins praise from the esteemed French film publication Cahiers du Cinema for his film-and-video Web site, Mobius Home Video Forum.
Still Lives
Kate Breakey talks to Clay Smith about why she photographs dead birds and flowers and other animals.
Remembrance of Flavors Past
Christmas: The Original Screenplay Rashomon taught us we all view history differently, even if we were all present at the same event. Rodney King taught us (if you believe the jury in that case) that even filming an event doesn’t capture the episode. I don’t concur with the Los Angeles jury in their verdict, but…
Holiday Cards From the Austin Music Scene
Frosty’s By the Tail, It’s Plain to See … The Derailers’ Tony Villanueva and wife Dora (l) round up the herd, Clara, Nico, and Coco.
Phases and Stages
Barbra StreisandChristmas Memories (Columbia) Barbra Streisand’s voice is an instrument of sterling quality, well-suited to almost anything she chooses to sing. The dozen tracks of this Christmas album sparkle and shine like so many presents under the tree in a combination of chestnuts (“I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “Ave Maria”) and classics-to-be (“Closer,” “Christmas Lullabye”).…
Naked City
Last week, the Chronicle reported that the state Attorney General’s office had sued the health management organization operated by Seton Healthcare Network for failing to report data to the Texas Health Care Information Council (THCIC). A state agency that works on behalf of consumers, employers, and health-care professionals, THCIC annually compiles info on HMOs and…
Short Cuts
Would you like Raisinets and a tall skinny latte with your movie?
Articulations
Pat Jasper leaves Texas Folklife Resources, and a pair of Zachary Scott Theatre Center shows get good out-of-town press.
Remembrance of Flavors Past
The Consummate Christmas Dinner — at the Hospital When I got the call, complex advance plans were being formulated for Christmas dinner, including accommodating Mom’s craving for cornbread dressing. Mom was in the hospital at Seton Northwest with an undetermined, but very serious, gastrointestinal ailment. After days of tortuous tests that revealed nothing, it became…
Phases and Stages
Asylum Street SpankersA Christmas Spanking (Bloodshot) Mostly recorded live at last year’s Houston and Austin Xmas shows, this eclectic Spanking offers a spirited “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” here, a jazzy, possibly off-key “Baby It’s Cold Outside” there, and a damn near lo-fi “Linus and Lucy” on the other side of the snowbank. Wammo’s…
Phases and Stages
A Motown ChristmasVolume 2 (Motown)The TemptationsThe Best of the Temptations Christmas (Motown) The concept alone of A Motown Christmas ensures this holiday sampler to be far more fun than the socks ‘n’ underwear letdown of most Xmas platters. Sure enough, the Supremes, Miracles, Temptations, and J5 deliver the hits, Marvin Gaye’s “Purple Snow Flakes” and…
Naked City
Eager ballot casters planning to vote early in the springtime may have to strike HEB off their list of possible locations. Long one of the anchors of Travis County’s early voting efforts, the grocery chain might withdraw from the polling place roster due to a lawsuit lodged against it by the Independent Texans, a campaign…
TV Eye
Keeping one eye on television and the other on pop culture
Exhibitionism
Art Davis’ new play The Moontower’s Glow is a spiritual cousin to both The Rocky Horror Show and You Can’t Take It With You, focusing on a houseful of eccentrics who have rejected the normalcy of society to live their dreams, no matter how ludicrous they may appear to the rest of the world.
Remembrance of Flavors Past
The Imaginary Thanksgiving Dinner In 1940, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas fled Paris ahead of the Germans. They waited out the war in the French countryside, rolling bandages and existing on meager rations like everyone else. To stave off hunger and boredom, they amused themselves by fantasizing elaborate meals composed of culinary components that…
Phases and Stages
Zero Skills Inc.Christmassacre (Tastes Like Truckin’) This yuletide offering is a fine way of getting under the skin of people who insist on listening to nothing but Christmas music from Halloween on. The countrified punks of Zero Skills Inc. plow tunelessly but enthusiastically through seasonal standards like a drunk driver running down Santa’s reindeer. Slop-bucket…
Phases and Stages
Destiny’s Child8 Days of Christmas (Columbia)TRL Christmas (Lava/Atlantic)A Very Special Christmas 5 (A&M)A Season of Soul and Sounds (Epic) Oh no she didn’t. Did Beyoncé just rhyme prayer and underwear? Destiny Child’s 8 Days of Christmas sports top-dollar production, but brings about an uneasy cohabitation of cutting-edge beats and sincere seasonal sentiment. The trad tunes…
Naked City
High schoolers who plan to drop out, get their Route 66 kicks, and take the General Equivalency Diploma (GED) later on in life better think twice, educators say. Starting in January, the American Center for Education will begin administering a new, rewritten, and significantly harder version of the GED, the only exam that confers high…
Video Reviews
1955’s The Night of the Hunter stars the terrifying Robert Mitchum as a reverend with an evil-Elvis swagger, complete with knuckles on his right-hand tattooed with “LOVE” and knuckles on his left with “HATE.”
Exhibitionism
In these troubled times, Ballet Austin’s production of The Nutcracker reveals a beauty undimmed by tragedy, a magical landscape untouched by terror.
Remembrance of Flavors Past
Christmas in the Cold Long before food became my vocation, I spent a Christmas season in northern England. The three months that preceded that cold, wet December had left me mostly unimpressed with English food. But then again, I was a graduate student living in a dorm with hallmates who had a penchant for beans…
Phases and Stages
Slaid Cleaves Holiday Sampler (Philo) This five-song EP is a little treat to tide Slaid Cleaves fans over until he can record a new album. It’s not a Christmas record per se; each song is loosely related to the holidays and their corresponding months, starting with Halloween. The re-recording of “One Good Year,” now with…
Dancing About Architecture
Fastball gets dropped, while fans of Billy Joe Shaver hopes he doesn’t drop dead.
Naked City
Texas A&M University has given preliminary approval to a plan that would grant automatic admission to the top 20% of seniors at 250 Texas high schools rated by the Texas Education Association as “low performing.” The program would be an extension of the state’s Top Ten Percent policy, which enables seniors ranked in the top…
The Majestic
The Majestic 2001, PG, 150 min. Directed by Frank Darabont, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jim Carrey, Martin Landau, Laurie Holden, James Whitmore, David Ogden Stiers, Ron Rifkin, Hal Holbrook, Amanda Detmer. The “Majestic” may be the name of the old movie house Jim Carry restores in this period piece, but you get…
Exhibitionism
Like those Christmastime baskets full of cheese logs, summer sausages, miniature jars of jellies, etc., The Best Salvage Vanguard Holiday Ever features a diverse little gathering of tasty treats — in this case, five-minute plays on a common theme — and it’s fun to snack on.
Food-o-File
Why the Chronicle Food editor loves Anthony Bourdain and a new foodie movie
Phases and Stages
Albert & GageOne More Christmas (Moon House) It’s a coin toss as to what’s more appealing, Christine Albert and Chris Gage as a couple or the obvious joy they take in performing. Either way, it wraps up neatly here with a delightful dozen Christmas songs, old (“Go Tell It On the Mountain”), new (“One More…
The List Pt. 1
Yes, it’s really starting to roll now. SXSW has announced the first wave of bands expected to showcase at the March 2002 Music Festival. The list of bands is only 10% complete, but it is a good start. Bands that are scheduled to play include: the Angel, Anvil FX, Atom and His Package, Bare Jr.,…
Naked City
“While some pets serve, others grieve.” That’s why Voicekins™ has created its red, white, and blue three-piece set of toys (with squeakers) to help cure Spot’s depression about this crazy world. 100% of profits go to World Trade Center relief. www.georgebushstore.com. Click on George’s face and enter a virtual showcase offering Bushy tumblers, golf balls,…
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
Animated Jimmy saves Retroville from the aliens.
Edmund Morris’ ‘Theodore Rex’
Edmund Morris was spanked by critics in 1999 for introducing a fictional contemporary of Ronald Reagan’s in Dutch to help explain the trajectory of that president’s life. Now the second volume of Morris’ study of Theodore Roosevelt has been published, and it’s apparent all over again why he is one of the nation’s best biographers.
Holiday Cards From the Austin Music Scene
It was the money shot, and it lingered in my head and on my desk for weeks after it ran in the Chronicle issue of September 28: Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis with their son Deral Otis. The family portrait, shot by a master of local portraiture, Todd V. Wolfson. There it sat, smiling up…
Phases and Stages
Dale WatsonChristmas Time in Texas (Audium) While everyone else is recording “Silent Night” (again!), Dale Watson is writing and recording his own soon-to-be Christmas classics. Eight of the 12 tunes on Christmas Time In Texas, self-released last year, are Watson compositions, and there isn’t a clinker in the bunch. You can’t go wrong with titles…
The List Pt. 2
Want to do your part for eBay’s Auction for America, benefiting the September 11 relief efforts? Well, the Essential Austin Box Set auction previously mentioned in this column has launched, with more than 200 Austin artists donating autographed CDs to help raise money and show support from the Live Music Capital of the World. To…
Austin @ Large: Austin at Large: Chuck, We Hardly Knew You
Chuck Manning’s departure from Austin Energy comes at a most inopportune time for the city.
La Buche
La Buche 1999, NR, 106 min. Directed by Daneièle Thompson, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Christopher Thompson, Françoise Fabian, Claude Rich, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Emmanuelle Béart, Sabine Azema. Giddy holiday fluff with the emotional consistency of meringue, La Bûche is French filmmaking by way of the Hollywood romance. A comedic look at…
Page Two
The past decade, when the distance between innovation and inspiration shrank, can inspire us in what could be a rocky year, and interesting decade, ahead.
Holiday Cards From the Austin Music Scene
We Three Kings Three generations of vaqueros in Rick, Luke (center), and Rick Trevino
Phases and Stages
Mark Rubin Presents Hill Country Hannukah(Rubinchik) Recorded live last year at KUT, Hill Country Hannukah begins with Mark Rubin’s Rubinchik’s Yiddish Ensemble playing a medley of klezmer music ranging from the hypnotic “Doina” to the lively “Oi, Tate!” Cantor Neil Blumofe steps in to deliver a genre-bending swing-style vocal on “Maoz Tzur (Rock of Ages),”…
Riding the Rail
The challenge for Capital Metro: convincing voters that the new light rail isn’t the old light rail that they rejected last year
The Hightower Lowdown
Conscipicuous consumption for pets; giving of ourselves, not just of our pocketbooks; John Ashcroft is “doing something” — to our Constitution.
Letters at 3AM
The Bush White House is mounting the most sustained and successful attack on the Constitution in America’s history and not enough of us are willing to say it publicly.
Holiday Cards From the Austin Music Scene
It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That String The Creative Opportunity Orchestra’s parental axis, Randy Zimmerman and Tina Marsh
Phases and Stages
B.B. KingA Christmas Celebration of Hope (MCA) Given the many decades of good cheer B.B. King has spread around the globe, the King of the Blues might as well be Santa Claus. Turning opener “Please Come Home for Christmas” and guitar/organ instrumental stocking stuffer “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” into warm, nuzzly bedtime stories, King…
Saving Our Salamander
It’s back to square one for the Save Our Springs Alliance and two federal agencies charged with protecting the endangered Barton Springs Salamander. SOS filed another lawsuit this week against the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, claiming neither agency complied with a settlement agreement reached in the first lawsuit that…
Robots, Sleuths, and Warthogs
Winter PC and PlayStation game releases reviewed
Mr. Smarty Pants
One in four Texans has no health insurance.The name of the fake gorilla in the 1970 American Tourister TV commercial was Oofi.Neuroscientist Dr. Lawrence Farwell believes that a brain wave called P300 could be used to weed out bad guys.The finest pigment available to medieval artists was ultramarine, which began to appear in Western art…
Holiday Cards From the Austin Music Scene
You Light Up My Life Ferreting out the tangles with Pong’s Gary Chester and daughter Tabitha
Phases and Stages
Blue Xmas(Evidence) It’d seem like a good idea. Round up a bunch of folks like Jake Andrews, Otis Rush, Kim Wilson, and Son Seals to put in their two cents’ worth for an instrumental Christmas CD. Unfortunately, gut-bucket versions of songs like “White Christmas” just don’t work. The 12-bar treatment comes across better on nontraditional…
No More Polancos
The DA’s office decides not to pursue the death penalty for Nancy DePriest’s murder, but questions linger over police handling of the case.
Robots, Sleuths, and Warthogs
Nancy Drew: The Final Scene Her Interactive/Dreamcatcher PC Nancy Drew was the original poster child for grrrl power. Not only did this teenage super-sleuth solve mysteries that would stump even Sherlock Holmes, she did it with style — remember the Roadster? And unlike her wimpy male counterparts the Hardy Boys, Nancy was all about going…
Joe Somebody
Joe Somebody 2001, PG, 98 min. Directed by John Pasquin, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Tim Allen, Kelly Bowen, Jim Belushi, Kelly Lynch, Hayden Panettiere, Greg Germann. It wouldn’t be the holiday film season without the release of at least one bland, by-the-book comedy sandwiched in between the serious Oscar fare and the…
Day Trips
Texas Monthly has called the Old Jail Art Center “the best small town art museum in Texas — and maybe the nation.”
Holiday Cards From the Austin Music Scene
I Saw Mommies Kissing Santa Claus (l-r): Austin country divas Libbi Bosworth with Sam and Hank; Marti Brom with Carson (on lap) and Ivy (far right); and Susanna Van Tassel with son Frank
Phases and Stages
The Campbell BrothersSacred Steel for the Holidays (Arhoolie) The lap steel guitar has a wonderfully evocative sound when it’s in the right hands. The Campbells are quite good at what they do with theirs, but they fall down a few times straying into squealy jam-band territory. Singer Denise Brown gets a little carried away with…
Not Enough Hate in East Texas?
An East Texas Republican comes under fire for making nice with black legislators.
Robots, Sleuths, and Warthogs
ESPN NFL PrimeTime 2002Konami/ESPN the Games PlayStation2 (PC, Xbox) ESPN has been positioning itself to become a player in the world of premium sports games for Playstation2. Probably not the best and probably not the worst, its football game may just crack EA Sports’ John Madden-line games’ near-monopoly on arcade football; in the meantime, it…
Dinner Rush
Dinner Rush 2000, R, 100 min. Directed by Bob Giraldi, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Danny Aiello, Kirk Acevedo, Edoardo Ballerini, Summer Phoenix, Mike McGlone, Vivian Wu, Sandra Bernhard, Mark Margolis, Jamie Harris, John Corbett. It’s hard to resist those jejune food metaphors when describing Dinner Rush, a pleasant and often surprising ensemble…
After a Fashion
Let us not forget the reason for the season, people … club crawls and parties!
Holiday Cards From the Austin Music Scene
Jingle Bell Pop Singing sibs Trish and Darin Murphy
Phases and Stages
Tommy SandsTo Shorten the Winter: An Irish Christmas (Green Linnet) Tommy Sands wrote all but three of the tunes on To Shorten the Winter, gorgeously rendered holiday fare from an Irish treasure. Even the arrangement of the otherwise awkward “Whiter Shade of Pale” makes it fit with traditionals like “Raglan Road” and “Matt Hyland” as…
Triggered Interest
In the wake of Sept. 11, more Texans want to pack heat.
Robots, Sleuths, and Warthogs
Grand Theft Auto IIIRockstar Games PlayStation2 Grand Theft Auto III starts with a Seventies cop-movie feel, easy funk pulling users into an urban environment as the credits play. It all looks very pleasant. And then the anarchy begins. GTA3 gets hard-core and gritty fast (right after the credits end, in fact). In a cinematic third-person…
The Royal Tenenbaums
The Royal Tenenbaums 2001, R, 108 min. D: Wes Anderson; with Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Luke Wilson. “Being a Tenenbaum isn’t as easy as it used to be,” observes a member of the brood in this grand family saga whose literary aspirations and resonant title seem to purposely thrust viewers…
To Your Health
I consider myself a very healthy woman, since I have been athletic all my life and even considered training for the Olympics, but my physician is worried that I have the beginnings of osteoporosis at age 32. Could this be true?
Holiday Cards From the Austin Music Scene
Grandma Got Run Over by a What? Allan (l) and Glover Gill wrap up some last-minute shopping
Phases and Stages
Leon RedboneChristmas Island (Blue Thumb) In typical time-machine fashion, the Jägermeister-sipping Leon Redbone throws his Xmas mojo on “Let It Snow,” “Blue Christmas,” and a stocking full of nontraditional songs. Backed by Thirties-style string band arrangements (including Cindy Cashdollar on dobro), there’s plenty of old-fashioned yuletide charm on this disc. This one won’t annoy your…
Más Denero
Austin attorney Carolyn Denero has announced her campaign to win a seat on the 3rd Court of Criminal Appeals. Although she is only 36 years old, she believes she’d be a good addition to the appeals court. “The court needs more people with experience in the trenches,” Denero said. “I believe I’ve got that.” Denero…
Robots, Sleuths, and Warthogs
Zoo TycoonMicrosoft/Blue Fang PC Dear Editor: I know I was supposed to get this review of Zoo Tycoon to you by Wednesday, but, you understand, I have more important things to do. Like cleaning the hippo’s cage. Like raising enough donations to buy a mate for the saltwater crocodile. Like making sure my research and…
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The first film in Jackson’s Tolkien trilogy stays true to the spirit and logistics of the novels, but is also a breathtaking and beautiful work of art on its own.
About AIDS
With the nation’s attention focused on terrorism lately, it’s amazing how many – and how fast – resources can be marshalled when the leadership wants them to be. Take the Centers for Deases Control and Prevention, for instance. The CDC is rearranging virtually its entire structure to address anthrax. Labs have been commandeered and hundreds…
Holiday Cards From the Austin Music Scene
Do You Hear What I Hear? Lord and Lady of the One World manor, Hartt Stearns and Iluminada
Phases and Stages
Leon RussellHymns of Christmas (Leon Russell) So you say you don’t have enough albums of pompous, keyboard-driven instrumental Christmas chestnuts? Step right up, then, this is just the thing for you. This stuff would be passable if Russell was contributing his unmistakable vocals on it; as is, it sounds more like an album of Rick…
Council Roundup
In light of our heightened sensitivity to terrorism, City Council voted last week to bring Austin in line with a previously established state law that increases the mayor’s power to respond to emergencies. Among Mayor Gus Garcia’s new powers: the ability to compel curfews and street closures that can remain in effect for as many…
Robots, Sleuths, and Warthogs
MechWarrior 4: Vengeance/ Black Knight ExpansionMicrosoft PC Technology is good for at least three things: games (of course), weapons (of course), and, lest we forget, robotics. It’s only logical, therefore, that one of the best developments of this century incorporates all three. MechWarrior 4: Vengeance, Microsoft’s latest adaptation of the classic tabletop game of dice,…
