The Most Read Film Reviews of 2014
Bombs away!
New Year’s Eve: Worst Snow Day Ever
City cancels celebration after learning New Year’s is in winter
The Year in Movies, and in Moments
What didn’t make my Top 10
Next Up’s Best of 2014
Team youngblood tracks back on the year
Food-o-File
Brewpubs and breastaurants
Top 5 Soundtracks and Original Scores of 2014
Awesome Mix, No. 2: Tehran punk, Cave, and Carpenter
Counting Austin’s Homeless
Austin nonprofit will contribute to nationwide count
Austin Music Poll Launches Wednesday
Now complete with “Music Industry Awards” section
One in a Crowd: The Honor Farm
Austin documentary expert Karen Skloss takes us back to school
Ringing in the New Year With Raw Paw
Austin art collective parties out 2014
Five Last-Minute New Year’s Eve Picks
Make the last moments of 2014 count without tons of planning.
Arbiter Overturns Hopkins’ 8-Day Suspension
Hopkins will receive backpay; suspension removed from record
Bill Seeks to Dodge Section 8 Renters
State Sen. Perry’s bill would overrule Austin’s ordinance
News Roundup: Schools, Fair(?) Housing, and Plastic
TEA releases rankings, Linda Curtis returns, and more
Winter Break Reading
Chronicle staff pages through its reading to-do list
The Luv Doc: Too Much Christmas
Dear Luv Doc, First off, let me say I love Christmas. It is my favorite time of year, but the decorating has gone insane. My husband is the worst. He is in competition with our neighbors. Every year it gets worse. This year he started right after Halloween and covered the entire house in multi-colored…
The Gambler
Mark Wahlberg has one of his juiciest roles ever as a creative-writing professor by day and a compulsive gambler by night.
The Imitation Game
The heartbreaking life of Alan Turing, the engineer who changed World War II
Into the Woods
The Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical, a pastiche of classic fairy tales turned on their heads, gets a thoroughly cinematic workout.
Big Eyes
Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz play the Keane couple, the artists behind the craze of those ubiquitous portraits of wide-eyed waifs.
Unbroken
The heroic story of Louis Zamperini, who endured harrowing hardships during World War II, is the subject of Angelina Jolie’s second movie.
Zimmerman Suit Not Yet “Bygone”
Zimmerman v. Bulldog proceeds to Round 2
Public Notice: Happy Holidays?
It’s pretty quiet around Austin this time of year. And with a long, uniquely complicated election season just ended, and a full month hiatus before the first meeting of the much-anticipated new City Council – that seems even truer this year. No doubt there’s a lot of lobbying and scheming going on behind the scenes,…
Texas Platters
Yuppie Pricks Appetite for Consumption (Chicken Ranch) Six years have passed since a kindred spirit sat in the Oval Office, so the Yuppie Pricks return with more punky hard rock than hard-rocking punk. Obama has apparently given the Austin quintet a lot of contempt to unleash given that LP four, Appetite for Consumption, sports a…
Officer Wins Firing Appeal
Arbitrator overturns chief’s decision to dismiss
Texas Platters
Shivery Shakes Three Waves & a Shake (Austin Town Hall Records/Punctum Records) “Recurring Dreams” opens Shivery Shakes’ full-length debut with the Austin quartet’s Brian Wilson figure tuning in a musical mnemonic on the radio. “My hand tingled as I reached for the dial,” sings William Glosup, who cut Three Waves & a Shake mostly as…
Online Threats and the Supremes
While Justin Carter’s fate hangs in the air, SCOTUS considers another Facebook threat
The Roost Crows at Midnight
Steamboat greeter / booker David Cotton realizes the dream of his own club, the Roost
Arts Review
In Zach Theatre’s production, Martin Burke singlehandedly restores George Bailey’s faith in humanity
Burden of Proof
With today’s mocktails, who needs the hard stuff?
Strong and Talented and Young
Austin’s Raw Paw collective inhales life, exhales art
Arts Review
The Blanton’s exhibit is like being in James Drake’s studio and experiencing his two years of daily drawing all at once
Playing God – Literally
A smartphone’s all you need to let loose your inner Zeus and control the action in Deus Ex Machina
Review: Brainquake
Sam Fuller’s last novel is the perfect cap on his legacy of true-to-life, flamboyant, high-impact storytelling
The Good Eye Looks Back
All the best glimpses caught by the Good Eye in 2014
Many Happy Returns
New name, same quality at the Preserve
Day Trips
Eyesore or mysterious landmark?
Texas Platters
All ATX British Invasion Slide over KGSR Broadcasts. Where Radio Austin’s 22-year-old fundraising franchise, which this year benefits Seton Medical in addition to mental health services for local musicians by the SIMS Foundation, casts a net globally in culling its annual music benefit, All ATX British Invasion internalizes our English forebears with a homegrown roll…
Gay Place: Ho-HoHos
One “Gay Place”: Two big holigayz
Texas Platters
Danny Malone Speeddreamer Danny Malone gets to the crux of Speeddreamer with one simple refrain: “I’m an artist, I do what I want, when I wanna.” The four-track cassette grit of his third offering, epitomized by “I’m an Artist,” departs sharply from decadent 2013 LP Balloons. Rather than the ghostly layers of pop on his…
Bottoms Up
Just in time for New Year’s, Jessica Sanders offers some ideas to keep the party going
Hornography
The Longhorns got some big news Thursday morning when five-star linebacker Malik Jefferson committed to Texas along with his high school teammate, highly touted wide receiver DeAndre McNeal. This is a great revelation for the Burnt Orange, but on a day when Texas got their biggest win of the offseason, they stand on the verge…
Texas Platters
Dowrong & Eric Dingus The Dowrong EP (Dream Sequence Records) As prelude and dedication, “The Last Time I Saw You” features a voicemail from LaDerrick Torry, Dowrong’s (LaDarrian Torry) late father. Armed with Eric Dingus’ ominous production, the League of Extraordinary Gz rapper minces no words about his stance: “Ain’t give a fuck since the…
Playback – 2014: Keeping the Dream Alive
Reviewing ATX music 2014
Soccer Watch
The Austin Aztex announced Saturday that they will host three MLS teams in a pre-season tournament, the ATX Pro Challenge, Feb. 13-15 at UT’s Mike Myers Stadium, featuring Aztex affiliate the Columbus Crew SC, four-time MLS champion D.C. United, and I-35 neighbor FC Dallas, in a four-team, single elimination tournament. Friday’s semifinals have Crew SC…
Texas Platters
Spray Paint Clean Blood, Regular Acid (Monofonus Press) Want your dome rattled? The hood rats in Spray Paint have you covered. Third album Clean Blood, Regular Acid opens with the same sort of odd-tuned guitar discordance (“Wet Beer”) that ricocheted endlessly from their two bookending 2013 LPs. This iteration, the first on co-frontman Cory Plump’s…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
According to The Economist, Japanese police have killed just one person in the past six years. For the last 2,000 years, it has been inappropriate to eat with your elbows on the table. The rule comes from the Wisdom of Sirach. The mineral bridgmanite makes up about 38% of the planet. Most people have never…
Quote of the Week
“You want to go fight in combat and sit in a foxhole? You go right ahead, but a man can’t hit you in public here? Bullshit! You act like a ho, you get treated like one!” – APD Officer Andrew Pietrowski to KUT reporter Joy Diaz. Pietrowski resigned from APD Friday, Dec. 12.
Texas Platters
The Gary Farewell Foolish Objects (Sick Room) Over the past five years, the Gary quietly amassed one of the most bracing catalogs in local music. If the trio’s lasting allure wasn’t immediately apparent with 2010’s Logan, credit an elemental approach to post-punk that dispenses with get-rich-quick gimmickry in favor of gradual shape-shifting. Accordingly, their fifth…
Fleet Fox
Swift Single Malt is going places
Headlines
Austin Water formally opened the controversial Water Treatment Plant No. 4 on Dec. 19, with officials and construction teams celebrating the already operational plant, which is pumping 50 million gallons a day to the Jollyville reservoir, with a potential capacity of 350 million gallons. Live Nation Entertainment and C3 Presents announced last week that California-based…
Dressed to Thrill
Cosplay at Ikkicon is where the action’s at for Lorelei Hutchings and Joseph Ginnings
Food-o-File
New restaurant lightning round
The Hightower Report: State Legislatures Help Rich Lenders Rob the Poor
New laws make it easier to prey on borrowers
Texas Platters
Jonly Bonly Put Together (12XU Records) When Orville Neeley left on tour with the Bad Sports in late 2012, now-former OBN III’s guitarist Jason Smith found himself at loose ends. To pass the time, he penned a clutch of jangly pop tunes designed to confuse anyone familiar with his day job in punk. Enlisting fellow…
Rising From the Halloween Flood
Rebuilding the homes – and lives – displaced by the 2013 Onion Creek floods
Point Austin: In With the New
The victorious City Council members-elect are apparently taking quick advantage of the fact that they are not, in fact, quite yet Council members – and are instead meeting and talking with one another and Mayor-elect Steve Adler in a manner that will be officially forbidden after Dec. 31. According to the Statesman, last week Adler…
Help Desk
Fast shipping, resolution keeping, and holiday sensitive emoji in this week’s tech etiquette column
