Cover Story
Family Flight
Will AISD abandon its shrinking schools?
Soccer Watch
Houston 1836 is the name of Houston’s MLS team, Arsenal is upset by the Bolton Wanderers, and more
Endorsement
Special election for Texas House of Representatives, District 48
It’s Alive!
Texas (finally) gets a horror-film convention to call its own
This Land Is Your Land
This muckraking populist grab bag of a film isn’t so much a documentary as it is a harried piece of grassroots agitprop.
Oops!
• Last week’s “Quote of the Week” should have noted that the Ben Bentzin quote came from The Daily Texan. • Last week’s cover photograph should have been credited to John Anderson. • In last week’s issue on House District 48 demographics, the numbers next to each school district represented the number of voting-age District…
Cap Metro Dodges Strike
Union, management credit Mayor Wynn with success
Marching On
Throughout February
Big Momma’s House 2
It’s a shame to again witness Martin Lawrence squander his considerable comic talents under a fat suit and fake breasts in this shoddy sequel.
Crown Jewel
Bombay Bistro is the newest Indian venture in town. Is it already the best?
ACWP
Ex-director of water program says he’s blowing whistle on pollution; city officials say they’re on top of it
DVD Watch
How Raymond Chandler’s coffee can became Stephen J. Cannell’s cookie jar, with James Garner as the constant
Before the Fall
Every movie about the Holocaust should be this good, but few are. Heartbreaking and brutal, its tale of two boys training together at an elite school is as intimate and truthful to its characters as it is powerfully topical and politically brave.
Buenos Aires Cafe
A ‘Big Night’ experience at a modest Argentinean eatery
McTear Headed to Adult Prison
After day of testimony from psychologists and counselors, district judge rules Marcus McTear has no chance for early parole
TV Eye
My ‘Rollergirls’ review: the response; plus, Aaron McGruder deals with ‘The Boondocks’ backlash
The World’s Fastest Indian
Anthony Hopkins’ great performance as Burt Munro, the real-life New Zealand codger and Indian motorcycle enthusiast who in 1967 set a land speed record that still stands today, is not enough to crash through this unabashedly sentimental wall of schmaltz.
Mi Colombia
Go now, before the liquor license and the long lines to get in
Radnofsky’s Education Fixes Fall on Few Ears
Senate candidate Barbara Ann Radnofsky demands incumbent Hutchison ‘end the war on children,’ lays out proposals for aiding public education
Playing ‘House’ (and ‘Garden’)
At Austin Playhouse, running Alan Ayckbourn’s paired comedies side-by-side is double the pleasure, double the fun
Something New
Think Bridget Jones‘ lovelorn but marriage-obsessed single woman, only make her a neat-freak, not a basket case, and a comely African-American, not a plumpish, pasty Brit in this genre-tweaking romantic comedy.
Food-o-File
Pamela Boyar is the best, according to the North American Farmers’ Direct Marketing Association; plus, our cup runneth over with events you should consider attending
Naked City
Headlines and Happenings from Austin and Beyond
The House That Don Built
South Austin may be a part of town where you can find certain things in profusion – Tex-Mex restaurants, vintage clothing shops, hair salons – but theatres ain’t one of ’em. The Zachary Scott Theatre Center and the Dougherty Arts Center qualify, but they cling to the southern shores of Town Lake, almost as if…
Mrs. Henderson Presents
This staid British music-hall drama seems calculated to earn Judi Dench lots of award notices. Mission accomplished.
Winter’s Wolves
Unsheathing the Sword’s two-fisted ‘Age of Winters’
Trash Talk
New rules for state garbage
‘Technologies of Writing’
You can see the history of the ancient and modern worlds through the most central of human expressions in the Ransom Center’s ‘Technologies of Writing’ exhibit
A Good Woman
Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan is here set among Jazz Age expatriates cold-chillin’ on the Italian coast, and the result is not quite as dishy as one might hope.
The Sword Reviewed
The SwordAge of Winters (Kemado) Beware the apothecary facade of Age of Winters’ Sword-bearing maiden, comely rendered on the cover of this first Book of Lor by …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead commander Conrad Keely. Inside, she births mankind’s curse, war, appearing as “The Horned Goddess,” who “sits astride mountains…
Polygamous Prophet Update
With brother doing battle in court, Warren Jeffs is still on the lam
Austin Art in NYC
Kirk Lynn’s latest play, ‘Major Bang, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dirty Bomb,’ wins a bang-up review from Ben Brantley in the ‘New York Times’
The White Countess
The final collaboration between director Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant is a gorgeous slice of Merchant Ivoryisms (thanks in large part to the lushly vertiginous cinematography of DP Christopher Doyle) that nevertheless fails to equal the team’s greatest works.
Texas Platters
Ghostland ObservatoryPaparazzi Lightning (Trashy Moped) Like Franz Ferdinand, Austin’s Ghostland Observatory decided that the best way to deal with the mountain of (mostly deserved) hype accompanying their 2005 debut, delete.delete.i.eat.meat, was another album hot on its heels. The result, Paparazzi Lightning, is more assured if less audacious, separating the duo’s dance and rock colors into…
Texas Left Holding Short HUD Hurricane Aid Stick
State gets a sliver of total it requested from Congress
Mi Casa Es Su Teatro
The unexpected is to be expected when it comes to FronteraFest’s Mi Casa Es Su Teatro, which features everything from monologues to musicals to martial arts in theatres, living rooms, and bathrooms around Austin
TCB
Handsome Joel remembered, inside Anthropos Arts, the drive to bring Roy Orbison to a postage stamp near you, and Chuck Berry deep in the heart of Texas.
Texas Platters
Brothers & Sisters(Calla Lily) Brothers & Sisters’ local debut isn’t perfect: the harmonies aren’t always in key, the vocals sound raw at times, and guitars go in and out of tune. That’s what makes it a true repeat listen. Those imperfections grow on you, like opener “New Life,” which trots along under keys, tambourine, and…
Weed Watch
California votes in favor of bill that would legalize industrial hemp farming; and bill that would legalize medi-pot for seriously ill patients moves forward in New Mexico
In Memoriam
Legendary hoofer Fayard Nicholas of the Nicholas Brothers, recent visitor to Austin for the Soul to Sole Tap Festival and friend of Tapestry Dance Company, has died at age 91
Letters at 3AM
Unless my transmission conks out in a place like Bossier City, a guy like me hasn’t much chance to hear out a guy like Virgil
Texas Platters
Militant Babies Militant Babies, onetime Fivehead/Golden Apples offshoot turned full-time Austin trio, inherited the impish legacy of Prescott Curlywolf, El Flaco, and the Adults, bands whose wits were every bit as sharp as their riffs, and whose songs made liberal use of both. Further indebted in sound and spirit to Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain…
Point Austin: What Good Are Unions?
Give a hand to those Cap Metro workers who fought for you and me
Arts Review
With FronteraFest 2006 in full swing, the January 27 Short Fringe program offered an assortment of theatrical ingenuity, frivolity, and tenderness
After a Fashion
Stephen returns to his designing roots; plus, the most charming Web sites of late, and the year’s fanciest garage sale
Phases and Stages
Explosions in the SkyEmo’s, Jan. 27 According to Explosions in the Sky guitarist Munaf Rayani, the first time they played Emo’s, it was for seven people in the front room. Last Friday, the local quartet made good on selling out the Sixth Street mainstay venue in a week. As a helicopter swooped overhead, its searchlight…
Point Austin: Beside the Point
Moriarty flings more poo at the city
Arts Review
The Rude Mechs’ ‘Get Your War On’ provides a fresh reminder of the political outrages of the past four years and a fresh injection of the outrage we may have lost
To Your Health
Not only are eggs delicious, they’re also good for you
Phases and Stages
A Tribute to Neil YoungStubb’s, Jan. 28 With almost 40 years of the Neil Young songbook to choose from, the possibilities for this local event seemed endless. That many of the 12 Austin acts assembled claim some sort of influence from Shakey’s music made it a minor disappointment. There were moments of expected rage and…
The Hightower Report
Bushites fail to protect troops; and Wall Street divides up the bonus booty
Arts Review
Different Stages’ pairing of Naomi Wallace’s ‘The Retreating World’ and Fraser Grace’s ‘Gifts of War’ offers solo portraits of two victims of war, staged with sensitive simplicity
The Common Law
Courtroom conduct and etiquette – can my clothes get me in trouble?
Phases and Stages
ScarfaceAntone’s, Jan. 29 Making the trip from Houston on a Harley Davidson, Scarface arrived at Antone’s Sunday night prepared to rock. Recording a live DVD with his 10-piece Formaldehyde Funk Band, the former Geto Boy commanded the stage like George Clinton steering the mothership into a black hole. Strumming a mean guitar is only one…
Hustle and Snow
At Sundance, the proving ground just got a lot more slippery
News/Print
Friday, Feb. 3, 8pm
Day Trips
The Nasher Sculpture Garden and the Crow Collection of Asian Art are just two excellent reasons to make a short trip to Dallas to enjoy some world-renowned art
More Than a Festival, Less Than a Movement
At Slamdance, tenderness, anger, and a very steep slope
Readings
Though the structure of Elizabeth Crook’s The Night Journal could be labeled with lit-crit buzzwords like ‘mise en abyme’ and metafiction, the best descriptor available for it is the slightly awkward ‘story-within-a-story’
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Eat and walk
Overenrolled and Underenrolled
Demographic shifts have left a large percentage of center-city schools underenrolled, while schools on the edge of town overflow with students. AISD considers a school to be underenrolled when enrollment falls below 70% of its permanent capacity. As of Sept. 23, a dozen schools fit that definition. Meanwhile, two dozen schools are over capacity; 13…
SXSW Film 06 Update
The official list will be released early next week, but we’ve got a credible source on the inside that was able to supply some titles a bit ahead of time
Page Two: Sticks and Stones
The paradoxical pleasures of the religious right
