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Another Year

Mike Leigh directs this brilliantly acted film about the loneliness experienced by those shut out of the family circle.

by Kimberley Jones

Texas Platters

Gurf Morlix Blaze Foley’s 113th Wet Dream (Rootball) There’s something intangibly affective in an artist unraveling another songwriter’s work with such deep personal devotion, intimacy, and an understanding of the material that can only be distilled through a continued admiration across time and loss. Steve Earle achieved it with his 2009 Van Zandt tribute, Townes,…

by Doug Freeman

Texas Platters

… And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead Tao of the Dead (Richter Scale/Superball Music) After foundering on three ambitious but underwhelming LPs that paled in comparison to 1999’s Madonna and 2002’s Source Tags & Codes, … Trail of Dead makes a convincing course correction with Tao of the Dead. The locals’…

by Greg Beets

Oops!

The “LegeLand” story in the Jan. 28 issue, “Child Advocates Seek Reforms,” reported that the Prevention and Early Intervention Division of the state Department of Family and Protective Services would lose 84% of its budget. That was the original legislative appropriations request from the Department of Family and Protective Services; the House is currently considering…

by Chronicle Staff

Off the Record

Courtney Love vs. Boudoir Queen, Jason Reece vs. Conrad Keely, Border Patrol vs. Texas Tornados, and other dream matchups

by Austin Powell

Headlines

� City Council is off this week, with its next regularly scheduled meeting set for Feb. 10; in the interim, the council’s still mulling a presentation from Austin Water and the fallout from last week’s Open Meetings fracas. See “Austin Water: The High Cost of Saving” and “Point Austin.” � Subfreezing temperatures hit much of…

by Chronicle Staff

Quote of the Week

“It is not schools, it is not the school children … it is not people on Medicaid, and it is not the mentally ill that have created this deficit.” – John Folks, superintendent of San Antonio’s Northside ISD, at a meeting of Texas superintendents in Austin

by Chronicle Staff

Food-o-File

Host your own Tex-Mex Super Bowl party, buy your sweetie a heart-shaped pie or pizza pie, or discover other food news

by Virginia B. Wood

The Rite

In this supernatural thriller, Anthony Hopkins plays a Vatican-based exorcist who trains a doubting seminary student to drive out the Devil.

by Marjorie Baumgarten

From Prada to Nada

Former Spy Kid Alexa Vega co-stars in this comedy that provides a Hispanic spin on Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.

by Marc Savlov

Sanctum

When spelunkers rappel into a remote cave and get trapped by storm runoff, the plot and dialogue become as soggy as the characters.

by Marc Savlov

The Winners

First Place: “The Main Treatment Options” Katie F. Perry lives, writes, and teaches in Austin. She thinks it would be cute to say she’s hard at work on a screenplay about a struggling writer whose world goes topsy-turvy when her Twitter feed is mistaken for that of a pop princess with (almost) exactly the same…

by Chronicle Staff

The Company Men

Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, and Kevin Costner star in this drama about what happens to company men after they part company with the company.

by Kimberley Jones

‘Mind Spiders’ Reviewed

Mind Spiders (Dirtnap) Any punk band worth its weight in vinyl has its own theme song. The Mind Spiders’ calling card on their Dirtnap debut makes a compelling introduction: four-track hiss radiates a sci-fi glow, with double-tracked drums and weirdo-ripping guitar hooks that stick like gum to hot cement. Mark Ryan, who handles most of…

by Austin Powell

The Judges

The Judges Amelia Gray is the author of AM/PM (Featherproof Books) and Museum of the Weird (FC2). Her writing has appeared in American Short Fiction, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, DIAGRAM, and Caketrain, among others. Her first novel is forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux in Spring 2012. Austin Kleon is a writer and artist. He’s the…

by Chronicle Staff

Luv Doc Recommends: Drone: A Border Affair That Crosses a Line

Austin is just teeming with people engaged in weird, quirky, and interesting creative endeavors. Wherever do they find the time and energy? How do they put in a full day’s work then go home and work even harder on their art? Here’s a little secret: Some of them don’t even have jobs. How awesome is…

by The Luv Doc

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