Grand Illusion
Grand Illusion 1937, NR, 112 min. D: Jean Renoir; with Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay, Erich Von Stroheim. Unfailingly, this movie by Jean Renoir (son of painter Auguste) earns near-top billing in every cinephile’s list of the greatest films of all time. Called “cinema enemy number one” by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels yet named by…
Pink Floyd: The Wall
Pink Floyd: The Wall 1982, R, 99 min. D: Alan Parker. This visualization of the rock group’s bestselling concept album is a wall of sound and images. The story is about the crack-up of a burnt-out rock star. The film’s animation is by Gerald Scarfe. Director Parker would go on to satisfy his musical penchants…
The Great McGinty
The Great McGinty 1940, NR, 81 min. Directed by Preston Sturges, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Brian Donlevy, Muriel Angelus, Akim Tamiroff, William Demarest. The cinematic yang to the yin of Meet John Doe. Whereas in Frank Capra’s inspirational tale, a poor joe gets tapped by a crooked party boss to help grease…
Genet in Chatila
Genet in Chatila 2000, NR, 98 min. Directed by Richard Dindo, Narrated by Jean-François Stévenin, Voices by , Starring . When Jean Genet witnessed the massacre of hundreds of Palestinians at the hands of Lebanese militiamen in 1982, it propelled him to write Prisoner of Love and Four Hours in Chatila, on which the film…
The Momentous Moorcock
Michael Moorcock. literary superstar of Bastrop, Texas and the world, had quite a 60th birthday party. Writer Carolyn Banks on what it was like to be there.
Food-o-File
Why were Pacifica’s employees locked out of the restaurant, much to their surprise? Virginia B. Wood updates readers on that news and other restaurant updates.
A Sound Salvation
Sister 7: Reformed Jam Band Goes Pop, Never Again to Mix the Two Sister 7’s jam band days are officially over. The proof is the Austin quartet’s pop-savvy sophomore Arista set, Wrestling Over Tiny Matters. “We used to find grooves and put songs around them,” admits guitarist Wayne Sutton. “Now, lyrics and melody come first.”…
Council Watch
Planning Commission and two council members consider measures to reduce commercial noise pollution near residential land; Vista Ridge PUD developer negotiates compromise agreement on its single-family development overlooking Bull Creek.
Angela’s Ashes
Angela’s Ashes 2000, R, 145 min. Directed by Alan Parker, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Pauline Mclynn, Ronnie Masterson, Michael Legge, Ciaran Owens, Joseph Breen, Emily Watson. Robert Carlyle. The wonder of Frank McCourt’s astonishing memoir, Angela’s Ashes, is that its story is told at all. An unforgettable account of growing up impoverished…
Postscripts
The details about what books have been selling in Austin in 1999.
Mini-Review
Wes Marshall visits Jean-Luc’s French Bistro on a weeknight to check out the food-wine pairings.
A Sound Salvation
Dexter Freebish: The Beatles, Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, and Now Dexter Freebish A week before South by Southwest 1999, Dexter Freebish signed to Capitol Records. A few weeks later, each of the band’s five members quit their day jobs. It may be a cliché, but bassist Chris Lowe says devoting themselves full time to music…
Out With the Old
This week’s meeting marks the last time council members will convene at the Municipal Annex building downtown. That building, where the City Council has met since 1974, will be torn down to make way for the Computer Sciences Corp. development in the near future. Starting Jan. 27, council will rotate between The New Airport Project…
Beefcake
Beefcake 1998, NR, 93 min. Directed by Thom Fitzgerald, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Joe D’Allesandro, Jim Lassiter, Jack Lalanne, Griffin Mazeika, Carroll Goodman, Josh Peace, Daniel Macivor. By turns a campy goof on 1950s muscle-mag culture, a slackerly attempt at investigative journalism, and a heartfelt elegy to an inscrutable pop-culture obscurity, Thom…
Off the Bookshelf
Like Shaking Hands With God: A Conversation About Writing by Kurt Vonnegut and Lee Stringer Seven Stories Press, 64 pp., $15 What is writing? In the course of two evenings — one in front of hundreds of people at a packed bookstore, the other among friends at an intimate cafe — two writers, Kurt Vonnegut…
Mini-Review
Liberty Pie doesn’t usually meet the 30-minute deadline the pizza delivery boys do (in fact, they don’t deliver at all), but that’s for the better, Barbara Chisholm explains.
A Sound Salvation
Sara Hickman: Stuck in the Middle of Sara Hickman’s Spiritual Appliances Sara Hickman’s 2000 is all about expecting and delivering. Her third album for indie label Shanachie, Spiritual Appliances, is due next month and so’s a new baby in June. Considering she’s been married less than a year and has enjoyed plenty of downtime with…
Naked City
Candidates lining up for city council races; things are heating up in the district 48 race; the austin police association is not happy with the manner in which chief stan knee has picked his assistant chiefs, and the jesus video is being mailed to every texas household.
Girl, Interrupted
Girl, Interrupted 1999, R, 125 min. Directed by James Mangold, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Vanessa Redgrave, Clea Duvall, Brittany Murphy, Elizabeth Moss, Jared Leto, Jeffrey Tambor, Whoopi Goldberg, Jillian Armenante. Adapted from Susanna Kaysen’s memoir of the same title, Girl, Interrupted tackles the ever-popular subject of mental illness…
Off the Bookshelf
The Father of the Predicaments by Heather McHugh Wesleyan University Press, 98 pp., $19.95 McHugh’s latest poems are quick and wise, reaffirming her reputation as a wordsmith. Her earlier work has been called sexy, an adjective that is too simple for this collection. Except for the wonderfully titled poems “So Thick?” (a tribute of sorts…
Even It Up
Odd guy Charles Harp advocates for even number and ponders the inherent beauty of rounding.
A Sound Salvation
Double Trouble: Learning as They Go, Layton and Shannon Start Their Own Texas Flood Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton don’t know who will release their debut album, but Stevie Ray Vaughan’s famous rhythm section knows exactly what they have to offer: a 10-song, 16-months-in-the-making collection of well-known local and national names in interesting and unlikely…
Naked City
The latest public hearing on the proposed Longhorn pipeline through south Austin brings out 2,000 protesters and a few supporters to speak the gas pipeline, whose environmental impact is being debated.
Off the Bookshelf
The Junction Boys: How Ten Days in Hell With Bear Bryant Forged a Championship Team by Jim Dent St. Martin’s, 290 pp., $24.95 Before he led Alabama to six national championships, Paul “Bear” Bryant made a stop in College Station for four years that Aggies are still talking about. For the first preseason practice, Bryant…
The Millennium Phone Call
When Margaret Thompson answers her phone, she never knows how distraught the person at the other end might be …
A Sound Salvation
Davíd Garza: Cult of Personality Davíd Garza has never been press-shy, but he says he’s reluctant to discuss plans for his sophomore Atlantic set, primarily because they’ve only come together only in the last two weeks. All he’ll really confirm is that he’ll be self-producing the album in an undisclosed location sometime in April. And…
Naked City
Political consultant Ted Delisi, whose work for Gov. George W. Bush and other clients has drawn criticism in recent months, leaves his full-time position as Attorney General John Cornyn’s press aide.
Off the Bookshelf
Paradise Outlaws: Remembering the Beats by John Tytell, photographs by Mellon Morrow, 224 pp., $24 A good study of the holy trinity of the Beat writers — Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg — would have to comment on the personal lives of the writers, the sources and mirrors of their art. John Tytell provides…
A Sound Salvation
Jimmie Dale Gilmore: After Endless Nights of Waiting, Fans Get Their Man on the Flatlands People who’ve heard advance copies of Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s first album in four years, One Endless Night, due February 25, say it could also be Gilmore’s best work since 1991’s After Awhile was singled out of Elektra/Nonesuch’s “American Explorer” series.…
Naked City
The annual Austin Environmental Directory includes, for the first time, a report card rating Austin’s environmental record. The outlook looks dismal on the surface, but the verdict isn’t all doom and gloom.
Local Bestsellers
Local bestsellers are based on recent sales at Austin bookstores selected to reflect varied reading interests.
A Sound Salvation
Introduction Tired of hearing about how bad 1999 was for local music? Tired of hearing about closed clubs, comptrollers, and memorial services? Well, unless your name is Kelly Willis or Ray Benson, there’s one more reason to wish 1999 didn’t happen: record sales. From the Chronicle’s “Class of 1999,” the crop of local acts that…
A Sound Salvation
Fastball: Can They Turn Two? On February 1, after a scant three months off the road, Miles Zuniga, Tony Scalzo, and Joey Shuffield will convene in the same Los Angeles studio where they recorded 1998’s platinum All the Pain Money Can Buy. Here’s the outspoken Zuniga on what he expects: On pressure: “Last time, there…
Naked City
1985 1997 Change Low-Intensity Urban 96 117 +21 sq.mi. High-Intensity Urban 20 31 +11 sq.mi. Water 36 41 +5 sq.mi. Golf/Parks 4 6 +2 sq.mi. Cultivated 70 67 –3 sq.mi. Woodland/Shrubland 219 216 –3 sq.mi. Bare Land 29 25 –4 sq.mi. Deciduous Forest 71 67 –4 sq.mi. Cedar 108 100 –8 sq.mi. Grasslands 370 351…
Page Two
Cities can manage their destinies.
A Sound Salvation
Goudie: Lars Ulrich’s New Label Expects Them to Kill ‘Em All In last year’s “Class of — ” feature, neither Johnny Goudie’s band nor his label — Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich’s new Elektra imprint — had chosen names. “Goudie” and “the Music Company” wound up the easiest and best, but the album Goudie recorded this…
Dancing About Architecture
TV crews come to cover Austin’s music scene as more musicians split for more lucrative climes; the Flatlanders keep it intimate, and more stuff happens, too.
Naked City
Bartenders who worked at private tents during A2K say they were bilked out of thousands of dollars by the tents’ promoter, who is nowhere to be found.
Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train
Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train 1998, NR, 122 min. Directed by Patrice Chéreau, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Donimique Blanc, Roschdy Zem, Vincent Pérez, Sylvain Jacques, Bruno Todeschini, Charles Berling, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Pascal Greggory. Winner of three Cesars (the French equivalent of the Oscar), this is one…
Public Notice
This week, Public Notice explores bike activism, the Y2K fallout, lesbians who lose their shoes, and so much more …
A Sound Salvation
Abra Moore: With a Little Help From Her Friends “It’s always been my direction, my songs,” says Abra Moore. “Now, I’m trying to let go of the control. If you don’t let go, you don’t let anything in.” Austin’s wispy-voiced pop siren says that the last year or so spent writing and co-writing songs and…
Live Shots
Hip-Hop HumpdayMercury Upstairs, January 5 Did anyone really think the millennium could stop hip-hop? If anything, the 20th century was only slowing it down. Now with a clean slate, hip-hop is poised to take its rightful place alongside jazz, blues, and gospel as not only an African-American musical institution, but a legitimate American cultural landmark.…
Naked City
Seventeen years after its inception, the Heritage Foundation-sponsored MLK Community Celebration, held annually to celebrate the life and work of the civil rights movement’s most charismatic leader, has grown into a weeklong event which includes a march and rally, an awards ceremony for high school students, and a nighttime keynote address. This year’s theme is…
Snow Falling on Cedars
Snow Falling on Cedars 2000, PG-13, 126 min. Directed by Scott Hicks, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Ethan Hawke, Rick Yune, Max Von Sydow, Sam Shepard, James Rebhorn, Richard Jenkins, Youki Kudoh, James Cromwell. If snow falls on cedars and no one’s in the forest to hear it fall, does it make any…
Second Helpings: Sushi
Wes Marshall covers Austin’s sushi scene.
Day Trips
All sixty-eight years and 170 members of the “the world’s longest-running Western Swing band” are covered at the LIght Crust Doughboys Hall of Fame and Museum in Mesquite, Texas.
A Sound Salvation
Butthole Surfers: Disney and the Surfers Shoot for Post-“Pepper” Fantasia Last Friday, Paul Leary finally began downloading into his home studio the original digital mixes of After the Astronaut, the aborted Butthole Surfers album Capitol Records was originally planning to release back in May 1998. It’s the band’s first real progress after nearly two years…
Live Shots
Clay Moore Elephant Room, January 6 Though the performance hit a definite, rousing peak during a fiery rendition of Nat Adderly’s “Work Song,” played in tribute to the recently passed trumpet player and composer, local jazz guitarist Clay Moore and his group did manage to thread four distinct playing styles into a remarkably cohesive and…
Action Items
The city is holding a series of public forums to discuss parking issues facing downtown Austin, South Congress, and the 11th/12th streets corridor. The first forum will be held tonight, Thursday, Jan. 13, at 6pm in Room 104, Waller Creek Center, 625 E. 10th. For more information, call the city at 499-2220. The Austin Parks…
The Hurricane
The Hurricane 1999, R, 146 min. Directed by Norman Jewison, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Denzel Washington, Vicellous Reon Shannon, Clancy Brown, Dan Hedaya, Liev Schreiber, John Hannah, Deborah Unger, David Paymer, Rod Steiger. Despite all the pre-release hype and the torrents of critical acclaim that continue to patter down like earlobes in…
Back to the Garden
The musical Candide has had as tumultuous a life as its wandering hero. Robert Faires catalogs its journey and explains what has kept it alive and why it’s always a pleasure to revisit.
After a Fashion
Touching a nerve at Todd Oldham central.
A Sound Salvation
Vallejo: Bilingual Rockers Out to Make Their Momma Proud “Five years ago, my mother saw Emilio Estefan on television talking about starting a new label,” recalls A.J. Vallejo. “She thought we were perfect for him and said, “I’m going to fly down there myself if I have to.’ Here we are five years later, working…
Live Shots
System of a DownLa Zona Rosa, January 7 System of a Down had to cancel their first scheduled Austin concert last year. The loud & heavy Los Angeles quartet also cancelled the rescheduled gig due to sickness and a death in the family. This was to be the grand make-up show. To demonstrate good intent,…
Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control
While the rest of the nation was rallying around the flag, screenwriter and director Sturges was spitting out a series of rapid-fire Hollywood comedies that showed untruth, injustice, inequality, corruption, chicanery, and illicit sex running rampant across this land from sea to shining sea.
The Many Lives of Candide
The birth of Candide the comic operetta dates back to 1953, when Lillian Hellman proposed to Leonard Bernstein that they collaborate on a musical adaptation of Voltaire’s novella. She saw in the book’s Inquisition scenes fodder for a satirical swipe at Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. Bernstein liked the idea, and as…
Mr. Smarty Pants
The jury’s still out on the origins of the hockey haircut.
A Sound Salvation
Meat Puppets: Back From the Lake of Fire, the “New” Meat Puppets Feel the Love “I had a guy yelling at me during a gig in Dallas recently,” says Meat Puppets mastermind Curt Kirkwood. “He was saying, “Where’s the real Meat Puppets?’ I told him to go get his money back. I felt bad for…
Live Shots
Pong, Hug/Broken TeethRed Eyed Fly/Babes, January 8 It was like the Nineties never happened. On a Capitol City Saturday night, wherein a cluster of parking spaces just over the hill from Austin’s burgeoning, Las Vegas-like strip of live music venues on Red River almost caused this would-be reveler to turn back home and consult the…
AFS Preston Sturges Retrospective Schedule
Here’s a brief guide to the films being shown in the Austin Film Society series “Unfaithfully Yours: The Satire of Preston Sturges.” All showings are on Tuesdays at 7pm in the Texas Union Theater, Guadalupe & 24th, except The Palm Beach Story, which will be presented on Monday, Feb. 7, at 7pm. All showings are…
Articulations
Robert Faires talks FronteraFest.
Coach’s Corner
He may not be smart enough to put up shutters, but Coach offers his NFL divisional playoff picks nonetheless.
A Sound Salvation
Kacy Crowley: A New Year, a New Debut, and a Newfound Talent for Lying It’s a New Year’s resolution few are likely to make: Kacy Crowley would like to be less honest. “I used to try really hard to be honest and direct, but I think the concept of honesty in art is an illusion,”…
Bigger, Better, Smarter
San Diego is everything Austin wants to be: livable, transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly, and downtown-centric. But will tools that worked in the nation’s largest border and military base town translate to Central Texas?
Short Cuts
Upcoming events and workshops of interest to the Austin film community.
Exhibitionism
Despair’s Book of Dreams and the Sometimes Radio: Grooving Among the Shreds of ShadowThe Vortex, through January 29 It’s the waking dreamscape of a lonely, abandoned man capering through the confines of a house as jumbled and tattered as the ruins of his mind. It’s soliloquy and song, music and mysticism, even a scattered meditation…
About AIDS
Smart choices are the best — and sometimes the only — weapon against AIDS.
A Sound Salvation
Wan Santo Condo: Big Plans From A Band You Know Nothing About “Nobody knows who the hell we are, and that’s fine,” says Wan Santo Condo frontman Bob Via. “We get a response when we play and I think we’re still waiting for our crowd. We haven’t quite found them yet, but we know they’re…
Downtown San Diego Map
San Diego’s growth has been managed and made at least a little Smart. The San Diego Trolley circles downtown and connects it to the far reaches of eastern (Santee) and southern (San Ysidro) San Diego County. In the middle, downtown’s various neighborhoods (Little Italy, Cortez, the Gaslamp Quarter, the Marina, etc.) have been reinvented by…
Video Reviews
Louis Black continues his ongoing list of “desert island” videos with films by Preston Sturges, Quentin Tarantino, and John Ford
Exhibitionism
Revelate!: Oh, Hell!Universalist Unitarian Church, through January 30 Running Time: 2 hrs, 15 min By the time this Millennial Musical comes to its rather messy end, we’ve been to Hell and back, truly. Not that the simple pitch isn’t rife with possibilities: The Devil, in order to bring on the Apocalypse, produces an all-new, revised…
At Home in the Outpost
R.O.’s Outpost, 17 miles west of Austin in the Hill Country, serves the kind of food, reviewer Mick Vann reports, that “the old folks grew up on, and the kind rarely found these days in our modern, fast-food, a-go-go world.”
A Sound Salvation
Bob Schneider: Gun Shy No Longer, a Scab Crosses the Solo Line Although Bob Schneider snuck his solo debut into stores four days before New Year’s, Lonelyland is already the most-talked-about local album of 2000. The Scabs frontman reveals a Bob Schneider few people thought existed: smart, sensitive, witty — urbane. At this point, the…
New Kid on the Block
Neighborhood Services office aims to help neighborhoods help themselves
TV Eye
Television’s millennial celebrations may have been short on crises, but they were long on global partying; also, the latest in midseason changes, including the addition of a quirky new show called Malcolm in the Middle.
Money, It’s a Gas
Economics, schmeconomics: Chronicle reviewer Roger Gathman compiles the latest books about the (almost) first commodity, money.
Cookbook Lovers Are Invited to Shop!
Cuisines editor Virginia B. Wood gives the lowdown on the Westbank Community Library’s upcoming cookbook sale.
A Sound Salvation
Pushmonkey: Ozzfest Veterans Look to Bite Off a Piece of Radio “We not only have to avoid a sophomore slump,” says Pushmonkey frontman Tony Park, “but we really must have a sophomore slam. That’s what we’re up against.” Park says he feels confident that the promotional push behind 1998’s Pushmonkey — a year and a…
A Developing Glossary
Office of Neighborhood Services (ONS): New city office within the Dept. of Health and Human Services, tasked with responding to neighborhoods as a “single point of contact” for their issues and concerns. Neighborhood Planning Program: City initiative to develop some 50 separate neighborhood plans which would cover the entire central city. Three plans — Chestnut,…
All About My Mother
All About My Mother merges all of Almodóvar’s noted preoccupations with women on the verge of nervous breakdowns, screwball melodramas, and flamboyant visual touches with a cohesive – and universal – story about the faces and roles we all adopt in public.
