The Deer Hunter
The Deer Hunter 1978, R, 183 min. Directed by Michael Cimino, Starring Robert De Niro, John Cazale, John Savage, Meryl Streep, Christopher Walken. Critically acclaimed drama about a group of friends and steelworkers who go to fight in Vietnam and are changed forever.
News/Print
There is no Dana. Only Zoul.
Phases and Stages
Those PeabodysUnite Tonight (Tiger Style/Post-Parlo) Those Peabodys rock; to be sure, they also tend to forget the purpose behind all those feats of string-bending dexterity. Unite Tonight, the local quartet’s second full-length and first for NYC indie Tiger Style, is less an album than a scattershot collection of riffs and poses that only occasionally cohere…
Naked City
Priscilla Owen finds her inner liberal in an opinion defending free speech.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2003, PG-13, 110 min. Directed by Stephen Norrington, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Sean Connery, Naseeruddin Shah, Peta Wilson, Tony Curran, Stuart Townsend, Shane West, Jason Flemyng, Richard Roxburgh, David Hemmings. Utilizing the comic book series written by Alan Moore and art by Kevin O’Neill as a jumping-off…
Page Two
There is no city in the country that has a film community similar to Austin’s; there is nowhere that even comes close. Any number of localities are home to vibrant music scenes similar to Austin’s, some (Seattle, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Athens, Ga.) having achieved much greater commercial success (Austin probably boasts far more bands with reputations…
Phases and Stages
Nathan Hamilton & No DealLive at John T. Floore Country Store (Tamale Pot) Nathan Hamilton does working-class country rock. It’s hard to say exactly what “working-class” even means anymore, as those traditional sort of class distinctions have become plenty blurred in recent decades, but Hamilton stays true to form. His songs have a populist bent…
Naked City
Local T-shirt makers get an unexpected boost — a lawsuit from their target.
The Cremaster Cycle: Part 3
Despite its numeric designation, Part 3 is the concluding installment of Barney’s art cycle. It fuses mysticism and modernism and was filmed in New York’s Chrysler Building and Guggenheim Museum, among other places. Barney plays the apprentice who endures torture and travails while ascending each building.
Letters at 3AM
Two words have been missing in all the hubbub about the Supreme Court’s Lawrence v. Texas decision striking down laws against homosexual sodomy: Thank you.
Phases and Stages
Carolyn WonderlandBloodless Revolution Not since the mid-Eighties when local singer Karen Kraft made critics’ hair stand on end and then gargled “Stormy Weather” on Letterman has a set of pipes as big as Carolyn Wonderland’s let loose here. Wonderland’s voice is as muscular as her name is evocative, and after collecting nearly every award the…
Naked City
A local coalition urges the city to take a stand against the PATRIOT Act.
The Hard Word
The Hard Word 2003, R, 103 min. Directed by Scott Roberts, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Guy Pearce, Rachel Griffiths, Joel Edgerton, Damien Richardson, Robert Taylor, Rhondda Findleton. Clever and engaging, this Aussie caper flick is a fine genre effort, with polished, craftsmanlike direction from debuting helmer Roberts, hitherto noted for “tough-guy” movie…
After a Fashion
What happens when the camera eye turns on the Style Avatar (a lot of primping and fussing and primadonna-ing, you think?), and whom did he honor with his presence on the Fourth? …
Phases and Stages
The American Analog SetPromise of Love (Tiger Style)Ben Gibbard & Andrew KennyHOME: Volume V (Post-Parlo) Minimalist think-rock has the tendency to fade into the background, something the American Analog Set has never been guilty of, and yet the locally based band fails to fully deliver on its Promise of Love. The precise popsters explore several…
Naked City
Gov. Rick Perry fights disclosure of clemency memos — a battle already waged, and lost, by then-Gov. Bush.
Levity
Levity 2003, R, 100 min. Directed by Ed Solomon, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Morgan Freeman, Holly Hunter, Kirsten Dunst, Dorian Harewood, Geoffrey Wigdor. Levity – it’s an odd title for a movie whose salient characteristic is its lack of said quality. In fact, Levity would probably sink under the…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
An insect called the cochineal is the source of an edible dye called carmine, which is used in a variety of food and cosmetics.Teenagers at high schools where condoms were available were no more likely to have sex than other teens, a study published in the American Journal of Public Health finds.Alchemist Johann Konrad Dippel…
Braying for Plutonium
The U.S. Dept. of Energy visits Amarillo in search of friendly site for manufacturing nuclear warheads.
Capitol Chronicle
Beneath the partisan rancor over re-redistricting boils a fight over minority rights.
Melvin Goes to Dinner
Melvin Goes to Dinner 2003, NR, 83 min. Directed by Bob Odenkirk, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Michael Blieden, Stephanie Courtney, Matt Price, Annabelle Gurwitch, Kathleen Roll, Maura Tierney, David Cross, Melora Walters. Recipient of the Audience Award at the 2003 SXSW Film Festival, Melvin Goes to Dinner is indeed a pleasing film.…
Day Trips
Cedar Canyon Lodge and Cabins is more Indian blankets than lace doilies in the world of overnight accommodations. This is the evolution of camping. Up from the tent floor, out of the recreational vehicle, man and woman have moved into a cabin with a porch swing in the front and a hot tub in the…
Battle of the Big Box
Enviros and Southwest neighbors find a common cause: fighting Wal-Mart and its plans for a Supercenter on the aquifer
Austin @ Large: Austin at Large
A slow summer news week means we get to take some well-deserved potshots.
To Your Health
Are nutrients in a pill absorbed as well as nutrients in food?
Mapping ‘Political Apartheid’
The new map gives DeLay more R’s, but perhaps fewer than he wanted.
The Hightower Lowdown
Bush loves war, but he doesn’t want to equip the troops — nor be one of them.
About AIDS
Do Ask, Do Tell! Some HIV-positive people –perhaps 13% — don’t disclose their status to partners before risky sex, says a new University of California study. Researchers interviewed about 1,400 infected individuals — gay men, heterosexual men, and heterosexual women — about sex and HIV disclosure. Among those who were sexually active, 13% said that…
The House Gives DeLay His Map
Republicans push redistricting through, public opinion be damned
“I Made a Movie, and They Didn’t Want It!”
Shut out by distribution companies, indie filmmakers go DIY when it comes to getting their movie out there.
Japan Without the Pretense
Mimosa delivers more than it promises.
Owens Shooting
Competing scenarios fly through the community, and APD’s staffing and procedures come under scrutiny
A Long, Strange Trip
The Dobie Plays host to Matthew Barney’s five-part feast of the bizarre, the Cremaster cycle.
Second Helpings: You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream, Part II
You scream, I scream, “Second Helpings” screams for ice cream!
Food-o-File
Virginia B. Wood has plenty o’ news in this week’s “Food-o-File.”
Keystone Kops Hunt Killer D’s
The Dept. of Homeland Security barely breaks a sweat investigating its own role in the May manhunt
‘Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over’ World premiere
Hey, hey, it’s a big-time world premiere right in our backyard.
TCB
Willie’s July 4th picnic showers Spicewood with more than just fireworks.
Liquid Assets
Value vino from Italy
Is Walgreens Too Big and Unfunky for South Austin?
Neighbors challenge the drugstore chain’s plans for a store at Lamar and Bluebonnet Lane.
Seeking Levity
A writer best known for goofball comedies, Ed Solomon tapped his darker side for his directorial debut.
High Plains Chamber
The Harrington String Quartet, which makes its third appearance with the Austin Chamber Music Center’s annual summer festival in July, is based in Amarillo, and though that may not seem like a likely spot for a chamber music ensemble, the members of the Harrington Quartet feel quite at home on the range.
Hothouse Wildflowers
Imagine a place not far from here, where young girls are free to shape themselves in a pure, unpolluted environment. A fantasy land populated with talking trees and golden rain, and where “golden rain” doesn’t invite euphemistic snickers. A sphere inhabited by a fanciful group of sisters brought up apart from the vile outside world.…
Naked City
Quote of the Week: “We have shrimp. They eat shrimp. We have fish. They eat fish. We have petrochemical industries. They buy gasoline.” — State Rep. Craig Eiland, D-Galveston, mocking the “community of interest” between Galveston and Fort Bend counties, both paired into U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s district in the Texas House’s redistricting…
TV Eye
TNN decides what men want.
Articulations
The Rude Mechs take Lipstick Traces to Europe, Austin Civic Wind Ensemble finds a new conductor, Mexic-Arte makes art for the bus station, and the city is looking for artists to mark up South Congress.
Phases and Stages
Elizabeth McQueen & the FirebrandsThe Fresh Up Club (Gravitron) Every once in a while, a musician moves to Austin and knocks the town on its ear. Elizabeth McQueen is one of those. She possesses the killer combination of irrepressible energy, a sassy personality, and more talent than she’s probably aware of, and it’s all on…
Naked City
Did we say smoking ordinance? The political newsletter In Fact Daily reported Wednesday that GMC Investment Inc. — the owner of record of Ego’s on South Congress — has petitioned to be added as a plaintiff to the lawsuit filed against both Austin’s and Dallas’ smoking bans by a statewide veterans’ group. The case was…
Short Cuts
Harry Knowles takes over British airwaves … and magazine ads … and the sides of busses … and pretty much anywhere else that those clever lads in the SkyTV marketing department can manage to fit him.
Exhibitionism
The Austin Shakespeare Festival’s timely production of Julius Caesar, deftly directed by Paul Norton, features an effective, almost all-female ensemble whose depiction of the play’s bold, rule-breaking politicians and opportunity-grabbing power brokers who send their enemies into disarray summons up parallels to the state of American politics.
Phases and Stages
The EndsSorry … XOXOXO (Pelado) Punks don’t especially care for being gobbed on anymore, but Austin’s Ends have done just that recently, with a series of petroleum loogies like “I’m Sorry,” “Jump Ship,” and “Teenage Detox.” Fleshing out assorted A- and B-sides with another half-dozen spitballs, Sorry … X0X0X0 is a love letter to the…
Naked City
UT System Chancellor Mark Yudof got an $18,000 raise from the UT System Board of Regents Monday, raising his yearly salary from $450,000 to $468,000. No doubt expecting a backlash in a time when all university departments are being forced to make budget cutbacks, Yudof will donate the entire raise to a scholarship and research…
Exhibitionism
Different Stages’ modern-dress production of Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona isn’t so hip as to be Two Dudes From Verona Beach, but its spirit of contemporary youth does show us how little young love has changed since Elizabethan times.
Phases and Stages
CanoeI Give You Canoe! (Amazing Grease) You can file away your Radiohead and Mogwai doldrums, because Austin’s feel-good hit of the summer has arrived, jetting down Town Lake on white-water beer suds. Like a mad Eighties take on Sixties rock demon and former Austinite Arthur Brown, I Give You Canoe! spews forth the “holy elixir…
Naked City
The rescheduled groundbreaking — actually, they’re calling it a “ground digging” — for the new Whole Foods Market store and corporate HQ at 501 N. Lamar (across Sixth from the current store) will take place today (Thursday) at 10am. Local dignitaries and Whole Foods brass will “Dig In!” and plant a “symbolic” pecan tree to…
Versus
Versus 2000, NR, 119 min. Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Tak Sakaguchi, Hideo Sakaki, Chieko Misaka, Minoru Matsumoto, Kenji Matsuda, Yuichiro Arai. Gorehounds watching this low-budget Japanese splatterfest will think they’ve died (in a, no doubt, spectacularly bloody way) and gone to heaven, so breathtaking are the movie’s nonstop…
Fixing Up the Fringe
This is the third in a series of articles by Josh Medsker as he attempts to re-establish a zine library in Austin. For the previous installments, go to austinchronicle.com/issues/ dispatch/authors/joshmedsker.html , and keep an eye out here for future ones. I spent most of June 28 struggling to get everything done for the Austin Zine…
Phases and Stages
The Mars Volta De-Loused in the Comatorium (Universal) After El Paso’s At the Drive-In disbanded in 2001, the members broke off into two factions that divided the group’s progressive aggression equally. While one half put together the emocore Sparta, the other half crash-landed with an epic prog-rock collective called the Mars Volta. On their major…
Glow Sticks: A Menace to Society!
The drug cops win one, lose one in the appellate courts.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl 2003, PG-13, 133 min. Directed by Gore Verbinski, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush, Jonathan Pryce, Keira Knightley, Jack Davenport. Having already played the greatest lover of all time, Don Juan de Marco, Johnny Depp now sets his…
Luv Doc Recommends: Ray Benson In-Store
If you hear an exasperated sigh from the tie-dyed, Birkenshod, Ewok-looking gent in front of you at the checkout at Whole Foods, it’s probably because he is remembering a time when a sixer of Shiner didn’t completely empty his embroidered Guatemalan change purse. More than likely, he’s just an innocent out-of-towner who stumbled into town…
