La Cage Aux Folles
La Cage Aux Folles 1978, R, 91 min. Directed by Edouard Molinaro, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Ugo Tognazzi, Michel Serrault, Michel Galabru, Claire Maurier. This French sensation, about a gay couple who pose as straight during a ticklish family moment, was an adaptation of a successful French play. Two sequels were also…
God of Cookery
God of Cookery 1996, PG, 90 min. D: Lik Chi Li; with Stephen Chow. Stephen Chow wrote and stars in this comedy about an Iron Chef-type cook who is stripped of his title by a jealous apprentice, who reveals the God of Cookery to be a con man. Dejected, he spends time in a Shaolin…
The Hospital
The Hospital 1971, PG, 103 min. Directed by Arthur Hiller, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring George C. Scott, Diana Rigg, Barnard Hughes, Nancy Marchand, Richard A. Dysart, Stephen Elliott, Stockard Channing, Katherine Helmond. Paddy Chayevsky’s Oscar-winning screenplay is the basis for this black comedy about a disillusioned doctor and the institution for which…
Lenny
Lenny 1974, R, 112 min. Directed by Bob Fosse, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Dustin Hoffman, Valerie Perrine, Jan Miner, Gary Morton. This striking black-and-white film biography of the life of Lenny Bruce is a small Hollywood gem. Hoffman does a great job of capturing the Bruce vibe, and as his wife and…
Little Big Man
Little Big Man 1970, PG, 147 min. Directed by Arthur Penn, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, Martin Balsam, Richard Mulligan, Chief Dan George. An American classic, Little Big Man seeks to rectify Western history with this engrossing account of the colorful life of 121-year-old Jack Crabb, who lived his…
Network
This is a prescient, sharply drawn, and award-winning comedy written by Paddy Chayevsky about the depths to which one unscrupulous television station will sink. It makes Howard Beale “mad as hell” and he memorably raises his window to announce that he’s “not going to take it anymore.”
The Three Stooges Meet Hercules
The Three Stooges Meet Hercules NR, 89 min. Directed by Edward Bernds, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Joe Derita, Vicki Trickett, Samson Burke. The title just about says it all. The Three Stooges travel back to ancient days in a time machine and end up on a galley ship,…
Pete’s Dragon
Pete’s Dragon G, 128 min. Directed by Don Chaffey, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Helen Reddy, Jim Dale, Mickey Rooney, Red Buttons, Shelley Winters, Jim Backus, Jeff Conaway, Charlie Callas. This Disney musical is about a boy and his best friend ñ a dragon.
Anatahan
Anatahan NR, 91 min. Directed by Josef Von Sternberg, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Shoji Hakayama, Akem Negusgum Tashashi Suganuma. Sternberg is the director responsible for creating the eternalized image of Marlene Dietrich ñ half mysterious, half knowing, and all woman. He was commonly recognized as difficult to work with because of the…
Rear Window
One of Hitchcock’s most accessible films is also one of his most gleefully deviant
Unfaithfully Yours
Unfaithfully Yours NR, 101 min. Directed by Preston Sturges, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . . Fantasia, only with sequences about a guy murdering his wife. Sturges’ star was dimming by the time he made this perverse farce, but the finished work boasts much of the wit, lunacy, and free-for-all comic verve of…
The Saragossa Manuscript
The Saragossa Manuscript NR, 175 min. Directed by Wojciech Has, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Bogdan Baer, Stefan Bartik, Ludwik Benoit, Bogusz Bilewski, Alina Borkowski, Bronislaw Bronski, Iga Cembrzynska-Kondratiuk. This legendarily lost Polish film has been revived through the efforts of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, who picked up the torch carried…
The Princess Bride
William Goldman adapted his whimsical, comedic novel into a fairy tale for the screen.
Video Reviews
HIGHWAY PATROLMAN (aka El Patrullo)D: Alex Cox (1992); with Roberto Sosa, Bruno Bichir, Vanessa Bauche, Pedro Armendáriz Jr.FOUR DAYS IN SEPTEMBER (aka O Que é Isso, Companheiro?)D: Bruno Barreto (1997); with Alan Arkin, Fernanda Torres, Pedro Cardoso, Luiz Fernando Guimaraes.JOHNNY 100 PESOSD: Gustavo Graef-Marino (1993); with Armando Araiza, Patricia Rivera, Willy Semler, Aldo Parodi, Eugenio…
Off the Bookshelf
Strange Fruit Billie Holiday, Cafe Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights by David Margolick Running Press, 144 pp., $16.95 Time magazine recently proclaimed it the best song of the century. Influential jazz writer Leonard Feather called it “the first significant protest in words and music, the first unmuted cry against racism.” To this…
They Lost My Grandmother’s Brain
One lover of the grape interviews another – one who
writes songs and plays music.
Trixie
Trixie 2000, R, 117 min. Directed by Alan Rudolph, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Will Patton, Lesley Ann Warren, Brittany Murphy, Nathan Lane, Nick Nolte, Dermot Mulroney, Emily Watson. Has Alan Rudolph gotten lazy? The veteran of independent film whose career spans three decades has always been ready for a challenge, whether to…
TV Eye
Have you had your fill of Who Wants To Be a
Millionaire? Are you stuffed to the gills from consuming
too many hours of Survivor, Big Brother, The Real
World, Road Rules, or Making the Band? Better get
used to it — there’s a whole lot more…
Off the Bookshelf
Normal Girl by Molly Jong-Fast Villard, 208 pp., $21.95 The rich are different from you and me — not only do they have more money but their drug problems are much more interesting. This just about sums up Molly Jong-Fast’s Normal Girl, a short chronicle of the self-destructive life of Miranda Woke, a perpetually indulged…
Dancing About Architecture
Chrysta Bell quits the Souvenirs; the Meat Puppets’ new record could come out in record time.
Through the Eyes of a Kid
Bringing kids to adult theatre is uncool, but what’s
about children’s theatre, where they belong? Ada
Calhoun borrows a friend’s three-and-a-half-year-old
son to find out and discovers that theatre ain’t all
magic when you’re a preschooler.
Local Bestsellers
Local bestsellers are based on recent sales at Austin
bookstores selected to reflect varied reading interests.
Live Shots
GoudieStubb’s, July 11 To be sure, pop is about posturing and looking pretty, but just as much, it’s about songs. Goudie’s hourlong set, marking the release of their Elektra/ The Music Company debut Peep Show, had scads of the former and not quite as much of the latter, but if the local foursome’s songs ever…
Articulations
A major change in direction for the Austin Circle of Theatres.
Page Two
Light rail is a gamble, but an important gamble.
Live Shots
Punkaroos, Dave Bone & the Troublemakers, Route 23Flamingo Cantina, July 12 At the 11th hour of a languorous Wednesday night, Sixth Street showed all the signs decried by the Black Cat’s bloody banner: “Dead Music Capital of the World.” Inside the Flamingo Cantina, 26 bad haircuts bobbed up and down to the last number of…
Exhibitionism
The State Theater Company’s production of Nunsense
is long on laughs if short on story, according to
Chronicle writer Skipper Chong Warson.
Live Shots
Nathan Hamilton, Adam CarrollCactus Cafe, July 13 Both Nathan Hamilton and Adam Carroll are Texas singer-songwriters. So are Robert Earl Keen and (formerly) Townes Van Zandt, as well as James McMurtry and Terry Allen. Same goes for Nanci Griffith and Lucinda Williams. In other words, there’s plenty of wide-open space in that honorable classification. Thursday…
Second Helpings: Latin American
Greg Beets on local Latin American restaurants.
Exhibitionism
Chronicle critic Ada Calhoun finds The Off Center’s
production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
gasping for air..
Letters at 3AM
Follow the yellow brick road to Wounded Knee in this
account of L. Frank Baum’s effort to tame the
untamable.
Live Shots
RajamaniEl Sol y la Luna, July 14 Latcho Drom means “safe journey” in Romany, the language of the Gypsy people. It’s also the name of an excellent musical documentary that charts the Gypsy’s 1,000-year exodus, from Indian Rajastani songs to Spanish flamenco. Along with an undeserved negative reputation (Hitler killed them as readily as Jews),…
Hot Corners: Land Use, Light Rail, and Smart Growth
Just as surely as a freeway does, a rail system would open up vast amounts of land to development. The difference is that, in the case of urban transit, that development is actually re-development, as in infill, as in Smart Growth, as in the worst nightmare of many Austin neighborhoods. So the key to making…
Exhibitionism
According to Chronicle writer Wayne Alan Brenner,
West Side Story survives just fine in a
“post-apocalyptic future,” thanks to an amazing
production at Zilker Hillside Theatre.
After a Fashion
Whither downtown shopping?
Live Shots
Antone’s AnniversaryAntone’s, July 13-14 An uncharacteristically somber mood prevailed over Antone’s 25th Anniversary. The blues were inspired, played with joy and vigor, but something was definitely missing. After the raucous opening weekend capped by the traditional “We Three Kings” tribute Monday night, the week settled into a laid-back groove. It harkened back to the club’s…
All Together Now
City makes some headway on synchronizing traffic lights
By the Book
Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America With Einstein’s Brain by Michael Paterniti Dial Press, 224 pp., $18.95 When Albert Einstein died in 1955, Dr. Thomas Harvey, the chief pathologist at Princeton Hospital, performed an autopsy on the physicist and removed his brain. Then he took it home and kept it. But he did very…
Mr. Smarty Pants
Walk softly, and carry a still stick.
The Road to Rail
Can light rail in Austin work well with Smart Growth?
Drive Time
Street Point A to Point B Time of Day Before After S. First Barton Springs-MLK Off-Peak AM 14.0 8.0 Burnet 45th-U.S. 183 Peak PM 16.5 12.9 Burnet U.S. 183-45th Peak PM 16.6 14.8 38th I-35-MoPac Peak AM 9.2 6.0 (before current construction) This is a sampling of drive times (shown in minutes) taken as part…
By the Book
William Shakespeare: The Man Behind the Genius by Anthony Holden Little, Brown, and Company, 416 pp., $29.95 The history of Shakespeare biographies, from the first one, by Nicolas Rowe in 1701, to Holden’s book, is a demonstration of by how narrow a strait inference is divided from projection, and how easy it is to leap…
Coach’s Corner
A man stands at a window staring out at the sky. It is as it always was: a remorseless, unending pale blue. Occasionally a white cloud drifts listlessly by, as if the stifling heat affected even things not bound to the earth. The man’s in one of the state’s maximum security prisons, but he’s free…
End of the Line
The Short and Troubled History of Austin’s Streetcar System
By the Book
Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover Random House, 309 pp., $24.95 On his first day as a correction officer inside the infamous Sing Sing Prison, Ted Conover is asked to stand before a camera, holding a piece of paper showing his name and Social Security number. When he asks why, he is told that…
Day Trips
Lake Bastrop’s North Shore Park gets a major facelift.
Naked City
Texas Turnpike Authority changes its position on SH
130; Max Nofziger has joined the anti-light rail
campaign; Father Bill Elliott is not resigning, he’s being
forced out against his wishes; University of Texas
makes another selection of short-listed architects for
the Blanton Museum; Renetta Armadour…
By the Book
Windchill Summer by Norris Church Mailer Random House, 391 pp., $24.95 Set in 1969 Sweet Valley, Arkansas, Windchill Summer tells the story of Cheryl Ann “Cherry” Marshall, the six-foot-tall albino first-person narrator, her best friend, Babilonia “Baby” Moreno, who, despite being a Filipino transplant, is in all other respects completely Southern, and their group of…
About AIDS
The David Powell HIV Clinic is set to open its new, larger doors next month.
What Lies Beneath
What Lies Beneath 2000, PG-13, 130 min. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Remar, Miranda Otto, Joe Morton, Amber Valletta, Mark Patrick Costello, J.C. Brandy, Dan Block, Diana Scarwid. Director Robert Zemeckis is probably best known to the mainstream moviegoing public as the man who…
Naked City
The fractious, lively process that led to the adoption of
the ECC Neighborhood Plan holds some lessons for
future neighborhood planners.
By the Book
Deep in the Heart by Sharon Oard Warner Dial Press, 352 pp., $23.95 It’s nearly impossible to present an even and balanced view of both sides of the abortion debate without getting bogged down in emotional and religious rhetoric. With the possible exception of the movie Citizen Ruth, one side always seems to come across…
Crescent City Redux
The new version of Gumbo’s has made the transition from mom-and-pop shop to a classy, upscale chain operation. It definitely makes the grade.
Better Living Through Circuitry
Better Living Through Circuitry 1999, NR, 85 min. Directed by Jon Reiss, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Scanner, Frankie Bones, Dj Spooky, Roni Size, Genesis P-Orridge, The Crystal Method, Moby. What is it about Genesis P-Orridge that documentarians find so appealing? This is the second feature-length doc I’ve reviewed in which the colorful…
Naked City
Throughout the five-week trial of the Branch Davidians’
case against the federal government inWaco, the
ghosts of 84 people killed at Mount Carmel haunted
the courtroom.
By the Book
A Gathering of Wonders: Behind the Scenes at the American Museum of Natural History by Joseph Wallace St. Martin’s, 288 pp., $24.95 Before Jurassic Park was the end-all, be-all in dinosaurs, the American Museum of Natural History held the mantle. For those who don’t care for New York landmarks or who remain unaware of the…
Food-o-File
Virginia B. Wood gets the lowdown on Sandra Bullock’s recent party spot and updates readers on local culinary news.
A Piece of Eden
A Piece of Eden 2000, NR, 112 min. Directed by John Hancock, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jeff Puckett, Frederic Forrest, Marshall Efron, Tristan Rogers, Tyne Daly, Robert Breuler, Rebecca Harrell, Marc Grapey. The Tredici family, late of Corsica, has settled in the farmlands of Indiana and is trying to make a go…
Naked City
Hyde Park residents win a key Planning Commission
vote preserving an alley beside Hyde Park Baptist
Church’s existing garage, but it’s still unclear if they
can win the war against a second garage proposed for
an adjacent lot.
By the Book
The Question of Bruno: Storiesby Aleksandar Hemon Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 230 pp., $22.50 Bosnian immigrant Aleksandar Hemon’s collection of short stories, The Question of Bruno, hums with the irreconcilable tensions of wonder and revulsion. In the collection’s best stories, each sentence is beautifully discordant, and, like the telegraph messages the young boy in “The Sorge…
Mini-Review
Fresh Planet Cafe 601 N. Lamar, 476-0902 Mon-Sat, 11am-9pm; Sun, 11 am- 5pm I’m a big fan of Fresh Planet; it’s one of the few places in town that quickly gets the thumbs-up, without argument or counterproposal, when our family decides to go out for a bite to eat. (With a 10-year-old, that’s somethin’.) Each…
Chuck & Buck
Chuck & Buck 2000, R, 95 min. Directed by Miguel Arteta, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Mike White, Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz, Lupe Ontiveros, Beth Colt, Maya Rudolph. Chuck & Buck is the kind of movie that gets under your skin and takes root. It’s a discomfiting sensation, much like the experience of…
Naked City
Saying they’re tired of seeing Texas portrayed
negatively by Al Gore and in the press, six prominent
Texans have formed the Proud of Texas Committee to
speak out against such “misrepresentations.”
Postscripts
Finally: Somebody in the publishing industry actually
says something funny about eBooks!
The Majestic Napster
In this time of 30-second Happy Meals and 10-minute
workouts, Jay Hardwig finds a better way to spend his
time: napping.
Loser
Loser 2000, PG-13, 98 min. Directed by Amy Heckerling, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jason Biggs, Mena Suvari, Zak Orth, Thomas Sadoski, Greg Kinnear, Jimmi Simpson, Dan Aykroyd. In Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless, writer-director Heckerling turned a snarky eye on the myths and maneuverings of high school, creating in the…
It Came From Beyond
“I saw my first cadaver when I was about five years
old. I saw my first rotting corpse at 10.” Now, at 35,
Guillermo del Toro is probably the world’s most
promising horror film director.
Off the Bookshelf
Tales From the Cloud Walking Country by Marie Campbell University of Georgia Press, 270 pp., $14 (paper) Talking foxes, one-eyed giants, golden birds, kings, queens, and red-headed strangers fill Tales From the Cloud Walking Country, which, surprisingly enough, is not a work of science fiction or fantasy but a collection of folklore. Originally published in…
Pokémon: The Movie
Pokémon: The Movie 2000, G, 103 min. Directed by Michael Haigney, Kunihiko Yuyama, Narrated by , Voices by Veronica Taylor, Rachael Lillis, Eric Stuart, Ikue Otani, Ted Lewis, Addie Blaustein, Starring . Gee, it seems like it was only last Thanksgiving that we had our last encounter with Pokémania of the cinematic kind. Now, eight…
