Jesse’s Closet
Jesse’s Closet 2002, NR. Directed by Ken Johnson, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Longtime mainstay of the Austin theatre world Ken Johnson has adapted his 1996 play Jesse’s Closet for the screen. The play is set in the San Francisco apartment of Jesse, a gay man who has just died of AIDS.…
Tintorera
Tintorera 1977, R, 89 min. Directed by Rene Cardona Jr., Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Susan George, Hugo Stigletz, Andres Garcia, Fiona Lewis, Priscilla Barnes. A killer tiger shark in Mexican waters turns this swinging Seventies yacht party into mincemeat.
Dead or Alive
Dead or Alive 1999, NR, 105 min. Directed by Takashi Miike, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Riki Takeuchi, Sho Aikawa, Renji Ishibashi. The Alamo has decided to expand its monthly Hong Kong series to make a spot for the prolific new Japanese director Takashi Miike, whose stylish splatter films make even the most…
Lifers: Rediscovering My Muse
Lifers: Rediscovering My Muse NR, 79 min. Directed by Stephen P. Larsen, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . This locally filmed music documentary features appearances by Marcus Cardwell, Carrie Clark, Bones DeLarge, Jason McMaster, Nathan Olivarez, MC Overlord, Shandon Sahm, and Don Walser. The director’s statement follows: “I have been a struggling semi-pro…
Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams Premiere
Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams Premiere PG. Directed by Robert Rodriguez, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Danny Trejo, Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Daryl Sabara, Alexa Vega. The Austin premiere of Robert Rodriguez’s followup to last summer’s hugely successful Spy Kids will be presented the weekend before its national release and…
Letters at 3AM
The Flatlanders’ collective voice of experience still dares the odds and rings true.
Phases and Stages
Texas Guitar Slingers Volume 1 This 17-song collection gathers some of the finest regional guitarists for a very worthwhile cause, the Texas Council on Family Violence, a venerable organization that helps victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse, etc. Clocking in over an hour, Texas Guitar Slingers possesses a variety of material, ranging from…
Austin Stories
The City Council will not meet until next Thursday. In the meantime, Mayor Gus Garcia, Council Member Raul Alvarez, and select city staff have traveled to Saltillo, Mexico, one of Austin’s sister cities. — L.A. Austin attorney Brad Rockwell spent his first days on the job this week as the new deputy director of the…
TV Eye
Keeping one eye on television and the other on pop culture.
Mouthing Off
Lowell Bartholomee has a lot to say, and he says it in plays that blaze like a Klieg instrument throwing gritty metrosphere of modern life into stark relief — stark comic relief.
Rediscovered Roots
Wild Ginger 8108 Mesa Ste. C-100, 343-8400 Monday-Saturday, 11am-2:30pm, 5-9:30pm; Closed Sunday Wild Ginger is the reincarnation of Formosa, the latter of which once sat at the corner of Windsor and Exposition and was one of our favorite Chinese restaurants in town. The circulating story of Formosa’s demise was that the vegetarian-activist owner of Tarrytown…
Phases and Stages
KVRX Local Live Vol. 6: Unlimited Bandwidth For the second year in a row, KVRX churns out a 2-CD set chronicling its Local Live radio series, and for the second straight year, there’s no better way to spend a buck or seven on a smorgasbord of local music sprinkled with key national acts. Last year’s…
Region/State/Etc.
Employees of a Whole Foods store in Madison, Wis., recently voted 65-54 to unionize under the United Food and Commercial Workers, becoming the first Whole Foods workers in the country to organize successfully. But the fight ain’t over yet: According to Madison’s Capital Times, Whole Foods has filed an appeal with the National Labor Relations…
Speaking for Lowell
Every playwright needs a mouthpiece, an actor to communicate his vision to an audience, and Lowell Bartholomee has his in Robert Fisher.
Author Deborah Madison in Austin
Noted vegetarian cookbook author Deborah Madison comes to Austin with her new book, Local Flavors: Cooking & Eating From America’s Farmers’ Markets, in her basket.
Phases and Stages
Ralph WhiteTrash Fish (Terminus) Ralph and I played together in the Bad Livers. We did about 1,500 shows together, all over the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The label I currently work with on my own music, Terminus Records, has released Ralph’s first self-recorded, self-penned effort. I wanted to tell you about it. Trash Fish won’t…
Happenings
The Anarchist Black Cross, an international network that seeks to bring attention to the plight of all prisoners (they have an impressively strong presence in Poland), will hold its first North American conference since 1994 from July 26-28 in Austin. Activities include workshops on security culture, women in prison, and other lively topics, keynote speeches…
Articulations
UT-Austin’s Blanton Museum of Art acquires one of the most comprehensive collections of prints ever assembled by a private individual: the Leo Steinberg Collection of 3,200 prints from the 15th through the 20th centuries.
Food-o-File
Virginia B. Wood fixes her French, has her eyes rolled back in her head by a delightful new dessert, and reports on the latest cooking classes in session in this week’s “Food-o-File.”
Goodbye to Big Pink
The Rio Motel faces new ownership, a new name, and perhaps a new future.
Stan Ain’t Stand-ing Yet
The next episode in the case of former Austin Police Dept. officer Eric Snyder has been postponed until Sept. 29. Snyder faces charges of official oppression stemming from a complaint of excessive use of force. His attorney, Steve Edwards, argues that Snyder’s indictment should be thrown out because it is the product of selective enforcement…
Exhibitionism
In Kirk Smith’s stage adaptation of Moby Dick, language comes forth in great waves, in storms of words, soaking our brains with images of the sea, of a white whale, and of a mad captain’s pursuit of it, and while the Vortex Repertory Company Summer Youth Theatre production may not always convey every nuance of…
Mini-Review
Robbie’s Cajun Kitchen 1203 W. Sixth, 477-7768 Lunch: Monday-Friday, 11am-2pm Dinner: Monday-Thursday, 5:30-10pm; Friday-Saturday, 5:30-11pm Robbie Greig’s Cajun home cooking has been a favorite of local and visiting blues and R&B musicians since he operated Mama’s Money next to the original Antone’s nightclub on East Sixth Street back in the Seventies. The Port Arthur native…
Life After a Night at the Rio
The Rio Motel is gone, but the memories linger.
Life Sentence for Delamora
After a reported 13 hours of deliberations over two days, a Travis Co. jury found 23-year-old Edwin Delamora guilty of capital murder in the February 15, 2001 shooting death of Travis Co. Sheriff’s Office Deputy Keith Ruiz. Ruiz was assisting the now-defunct Capital Area Narcotics Task Force with a forced entry during a drug raid…
Exhibitionism
Bruce Graham’s Coyote on a Fence makes a strong political statement about the unfairness of capital punishment, but both the script and Real Rain Productions’ staging of it are uneven, with choices that undercut the undeniable tension inherent in the dramatic situation of death row inmates.
Right Where They Belong
Raoul Hernandez goes on tour with the Flatlanders
Interfacing With Dell
Environmentalists press Michael Dell for more aggressive recycling of obsolete computers.
Paging Vittorio de Sica
It’s nothing to brag about, but Austin, hometown of Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, once again has landed high on the Kryptonite lock company’s annual national ranking of cities with the most bicycle theft. Although we have never cracked the top five, we are now ranked seventh — between Boston and Philadelphia — after…
Exhibitionism
Although several performers are excellent, the orchestra is good, and the Austin summer-night atmosphere is as laid-back and fun-loving as ever, Zilker Theatre Productions’ staging of Into the Woods is fraught with problems, from technical glitches to set-design issues to actors’ difficulties handling the musical demands of the show.
Dancing About Architecture
Hole is on hold, as is Abra Moore’s new album, though American Analog Set may be dead and the Mercury’s Hip Hop Humpday is definitely. Meanwhile, John Kunz fights back, and Don Imus raises the Flatlanders flag. Whew!
‘Stakeholder’ Bails on Stratus
When Lauren Ross urged the City Council to reject the “half-baked” Stratus development deal, council members’ jaws dropped one by one.
Cleaning Fayette the ‘Flex’ Way
Austin Energy and the Lower Colorado River Authority recently announced plans to spend $130 million over the next decade to reduce air pollution from the Fayette power plant near La Grange — one of four major sources of electricity for Austin, and the only one that burns coal. Henry Eby, senior regulatory analyst with the…
The Fast Runner (Atanarjuat)
This is a wonderfully universal narrative based on oral tradition about the introduction of evil into a peaceful Inuit community.
Watch Your Language
UCLA Professor Otto Santa Ana brings Brown Tide Rising to Resistencia.
Compile This!
Our resident Marshmallow Peep relates the news and hearsay in and around the Live Music Capital…
War by the (Text)book
The State Board of Education’s first public hearing on social studies textbooks confirmed that, underneath the thin cloak of bureaucratic civility, an ideological battle is raging over whose story the textbooks should tell.
Alas, Poor Dubya
The falling Dow throws a spotlight on the president’s business career.
Austin Powers in Goldmember
Austin Powers in Goldmember 2002, PG-13, 94 min. D: Jay Roach; with Mike Myers, Michael Caine, Beyoncé Knowles, Verne J. Troyer, Seth Green. Like a patient too long under laughing gas, the latest installment in the Austin Powers series has stopped making much sense at all, but it sure gets its giggle on, and good.…
Breece Is Back
Breece D’J Pancake committed suicide in 1979 at the age of 26, and his Stories — which Little, Brown has reprinted — shows that he “cut short a literary career which had suggested a greatness that can now only be guessed at.”
Phases and Stages
The Punkaroos(Punkaroo Products) Raise the hammer & sickle, comrades, old-school Austin punk lives. Dotty Farrell needs only yawn to voice it, her taunting sneer a touchstone in the continuum of River City DIY queens. One finger wag from Farrell inventories a local Hall of Femme Fatales, from D-Day’s De Lewellen to the multiple divas in…
Second Yogurt Shop Case Begins
Jury selection is set to begin July 29 for round two of the infamous yogurt shop murder trials.
The Hightower Report
Bush barks but barely bites, and MBNA buys a Congressman … on credit.
Trouble Every Day
Trouble Every Day 2001, NR, 102 min. Directed by Claire Denis, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Alex Descas, Beatrice Dalle, Tricia Vessey, Vincent Gallo. Sexual appetite is a concept that has literal rather than metaphorical meaning in Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day. This French horror movie created something of a scandale when it…
Page Two
The City Council should negotiate the Stratus deal from a position of strength; we remember the tragic life and brilliant filmmaking of indie pioneer Eagle Pennell.
Phases and Stages
Manikin(Super Secret) Nothing quickens the pulse like a good rock & roller coaster ride on a previously unknown punk band. Tempo is one thing, potential everything else. That Manikin’s debut hurtles through its first half like a noir sedan in the city of sin is exhilarating. Opening with “The Sleeper,” the local trio sets a…
The Senator’s Shoes
The Brownsville Herald reported Monday that state Sen.-elect Juan “Chuy– Hinojosa was stopped from boarding a Sunday afternoon flight to Austin from Harlingen’s Valley International Airport when he refused to remove his shoes and belt for security guards. Hinojosa had already been stopped and searched at the check-in counter and again in the metal detector…
Dahmer
Dahmer 2002, R, 100 min. Directed by David Jacobson, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jeremy Renner, Matt Newton, Artel Kayaru, Bruce Davison, Dion Basco. Not exactly the feel-good movie of the summer, Dahmer’s peculiar charms are subtle things more in line with Hannibal Lecter’s brooding intellectualism than Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer’s…
Mr. Smarty Pants
The American Chiropractic Association recommends that book bags weigh no more than 15% of body weight.A recent study by Maastricht University in the Netherlands suggests that depression may be a sign that a person may be at risk of Parkinson’s disease.The late cartoonist Charles Schulz almost accepted a job lettering tombstones.John Cazale, the actor who…
Phases and Stages
The ResentmentsSunday Night Line-Up (Outcasters)The VanguardsLive at Jovita’s (Jovita’s) It’s a hallmark of Austin music that passing from this life to the next means an artist’s gone, but seldom forgotten. As the years go by, the party upstairs gets bigger and better. Here on earth, the pleasures are heavenly: cold beer and good music are…
Surf Barton Creek!
Wondering how to celebrate the upcoming 10th anniversary of the SOS ordinance? Wonder no longer. After locally heavy rains the past few weeks, Barton Creek is currently running and tubeable! With water levels dropping as much as two feet per day, you’d best find your rubbers and waddle down to the creek now, because who…
Book Smarts
Comedy Is a Man in Trouble: Slapstick in American Movies by Alan S. Dale University of Minnesota Press, 288pp., $18.95 (paper) It’s difficult to intellectually analyze a slapstick gag without killing a vital part of what made it funny in the first place. Yet Alan Dale, in this brief analysis of the highest points of…
Second Helpings: Slices of Life, Part 2
Erin Mosow throws a pizza party in this week’s “Second Helpings.”
After a Fashion
Who was that scary cowboy and why was he doing those nasty things??? Stephen ventures out to yet another “alternative” fashion show. Will he ever learn?
Phases and Stages
A Loose Affiliation of Saints & Sinners Sessions From the Hotel San Jose, Rm. 50, Austin TX (LASAS) The concept of this collection of songs looks fine on paper. Get some of Austin’s finest singers, songwriters, and musicians in a hotel room, turn a tape recorder on, and see what develops. One would think that…
It’s A Gas, Gas, Gas For Longhorn
Looks like the Longhorn Pipeline is about to begin pumping gas.
Book Smarts
The Girls in the Back Room: Looking at the Lesbian Bar by Kelly Hankin University of Minnesota Press, 248pp., $18.95 (paper) Far less juicy than its title inevitably suggests, this perspicacious survey of the representations of lesbian bars in film is about one degree removed from its origin as Hankin’s dissertation at the University of…
Day Trips
New at the Dallas Zoo this year is the endangered species carousel. From an early age children will learn to identify 30 creatures at the brink of extinction. It is a clever and fun way to learn about the animals of the world. The children can take a spin upon gorillas, rhinos, panthers, zebras, tigers,…
Phases and Stages
The Cornell Hurd BandSong of South Austin If there’s one thing that Austin’s Cornell Hurd and his crew of cowpokes are good at, it’s making Western swing/honky-tonk music that’s alternately goofy and gorgeous, and this latest disc is no exception. Goofy: “Rubboard Playin’ Man” (a nod to Danny Young), “Nyquil Blues,” “The Garbageman.” Hurd &…
The Showdown at Sixth and Lamar
The new chain shopping center raises alarms from local merchants.
Book Smarts
Mexico City in Contemporary Mexican Cinema by David William Foster University of Texas Press, 216pp., $21.95 (paper) The allure of world-class cities has inspired filmmakers who sought to imbue their works with the spirit of these cities. Now, according to David William Foster, an Arizona State University professor, it’s time to add Mexico City to…
To Your Health
Q. I have recently begun to suffer what my doctor diagnoses as carpal tunnel syndrome, apparently connected with long hours at my computer keyboard. I am now wearing a “splint” and have changed my keyboard, but would like to do more. What nutrients might help? A. Carpal tunnel syndrome has gained a lot of attention…
Phases and Stages
Troy CampbellAmerican Breakdown (M. Ray) With American Breakdown, his second solo album, former Loose Diamond Troy Campbell has finally made the album he’s always seemed capable of but could never quite pull off. A great deal of credit for the success of this CD goes to the fine touch provided by producer Gurf Morlix. On…
Bradley Bonks
News that Gary Bradley had declared bankruptcy hit the front pages of the American-Statesman and the Austin Business Journal this week, bearing out what many Bradley watchers had been predicting all along: It was just a matter of time (nearly a decade, in this instance) before the developer would file the necessary paperwork to get…
Short Cuts
If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then sandwich chain Schlotzsky’s is practically kissing Bob Sabiston’s feet.
About AIDS
New Guidelines: Perhaps HIV Drugs Can Be Delayed New treatment guidelines suggest that HIV-infected people can wait longer than previously recommended to begin taking the anti-HIV drugs, if they are symptom-free. The new recommendations were announced at the International AIDS Conference in Barcelona two weeks ago. This column often advocates that people with risk activity…
Phases and Stages
Saturn ExpeditionLook Back Fair Pilgrim (Cronus) With a far-out name like Saturn Expedition, you’d expect cosmic freak-outs, soundtracky abstraction, or fuzzy, lunar blasts of distortion. Look Back Fair Pilgrim starts out according to plan, with 45 seconds of warm, analog drone. Then, before you can say “red herring,” said plan gets thrown into the paper…
Understood?
Austin Police Association President Mike Sheffield is back on the full-time union beat, just weeks after being moved to the Sex Offender Apprehension Registration Unit on a part-time basis. Sheffield says Austin Police Dept. Assistant Chief Jimmy Chapman told him the reassignment was “just a misunderstanding.” Maybe that’s what it came down to after APD…
We Regret to Inform
Legendary Texas filmmaker Eagle Pennell (pictured on the right) died in his sleep of heart failure on Saturday night while in Houston. A perennial fixture on the scene, Pennell was making movies in Texas back in the years before making movies in Texas was cool. His debut film in 1978, The Whole Shootin’ Match, and…
Coach’s Corner
Coach gets his disconnection notice, courtesy of Allen Iverson.
Phases and Stages
Blue Diamond ShineThat Godforsaken Road Austin’s Blue Diamond Shine plays country rock; their stuff falling sometime between when the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield kicked it off and when the Eagles killed it for good. At times, singer-songwriter John Stark has an evocative way with a phrase (the languid “Bolts,” for instance). He’s also got a…
Naked City
This Week’s HeadlinesThe City Council proceeded through its second reading and vote on the Stratus Properties deal, with the same result: 6-1 in favor. The third and final vote is due Aug. 1. Circle C Ranch developer Gary Bradley declared bankruptcy, citing assets of no more than $500,000 and debts of $100 million. Flood waters…
Video 101
Fame, a fictionalized but not entirely glamorized look at the High School for Performing Arts in New York, requires a complete suspension of belief, but once suspended, it’s as easy to swallow as ice cream.
