H2 Hos
H2 Hos NR. Directed by , Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Video clips from this feminist synchronized swimming group’s underwater ballet performed last year will screen in advance of their upcoming performance.
Freewheelin’
Freewheelin’ 1976, G, 80 min. Directed by Scott Dittrich, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Stacy Peralta, Waldo Autrey, Paul Constantineau. Did Dogtown and Z-Boys get you all revved up about the skateboard craze? Then tune in to this back-in-the-day relic that features Dogtown director Stacy Peralta and others in a documentary look at…
Effects
Effects 1980, R, 87 min. Directed by Dusty Nelson, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring John Harrison, Susan Chapek, Tom Savini. A film director hopes to make a snuff film about the demise of an actual film crew working on a horror shoot. Understandably, his crew is less-than-thrilled about their involvement.
“La Raza”
“La Raza” 2002, NR, 25 min. Directed by Los Cochinos, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Los Cochinos is a local group of BMX stunt riders, most of whom have grown up in and around Austin and have completed a 25-minute video that features examples of their talents and moves over the years.…
My Gay Movie 2002
My Gay Movie 2002 NR. Directed by Various, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Sponsored by the Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival, this second annual My Gay Movie competition will screen the winners locally this week before it begins distributing the package to festivals worldwide. Entries from last year’s package achieved…
I Want to Live!
I Want to Live! 1958, NR, 120 min. Directed by Robert Wise, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Susan Hayward, Simon Oakland, Theodore Bikel. Susan Hayward pulls out all the emotional stops (and earned an Academy Award for her efforts) in this dramatic tearjerker based on the life of Barbara Graham ñ a prostitute,…
Fruit Fest Film Shorts
Fruit Fest Film Shorts NR. Directed by Various, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . A screening of several locally produced short films is part of this weeklong festival meant to commemorate the Stonewall Riots, celebrate Gay Pride Month, and benefit KOOP community radio. Directors will be present to discuss their work and 75%…
Mommie Dearest Roast
Mommie Dearest Roast 1981, PG, 129 min. Directed by Frank Perry, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Faye Dunaway, Diana Scarwid. An audience participation screening, that features Roastmasters from aGLIFF, who rant “lyrics” from Joan’s most over-the-top tirades. Free wire hangers too. Prizes for best audience costume and participation.
“Marie Curie: The Woman Behind the Mind” (2002) and “Mileva Maric: The Other Einstein”
“Marie Curie: The Woman Behind the Mind” (2002) and “Mileva Maric: The Other Einstein” 1999, NR, 83 min. Directed by Alana Cash, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . These documentaries about two very different women scientists should provide the stuff to expand any young kid’s mind about gender distinctions in the practice of…
Write On
The 2002-03 Dobie Paisano Fellows are Oscar Casares and Todd Hearon.
Dancing About Architecture
Dee Dee’s dead, everything else is crumbling.
Boob Watch
So you can’t get that red-eye east (waaaaaaay east) and partake in the live spectacle that is World Cup soccer. Too bad. Half the fun is beating the crap out of the opposing team’s fans. Or so they say. Hmmmmm, there must be some more practical options close to home. Why not join an Austin…
Bartleby
Bartleby 2001, PG-13, 82 min. Directed by Jonathan Parker, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Crispin Glover, David Paymer, Glenne Headley, Maury Chaykin, Joe Piscopo, Carrie Snodgress, Seymour Cassel. When a city records manager (Paymer) in search of a new clerk places a frank classified ad (“No benefits. Dull job. Vibrating workplace.”), the perfect…
Book Review
Franklin Flyerby Nicholas Christopher Dial, 320 pp., $24.95 Named for the tornado-tossed train aboard which he was born, the hero (and I do mean hero) of Nicholas Christopher’s fourth novel is as dashing, daring, and quixotic as they come, much like the book named for him. Christopher is a storyteller, that much is certain, but…
Phases and Stages
Snoop DoggStubb’s, June 7 Local openers DJ Mel and Worldwide Souljahs were long gone by the time Snoop Dogg swaggered onstage for a 30-minute set. Surprise guest and Dogg Pounder Daz Dillinger held it down for the non-fashionably late Top Dogg, who brought the “Lodi Dodi” pre-party and huge smoke cipher onstage after making the…
Naked City
The City Council won’t meet again until June 27, but will convene this Saturday, June 15 at 5pm to administer the oath to newly elected Council Member Betty Dunkerley, and re-elected members Daryl Slusher and Jackie Goodman. The council will also select the mayor pro tem, currently Goodman. Austin Convention Center, 500 E. Cesar Chavez,…
Windtalkers
Windtalkers 2002, R, 134 min. Directed by John Woo, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Nicolas Cage, Adam Beach, Christian Slater, Peter Stormare, Noah Emmerich, Mark Ruffalo, Roger Willie. Windtalkers opens with a near-perfect shot that’s so reflective of John Woo’s style that you immediately thrill to the possibilities that lie in store. As…
Page Two
Our cover story delves into the complex legacy of Townes Van Zandt, an artist who cared more about music than business, who literally lived his whole life for the sake of the song.
Phases and Stages
DJ ShadowPrivate Press (MCA/Quannum) Waking from a restless dream, even after the longest sleep, one finds himself distraught, tired, and most of all, puzzled. Although your movement might have been limited to a 1-or-2-inch roll, your restless mind has been engulfed in a state of thought never confronted in everyday reality. To this area of…
Robin Was Here
The Austin Independent School District administration released next year’s proposed school budget last week, and to no one’s surprise it included both cost squeezes and higher taxes. The big hickeys are a $55.4 million increase that AISD must return to the state under the school-equity program (aka “Robin Hood”), and a $7 million increase for…
Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Doo 2002, PG, 90 min. Directed by Raja Gosnell, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Matthew Lillard, Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Linda Cardellini, Rowan Atkinson. Thirty-three years after the animated Scooby gang made its network television premiere, they’ve finally done what seemingly every other TV show with a modicum of cultural significance,…
Mr. Smarty Pants
Scientifically, there is no such species as a “sea gull.” The term is used as a catchall name for the many types of gulls.In 1832, Congress declared all land west of the Mississippi River Indian territory. By 1850, there were four states west of the Mississippi.U.N. officials and salt industry executives predict that iodine deficiency,…
Phases and Stages
The ClashWestway to the World (Epic) It makes sense the Clash would have one of the all-time great music documentaries made about them. After all, in the person of Don Letts, they had their own music video guy in-house. Letts was a close friend from day one, and directed many of their music videos. After…
Not Exactly a “Green Light” for Stratus
The city Environmental Board will hold a special meeting Monday, June 17 at One Texas Center, Rm. 235 (505 Barton Springs Rd.) to consider rescinding its earlier rejection of a Stratus Properties development agreement by voting for conditional approval of the plan. At a meeting Monday, a board subcommittee — made up of chair Lee…
Day Trips
National parks in Texas tend to be overshadowed by the more numerous state parks. It’s kind of like the older sibling who has to play second fiddle to the more gregarious younger brothers and sisters. The National Park Service (NPS) has developed a brochure to help remind us of the 13 national parks in Texas.…
Phases and Stages
DovesThe Last Broadcast (Capitol) Is The Last Broadcast the most consistently breathtaking sophomore UK release since Radiohead’s The Bends? If not, it’s awfully close, this stunner being an infectious, melancholy, ultimately euphoric barrage of sound wrapped in a sheeting of guitars and subtle effects that coalesce around frontman Jimi Goodwin’s plaintive voice and brothers Jez…
Cox’s Communication Problems
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a discrimination suit against Cox Communications for discriminatory treatment of employees at its cable franchise in Georgetown. The suit, filed in Austin-based U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, alleges that Cox “engaged in discriminatory employment practices by subjecting Cesar Mejias and other similarly situated…
After a Fashion
See where Austin ranks in a national list of most creative cities and then wonder why Dallas also made the list once you find out that the cheesy reality TV show Cheaters is based there …
Phases and Stages
The Hives Veni Vidi Vicious (Sire/Burning Heart/Epitaph) The amalgam of labels behind this troupe’s second LP tells the tale of the music within. Sire released music by the Ramones, arguably the most influential punk rock outfit; Burning Heart is the Swedish independent imprint that first took a chance on the Hives; and Epitaph is known…
Pledging Pain for DEA
June 6 marked a national day of protest against the Drug Enforcement Administration’s ongoing raids of medical marijuana clinics in nine states and continued harassment and jailing of medical marijuana patients nationwide. In Austin, members of the local chapter of Americans for Safe Access tried to deliver a “truce” to the DEA’s office, but federal…
To Your Health
I am 68 years old, and I can’t decide how best to delay the aging process. I exercise some, eat sensibly, and take a multivitamin. What else works?
Phases and Stages
The HellacoptersHigh Visibility (Gearhead) From early Bob Seger covers to the straight-faced Kissisms of 1999’s Grande Rock, Sweden’s Hellacopters have trophied their Yankee influences like kill stickers on the nose of an American gunship. With High Visibility, almost a decade into their mission to bomb corporate metal back to the stone age, they’re finally ready…
God Votes Right
The Texas Republicans Gather in Dallas to Pray
About AIDS
Want to make a contribution to ending the AIDS epidemic around the world? Here’s your chance: volunteer for vaccine research. Through Central Texas Clinical Research, the local research group, Austin is one of the U.S. trial sites for a promising vaccine, and they are enrolling healthy, HIV-negative adult participants. The present trial, called Phase I,…
Phases and Stages
The Cato Salsa ExperienceA Good Tip for a Good Time (Emperor Norton) What happens when a bunch of crazed Norwegian garage rockers get their hands on a mellotron, a moog, a horn section, and a theremin along with the usual assortment of guitars, bass, drums, and dimestore Farfisa organ? You wind up with something like…
Austin @ Large: Out Into the DAMP
The Downtown Mobility Plan has critics from both the right and left, and that could be its undoing.
Letters at 3AM
Learning about “manhood” from the movies
You Call This a Plan?
Seaholm District Master Plan Morphs Into the Lumbermen’s Tract Subsidy Program
The Hightower Report
The “outernet industry want advertising on the inside of your eyelids; WorldCom moneyslinger Bernie Ebbers dies by his own gun; and the un-American activities of Stanley Works.
More Than Just the Facts, Ma’am
The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum’s exhibition on Davy Crockett features a short stage show with the hero of the Alamo appearing live and in person. The two Austin actors who alternate in the show describe how they bring that King of the Wild Frontier to life day in and day out.
Coach’s Corner
Attending his son’s graduation at UC-Santa Cruz, Coach is struck by a sudden infatuation with alternative sports: college baseball, horse racing, hockey, even World Cup soccer.
Sea Changes at Seaholm
Chronicle writer Amy Smith lays out the Proposed Seaholm District Master Plan.
Melville in Cubicle Hell
Tyro film director Jonathan Parker brings “Bartleby the Scrivener” back to the future. And who better to ride shotgun than freaky, geeky Crispin Glover?
Images: Austin Arts Hall of Fame
Twelve local art enthusiasts are the first to be inducted into the Austin Arts Hall of Fame.
Barbecue Summer Camp!
What is it about Texas and barbecue? Chronicle Food Editor Virginia B. Wood knows, and she knows we know, but the Southern Foodways Alliance is about to find out on their Taste of Texas Field Trip. Plus, “The Barbecue Song”!?
Must Stan Take the Stand?
Questions about the APD’s disciplinary sanctions mean the chief might have to take the stand.
Are You Experienced?
In its continuing endeavor to be coolest enterprise in Austin, the Alamo Drafthouse served up BBQ, Baby Ruths, beer, and Corey “Mouth” Feldman at last weekend’s Ultimate Goonies Experience.
Articulations
The Austin theatre festival MoMFest goes away, the Austin Arts Commission welcomes Sue Graze to its membership, and a couple of Austin theatre types show up on TV.
Texas Barbecue Soundtrack
Once we knew when and where the big Texas barbecue fandango was to take place, the next issue was to figure out just how much music we could deliver as a soundtrack to all that good Texas eating. We wanted live music at as many events as possible and some definitive Austin sounds for our…
Save Our Speck Alliance
Larry Speck is the main architect of the Hill Country Galleria. He’s also a member of the Save Our Springs Alliance board, which opposes the Galleria. This is what you call, “walking the tightrope.”
Flicker’s Got Super-8 for a Super Dad
How to buy Dad a beer for his special day but still avoid the Hooters’ cliché.
Exhibitionism
The four accomplished vocalists who comprise the Manhattan Transfer turned an evening with the Austin Symphony at the Austin Convention Center into a night when “there was magic abroad in the air.”
Barbecue Books
Food Editor Virginia B. Wood reviews two recent barbecue books in honor of the Southern Foodways Alliance Taste of Texas Barbecue Field Trip
Feds Uphold Holy Weed
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act precludes the federal government from prosecuting people on federal lands who possess marijuana for religious reasons. A three-member panel of the court ruled that under the 1993 law, the government can create exceptions to the Controlled Substances Act and other…
Short Cuts
Sidney Brammer | Alleywood Auteurs | Ninth Annual CineSol Latino Film Festival | Betty Kaplan | Esmerelda Santiago | Almost a Woman | Jesüs Nebot | No Turning Back | Eighth Annual San Antonio Underground Film Festival | Yvette Pita | “Pan y Libertad” | Director’s Guild of America EastGo to the beach or go…
Second Helpings
Erin Mosow again investigates Austin’s Italian offerings in this week’s “Second Helpings.”
Exhibitionism
New Texas Music Works closed the 2002 New Texas Festival with some tremendously talented ladies — sopranos from the Conspirare Choir — singing a variety of material, but for all its warmth, the concert lacked the sustained intensity and interest that is the hallmark of the choir’s best work.
Food-o-File
Food Editor Virginia B. Wood has news from Central Market Cooking Schools and restaurants reinventing themselves in this week’s “Food-o-File.”
Greening It Up
The Texas Green Party holds its convention in San Marcos.
TV Eye
The TNT action-adventure show Witchblade strikes out with its Groundhog Day-like season premiere, while HBO hits another one out of the park with cop drama The Wire.
Exhibitionism
With its presentation of sacred choral works by early 20th-century German composer Hugo Distler, the Conspirare Choir put its versatility on best display and provided a sequence of absolutely divine sounds.
Townes Without Pity
The battle for Townes Van Zandt’s legacy
GHASPing for Breath in Houston
Depending on where you’re standing, last week the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission gave its initial approval to agency staff recommendations to tighten — or rather to loosen — air pollution restrictions on major industries in the Houston-Galveston air-pollution non-attainment zones. According to a statement from the agency, revisions approved July 5 to the Houston-Galveston…
Video Reviews
RUBIN AND ED (1991) D: Trent Harris; with Crispin Glover, Karen Black, Howard Hesseman, Michael Green, Brittney Lewis. You may have a hard time tracking down Rubin and Ed. Calls to several local video stores revealed that the video for the Trent Harris-directed movie had been lost or stolen — the consensus being most likely…
Destiny’s Child
Tom Doyal reviews Sam Houston, Austin author James Haley’s new biography on the Texas legend, and finds that the biographer’s “hard work is almost invisible to the reader; he makes this complex life accessible, even understandable, in light of the times in which Houston lived.”
Townes Van Zandt Reviewed
Townes Van ZandtA Gentle Evening With Townes Van Zandt (Dualtone) Townes Van ZandtLive at the Old Quarter (Tomato)Townes Van Zandt Texas Rain (Tomato)Townes Van ZandtThe Best of Townes Van Zandt (Tomato) Out of the recent deluge of reissues and new releases of the music of the late, great Townes Van Zandt, the real nugget of…
Soccer Watch
Secure in the Knowledge So, I guess you’ve heard about those soccer hooligans in Moscow. Wild stuff, eh? What’s up with those crazy soccer fans, and their crazy sport? That was the gist of the U.S. coverage of last weekend’s riots; even the Statesman perked up their ears at the hint of graphic disaster –…
The Bourne Identity
The Bourne Identity 2002, PG-13, 118 min. Directed by Doug Liman, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Matt Damon, Franke Potente, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, Brian Cox, Adele Akinnouye-Agbaje, Julia Stiles. The Bourne Identity isn’t a remake of one of those taut Seventies-era thrillers like The Marathon Man or The Parallax View, but it…
