Full Metal Jacket
Full Metal Jacket 1987, R, 116 min. D: Stanley Kubrick; with Matthew Modine, Vincent D’Onofrio, Lee Ermey. Kubrick’s study of war and men’s dehumanization is divided into two parts, the first set in the incubator of Marine boot camp on Parris Island and the latter in the war zones of Vietnam. As the press kit…
Mountains of the Moon
Mountains of the Moon R, 135 min. Directed by Bob Rafelson, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Roger Rees, Anna Massey, Delroy Lindo, Fiona Shaw, Richard E. Grant, Iain Glen, Patrick Bergin. This historical adventure film details the 19th-century expeditions to Africa by English explorers Richard Burton and John Hanning. The contrasts are vivid…
Lolita
Lolita 1962, NR, 152 min. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Sue Lyon, Peter Sellers, Shelley Winters, James Mason. Nabokov’s satire is sensationally cast, with Winters and Sellers delivering some of their best work ever. The details of the storyline about a professor’s love for a sexy nymphet may seem…
Off the Bookshelf
Crazy A Novel by Benjamin Lebert Knopf, 175 pp., $18.95 There are reasons why most 16-year-old writers aren’t published, and Crazy is one of them. The inauspicious debut of narrator/author Benjamin Lebert is a dramatically inert coming-of-age tale crammed into a few months’ time that is neither insightful nor shocking, as the title would imply.…
The Return of Wayne Douglas
A flood of posthumous Doug Sahm CDs, both old and
new, hits record stores
Naked City
The Texas Supreme Court agrees with the city of
Austin that exemptions from water quality regulations
for large landowners are unconstitutional, extending
Austin�s winning streak in court.
Off the Bookshelf
Heart of Gold by Sharon Shinn Ace Books, 359 pp., $14.95 (paper) Contrary to the cliché, you can judge Sharon Shinn’s Heart of Gold by its cover. On it, a woman with oddly geometric hair wears a very romantic gown/wedding dress while she leans against a fireplace mantle that is held up with two phallic…
Dancing About Architecture
The war betwixt Dynamite Hack and Vallejo escalates, in truth and in fiction; Watchtower gears up to rock Germany’s ass off; Hank’s Roadside Cafe bites the dust.
Naked City
The city and the Anderson Community Development
Corp. part ways over the Anderson Hills development
in East Austin, which suffered from costs overruns
and excessive developer�s fees, but the project will
likely still be built with loans and private funds.
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
The new photo exhibitions �Kosova24: Life After
Wartime� and �The Welcoming Table� may document
radically different experiences, but they share a sense
of life turning from season to season, generation to
generation, persisting even in the face of dramatic
upheavals. Life goes on, and both…
Local Bestsellers
Local bestsellers are based on recent sales at Austin
bookstores selected to reflect varied reading interests.
Live Shots
The Cavern ClubLiverpool, England, May 20 On a heavily misted Saturday night, John Lennon stands in a bricked-up doorway, posed as he is on the cover of his early solo album Rock & Roll — clad in black leather and looking to his left. In this doorway, he’s a statue in bronze, young and on…
Naked City
SOS sues the EPA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service for failing to do enough to prevent runoff
pollution from despoiling Barton Springs.
Hamlet
You have to admire Michael Almereyda’s contemporary rendition of Shakespeare’s Hamlet if for no other reason than its audacity in staging one of the passive prince’s timeless soliloquies in the Action aisle of his local Blockbuster. “Go Home Happy,” chirps the store banner in the background.
Articulations
A new CEO for ARTSCenter Stage; some bad luck for a pair of former Austin actors.
Live Shots
Oliver St. John Gogarty’sDublin, Ireland, May 21 Picture a typical Hole in the Wall crowd packed with Fadó regulars at the Sunday night Irish Sessions. Double the number of Guinnesses being hoisted, triple the amount of smoke, and bolster the politics that accompany the social conscience of folk music. Now you’ve got a good idea…
Naked City
The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce Task Force on Light Rail will meet from 1:30-3:30 today, Thursday, June 22, in the Chamber Board Room, Plaza Level, at 111 Congress. The public is invited to attend. For more info, call the Chamber at 322-5649. A Vigil for Victims of the Drug Wars will take place Monday,…
Exhibitionism
Abundance: Wheels Grinding Down Life’s Jarring TrailZachary Scott Theatre Center, through July 2 Running time: 2 hrs, 25 min The Wheel of Fortune may be better noted as a dramatic device in Elizabethan theatre, but in Beth Henley’s disturbing play Abundance, produced by Zachary Scott Theatre Center, Fortune’s Wheel is like those iron-rimmed wooden giants…
Public Notice
Watch out far too many local public service organizations are holding very cool events this hot summer.
Live Shots
Toots & the Maytals/SkatalitesFlamingo Cantina, June 6/June 8 Toots & the Maytals have long held a special place in my musical heart. Back in the mid-Seventies, they were the first Jamaican band I ever saw, the band that really opened my ears to reggae. This show at Flamingo Cantina recalled 20 years ago to the…
Council Watch
New council members are sworn in.
Exhibitionism
Fool For Love/ Cowboy Mouth:Nighttime Hollering and ThumpsThe Hideout, through July 1 Running time: 2 hrs, 30 min “During the show, there will be gunshots, strobe lights, and smoking.” If that playbill caveat doesn’t bode well for a Sam Shepard double bill, I don’t know what does. The nine-month-old dirigo group’s follow-up to its excellent…
Letters at 3AM
The paperback reissue of Steve Erickson’s The
Sea
Came In at Midnight prompts a reflection on his
writing.
Live Shots
Violent FemmesAustin Music Hall, June 10 My date was dead-on in summing up Saturday’s Violent Femmes show as “totally junior high,” but Gordon Gano’s mullet may have been taking things a tad too far. Short on top, long in back, the lead Femmes’ hair was a little like his band’s set, actually. With inclement weather…
Love Thy Neighbor
Christine Fugate’s new documentary The Girl Next
Door follows Stacy Baker from her childhood in Tulsa
to her rise as porn star Stacy Valentine.
Exhibitionism
The Butcher’s Daughter:Have Knife, Will Travel The Blue Theatre, through July 8 You have to be careful about the blurbs you see in promotional material. Like, one blurb for Refraction Arts’ The Butcher’s Daughter purports to be from “an informed source” and insists the play is “Alice in Wonderland meets Blade Runner.” As if the…
Live Shots
Roger WatersAlamodome, San Antonio, June 13 “So ya … thought ya … might like to … go to the show!” They did indeed. Single mothers and their teenage sons, gang members with boxer shorts hanging out of their droopy drawers like fanny packs. Couples galore — old and young. September grayhairs accompanied by May nubiles.…
America Gone Awry
Philip Roth’s strength as a novelist, Tom Grimes says,
is that he never writes as if he’s finally reached a point
of permanent self-definition. He’s always searching for
that definition, as a writer, as a Jew, and now, through
the aging, reclusive Nathan Zuckerman, as an
…
Welcome to Texasland
Bob Bullock’s final monument to himself, the Texas
State History Museum, won’t have many historical
documents, but it promises to be entertaining.
Video Reviews
(“Video Reviews” wishes to thank Encore Movies & Music, I Luv Video, Vulcan Video, and Waterloo Video for their help in providing videos, laser discs, and DVDs.)DOUBLE INDEMNITY D: Billy Wilder (1944); with Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Porter Hall.THE BLUE DAHLIA D: George Marshall (1946); with Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, William Bendix,…
Postscripts
Upcoming literary events in Austin.
Coach’s Corner
Coach, on vacation in Cozumel, is having a little
trouble keeping up with sports, but his cap’s off to
those gutty Pacers!
As Big As Texas
As Big As Texas Another theatre in Austin? Don’t we already have something like one theatre seat per Travis County resident already? Well, it may seem that way sometimes (though assuredly not on The Phantom Menace’s opening night), but even with last year’s spate of cinema openings and groundbreakings, Austin’s newest theatrical outlay promises to…
TV Eye
Iron Chef, the addictive and absorbing Japanese show
which presents cooking as a sports event, comes to
Manhattan with Iron Chef NY Battle, which pits
Japanese chef Masaharu Morimoto against American
Bobby Flay.
Book Reviews
Darkest Fear: A Myron Bolitar Novel by Harlan Coben Delacorte Press, 336 pp., $23.95 Harlan Coben takes his sweet time revealing exactly what is the darkest fear. And the mounting suspense renders the inevitable moment of revelation that much more chilling in this seventh installment of the series featuring Myron “I’m not a detective” Bolitar.…
Day Trips
Barry’s Coffee Company in Temple provides fuel for
the discerning I-35 driver in the form of real coffee,
desserts, and the best chicken salad sandwiches in
the universe.
Killing the Messenger
Seven years after the ATF’s raid on the Branch
Davidians’ Waco compound, the government
continues to blame the media for tipping off the
Davidians about the raid while hiding information that
tells a different story.
The Girl Next Door
The Girl Next Door 1999, NR, 84 min. Directed by Christine Fugate, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Stacy Baker just wanted to please. So it was no surprise that the sweet thang from Tulsa, Oklahoma, turned out like she did — a housewife trapped in a bad marriage to her high school…
Book Reviews
Both Sides Now by Ruth Pennebaker Henry Holt and Company, 202 pp., $16.95 In Both Sides Now, her third novel for young adults, Austin author and Dallas Morning News columnist Ruth Pennebaker writes with the same sensitivity that marked her previous novels. With a realism informed by personal experience, Both Sides Now explores the subject…
About AIDS
Denying the denialists, part two.
Chronology of the Raid
Chronology of the Raid Saturday, February 27, 1993 Morning: Waco-Tribune Herald reporter Tommy Witherspoon’s informant tells him that the raid has been changed to Sunday. Agents at Fort Hood continue training; are told that the raid has been moved up to Sunday. 3pm: Witherspoon and KWTX-TV cameraman Dan Mulloney play racquetball and discuss the change…
Fantasia
Fantasia 2000, G, 75 min. Directed by Pixote Hunt, Hendel Butoy, Eric Goldberg, James Algar, Francis Glebas, Gaetan Brizzi, Paul Brizzi, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Steve Martin, Bette Midler, James Earl Jones, Angela Lansbury, Quincy Jones, Penn & Teller. Disney would have us believe that their new Fantasia/2000 is the greatest thing…
Book Reviews
Fresh Air Fiend: Travel Writings by Paul Theroux Houghton Mifflin, 480 pp., $27 The New York Times has called Paul Theroux “the grouchy traveler,” and I can see why. Theroux, who has written 23 novels (including The Mosquito Coast) and postings from locales as exotic as Malawi and as familiar as New England, has always…
Food-o-File
Virginia B. Wood explains why Texas Folklife Resources’ new exhibit “The Welcoming Table” is worth a visit and updates readers on local culinary news.
Life After Waco
Life After Waco In the seven years since the 1993 bloodbath at Mount Carmel, TV cameramen Jim Peeler and Dan Mulloney have been left to fend for themselves in the court of public opinion. And they have not fared well. Peeler, a slightly built man with prematurely gray hair and an abundance of nervous energy,…
Orphans
Orphans 1999, NR, 101 min. Directed by Peter Mullan, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Alex Norton, Frank Gallagher, Stephen Mccole, Rosemarie Stevenson, Douglas Henshall, Gary Lewis. I’m sure there are plenty of good things to say about Scotland, but you’d never know it from films such as Trainspotting and this 1997 outing by…
Book Reviews
Bee Season: A Novel by Myla Goldberg Doubleday, 274 pp., $22.95 At the beginning of Bee Season, the Naumanns are an ordinary family. Saul, the father, is a Jewish cantor who spends a lot of time in his study and considers himself to be a respected head of the household; Miriam, the mother, is a…
Mini-Review
Sunflower Restaurant 8557 Research, Ste. 146, 339-7860 Daily, 10am-10pm One problem that diners consistently encounter with ethnic restaurants is the uniformity of the menu. From a cuisine that might have literally thousands of different dishes, we see the same items in each menu category time and time again, no matter which restaurant you go into.…
Waco’s Drug Buster
Waco’s Drug Buster Cal Luedke liked publicity. Just four days before the ATF raid on Mount Carmel, Luedke had taken Dan Mulloney and John McLemore on a drug raid in McGregor, a small town 20 miles southwest of Waco. Mulloney says that Luedke, as head of the county’s drug task force, often invited reporters to…
Me, Myself & Irene
Me, Myself & Irene 2000, R, 117 min. Directed by Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Ezra Buzzington, Michael Bowman, Anthony Anderson, Richard Jenkins, Robert Forster, Chris Cooper, Renée Zellweger, Jim Carrey. The Farrelly Brothers — Providence, Rhode Island’s answer to global intellectual depreciation — have long been accused, pointedly…
Book Reviews
Time: Its Origin, Its Enigma, Its History by Alexander Waugh Carroll & Graf, 288 pp., $25 Where did the beginning begin? Where shall it all wind up? Alexander Waugh is delighted to provide the answers to these and other queries in this engaging and insightful probe into all things time-related. Broken into chapters headed “Initium-Beginning,”…
Mini-Review
The Cake Mix Doctor by Anne Byrn Workman Publishing, 454 pp., $25.95 hardback; $14.95 paper Thank God for Mom! She taught me a hard lesson after I completed French culinary school. I had the audacity to tell her the right way to cook something — about three times. She simply turned to me and said,…
Naked City
Ken Martin sells In Fact to Jo Clifton; Log Cabin Republicans set up a “booth in exile” at Republican convention; AustinAtWork.com debuts; Whole Foods closes its Web site.
Boys and Girls
Boys and Girls 2000, PG-13, 100 min. Directed by Robert Iscove, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Amanda Detmer, Heather Donahue, Jason Biggs, Claire Forlani, Freddie Prinze Jr.. There’s a reason why we consistently fork over seven bucks for a love story. Most of the people populating the planet are either looking for love,…
Book Reviews
The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton Pantheon, 320 pp., $22.95 Have problems? Sure, we all do. And in this twisted, crazy world, to whom do we turn for advice? Oprah? Angels? How about the likes of Schopenhauer and Seneca? According to Alain de Botton, director of the Graduate Philosophy Program at London University…
Teaching the Teacher
Rosemary Vines has been shaking her booty with her
three-year-old students at St. George�s Episcopal for
30 years.
Naked City
Lloyd Doggett�s 40 acres stand in the path of a
proposed extension to the Bull Creek Greenbelt, but
he�d rather develop the property into houses than sell
the land to the city.
Chicken Run
Absolutely delightful filmmaking, chock-full of gorgeously goofy animation and a storyline that cleverly echoes everything from Stalag 17 to Cool Hand Luke. – Marc Savlov
Off the Bookshelf
The Crime of Sheila McGough by Janet Malcolm Vintage, 161 pp., $12 (paper) Sheila McGough, Malcolm writes, was “a woman of almost preternatural honesty and decency.” Nevertheless, in 1990, a jury found her guilty of collaboration in a scam run by one of her clients, Bob Bailes. McGough became implicated in Bailes’ crimes when she…
The Rules Have Changed
Two veteran music writers conduct an e-mail
correspondence in order to look at new ways of
reinventing the music industry.
Naked City
T.J. Higginbotham, a landowner in Hays County, wants
to drill a well to produce 50 million gallons a year,
reportedly to serve two proposed subdivisions in
Dripping Springs, but Barton Springs-Edwards Aquifer
Conservation District board members aren�t biting.
