Disney’s the Kid
Disney’s the Kid 2000, PG, 104 min. Directed by John Turtletaub, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Bruce Willis, Spencer Breslin, Lily Tomlin, Emily Mortimer, Chi McBride, Jean Smart. What do you get when you take the three ingredients that made The Sixth Sense so winning Bruce Willis, a kid old beyond his…
The Breakfast Club
The Breakfast Club 1985, R, 97 min. Directed by John Hughes, Starring Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy. Before lapsing into the land of the insipid, where the reigning presumption is that in order to make films which speak to young people everything must be dumbed way down, John Hughes…
Sunset Boulevard
Wilder’s cynical edge is finely honed in this darkly amusing satire of the Dream Factory.
Lilith
Lilith NR, 115 min. Directed by Robert Rossen, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Rene Auberjonois, Gene Hackman, Anne Meacham, Jessica Walter, Kim Hunter, Peter Fonda, Jean Seberg, Warren Beatty. In his last film, writer-director Robert Rossen (The Hustler, All the King’s Men, Body and Soul) meant to shock viewers with its portrait of…
The Last Emperor
The Last Emperor 1987, PG-13, 160 min. Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Peter O’Toole, Joan Chen, John Lone. This historical drama is inspired by the life story of Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, whose rule was governed by the vagaries of history. Crowned at the age of…
Total Recall
This futuristic science fiction is based on a Philip K. Dick short story, and features award-winning special effects (and, no, we don’t mean Ah-nuld).
The Untouchables
The Untouchables 1987, R, 119 min. Directed by Brian De Palma, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Charles Martin Smith, Andy Garcia, Robert De Niro, Patricia Clarkson. Kevin Costner is at his best here as crime-fighter Eliot Ness in this David Mamet-authored film audaciously directed by De Palma. The film’s…
Mini-Review
A Spoonful of Ginger: Irresistible, Health-Giving Recipes From Asian Kitchens by Nina Simonds Knopf, 320 pp., $30 Ever wondered why chicken soup is considered the cure-all for the under-the-weather blues? Or why fresh ginger settles the stomach? In A Spoonful of Ginger, authored by Nina Simonds, you’ll find the answers. Simonds, through experience, interviews, and…
Record Reviews
Michael O’ConnorGreen and Blue (Bare Knuckle) If there’s a downside to the recent revolution in recording technology, it’s that anyone who wants to, with any amount of talent, can make a CD. While Michael O’Connor shows some potential as a musician and singer-songwriter, by the end of Green and Blue it’s obvious that he’s still…
Record Reviews
The Privateers Austin’s instrumental curios the Friends of Dean Martinez need to make room at the end of the bar: The Privateers are here, and they’re here to play. Surfing a nostalgic Southwest sound from the Fifties, the local quartet is more Santo & Johnny than Sir Finks, but their gliding guitars and glistening rhythm…
Making Waves
The snarl of traffic, the human genome, the rising price of housing — it seems like everyone’s talking about how things have changed. Inside his Austin office, which smells of cigarette smoke and well-worn leather, Bill Wittliff is talking about how some things don’t. Grief. Love. Heartache. “I’m utterly convinced that pain is the same…
Snot Flap Manifesto
Snot-nosed Chronicle commentator Wayne Alan Brenner comments on the nature of mucous and somehow relates all this to one the great deities of the Roman Age. Okay!
Record Reviews
Dickie Lee ErwinThere’s a Movie Goin’ On Dickie Lee Erwin writes tough songs that are sentimental at the same time. Like lots of other country songwriters, many of Erwin’s songs are about breaking up; unlike many of his contemporaries, however, Erwin realizes that the important part is in picking up and moving on. With help…
Record Reviews
Erik the ButcherHappy Land (Animatronic) Erik The Butcher, former Golden Arm Trio component and current Tosca member, is a bass player who selfishly decided to record Happy Land. Selfish in the benign sense that he grabbed some friends and booked some studio time to put to tape some originals and standards. Except in ETB’s case,…
The Life of the Party
Marc Savlov talks with San Francisco-based director Greg Harrison about his new film, Groove and the burgeoning rave movement it depicts.
I Am the Jellyfish That Walks Upon the Land
The Mother of all pop bands
Record Reviews
Phil PritchettHeritage Way (Spitune) Note to Phil Pritchett: Get rid of the recorder. Take it and break it over your knee. It lends a weird maritime/Irish Spring commercial feel to your songs. Aside from the annoying presence of that instrument, local singer-songwriter Pritchett’s fourth CD is personal, heartfelt, and intimate. Playing nearly all the instruments…
Record Reviews
Explosions in the SkyHow Strange, Innocence (Sad Loud America) With the exquisite instrumental music of Explosions in the Sky highlighting the last KVRX compilation, Reburbished Robots, it comes as no surprise that the local quartet’s debut, How Strange, Innocence, settles easily into long stretches on your stereo. The songs and instrumental interactions are both remarkably…
Short Cuts
Upcoming events and workshops of interest to the Austin film community.
Groove
Groove 2000, R, 86 min. Directed by Greg Harrison, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Lola Glaudini, Hamish Linklater, Steve Van Wormer, Rachel True, Vince Riverside, Mackenzie Firgens, Denny Kirkwood, Nick Offerman, Ari Gold. At the risk of sounding like a complete blurb whore, let me start off by saying that if you’re planning…
Orange Mothers Reviewed
Orange MothersBig Blue House (Jim Thunder) Three songs about birds. Three? Plus cheery paeans to childhood, the old world, and various inanimate objects, all sung wistfully and played simply on drum, guitar, bass and cheesy keyboard. Devoid of the heavy reverb and drone that the band once hid behind, Big Blue House finds the Mothers…
Record Reviews
Joe ElyLive at Antone’s (Rounder) Is it true the only Joe Ely CDs worth owning are the live ones? Don’t run out and hock that well-worn copy of Honky Tonk Masquerade, but if you’re one of the many who never added Ely’s 1998 exit bow for MCA, Twistin’ in the Wind, to your collection, just…
Record Reviews
Foot FootPost Normal Given the paucity of affordable housing in Austin proper, it’s highly likely that more and more bands will be popping up in small towns ringing the metro area. Foot Foot is one such band that eschewed the Live Music Capital of Austin for the Sausage Capital of Elgin. Nevertheless, Foot Foot’s sound…
Video Reviews
Detroit Rock CityD: Adam Rifkin (1999); with Edward Furlong, Giuseppe Andrews, Sam Huntington, James DeBello. For a while, it seemed that dumb teen comedies were an endangered species. Considering the popular (but unrealistic) John Hughes efforts of the Eighties, the film industry avoided movies that depicted kids in anything but a mature, sympathetic light. Thanks…
The Patriot
The Patriot 2000, R, 164 min. Directed by Roland Emmerich, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Adam Baldwin, Donol Logue, Lisa Brenner, Tom Wilkinson, Rene Auberjonois, Tcheky Karyo, Chris Cooper, Jason Isaacs, Joely Richardson, Heath Ledger, Mel Gibson. Inexplicably, “we, the people” have never been big fans of movies about the American Revolutionary War.…
Songs in the Key of Ethan
The key to the Orange Mothers is the songs, and nobody can explain them like they can. Thus, the Chronicle thought it would be a good idea to sit them down and go over selected works from Plane Crash City and Big Blue House to discover just what they hell they were thinking. Our interviewer…
Record Reviews
The Shakin’ ApostlesToo Hot for Snakes (Big Ten) Because Too Hot for Snakes was recorded live at the Continental Club, the 15 tracks crackle and pop with the flavor and fun of an evening at the South Congress nightspot. And because Freddy “Steady” Krc has drummed for country stalwarts like Jerry Jeff Walker as well…
Record Reviews
Mazinga Phaserdissatisfied customers of hallucination (IDOL) With a title like dissatisfied customers of hallucination, odds are the music within is something approaching psychedelic. No false advertising here; the latest from Metroplex collective Mazinga Phaser is an hourlong cosmic ride. The quintet’s fourth album opens with the spurned-love techno-lament “Time Is Its Own Revenge,” with the…
Video Reviews
Lucy Gallant D: Robert Parrish (1955); with Jane Wyman, Charlton Heston, Claire Trevor, Thelma Ritter, William Demarest, Allan Shivers, Edith Head. Lucy Gallant is a most unusual movie for its time, in that it portrays a success-driven woman who is not a bitch. Being a bitch was the price to pay in the Fifties if…
Kikujiro
Kikujiro 1999, NR, 116 min. Directed by Takeshi Kitano, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Takeshi “Beat” Kitano, Great Giidayu, Beat Kiyoshi, Yuko Daike, Kayoko Kishimoto, Yusuke Sekiguchi, Rakkyo Ide. This Japanese movie by popular star Takeshi “Beat” Kitano is a sweet and amusing picaresque tale of the physical and emotional journey of an…
Second Helpings: Chinese Restaurants
Chronicle writer Greg Beets surveys Austin’s Chinese restaurants.
Indian Summer
Ethan Azarian and company may have been nothing more than flies in the ointment of the still-great (some say) Austin Music Scene when they arrived in town from Vermont around the turn of the decade, but they were big flies. And like many flies before them, they loved stirring up shit. As the Hollywood Indians,…
Record Reviews
Hank ThompsonSeven Decades (Hightone) The cover of Seven Decades finds the Dallas honky-tonk elder statesman sporting a goatee and fondling a huge Gibson electric guitar, complete with sunburst finish, ornate pearl inlay on the neck and headstock, and gold hardware. The material on the CD is as old-fashioned and elegant as Thompson’s custom guitar, with…
Record Reviews
Lucid Dementia Song for Newborn Ten-plus years on the periphery of the Texas goth underground netted me a lifetime’s worth of faded-to-gray Alien Sex Fiend concert T’s and enough Nightmare Before Christmas paraphernalia to open my own chain of Hot Topic clones, but the dreary fact of the matter is the last time I was…
Video Reviews
ROADBLOCK D: Harold Daniels (1951); with Charles McGraw, Joan Dixon, Louis Jean Heydt, Milburn Stone. Roadblock opens with a nifty switcheroo: A man witnesses a murder and is taken hostage by the killer. Forced to drive, the man confesses to having a large stash of money squirreled away. After driving to the hiding place, the…
Southpaw
Southpaw 1999, NR, 77 min. Directed by Liam Mcgrath, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Not reviewed at press time. This rags-to-riches narrative chronicles the true account of Irishman Francis Barrett, a light welterweight from Galway who, without training facilities or financial backing, managed to qualify for the Olympic Games in Atlanta in…
Page Two
The physical swoosh of opening the car door after work as the heat pours out. Getting in to the almost sauna-like conditions of the car with the steering wheel almost too hot to touch. Sitting there, letting the heat sink into your bones. There is something clean about the overwhelming power of the sun. When…
Before They Get Stupid
Grand Champeen eschew Minneapolis for Austin even though they just want to rawk!
Record Reviews
Steve JamesBoom Chang (Burnside) Boom Chang is the fourth album by Austin acoustic blues whiz Steve James, and his first for Portland’s Burnside imprint. The last, unmarked, 15th track is symbolic: a simple, but poignant solo acoustic minimasterpiece, the Dobro sounding like Bach’s lost New Orleans Variations for Guitar. But James has more than just…
Prepare for Departure
Mueller Airport Redevelopment Project Inches Toward Council Approval
TV Eye
A tribute to Nancy Marchand, matriarch of The Sopranos, who died of lung cancer on June 18.
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle 2000, PG, 88 min. Directed by Des Mcanuff, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring John Goodman, Whoopi Goldberg, Janeane Garofalo, Piper Perabo, Kenan Thompson, Kel Mitchell, Randy Quaid, Robert De Niro, Jason Alexander, Rene Russo. Rocket J. Squirrel (voiced by June Foray) and Bullwinkle J. Moose (voiced by…
Public Notice
“Public Notice” notes a few great ways to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday weekend by helping a good cause.
Dancing About Architecture
Carrie Clark quits Sixteen Deluxe; Sire Records is in a muddle.
Record Reviews
Herb SteinerTexas Dance Time! (Push Pull Guy) For those who may not recognize his name, Herb Steiner has had a long and storied career as a steel guitarist. Beginning in the 1960s, he worked with Linda Ronstadt as one of the Stone Ponies, then moved on to play with the likes of Michael Martin Murphy,…
The Lay of the Land: Mueller Reuse and Redevelopment Master Plan
The latest version of the RMMA Redevelopment and Reuse Master Plan’s “Regulating Plan” — the zoning map, in effect — contains the same sorts of buildings as in past drafts, but in different proportions and orientations. Here’s a guide to the key features of ROMA’s plan, and some local and far flung examples of what…
Getting the Joke
Comedy isn’t the funny business it was in the Eighties, what with fewer clubs and audiences burned out by comedy on cable and hack comics. Seven Austin comics discuss the current state of stand-up in a round-table discussion.
The Perfect Storm
The Perfect Storm 2000, PG-13, 129 min. Directed by Wolfgang Petersen, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Bob Gunton, John Hawkes, Allen Payne, John C. Reilly, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, William Fichtner, Karen Allen, Diane Lane, Mark Wahlberg, George Clooney. Summer has now officially arrived, and with it, the first real summer movie of the…
Mr. Smarty Pants
Yellow is the first color seen by our eyes’ color rods.Burns Night, January 25, is when Scotland celebrates the birth of poet Robert Burns. A typical Burns Night meal would include cock-a-leekie, haggis with tatties-an’-neeps, roastit beef, tipsy laird, and Dunlop cheese.About 40% of the U.S. coastal wetlands are in Louisiana. About 16,000 acres are…
Record Reviews
Sixteen DeluxeVision Take Me Make Me Never Forsake Me (Sugar Fix) Sixteen Deluxe’s tracer-tinged vision told them to build a studio with their Warner Bros. severance pay, and this huge, squealing, sprawling, schizophrenic album is the payoff. It’s only 45 minutes long, but their third LP is so tightly packed with sound, sometimes it seems…
Record Reviews
Ray PricePrisoner of Love (Justice) Naysayers and country music purists have long pointed to Ray Price, along with Eddy Arnold and Chet Atkins, as being partly responsible for the “countrypolitan” trend that started in the early Sixties and led to the current miserably watered-down state of Nashville music. There may be something to that, but…
Mr. Mom
More men are taking time off from work to enjoy fatherhood
Articulations
A new performance space in South Austin: the Bad Dog Comedy Theater
After a Fashion
ON THE CHIC SOCO STRIP Let’s just get on with the breathless prose, shall we? It was a sizzling start to the summer social season and a harbinger of future glory for Austin fashion as 300 fashionistas (and their admirers) gathered at Gallery SoCo on S. Congress. Gallery owner Jason Siegal lent his stylish gallery…
Record Reviews
Deep Sombreros¿Quien Es el Pinche Hombre? (Southern Love) The Deep Sombreros are the kind of band you go to if you’re throwing a house party and don’t want to violate the noise ordinance. Their pick-up blend of Old Country folk and New World irony is some of the most playful and danceable acoustic music in…
Record Reviews
Bad LiversThe Ridgetop Sessions (Lumpydisc) If the Bad Livers have effectively called it quits, as Mark Rubin recently claimed is the case, then The Ridgetop Sessions is a quiet, sagacious way to go out — particularly coming on the heels of their previous release, the loud, electric Blood and Mood. Recorded almost entirely over the…
Naked City
City Council will decide whether to pay money for hotel venture; Pflugerville is considering building an airport; Jerry Weissberg resigns as CEO from ibooks.com; City Council to decide whether civilians or police should handle junk car enforcement.
Exhibitionism
In the profoundly beautiful world of Blue Pearl, the third installment of her scaffold trilogy, choreographer Sally Jacques gave us an extended collaborative offering of movement, sound, and light and more, a heart-rending and joyous affirmation of life.
Coach’s Corner
The mid-summer drought in traditional sports is on (the Olympics don’t count). Also, Monday Night Football will try not to suck so bad; Mike Tyson’s a bore, and Sampras and Agassi may be getting too old.
Record Reviews
Dynamite HackSuperfast (Woppitzer/Universal) On the back CD tray of Dynamite Hack’s full-length debut, the Bates Motel neon sign stands out in the collage of behind-the-scenes polaroids. Fitting, given this local quartet’s Green Day ethos — snotty, fast, and attitudinal. The now-defunct home of stinky punk rock has since been turned into just another Sixth Street…
Record Reviews
Brobdingnagian BardsGullible’s Travels (Mage) The Bards’ first local album, Marked by Great Size, was released only last fall, and the wordplay between the album name and band name was fair warning that there’s a goodly amount of whimsy within. That’s even more the case with their late-spring second release, teasingly titled Gullible’s Travels. Bards Marc…
Naked City
In a marathon Planning Commission meeting, three neighborhood plans get approved while one, the controversial East Cesar Chavez plan, gets postponed after a lengthy and heated discussion.
Exhibitionism
In 1922, George Kaufman and Marc Connelly’s Merton of the Movies was a pointed satire of Hollywood, but 80 years have softened the play’s sharpness, so the Different Stages revival is little more than nice.
Day Trips
The San Antonio Zoo takes visitors on a safari around the world to visit rare Sumatran tigers, African white rhinos, and elusive snakes from the Mexican jungles. The screams of a distant parrot mixes with the laughter of a group of monkeys as the cacophony bounces off the limestone cliffs to settle into the cool…
Record Reviews
Li’l Cap’n Travis(Sleepy Bunny) Tempting to think, “Hey, this sucks.” Li’l Cap’n Travis is sloppy and crummy sounding, but therein lies not only the charm, but the near-genius of the band and its debut. In much the same way that the Ramones turned the bar chord into an entire genre, Li’l Cap’n Travis takes a…
Record Reviews
SlobberboneEverything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today (New West) Slobberbone’s last release, Barrel Chested, admonished listeners to “remember it’s rock.” It was an irritated attempt by the band to jump off the alt.country bandwagon and pre-empt writers from throwing them back on. So, yeah, Denton’s Slobberbone is a rock band — a trailer-park one…
Naked City
TDHCA board chair Michael E. Jones says he’s found a way to keep indicted board member Florita Bell Griffin from participating in official business; the fate of millions of dollars in federal tax-credit housing subsidies depends on whether Griffin agrees to recuse herself.
Exhibitionism
Sitting through the UT Opera Theatre production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company is not unlike having a dinner party for people who are pleasant enough if you can get past their idiosyncrasies, such as a tendency to make noises at the end of their questions: “What would we do without you-ooh?”
About AIDS
Among those disbelievers who claim that HIV is harmless, some will at least acknowledge that there is indeed such a thing as AIDS. Their contention, originally formulated by Peter Duesberg, is that the massive immune destruction characterizing AIDS is actually caused by recreational drug use or by taking the anti-HIV therapies. (An interesting subtext, since…
Record Reviews
Jean CaffeineIdée Fixe (Joe) Somewhere between Shawn Colvin’s saltier side and Patti Smith with a sense of humor, Jean Caffeine has found herself a place on the bench. Her credentials shouldn’t have to be trotted out, though it never hurts to point out that her days as a drummer in New York armed her with…
Record Reviews
Nathan HamiltonTuscola (Steppin’ Stone) The rural Texas that Nathan Hamilton roams and sings of is filled with ghosts and melodies, a landscape and history that turn to edgy, serious poetry when filtered through the razor-keen eye and mind of the young singer-songwriter. Tuscola, the solo debut from the former leader of Austin roots-rockers the Sharecroppers,…
Naked City
The Texas Funeral Services Commisison apparently has dismissed a fine against the funeral home that botched the embalming of slain TV anchorman Tres Hood.
Postscripts
The rest of the world may be pondering new publishing technologies like e-books and on-demand printing, but Books editor Clay Smith is still stuck on paperbacks. LSU Press’ Voices of the South series is one reason why.
Collective Sole
City Grill hasn’t lost its stride, Barbara Chisholm writes. In its early days, it was one of a few spots in Austin that offered good dining in a sophisticated atmosphere. These days, the competition in that arena is considerably more intense, and yet it remains popular and perfectly in style. It’s not an easy trick.
Record Reviews
Tish HinojosaSign of Truth (Rounder) It’s been four long years since Tish Hinojosa’s last collection of new music. With that in mind, Signs of Truth should be labeled a triumphant return. The local singer-songwriter has always been one to combine seemingly disparate influences into an attractive whole, and those character traits are refreshingly displayed throughout…
Record Reviews
SubsetOverpass (Post-Parlo) In today’s culture of contrition-as-entertainment, it’s a challenge to walk the line between earnest introspection and hypersensitive whining. The collegiate pop world in particular is clogged with way too many artists trying to paint average adolescent traumas as modern-day Guernicas, arousing incredulity instead of sympathy. To their credit, Subset resists the temptation to…
Naked City
In the ongoing trial in Waco, the Branch Davidians� attorney is arguing that the FBI was too quick to resort to massive weaponry during its siege on the Davidians� compound, endangering the lives of women and children inside.
An Immense World of Delight
It used to be a commonplace of moralists that man was the only creature in the animal kingdom to slaughter his own kind. But as Chronicle writer Roger Gathman points out, kind is slaughtered by kind routinely among ants, salamanders, and, as any child can tell you, guppies. The golden rule, in nature, is not…
Food-o-File
Virginia B.Wood doles out some needed advice about how to capture the best Hill Country peaches and updates readers on the local culinary news.
Record Reviews
Hermanos TreviñoConjunto con Padres (Half Breed) There’s really only one good reason to make music — love. Love of music, of life, of a woman, or of family. In the case of Geronimo Treviño III, traces of all of those have made for one hell of a conjunto album. Treviño is normally a San Antonio…
Record Reviews
StickponySmiling Into Nowhere “Year after year they tell you you can never go home,” and yet each day is “another step closer to where you’re from.” That’s the dilemma Stickpony confronts on its debut Smiling Into Nowhere, 11 stomps, shuffles, and waltzes that should be required last-call listening for anyone who thinks the safest place…
Council Watch
The council approves on first reading an East Austin apartment complex 500 feet away from a plant where toxic chemicals are stored, but some council members are promising to scuttle the project if it comes back for final approval.
Off the Bookshelf
Dead Man’s Bay A Case for Barrett Raines by Darryl Wimberley Minotaur Books, 256 pp., $22.95Leavin’ Trunk Blues A Nick Travers Mystery by Ace Atkins Minotaur Books, 256 pp., $22.95 It’s a pleasant synchronicity that the month of July brings brilliant second novels from two of America’s most promising new mystery writers — Austinite Darryl…
Mini-Review
Cipollina 1213 West Lynn, 477-1237 Daily, 7:30am-8:00pm It used to be that Austin foodies only dreamed about gourmet take-out places such as Zabar’s and Dean & Deluca. Until a few years ago, take-out meant commercial fast food, which ultimately translated to “unhealthy, fattening, and fried.” However, with the quiet appearance of homey cafes such as…
Record Reviews
The Gospel According to Austin, TX(Kick Butt Gospel/107.1 KGSR) If The Gospel According to Austin, TX is any indication, the Texas State Capitol is first and foremost Catholic. In its laudable, all-inclusive musical nature, this 16-track collection of local acts singing the praises of Christianity is blind to race, creed, and color. In terms of…
Record Reviews
KapsizeThe Gift (Post-Parlo) Quiet befuddlement is the most immediately identifiable reaction to the songs on The Gift, so named because that was the original intended purpose for this record, to be sent out as a Christmas gift for a select few close friends and family. Stifling a chuckle, one can only regret that this CD…
Media Clips
Ken Martin sells In Fact Daily to reporter Jo Clifton to focus on his monthly magazine, The Good Life.
