Cover Story
SXSW Film 06
March 10-18
March 6 Primary Report
Eckhardt dethrones Sonleitner, fundamentalists duke it out with public education, and more
Oops!
In last week’s “Primary Election Notes,” the [Austin] Central Labor Union and the Austin Central Labor Council were both listed as endorsers of Margaret Gomez in the Precinct 4 county commissioner race. Only Austin Central Labor Council should have been listed, however, as there is no [Austin] Central Labor Union. The Chronicle regrets the error.
SXSW Records
Gris GrisFor the Season (Birdman) Primarily recorded in a cabin near the tiny Central Texas town of Kosse, the second album from Gris Gris may be the most eclectic cut-and-paste psychedelic freak-out committed to tape in the Lone Star state since the Red Krayola cut The Parable of Arable Land back in 1967. Led by…
The Searcher
Wim Wenders on his sense of the right direction
Hey Sailor! You Here for a Conference?
The Gay Place polls Austin�s GLBTeratti, who welcomes you with open arms and tells you what�s hot about our town
Improvising Every Second
The secret history of Austin Circle of Theaters director Latifah Taormina, from Second City to the Committee and beyond
Soccer Watch
F�tbol fun from near and far-flung places
Who Killed Porter Middle School?
The evidence points to George W. Bush. But he wasn’t alone.
The Home School
Austin’s latest class of cinematic talent – represented by six anticipated films at SXSW – is going places, but they aren’t leaving anytime soon.
Hello Mother, Hello Father
’51 Birch Street’
Ultraviolet
In an opening voiceover, a superhuman killing machine warns, “I was born into a world you may not understand.” Boy hidee, she ain’t kidding, and fully 88 minutes later, that world is still pocked with incomprehensibility.
‘Where Are They Now?’
Cyndi Williams is living a playwright’s dream with her play ‘Where Are They Now?,’ which is being staged for the third time in 15 months
Food-o-File
A new little lady in the Big Apple, a new gelato shop, and a new chef in town: all in a week’s food news
AISD Attendance Zones
AISD says its decision to close Porter is the result of demographics it can’t control. It can, however, control boundaries, and the way the lines fall suggests political pressure can also be a factor. PORTER: When Porter ceases to be a neighborhood school, its attendance zone will be divided between three other schools, each of…
Ana Sisnett
Celebrated author, visual artist, and community activist / volunteer diagnosed with ovarian cancer
Are You There, God?
‘Eve and the Fire Horse’
The Shaggy Dog
There are precious few surprises here, but this breezy remake starring Tim Allen is a painless affair.
‘Greyhounds and Other Virtual Ways to Travel’
In ‘Greyhounds and Other Virtual Ways to Travel,’ choreographer Ellen Bartel creates three dances exploring the idea of how we travel without moving
I Am the Resurrection
Ignore Jim Morrison – do not cancel your subscription to the resurrection, because Roky Erickson is Lazarus unbound.
A Science Experiment
AISD’s Young Women’s Leadership Academy aims to point more girls toward science
Pablo Veliz
‘La Tragedia de Macario’
TransAmericans Behind Bars
‘Cruel and Unusual’
The Hills Have Eyes
This remake ratchets up the gore while subtly rewiring some of the characters, but it never manages the nagging subtexts Craven so handily injected into the original horror film.
Arts Review
Watching Second Youth Family Theatre’s visually delicious theatrical confection ‘Gary Grinkle’s Battles With Wrinkles and Other Troubles in Mudgeville’ is like seeing a children’s book come to life
SXSW Records
Belle & SebastianThe Life Pursuit (Matador) The ninth full-length from Belle & Sebastian is innovative and not. All the usual elements appear on this particular Life Pursuit: precisely layered folksy twee-pop, impeccable harmonies, and clean melodic lines. The brilliance resides in the vivid storytelling. “Act of the Apostle” finds singer-songwriter Stuart Murdoch capturing the smallest…
Return of the White Woman Dem
After 4-year drought, Donna Howard’s swearing in signals Legislative return of rare species in Texas politics
Mike Henry and Kyle Fuller
‘Slam Planet: War of the Words’
Animal Magnetism
‘Lifelike’
Failure to Launch
This date movie is dude-friendly by design, but all its attention to hairdos and cute outfits does not make up for its lack of romantic spark.
Arts Review
Artist Shawn Camp’s latest works are topographical and aerial in theme, emphasizing swirls of grasslands and rivulets, clouds and stars
SXSW Records
The M’s Future Women (Polyvinyl) You want buzz? The M’s have two types. The fuzzy guitar endemic to the source material of this five-year-old Chicago band: vintage Britpop, psychedelica, garage rock, etc. And an industry hum earning the quartet gigs with Broken Social Scene, Spoon, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Wilco. Jonathan Demme asking to shoot…
McMansion or Not?
The Austin Chronicle‘s Am I McMansion or Not? Contest: Win a Cosmetic Shade Tree
Frank Bustoz and Ryan Polomski
‘State vs. Reed’
Open Up – It’s the Filmmakers!
Kirby Dick raids the MPAA
Gay Sex in the 70s
Little more than a series of interviews with those who survived those times, interspersed with titillating soft-core clips from the archives, this documentary offers a sympathetic perspective of the post-Stonewall sexual liberation years in New York City.
Culture Flash!
American Fiesta makes the finals of a national new play award, the Rude Mechs get their Gun from Creative Capital, and Katalin Hausel lands the Umlauf Prize
SXSW Records
IrvingDeath in the Garden, Blood on the Flowers (Eenie Meenie) Like the best of their Paisley Underground forebears two decades ago, L.A. psych-pop quintet Irving finds a harmonious balance between the past and present on their second LP. The band’s fealty to both original Sixties psychedelia and Eighties neo-psychedelia as epitomized by the Church and…
Naked City
Headlines and Happenings from Austin and Beyond
Intelligent Briefing
In ‘Nobelity,’ nine Nobel laureates offer straight talk on the planet’s future
The Recognizables
One night, one of a kind
The Libertine
Johnny Depp runs away with the show in this murkily filmed picture, cackling all the while and defiling beauty in all its forms as the exceedingly decadent Earl of Rochester.
Newsprint
Also around Austin …
SXSW Records
Steve Wynn & The Miracle 3…Tick…Tick…Tick (Down There) Steve Wynn is now 46 years old, but don’t peg him as middle aged. …Tick…Tick…Tick is the third installment in what the former Californian, now New Yorker dubs his “Desert Trilogy” (all were recorded in Tucson), and it’s a near perfect capper proving that although the clock…
New Medicare Plan Infringes on Sovereignty, States Say
Attorney General Abbott leads states’ legal charge
New Territory
Documentarian James Marsh’s first narrative effort, ‘The King,’ is a dark one
Film News
The Sundance Channel and NetFlix make ‘Room’ for Kyle Henry
Why We Fight
Jarecki’s canny and somewhat overwhelming documentary paints a grim historical picture of war profiteering run amok.
Readings
In his debut novel, Dominic Smith describes Daguerre spending a year using a camera obscura to paint an exact replica of the view from his terrace
SXSW Records
James TalleyGot No Bread, No Milk, No Money, but We Sure Got a Lot of Love (Cimarron) James Talley’s name may not ring any bells, but in the olden days, the Nashville singer-songwriter was rootsy before the phrase was hip, a talent that saw him perform for President Jimmy Carter’s inauguration in 1977. His latest,…
Weed Watch
U.S. Supreme Court clears way for small sect of O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao Do Vegetal church to continue sacramental use of ayahuasca tea.
Kar Gawk
“I just drew the cars. Once I got ’em to a point where they looked right, I stopped and drew ’em again out of glass and steel.” So said the legendary King of Southern Kalifornia Kar Kulture, Ed “Big Daddy” Roth. If you were alive in the Sixties, then you’re already familiar with Roth, the…
TV Eye
The deconstructed Negro
Private
This Italian film presents a modern parable about a Palestinian family, whose home in the West Bank is abruptly taken over by Israeli soldiers.
Readings
Global-warming skeptics get served
SXSW Records
Beth OrtonComfort of Strangers (EMI) From the chilly confines of her debut, 1996’s Trailer Park, emerges an older, wiser, earthier version of Beth Orton on Comfort of Strangers. A collaboration with guitarist Jim O’Rourke and Portland singer-songwriter M. Ward, Strangers was recorded in two weeks and, rather than feeling rushed, has a stripped-down, rustic, and…
Taser International Bleeding Money
Taser gun maker’s profits drop 98% in 2005
Sound Checking for a Pulse, and Finding It
The rock docs in this year’s 24 Beats Per Second program rattle and hum with soul and revolt.
Panelism
SXSW Film 2006
Page Two: Aww, Canada …
At last, a magical confluence of ice hockey, Neil Young, and SXSW 2006
SXSW Records
Low Skies All the Love I Could Find (Flameshovel) There’s a lot of artistic mileage to be had in the bleary, early morning window between coming down and passing out. After the giddy rush of intoxication subsides, the various scourges of troubled minds re-emerge in aching relief, and that’s where a band like Low Skies…
Teacher Accused of Making Student Eat Soap
Parents say their 5-year-old was forced to ingest soap by a special ed teacher at Sims Elementary
Buzz Kill
How do you talk about a movie in which not much of anything happens? Very carefully. In fact, “not much of anything” adds up to a whole hell of a lot. The barebones of Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy go as such: Two guys, old friends, go camping in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains. They are Mark (played…
Embrace Your Wipe-Assness
Trolling SXSW Interactive 2006
After a Fashion
It’s hard out here for a Style Avatar, especially after all those DHOHs at the Oscars!
SXSW Records
VoxtrotMothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives EP (Cult Hero) Voxtrot believes in Mother Nature: familial love, horticulture, feline days, and lupine nights. In the realm of the Austin quintet, all paths cross, and on this second EP of popalicious hits, Ramesh Srivastava’s troupe provides hope and optimism through 17 minutes of glorious melody. “You have to…
New Pollution Rules for Coal-Crazed Texas
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality takes up two federal EPA air quality measures to hopefully reduce mercury and carbon dioxide pollution
What Hath Eagle Wrought?
After the smoke cleared, ‘The Whole Shootin’ Match’ helped give rise to the contemporary indie
Gettin’ Wiffy With It
The blogged, branded, and dooced at SXSW Interactive 2006
To Your Health
Is there a good and cheap way to judge the nutritional content of fruit?
SXSW Records
Mogwai Mr. Beast (Matador) Mogwai wanted to be the world’s loudest band in the late Nineties, but after folks left shows and clubs disinvited them, the mostly-instrumental Glaswegian quintet tempered their steel-forging, Marshall stack orchestra with a more nuanced approach in 2001’s Rock Action and ’03’s Happy Songs for Happy People. On their fifth LP,…
More Unemployment Benefits for Hurricane Evacuees
Thirteen-week unemployment aid extension for both Katrina and Rita evacuees
See What They Do to You
How Jonathan Demme and Neil Young made a film about a concert attended by spirits
Gay Place
The Gay Place gets all extended re-mix for SXSW, with interviews, chats, pics, blog entries, and more.
Good to Go
Taco Bell is for suckers. This town’s taquerias are for SXSWers.
The Common Law
Does McMansion Ordinance affect home remodels?
SXSW Records
Gogogo AirheartRats! Sing! Sing! (Gold Standard Laboratories) This is the sound of a basement recording studio overcome by friendship and debauchery. Buddies twiddling knobs and screeching into beat-up mics, guitars clanging and spurting to some random arrhythmia. San Diego fourpiece GoGoGo Airheart is old enough to know better. Their sixth full-length, and third on Omar…
Point Austin: Supremes v. Texas
The future of U.S. politics may become, “Vote for Show, Map for Dough”
The Perfect Ride
John Hyams’ ode to rodeo stays on for a surprising 5,760 seconds
Gay People Like to Party
Are the Lesbians on Ecstasy really happy to be coming to Austin?
SXSW Picks and Sleepers
The Blurbing of SXSW 06
Day Trips
Take the Texas music heritage tour and learn more about Texas’ homegrown talent, such as Bob Wills, Buddy Holly, and more
SXSW Records
Wesley ColemanCash Flow (Cadc) Like John Frusciante’s solo insanity, Wes Coleman’s third excursion outside of Canyon Lake trio the Golden Boys is a chip off the old block. Now if only someone can separate him from his axe. The Boys’ trebly bash, 2005’s Scorpion Stomp #2, found the guitarist’s rusty sting deeply embedded in Lone…
Beside the Point
City Council takes up arms and definitions over the charter amendments
The Notorious Irving Klaw
My grandfather’s photography studio made him rich and Bettie Page famous. It also made him into a target for Fifties censors. So, what has director Mary Harron made of him?
Hey Willpower! Can I Get a ‘Hell Yeah!’?
Imperial Teen�s Will Schwartz goes solo, Top 40, and asks, �Why the Hell Not?� with his new thing, hey willpower!
TCB
Parsing the posters at SXSW’s Flatstock show. Also gay cowboys, sex tapes, and Oscar-winning pimps: TCB classes it up.
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Def Leppard keeps good company, Toxoplasma runs rampant, and more
SXSW Records
The CzarsGoodbye (Bella Union) Denver’s Czars are full of surprises. The introductory strains of Goodbye belies the title song’s – and the album’s – acid tongue. “Goodbye” is a lush, melancholy track driven by nostalgic piano and wistful vocals that caresses the air with its lovelorn balladry. Then it turns into something decidedly darker as…
The Hightower Report
The Rise of the Imperial Presidency; and What Color is Your Steak?
I’ll Sleep When I Figure Out Why I Can’t
Analyzing Alan Berliner’s most personal documentary yet
Transformations
A Conversation with the three directors of the SXSW premiere Cruel & Unusual
Luv Doc Recommends: SXSW Film Screening of Darkon
You might want to layer up, it’s about to get cool. That’s right, the glamour train of SXSW 2006 arrives this Friday as thousands of unrepentant hipsters from all over the world descend on Austin to revel in our “realness.” Sure, the pressure of having to be real all the time is a bit intimidating.…
