Cover Story
Once Upon a Time in Austin
The films, the filmmakers, the crews, the making of a scene
100 Best One-Liners
100 Best One-Liners The Alamo’s select panel has gone through the history of talkies and determined filmdom’s top 100 one-liners – i.e., short sentences, witticisms, and jokes – and repackaged them for your viewing pleasure. Short, sweet, and silly expressions rise to the top of the pack for a program that promises to leave you…
The Donkeys Kick Back
Doggett picks up a surprisingly easy victory in his new district
Right Place, Right Time
Four of Austin’s most reliable downtown restaurants keep on pleasing
Tweaking the Elephant’s Booty
The TRMPAC lawsuit rumbles into Travis Co. court
Power Suits
Everyone loves a woman in uniform (even Iron Maiden had a song by that name), but until Austin filmmaker Mocha Jean Herrup finished her documentary on queer uniform fetishists the Dyke Uniform Corps, few films had addressed the subject head on. By turns playful, hilarious, and intellectually stimulating, A Few Good Dykes follows Herrup’s involvement…
Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London
Frankie Muniz, playing the star agent of the CIA’s kiddie corps, saves the day in London.
Requiem for a Sane Man
Exalting comic maverick Bill Hicks on the 10th anniversary of his passing
Right Place, Right Time
Eddie V’s Edgewater Grille 307 E. Fifth, 472-1860 V Lounge: Monday-Thursday, 4:30-11pm; Friday-Saturday, 4:30-12mid; Sunday, 4:30-10pm Dinner: Monday-Saturday, 5:30-11pm; Sunday, 5:30-10pm Happy Hour: Sunday-Monday, 4:30-close; Tuesday-Saturday, 4:30-7pm Eddie V’s docked at the corner of Fifth and San Antonio three years ago, providing a comfortable, clubby atmosphere in which to enjoy fresh seafood and prime steaks,…
Hospital District Campaign Ready to Roll
Backers and opponents gear up for a May 15 vote on a Travis Co. health care taxing district
Closely Knit
[Ed. note: The following is excerpted from an interview in the Sept. 19, 2003, Austin Chronicle. For the full feature, see austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2003-09-19/screens_feature4.html .] Most simply put, Nuclear Family is a film in three parts about Texas-style cheerleading tryouts, high school football, and weddings, and how these cultural rituals – shot through, as they are, with…
Spartan
This crackling good David Mamet movie starring Val Kilmer is one if the writer-director’s best efforts.
Feedback of a Different Kind
At last week’s arts funding forum, artists gave city officials an earful – but not what they expected
Right Place, Right Time
Mezzaluna 310 Colorado, 472-6770 Monday-Thursday, 11:30am-10:30pm; Friday, 11:30am-11pm; Saturday, 5-11pm; Sunday, 5-10:30pm In the early Nineties, Mezzaluna was the only game in town for upscale Italian cuisine. In those days, the wait regularly topped two hours as the city’s tony set swilled Bellinis at the bedazzled and oftentimes overcrowded bar. But as Austin’s restaurant scene…
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from Austin and beyond
Walk 120 Miles in My Shoes
Ladies and gentlemen, this year’s Golden Cojones award goes to first-time documentarian Tommy Davis, who walked 120 miles to film four of the thousands of Mexicans who illegally enter the U.S. on foot each year. In shooting Mojados: Through the Night, Davis ate what the four men ate (increasingly green tortillas, while they lasted), drank…
SXSW Film Festival 2004
Go. Watch. Mingle. Enjoy. For complete schedule see www.sxsw.com.
Lights! Camera! Pedestrian!
This month Luke Savisky and Arthouse give a little nod to Austin history with a cinematic installation that involves showing film in and on Arthouse’s home space at 700 Congress
Right Place, Right Time
Louie’s 106 106 E. Sixth, 476-1997 Monday-Thursday, 11:15am-10pm; Friday, 11:15am-11pm; Saturday, 5-11pm; Sunday, 5-10pm A foodie friend who eats about 12 meals per week in restaurants asked me if I had been to Louie’s 106 recently (I hadn’t) and raved about the food. I have always loved the New York-style decor, with its burnished bar…
Naked City
The governor calls attention to things he’d rather not be discussed
Intimacy Issues
For a movie explicit enough to use the D word, V word, and a smattering of C words, it seems counterintuitive that Dear Pillow depicts no nudity or sex of any kind. To its filmmakers, writer-director Bryan Poyser and producer-cinematographer Jacob Vaughan, this is perhaps the very essence of their work. When questioned about their…
The Statement
The pace of this political thriller about a Nazi collaborator on the run for four decades (Michael Caine) is as listless as the justice system that pursued him.
Articulations
The Blanton Museum of Art adds another Old Master to its collection, Cinqué Hicks adds Electric Skin to the Web, and Jay McMahan has his art added to the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Art Collection
Right Place, Right Time
La Traviata 314 Congress, 479-8131 Lunch: Monday-Friday, 10am-2pm Dinner: Monday-Thursday, 5:30-10pm; Friday-Saturday, 5-10:30pm There’s a rhythm to every neighborhood. It might be the earlier morning clamor and midday quiet on a suburban cul de sac. It might be the steady hum of a busy thoroughfare. And it might be the jazzier beat of what is…
Naked City
North Austin neighbors protest the utility’s tree-cutting plans
Pit Crew
“We were not interested in the best barbecue,” says Chris Elley, director of Barbecue: A Texas Love Story. “We were interested in the stories around barbecue. … It’s about Texas culture.” Elley’s documentary covers 3,350 miles of Texas barbecue stories from restaurants, cook-offs, family reunions, fundraisers, and political gatherings. Narrated by former Texas Gov. Ann…
Landscape the After Battle
Landscape the After Battle 1970, NR, 101 min. Directed by Andrzej Wajda, Starring Daniel Olbrychski, Stanislawa Celinska, Aleksander Bardini, Tadeusz Janczar. Filmed by the seminal Polish director Andrzej Wajda, Landscape After the Battle is a post-WWII love story between two people just liberated from the concentration camps but still trapped in a relocation camp.
Exhibitionism
Director Bonnie Cullum makes a point of pulling you out of the modern world for Dark Goddess 2004 so you might be more receptive to its mythic message of the power of transformation
Food-o-File
It’s time for the Star of Texas Fair & Rodeo, and all of the victuals that come with it
Naked City
The Austin union gets a May 15 election to seek collective bargaining
The Most Dangerous Game
Weird things happen in Oklahoma. Maybe that’s why so many Oklahomans move to Austin and make movies. Duncan, Okla., native/Austinite transplant Rebecca Elliott temps as a dental hygienist by day. Neil Reece is a file clerk from Kentucky. After spending some time at a snake-handling festival in Waurika, Okla., they made a documentary for “pennies.”…
Exhibitionism
Tapestry Dance Company’s Rhythm of a Life pulsed with a vigor and intensity that seemed to arise from new, deeply personal connections to dance and to life
Get Me Back to Austin
Five reasons to the celebrate the 2003-04 Austin Music Awards
Good Enough for Your Kid
The Lege considers the cost of an “adequate” public school education
What Is Strangest Is Inseparable
The River City may have lost former Austin Film Society film programmer Salvatore Botti to the Big Apple last year, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be hearing from him again, and soon. Dreams of Her, Botti’s dreamy feature meditation on memory, love, and loss, is a hypnotic ode not only to boy-meets-girl fantasias but…
Exhibitionism
While the UT Department of Theatre & Dance’s production of Sueño has an eye for the visual, the perfunctory sound design and strained emotionalizing by the actors leave it less than dreamy
SXSW Picks & Sleepers
Blurbing SXSW 04 music – Wednesday only
Austin @ Large: Oversight, Out of Mind
As the city and police union move forward, what’s being left behind?
After the Demons
Some might recognize Luciana Pedraza from her appearance in the Robert Duvall film Assassination Tango. Born in Argentina, Pedraza is Duvall’s longtime companion. She has now turned to documentary filmmaking, and The Portait of Billy Joe is her first work. The film recounts the story of Billy Joe Shaver, considered by many to be one…
In Person
The first book Jasper Fforde remembers reading, he told the smiling crowd at BookPeople, is Alice in Wonderland. Which explains an awful lot.
SXSW Records
British Sea PowerThe Decline of British Sea Power (Rough Trade) Sussex fivepiece British Sea Power is the sort of band that inspires UK rock bible Q to write things like, “a mangled patriotic vision in which Orwell’s old maids weren’t hiking to Holy Communion, they were drowning themselves in warm beer and lobbing cricket balls…
The Hightower Report
A mad Mad Cow policy; and DARPA just won’t die
Alamo on Its Way South
Downtown theatre will move in seven months
Page Two
There is no other place in the country, outside of New York and L.A., with the same quality and quantity of filmmaking and filmmakers as Austin
SXSW Records
The GayYou Know the Rules (Mint) Like the nerdy freshman shadowed by her valedictorian / homecoming queen sister, the Gay suffers inevitable comparisons to labelmates the New Pornographers. While big sis may get all the scholarship offers, this combo deserves their own “most likely to.” Both are Vancouver “supergroups,” have female singers, and share a…
Revolución y Fantasía:
From AFS, Cine las Americas, and SXSW
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Jermaine Jackson’s son’s name is Jermajesty.
SXSW Records
Adult RodeoTough Titty (Kinson Music) Although their moniker sounds more like an HBO Real Sex segment than a band, Adult Rodeo’s fourth album packs in more provocations than a month of lonely, late-night TV leer sessions. Initially borne out of the Shimmy-Disc school of subterranean twist und twang, the band’s sound has evolved considerably since…
Value Appreciation
The Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards enters its fourth year
Short Cuts
SXSW Film 04 is here. Where are you?
After a Fashion
Stephen goes shopping with a friend to get ready for all the big to-do�s on the social horizon. Hide your credit cards.
SXSW Records
Choking AhogoRadars and Maps (Victim) Austin’s Choking Ahogo start off sounding like a band that might go on early, but wind up as the guys Rice University undergrads might invite back to their dorms for some late-night shenanigans. Radars and Maps is populated with the perfect combination of dumbasses, drunkards, and deviants, so who’ll be…
The Rove M.O.
If you read this story, your career could be over by the end of the day: Michael Paradies Shoob examines ‘Bush’s Brain’
TV Eye
Friday night is a terrible night to launch a new series
Soccer Watch
Gunners rise, Reds fall: report from the Champion’s League
SXSW Records
Cass McCombsA (Monitor) Make room, Grandpaboy, your “Swingin Party” has arrived. Lackadaisical where Westerberg was acid-tongued (now bitter), young Baltimore by way of the Bay Arean Cass McCombs nevertheless sounds deliciously “Androgynous.” In title alone, McCombs’ “A Comedian Is Someone Who Tells Jokes” somehow got left off of Pleased to Meet Me (“I spend my…
Trail Mix
Paul Stekler on ‘Last Man Standing’ and the 10 essential ingredients of political documentary
Second Helpings: Vegetarian
Bouldin Creek Coffeehouse & Cafe 1501 S. First, 416-1601 Monday-Friday, 7am-12mid; Saturday-Sunday, 9am-12mid The purple-and-lime-green Bouldin Creek Coffeehouse & Cafe, located within a stone’s throw of the creek, provides good, fundamental fare that is hearty and filling, good for you, and cheap. There is breakfast served all day, salads, and sandwiches. No meat in sight,…
To Your Health
Dealing with Crohn’s disease
SXSW Records
The Six Parts SevenLost Notes From Forgotten Songs (Suicide Squeeze) Last year, Ohio quintet the Six Parts Seven turned several of their brooding instrumental tracks over to some of the most talented folks in indie rock. They also turned them over to some real duds. Set alongside one’s peers, an artist either looks really good…
The Passion of the Journalist
Jonathan Demme on ‘The Agronomist,” his tribute to Haiti’s bravest, loudest voice for democracy
The Book of Mormon Movie, Volume 1: The Journey
The leaden acting, tablecloth wardrobe, and Sixties-era Star Trek set design are more likely to leave nonbelievers stupefied than awestruck.
Music String
SXSW Film wants its MTV, or at least its music films – Austin and otherwise
About AIDS
A new study published in Biological Psychiatry suggests that shyness may not be good for HIV-positive people
SXSW Records
Linus Pauling QuartetC6H8O6 (September Gurls) Not surprisingly for a product of the same hometown as the Red Krayola and Rusted Shut, Houston’s Linus Pauling Quartet is equal parts demented and lovable. A sevenpiece with several guests, the Quartet specializes in waves of psychedelic slog thicker than humidity coming off Buffalo Bayou in August. At the…
Next Departure
With ‘Jersey Girl,’ Kevin Smith swaps out Jay and Silent Bob for a 7-year-old, all while ‘The Green Hornet’ looms
Latter Days
A West Hollywood party boy and a Mormon missionary find love and understanding.
TCB
Will Wynn has it in for AMN, as does the Austin Hotel & Lodging Association
Day Trips
Capt. Day Trips drops the 411 on Round Top, Texas
Anatomy of a Shooting
The circumstances around Jessie Lee Owens’ shooting were anything but clear-cut
Screening Calls
All listings subject to change. For the full schedule of SXSW Film 04 screenings, including ticket information, see the 12-page pullout in the middle of the issue. For panel information and updates, see www.sxsw.com/film. For information on the Life and Times of Bill Hicks panel on March 16, see the Arts feature on p.34. For…
Secret Window
Even the powerful combination of Johnny Depp and John Turturro can’t save this Stephen King film adapatation.
Luv Doc Recommends: SXSW Film Festival screening of Super Size Me
Chances are that if you’re like a lot of people, you’re reading this while eating. Nothing wrong with a little multitasking. Just remember to hold your sammich away from the paper, or you’ll screw up our pass-along rate. No one wants a paper with a mayonnaise stain on the “Shot in the Dark” section, do…
