Cinemaker Co-Op & Conduitfest
Cinemaker Co-Op & Conduitfest NR. Directed by , Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . FutureFusion Salon teams the lo-fi, Super-8 folks at the Cinemaker Co-op with the all-digital Conduitfesters for an evening of showcases, demonstrations, drinks, and grub. No-budget filmmaking meets digital media production. Ben Davis of Conduit will present a mini-showcase of…
An Evening at Threadgill’s
An Evening at Threadgill’s NR. Directed by Tom Herod, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Filmed in 1971 by a bunch of University of Texas film students that included Herod, Daniel Perl, David Schmoeller, Ted Nicolaou, Stuart Dworeck, Fred Homes, and Tom Roberdeau, this restored 22 minutes of film documents a typcial night…
Silkwood
Wonderful performances steal the show in this film based on Oklahoma’s real-life, plutonium-factory whistle-blower.
The Next Best Thing
The Next Best Thing 2000, PG-13, 107 min. Directed by John Schlesinger, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Neil Patrick Harris, Illeana Douglas, Lynn Redgrave, Josef Sommer, Michael Vartin, Benjamin Bratt, Rupert Everett, Madonna. I’ll say this for The Next Best Thing: there’s certainly more to it than the ad campaign would lead you…
Drowning Mona
Drowning Mona 2000, PG-13, 95 min. Directed by Nick Gomez, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Neve Campbell, Jamie Lee Curtis, William Fichtner, Casey Affleck, Marcus Thomas, Peter Dobson, Kathleen Wilhoite, Will Ferrell. Nobody in the sleepy town of Verplanck, New York, mourns when the town harridan, Mona Dearly (Midler),…
Knockout
Knockout 2000, PG-13, 103 min. Directed by Lorenzo Doumani, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Paul Winfield, Eduardo Yañez, Tony Plana, William McNamara, Sophia Adella Hernandez, Ralph Cooper, Tony Burton, Maria Conchita Alonso. The history of boxing cinema is littered with enough TKOs – from Huntz Hall and the Dead End Kids’ occasional dustup…
Tumbleweeds
Tumbleweeds 1999, PG-13, 100 min. Directed by Gavin O’Connor, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Janet McTeer, Kimberly J. Brown, Jay O. Sanders, Gavin O’Connor, Michael J. Pollard, Laurel Hollomon, Lois Smith. This wonderful actors’ piece deservedly earned star Janet McTeer an Academy Award nomination for her work. It’s a wonderfully nuanced performance in…
The Third Miracle
The Third Miracle 1999, R, 119 min. Directed by Agnieszka Holland, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Ed Harris, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Anne Heche, Barbara Sukowa, Charles Haid. Ever since The Exorcist, we’ve come to expect movies about the spirit world to be filled with lots of special effects, flashing lights, and green-pea soup. The…
Reindeer Games
Reindeer Games 2000, R, 104 min. Directed by John Frankenheimer, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Danny Trejo, Ashton Kutcher, James Hutson, Donal Logue, James Frain, Dennis Farina, Gary Sinise, Charlize Theron, Ben Affleck. At one point in John Frankenheimer’s Reindeer Games, harried casino boss James Banks, played by a frothing Dennis Farina, complains…
What Planet Are You From?
What Planet Are You From? 2000, R, 100 min. Directed by Mike Nichols, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Garry Shandling, Annette Bening, John Goodman, Greg Kinnear, Ben Kingsley, Linda Fiorentino, Camryn Manheim, Nora Dunn, Janeane Garofalo. You know a film’s in trouble when you see Ben Kingsley whirling down a toilet more than…
Simpatico
Simpatico 2000, R, 106 min. Directed by Matthew Warchus, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Liam Waite, Kimberly Williams, Shawn Hatosy, Albert Finney, Sharon Stone, Catherine Keener, Jeff Bridges, Nick Nolte. Here’s further proof that playwrights think very differently from most people. (Their brains, if diagrammed medical-textbook style, would be divided into large, primary-hued…
Pong
Pong bounces up from the ashes of Austin’d legendary Ed Hall.
Record Reviews
Fu ManchuKing of the Road (Mammoth) If Fu Manchu’s first Mammoth release, In Search Of … , could be summed up in two words — Black Sabbath — then its third can be summed up in two words as well: Deep Purple. Or maybe it’s Uriah Heep. What about Fog Hat? Technically that’s one word,…
Book Reviews
Boy With Loaded Gun: A Memoir by Lewis Nordan Algonquin, 290 pp., $23.95 One of the most basic reasons to read a memoir is to draw strength from the story of another person’s life — how the writer has gotten through his trials, borne his woes, made use of his gifts (or borne his gifts…
Naked City
Tuesday, March 7 (613 delegates) California 162 Connecticut 25 Georgia 54 Maine 14 Maryland 31 Massachusetts 37 Minnesota 34 Missouri 35 New York 101 Ohio 69 Rhode Island 14 Vermont 12 Washington 25 Friday, March 10 (91 delegates) Colorado 40 Utah 29 Wyoming 22 Tuesday, March 14 (341 delegates) Florida 80 Louisiana 29 Mississippi 33…
Short Cuts
Upcoming events and workshops of interest to the Austin film community.
Second Helpings: Pub Grub
Chronicle writer Greg Beets samples Austin’s pub grub.
Fivehead
Indie rock accoring to Austin’s Fivehead
Record Reviews
Gov’t Mule Life Before Insanity (Capricorn) Gov’t Mule’s intent on Life Before Insanity is to splash studio texture on their live-based group improvisation. The trio, Matt Abts on drums, Allen Woody on bass, and Warren Haynes on vocals and guitar, is fundamentally a live band, and Life Before Insanity, their second studio release and fourth…
Book Reviews
Ecology of a Cracker Childhood by Janisse Ray Milkweed Editions, 224 pp., $19.95 The defining sentiment in Janisse Ray’s Ecology of a Cracker Childhood comes early, spilled on the second page of a brief and lyrical introduction: “I was born from people who were born from people who were born from people who were born…
Naked City
More changes are afoot for the stalled effort to bring a new police radio system to Austin.
Video Reviews
Romy and Michele’s High School ReunionD: David Mirkin (1997); with Lisa Kudrow, Mira Sorvino, Janeane Garofalo. High school is hardly the best of times for most people. Under the guise of providing an education, pubescent kids are cast into a crucible of other people’s expectations designed to break their wills and instill a respect for…
local bestsellers
Local bestsellers are based on recent sales at Austin bookstores selected to reflect varied reading interests.
The Blue Noise Band
Austin neo-jazzsters the Blue Noise Band
Record Reviews
Bonepony Traveler’s Companion (Super Duper) Back in the old days, boy, all we had to keep rhythm with was our own feet stompin’ on the front porch while we was a-playin. Yessir. Gospel shouters, twanging hillbillies, blues bellowers, all providing their own handclaps, finger snaps and boot stomps. The three Bonepony dudes from Nashville follow…
Book Reviews
Baby Precious Always Shines: Selected Love Notes Between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas edited by Kay Turner St. Martin’s, 160 pp., $17.95 The summer I was 19, I carried The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas all around France. I skimmed past Picasso and other famous people whose names I was just learning, searching for…
Naked City
Henry Kissinger travels to Jakarta, Indonesia, to meet with the new Indonesian president on behalf of his client, Freeport-McMoran head Jim Bob Moffett.
Video Reviews
John Carpenter’s VampiresD: John Carpenter (1998); with James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, Thomas Ian Griffith, Maximilian Schell, Tim Guinee. Few careers are as curious as John Carpenter’s, and I’m convinced that over the next decades, his reputation will only increase. Here is one director whose body of work is much more than the sum…
Page Two
Let the SXSW onslaught begin …
Okkervil River
Bloodletting the evil out of acoustic-trio Okkervil River.
Record Reviews
Anna Fermin’s Trigger Gospel Things to Come (Sighlow Music) Anna Fermin’s Trigger Gospel has already caused quite a stir in Chicago’s diverse alt.country scene, where they have critics of all stripes raving about them. The Philippine-born Fermin has a voice as pure, supple, and soulful as any of Nashville’s divas, plus she writes her own…
Book Reviews
You Can Sleep While I Drive: Stories by Liza Wieland SMU Press, 254 pp., $19.95 The title of Liza Wieland’s second collection of short fiction, You Can Sleep While I Drive, evokes a reassuring tenderness. Throughout these stories, Wieland encourages us to dream along with her as she skillfully guides her characters — and, by…
Naked City
The Austin Lesbian/Gay Political Caucus will host a reception for the candidates it has endorsed in the March 14 primary on Sunday, March 5, from 3-5pm. For info, call ALGPC at 474-0750 or go to http://www.outaustin.org The International Women’s Day March will start on Wednesday, March 8, at 11am at Republic Park. It will be…
TV Eye
Now that the February sweeps are over, take a look what the networks are dragging in for March.
Public Notice
Our weekly calendar of activist and volunteer events and fundraisers.
Blu Sanders
Singer-songwriter gets lucrative
Record Reviews
The BlacksJust Like Home (Bloodshot) As bleak as a mud yard full of broken toys, as beautiful as daisies growing through the rusted-through floorboards of a long-abandoned car, the Blacks are a hard lot to categorize. Imagine a too-long trip on the Tilt-A-Whirl (“I’d Like to Say”), the Hammond M3 organ doing a nauseating swirl…
Book Reviews
Sam Bass & Gang by Rick Miller State House Press, 412 pp., $34.95 hard; $21.95 paperSam Bass was born in Indiana, it was his native home; And at the age of seventeen young Sam began to roam. Sam first came out to Texas, a cowboy for to be — A kinder-hearted fellow you seldom ever…
Council Watch
sos board votes no on the proposed bradley settlement
Letters at 3AM
How broadband technologies will affect modern life.
The Barkers
Barking at the Moon, except not with Ozzy
Record Reviews
Cypress HillLos Grandes …xitos en Español (Ruffhouse) Rock en Español? Conyo, that’s muerte! Rap en Español, on the other mano — the one with “L-O-V-E” tattooed across the knuckles — that’s la bomba! A greatest hits compilation translated into vato for their brown brethren, Los Grandes …xitos en Español is of course a no-brainer –…
Off the Bookshelf
The Wish to Kill An Alex Kertész Mystery by Janet Hannah Soho Press, 224 pp., $21 Though The Wish to Kill is subtitled “an Alex Kertész mystery,” it contains neither a mystery nor a hero worthy of series-detective status. Instead, Janet Hannah’s debut novel whimpers along on the less-than-intriguing principle of death wishes, using a…
Proposed Bradley Agreementnt
The shaded areas indicate how Gary Bradley would be allowed to develop his property under the terms of the proposed settlement with the city. LIGHT GRAY: SOS Ordinance Area (1850 acres): Development must comply with all SOS impervious cover and structural control limits. MEDIUM GRAY: Composite Ordinance (1200 acres): This compromise plan, passed in 1991,…
After a Fashion
Part one of a voyage into the Austin salon scene.
Dancing About Architecture
Jeff Cole Leaves Doolittle Records, Marc Katz Leaves Top of the Marc, Hank Sinatra Returns and so does Ray Benson (again!). Plus all the news that pitches a fit.
Record Reviews
Lil’ Brian and the Zydeco TravelersFunky Nation (Tomorrow Recordings) Like that other lil’ guy from Astroworld, Troy, Brian Terry — representing Baytown-area hamlet Barrett Station — is redefining what it means to be funky. “Got it comin’ from the east, got it comin’ from the west” trumpets party cut “Makin’ Green.” Somebody throw their hands…
Off the Bookshelf
The Collectible GI Joe An Official Guide to His Action-Packed World by Derryl DePriest Courage Books, 176 pp., $19.98 As poster boy for the Dangers of Letting Boys Play With Dolls, I can’t be trusted to be objective about any illustrated guide to the toybox warriors of the Sixties. Thousands of childhood hours spent on…
Scenes From a Digital Revolution
Scenes from a digital revolution
Mr. Smarty Pants
Rise, people, and crush the linguistic tyranny of the European Union.
Record Reviews
Introduction Traditionally, March is an important month for the music industry, major and indie labels loosening a downpour of releases like spring rain. Add SXSW into the equation, and you’ve got a flood on your hands. This year the Chronicle starts its onslaught of SXSW Record Reviews a week early, tagged with showcase information (subject…
Record Reviews
Papa Mali & the InstagatorsThunder Chicken (Fog City) As steeped in Mardi Gras parade rhythms as Papa Mali & the Instagators have always been, it’s hardly a surprise that the real lead instrument on Thunder Chicken is drummer “Frosty” Smith’s whipcrack snare. With all due respect to “Papa Mali” Malcolm Welbourne, it’s Frosty’s ice-cold, precise…
Off the Bookshelf
The Distance Between by Eliza Osborne Soho Press, 212 pp., $24 Mattie Welch begins her trip home after receiving a call that her parents have been in an accident and that her mother has died. Osborne’s stream-of-consciousness narrative allows the reader inside Mattie’s thoughts about her mother and her childhood as she travels home. Along…
Melissa Sconyers
Is Melissa Sconyers, the 15-year-old Web designer featured in Family PC, Girls Life, and Wired magazine, the face of Austin’s high-tech future, or just an ordinary kid living an extraordinary life? For now, the West Lake teenager, who pulls down around $1,000 for each Web design contract she takes on (her company, ativity design, can…
Coach’s Corner
Part II of the Coach’s trilogy on girls’ high school basketball, wherein Salado comes a cropper against the Lady Eagles of Goldthwaite High.
Record Reviews
Bad LiversBlood and Mood (Sugar Hill)Danny Barnes…And His Oft Mended Raiment (Minner Bucket) Electric punk rock, sample-based tunes with drum tracks, and a shocking scarcity of juiced-up banjo playing are the surprises that await Bad Livers fans on the band’s new release, Blood and Mood. “Looky Here,” the album’s fourth track, is the deconstruction of…
Land Mine
public access debate surrounds preservation issue
A Day at the Races
Primary races start heating up in nearby counties, across Texas, and around the nation.
Traci Goudie
Lifelong Austinite Traci Goudie may well be the most stylish techie alive. Funny, clever, and way-cute, belying the “guys who like Star Trek” stereotype with a flick of her two-tone hair, Goudie turned on to new media while studying at the American Film Institute. When a professor brought in some of the earliest effects sequences…
Day Trips
The Lindheimer Home in New Braunfels stands as a monument to the “Father of Texas Botany.”
Record Reviews
Brave ComboThe Process (Rounder) Having survived the coming and going of the lounge fad, the swing fad, and more than a dozen years before that with no fads to support them, Brave Combo long ago proved themselves to be the square cousin who’s more than worth inviting to the party. Always ready to throw a…
Ideas Through Movement
Political and philosophical issues aren’t just topics for writers and dramatists. Several Austin choreographers are using themas subjects for dances. Toni Bravo, Jeffery Bullock, Lisa Fehrman, and Andrew Long explain how they see ideas through movement.
Eight Is Enough
Williamson CountySheriff In the three-way race to succeed retiring sheriff Ed Richards, former FBI agent John Maspero is narrowly favored over two of Richards’ former deputies, Ricki Russell and Rick Faught, the latter of whom was fired after years of alleged incompetence.Precinct 3 Constable Dennis Jaroszewski, who resigned as Pct. 3 constable in 1998 amid…
Bryan Boyer
Remember Fame? I’m gonna live forever, and all that jazz? Like Solid Gold, another show which enjoyed an unmercifully long run, Fame screams Eighties television programming, with its song-and-dance depiction of urban teen life at New York City’s High School for the Performing Arts, in which cafeteria lunches explode into group jam sessions, in which…
About AIDS
A common symptom can be a sign of an uncommon — and possibly fatal — drug reaction.
Record Reviews
Tall, Dark & LonesomeIt Ain’t a Party Until Someone Gets a Haircut (Pope Yes) Jerm Pollet, the ex-New Yawk transplant who first washed up in Austin in the early Nineties with the Brother’s Cup crew, and later went on to local ska-punk band Missile Command, has made a habit of twisting genre music to his…
Articulations
A meeting on the Long Center; a profitable gala for Austin Musical Theatre; a new season for Salvage Vanguard Theater.
Endorsements
This year’s primary ballots include several local contests that should not be ignored by anyone who cares about Travis County in terms of growth, the environment, transportation, or criminal justice issues. The Chronicle makes no pretension to editorial objectivity in its coverage; and, given our ideology, we tend to endorse Democrats in most contested elections.…
Jason Fellman
FG Squared president Jason Fellman thinks a lot these days about lasting value. The printing press — now that’s a remarkable invention, Fellman says, or how about the ink pen? What is even the most sophisticated Web site in comparison to these profoundly simple devices? Like an aging film director, Fellman has success which affords…
Southern Comfort
The Chronicle food staff has scoured Austin in search of the city’s best down-home eateries; they’re served up within.
Record Reviews
Continental DriftersVermilion (Razor & Tie) Released last October, Vermilion made quite a few critics’ year-end Top 10 lists. This included being named Best Album of 1999 by Offbeat Magazine, the music paper of the Continental Drifters’ hometown, New Orleans. It’s the band’s first new release in many years, and it hits a home run on…
Exhibitionism
Alcina: Mystery PageantMcCullough Theatre, through March 5 Running Time: 3 hrs Like the star around which the lesser bodies of a solar system must circle or perhaps the spider at the center of the vast, intricate web she has just spun, this woman occupies the center of the stage. Her voluminous gown — a deep…
Naked City
csc breaks ground; protest of groundbreaking headed off; intel may build facility at museum park downtown, thomas henderson is seeking pardon
Seonaidh Davenport
At other tech companies, women may suffer in the company of men. Elsewhere, crash diets of caffeine and sleepless nights may substitute for a smart business plan. Such is not the case at Human Code. Seven years of experience may not sound like much, but in this industry, it is enough to make this software…
Food-o-File
Cuisines editor Virginia B. Wood describes the amusing history behind discovering the new Roy Henry’s Famous Waffles & Chicken and updates readers on changes in Austin’s restaurant scene.
Record Reviews
SumackNow Hear This (V2) This is the modern world: Genres become hyphenated, journalists crack the thesaurus for variations on “hodgepodge” (variant: “hotchpotch,” see also “pastiche”), and bands like Sumack become the rule and not the exception. To fixate on their use of samples, megaphones, and beats is to be provincial. Were it not for their…
Exhibitionism
The Good Woman of Setzuan: Just a Quaint Old StoryMary Moody Northen Theatre, through March 5 Running Time: 2 hrs, 25 min Is it our time or just that so much time has passed since Bertolt Brecht wrote this fairy-tale-cum-socialist-parable that renders it so gentle and impact-free? The Good Woman of Setzuan, written in 1938…
Naked City
With barely a week to go before the primary, District 48 candidates Mandy Dealey and Ann Kitchen square off with local TV ads; meanwhile, the Republican contenders sort themselves out.
Richard Garriott
Waiting for Richard Garriott in the lobby of Origin, I’m hypnotized by what’s playing on a nearby screen. A wormhole opens up in rich, black space and a monstrous glowing pod emerges from it to blast a cruiser ship to pieces; it’s awesome destruction. This is the intro sequence to Wing Commander, one of Origin’s…
Enough Already!
Frustrated Austinite Wayne Alan Brenner is fed up, doesn’t wanna, and won’t take it any more.
Record Reviews
Radar Bros.The Singing Hatchet (SeeThru Broadcasting) Los Angeles threepiece the Radar Bros. lead those of us lacking the copious amounts of drugs and/or patience for space rock’s lengthy, squeaking, squawking instrumentals gently into zero-gravity psychedelia. Instead of relying on excessive distortion and bad-trip noodling, vocalist-guitarist-producer Jim Putnam expands on Pink Floyd’s delicate side, with quiet…
Exhibitionism
Werner Herzog’s Stroszek: Bedtime for BrunoHyde Park Theatre, through March 18 Running Time: 2 hrs “Bruno is getting pushed aside,” says Bruno. Bruno is burly. Bruno is very German. Bruno plays the accordion. Bruno likes beer. Bruno incessantly speaks about himself in the third person. Bruno’s last name, by the way, is Stroszek, and the…
Naked City
Candidates’ Web SitesAnn Kitchen: http://www.annkitchen.org Mandy Dealey: http://www.mandydealey.org Scott Loras: http://www.scottloras.com Jill Warren: http://www.jillwarren.com Democratic EndorsementsAnn Kitchen Education Austin Texas Federation of Teachers Texas State Teachers Association South Austin Democrats Austin Women’s Political Caucus Texas Hospital Association Texas Nurses Association SOS Action South Austin Tejano Democrats Austin Lesbian/ Gay Political Caucus Central Austin Democrats Central…
Bruce Sterling
For going on 25 years now, Austin resident and speculative fiction author Bruce Sterling has kept his eye not only on the pulse of Austin’s dotcom-driven economy but also on the digital revolution at large. His books, from 1977’s Involution Ocean to 1992’s breakthrough nonfiction book, The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic…
Picks to Click
Another South by Southwest, another group of local acts playing the conference that the Chronicle thinks are noteworthy. Simple. And yet, with the turnover of decade and century, more has changed on the local landscape than just a new view of the Colorado from 405 W. Second Street. Over the past couple of years, the…
Record Reviews
The GoWhatcha Doin’ (Sub Pop) Sporting influences on your sleeve has always been one of the fastest routes to the land of diminishing returns. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the thinly veiled nostalgia that passes for new music solely because of its indie pedigree. The Go fondly and accurately recall sacred signifiers from…
Boy Raises Man
Yes, “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” often sidesteps grief and even undermines its critics by slyly layering the self-deprecation. Chronicle contributor Stuart Wade explains why, In Eggers’ hands, it works.
Naked City
AISD’S dropout prevention task force releases its final recommendations.
Beating Around the Bush
When Zack Exley built his parody site of George W. Bush, he expected a simple call : he got a whole lot more.
Seela
Something happened to local singer-songwriter.
Record Reviews
Acid KingBusse Woods (Man’s Ruin) Show of hands, who loves Satan? Ricky Kasso does. As the protagonist of the odd fictional book Say You Love Satan, Kesso is the inspiration for the San Francisco-based dungeon droners Acid King. The trio-currently-a-duo, founded by vox/guitarist Lori S along with drummer Joey Osbourne, appropriate the name of Chicagoland…
Postscripts
Why Stephen Harrigan’s new novel The Gates of the Alamo went into a second printing before the publication date and his upcoming appearances.
Naked City
John McCain takes a major fall as George W. Bush regains his position as the lead GOP contender and probable presidential nominee.
On the Move
With arguably the best content on the Web, Salon is poised to move into your living room and onto your radio dial :president and CEOMichael O’Donnell explains how.
