The Laramie Project
The Laramie Project 2002, NR, 97 min. Directed by Moisés Kaufman, Starring Christina Ricci, Steve Buscemi, Laura Linney, Summer Phoenix. Theatrical project about the murder of Matthew Shepard and the citizens of the small Wyoming town where it occurred.
Haute Tension
Haute Tension 2003, NC-17, 91 min. Directed by Alexandre Aja, Starring Cecile De France, Maïwenn Le Besco. Bloody original horror.
The Passion Recut
The Passion Recut 2005, NR. Directed by Mel Gibson, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring James Caviezel, Monica Bellucci, Sergio Rubini. In its second coming, approximately six minutes of the original’s violence (from the horrific scourging sequences, we presume) have been circumcised in order to appeal to a broader – and younger – audience…
Natural Disasters: Forces of Nature
Natural Disasters: Forces of Nature 2003, NR, 40 min. Directed by George Casey, Narrated by Kevin Bacon. Earthquakes, volcanoes, and tornadoes: Rarely has subject matter been better suited to the spectacle of the big screen. Recent days of nonstop tsunami coverage on the small screen demonstrated our complete thrall to the power of unruly natural…
SXSW Film Festival 2005
SXSW Film Festival 2005 The SXSW Film Festival 2005 begins today, March 11, and continues through next Saturday, March 19. Premiering around town over the next nine days will be a wide selection of narrative features, documentaries, short films, music videos, and numerous sidebars, with many of the filmmakers in attendance. In this issue of…
Tsunami Relief: Austin to South Asia
Tsunami Relief: Austin to South Asia 2005, NR. Directed by Mark Seliger, Bryant Jackson. This is a record of the benefit concert held on January 9 in Austin. It was spearheaded and headlined by Willie Nelson, and also includes performances by Joe Ely, Patti Griffin, Bruce Robison, Kelly Willis, Spoon, Alejandro Escovedo, Jon Dee Graham,…
Guys From Paradise
Guys From Paradise 2000, NR, 114 min. Directed by Takashi Miike, Starring Koji Kikkawa, Mai Oikawa, Nene Otsuka, Hua Rong Wong, Tsutomu Yamazaki. Rather than one of his bloodbaths, Guys From Paradise is a gentler story about a man busted in the Philippines for transporting heroin and his conversion from middle-class complacency to jailhouse player.
Arts Review
In director Lucien Douglas’ staging of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” folly comes to the fore and makes for pretty pleasant company
Fajita History
One of the most interesting facets of the American culinary revolution of the past 50 years is our growing fascination with culinary history. It seems the more we learn about the ethnic melting pot that makes up the American table, the more curious we become about regional cuisines and the origin of specific dishes. Texas…
Looking Like Texas
District 51’s Eddie Rodriguez represents the future of the state’s people and policies
Naked City
Consumers Union animates drug warnings
Film News
No good deed goes unpunished, just ask Mopac Media’s Kevin Triplett; plus, Explore UT and awards all over the place
Arts Review
In the spoof Single Wet Female,’ Marga Gomez and Carmelita Tropicana mounted a delectable feast of perversions, inversions, and subversions for the ravenously underrepresented
Food-o-file
Whole Foods and Alamo expand, UT opens its doors wide, and more
The Face of District 51
Population Anglo: 38,376 Black: 13,890 Hispanic: 78,060 Other: 5,229 U.S. Native: 78.1% Foreign-born: 21.9% Noncitizen: 17.6% Speaks other than English: 49.4% Limited English: 13.7% B.A. degree or higher: 18.0% Did not graduate high school: 35.8% High school dropouts: 23.9% Per capita income: $14,603 Registered voters: 48,521 Spanish surname: 21,167 Source: 2000 Census
Naked City
Humanist UT Law professor passes on
DVD Watch
Midaq Alley (El Callej–n de los Milagros)Fox Lorber Films, $19.98 The history of love and sex is full of true devotion, betrayal, homosexuality, prostitution, violence, and death. Jorge Fons’ 1998 film has all of these, in a sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes unpredictable, but constantly engaging package. Adapted from a novel by Egyptian author and Nobel Prize…
Arts Review
In concept, the Boulez Project was somewhat provocative, but in performance, it was carelessly assembled
P2C05
The magnificent seven: spotlighting a local septet showcasing SXSW 05
Eddie on the East Side: HB 525
A young politico works to preserve an old neighborhood
Point Austin: Dreaming Downtown
The conversation resumes on how to remake the second street district
TV Eye
Lots of midseason premieres in March. So, without much fuss, here’s what’s coming up …
Collating the Underexposed
Chris Nicholas and Austin’s STAPLE! Independent Media Expo
P2C05
Single Frame Meet Austin’s most enigmatic band. Single Frame has been around nearly five years without slipping into a readily identifiable genre. Their songs are too slippery for post-punk, too straightforward for avant-garde, too arty for rock, and too rock for pure art. They reside in a peculiar crevice where Talking Heads feathered the nest…
TRMPAC Finally Lands in Court
Longtime Republican testifies … for the Democrats
Place Your Bets
The gambling action heats up at the Capitol
The Jacket
This mix of amnesia, time travel, and Adrien Brody adds up to a fairly forgettable experience.
Page Two
South by Southwest 2005 is upon us. Please don’t tell us to relax.
P2C05
The Arm “I always thought of the Arm as my rap band,” explains Sean “Oh No” O’Neal with a straight face. “I want it to be a mix of N.W.A and the Screamers. Rap rock has been perverted. A lot of times when I’m playing a show with the Arm, I think of Eminem in…
Smoking Ordinance Headed for the Ballot
Onward Austin gets its anti-smoking signatures
The Hightower Report
A Big Corp. becomes Big Brother; and, the SEC decides corporate reform is a ‘stale’ issue
Bad Guy
Early film from South Korea’s enfant terrible Kim Ki-duk is a coarse and distubing drama about obsessive love.
Letters at 3AM
Our Ecstatic Days’ is that rarest of creatures: a great novel. The first great American novel of the 21st century. Steve Erickson has discovered the secret of creating a novel that is not a book but an organism. Proust did it. Joyce almost did it. Faulkner sometimes did it. Marquez did it. Yes, that’s the…
P2C05
The Sword To watch the Sword play live is to witness some sort of ritual. The local quartet’s songs start off slow and precise before turning into a completely different animal, rising up in a puff of smoke like some half-dragon/half-whale, which then pulls you into a fiery abyss where warriors with Nordic names battle…
School Finance Bill Heads for the Floor
Republicans pass HB 2 out of committee over educator objections
Get Visionary With Me Here
We are no longer pioneers of the digital age. We’re miners.
Sky Blue
This gorgeously dystopian South Korean film rivals and, at times, surpasses the best of Japanese animé.
After a Fashion
Big feet, freedom hairdressers, and the Oscars
P2C05
Patricia Vonne She plays castanets, she works without a net, and the audience likes it better when she walks onstage. With the release of Guitars & Castanets, Patricia Vonne’s second album stakes her claim on Texas border rock and mines a rich vein of golden Mexican rhythms. “Being one of 10 children in San Antonio,…
Costello Puts Up a (Toll) Roadblock
Austin Toll Party sues CTRMA
The Tip-Off
Where is Malcolm Gladwell’s mind? What about now?
Bear Cub
Spanish drama avoids the politics of gay adoption while focusing instead on realistic characters and situations.
About AIDS
Today’s powerful anti-HIV treatments, while not a cure, are keeping HIV-positive people alive and healthier longer. But sometimes overlooked is the price that many HIVers pay in side effects from their “drug cocktails.” Some effects are short-term, like diarrhea, muscle aches, and sleep disturbances. Others are long-term and potentially more medically dangerous: diabetes, bone damage,…
P2C05
The Real Heroes “The record was meant to be a ‘grower,’ so to speak.” That’s how Real Heroes vocalist/guitarist/founder Benjamin Hotchkiss describes the local quintet’s year-old second album, Greetings From Russia. The dapper, articulate frontman isn’t being lascivious; he’s explaining how the band set out to record a tight collection of well-crafted pop songs that…
Taking the TAKS Is Hard … Understanding the Results Is Harder
Austin ISD scores better — we think
Not Shutting Up Anywhere
This Al Franken is your Al Franken
Man of the House
Filmed in Austin with Tommy Lee Jones, Man of the House is nothing to write home about.
To Your Health
Does dairy consumption at a meal interfere with iron absorption?
P2C05
Shearwater He didn’t plan it this way. It just sort of happened. Despite the fact Jonathan Meiburg began his post-collegiate career as an English major, he’s become the world’s leading authority on the South American Striated Caracara, a falconlike endangered species native to the Falkland Islands. Turns out a fellowship “to study community life at…
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from Austin and beyond
Superbadass Web Sites for Everyone!
With the help of Knowbility’s AIR-Interactive for the Arts and a team of professional designers, I am going to help reinvent the Internet
Bewafaa
Bollywood romance glosses over the cultural ramifications of marriage and adultery, but is heavy on the music and melodramatics.
TCB
Stranger than Fiction: Spoon previews new album, the smoking ban returns, the Gourds let a few fly
The Common Law
Explore UT
P2C05
What Made Milwaukee Famous “What made Milwaukee famous has made a loser out of me,” crooned Jerry Lee Lewis, lamenting his love affair with Schlitz. Unlike the demon brew, Austin’s version of What Made Milwaukee Famous won’t leave you unshaven, smelling nasty, or estranged from your cousin/wife. What it will do is make you love…
Naked City
Nonprofit director vows to continue promoting green space
Knowbility’s Austin AIR-Interactive Contestants
Artists and organizations listed have collaborated with corresponding design teams to create new and improved Web sites. John Pointer & Coefficient Designs First Night Austin & Go9Media – Encore Network for Young Artists & City of Austin Children’s Photographic Collective & City of Austin – 2 Wendy Colonna & TradeMark Media Austin Symphonic Band &…
Cursed
The latest from the Scream team hardly merits a weak yelp.
Do It Yourself Biennial
How to showcase all the great art in Texas on a shoestring budget
Day Trips
Charles Kincaid’s Grocery Market in Fort Worth consistently gets listed as one of the best burger joints in the U.S.
SXSW Records
ROKY ERICKSONI Have Always Been Here Before: The Roky Erickson Anthology (Shout! Factory) The 13th Floor Elevators’ jug-pumping garage classic “You’re Gonna Miss Me” may have been Roky Erickson’s only national hit, but he’s no one-hit wonder. I Have Always Been Here Before handsomely cements what music historians the world over have known for decades:…
Naked City
Too much testing, not enough learning, says legislator
Nellie Blog
Why modern-day muckraker Ana Marie Cox couldn’t care less about her critics – or even, at times, her audience
Be Cool
The follow-up to Elmore Leanard’s Get Shorty is rife with star talent but short on inspiration.
The Wine & Cheese Thang
It wouldn’t be an art exhibition without an opening reception, and the Texas Biennial is offering one for each venue. Alas, the first one, at the Dougherty Arts Center, was the night before this issue hit the streets, but you can still catch the rest over the following three nights. Thursday, March 3, 7-10pm Eastside…
Soccer Watch
The Premiership may not make the final eight in European championships
SXSW Records
Stan Ridgway Holiday in Dirt (New West) L.A.’s Stan Ridgway, the avuncular neo-noir singer-songwriter formerly known as “that guy on the Mexican radio” has always had a penchant for cinematic flair. His best work, going back to Wall of Voodoo’s “Call of the West” and moving through solo work like The Big Heat and Mosquitoes,…
Naked City
Neighborhoods speak out on development plans
Things to Do for Free
Broke? Badgeless? Fear not.
The Pacifier
Vin Diesel plays a Navy SEAL who draws diaper duty.
The Man Who Would Be Swing
A new play gives Ray Benson the chance finally to chat with the King, Bob Wills
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Hairy toes are a sign of good circulation. In 1953, as a G.I. intercepting Russian Morse code transmissions, Johnny Cash became the first American to learn of Josef Stalin’s death. Some assert that the poisonous copperhead snake smells like fresh-cut cucumbers. The Evans Gambit chess opening (1]e4 e5 2]Nf3 Nc6 3]Bc4 Bc5 4]b4), which is…
SXSW Records
Rachel LoyLove the Mess “Oh, you shouldn’t have made me another mix CD. Now you’re calling me again, but you call me first thing in the morning.” So cautions Rachel Loy in her girlish, shimmering voice on “Love Me Too Much” from her local debut, Love the Mess. In doing so, Loy steps up and…
Naked City
First Transit picked over ATC / Vancom; labor issues still unresolved
Self-Funded and Self-Made
Tom Fulp on ‘Alien Hominid’
A First for Austin Art
New City Hall filled with locals’ visual artistry
Oops!
In last week’s “Let’s ‘Rumbo’! Right Now!” we incorrectly reported that Rumbo Managing Editor Antonio Ruiz Camacho is a native of Spain. In fact, he is a native of Mexico. The Chronicle regrets the error.
SXSW Records
Kathleen EdwardsBack to Me (Zoe) Back to Me, the second album from Ottawa’s Kathleen Edwards, brings to mind perennially underappreciated Cheri Knight, who made two fine albums produced by Steve Earle in the Nineties, as well as Lucinda Williams. Both Knight and Williams have a way about their songwriting and public persona that comes across…
Naked City
Coffman settles with spammer at $2,000 a pop
It Doesn’t End With the Internet
Amalia Anderson on old-fashioned organizing
On the Funding Front
The symphony, Long Center, and Blanton Museum of Art have all seen lots of green sprouting in their yards lately
The Return of the Fajita King
After 35 years, Sonny Falcon is still getting his strip- steak story straight
SXSW Records
Crooked FingersDignity and Shame (Merge) With his fifth album as the bellwether of Crooked Fingers, Eric Bachmann has put another long stretch of scorched road between himself and his former project, the Archers of Loaf. Each new album has ventured deeper into the dark corners of melancholy Americana, and Dignity and Shame is no different.…
Naked City
California lawmaker tries to legalize industrial hemp, but DEA still has reefer madness
Everybody’s Court Artist
Sam Brown on ‘Exploding Dog’
Culture Flash!
Images of coexistence on Auditorium Shores, artists wanted to leave gifts in the urban landscape, LCP on TV, and ’25 to watch’ at the Austin Fine Arts Fest
Just Exactly What Is a Fajita?
The word “faja” is Spanish for belt or girdle and “fajita” is the diminutive form. In original Tex-Mex culinary parlance, fajitas are a dish with roots in the Rio Grande Valley made from a specific cut of meat: skirt steak. Considering the appearance of the meat – a strip about 18 inches long and about…
SXSW Records
Graham CoxonHappiness in Magazines (EMI) Fear! Loathing! Acrimony! It’s been two years since Graham Coxon’s old outfit Blur headlined a packed-to-the-rafters SXSW showcase at La Zona Rosa, and the bile between former bandmate Damon Albarn and Coxon has finally receded (a bit). At least it’s off the front page of NME’s Web site, thankfully replaced…
Naked City
AAW answers charges of “zombie-ism”
This Town Is Big Enough for the Four of Us
There’s a new place to get drunk, full, and filmically informed, but it’s still the Alamo Drafthouse
