Terminal Island
Terminal Island 1970, R, 88 min. Directed by Stephanie Rothman, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Don Marshall, Phyllis Davis, Ena Hartman, Marta Kristen, Barbara Leigh, Randy Boone, Sean Kenney, Tom Selleck, Roger E. Mosley, Clyde Ventura. “Welcome to Terminal Island, baby.” This Seventies exploitation gem has been repackaged a few times since its…
Screening Salon Series and Workshop With Trixie Sweetvittles
Screening Salon Series and Workshop With Trixie Sweetvittles NR. Directed by Various, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Screening Salon Series and Workshop With Trixie Sweetvittles is a curated showcase of 14 animated works by 10 independent animators.The films utilize a variety of techniques and span a wide range of themes. Many of…
Flicker #3
Flicker #3 NR. Directed by Various, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Flicker #3 is the latest installment of the bimonthly film festival that features short films by local filmmakers and all other enthusiasts who submit works via mail. Flicker guarantees an array of projects and intriguing juxtapositions at every screening, with linear…
Man From Deep River
Man From Deep River 1973, R, 90 min. Directed by Umberto Lenzi, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Ivan Rassimov, Me Me Lai. A white man is set loose among jungle cannibals in this film by an Italian horror maestro. (For more on the Something Weird Wednesdays series see austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2001-02-16/screens_feature.html.)
Pause
Pause NR. Directed by Serena Lin Bush, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . pause, a mixed-media video installation by Serena Lin Bush, will be on display May 17-June 23. Bush’s work is concerned with the interplay between shaped space and feeling. The opening reception this Saturday includes an informal gallery talk by the…
Intel Building Design Contest Winners
Downtown Austin’s Detritus by Richard Fawal and Mike Blizzard The local political consulting team of Richard Fawal and Mike Blizzard proposes a “home for the dearly (or nearly) departed casualties of Austin’s downtown ‘revitalization.'”
Video Reviews
Hitchcock’s classic has acquired a certain campiness over the years, but it still has the power to disturb.
Mr. Smarty Pants
This’ll put your belfry up to bat, slugger.
Intel Building Design Contest Winners
Hyde Park Baptist Church Parking Lot by Scott Barnes Scott Barnes, like several other readers, suggested turning the Intel shell into a garage for Hyde Park Baptist Church members. This plan includes transporting the congregation by light rail up Guadalupe to their church building on Speedway.
TV Eye
Television’s reality show sweethearts from the Outback remind Belinda Acosta of … prisoners?
Day Trips
The historic Army forts around Central Texas and beyond.
Head Out on the Highway
The Dabbs Hotel With his buttermilk biscuits, cowboy coffee, and tall-tale telling, Dabbs proprietor Gary Smith has garnered a reputation every bit as legendary as guests of yore like Bonnie and Clyde. Whether cooking in the kitchen in huge, cast-iron pots (the key to his cakelike biscuits, he says, the same way a cast-iron stomach…
Intel Building Design Contest Winners
Wildlife Integration Unit by Barbara Ritter Barbara Ritter would like to see the building become a wildlife integration unit, where birds, bees, bats, and butterflies coud commingle with humans in a multilevel facility featuring walking trails, a bat guano production facility, bird viewing areas, and a meditation garden.
Won’t You Come In?
For four years, playwright Lisa D’Amour and director Katie Pearl have forged an uncommon bond with audiences through the welcoming, intimate quality of their theatre work. They’ve also forged an uncommon bond with each other, a mutually fulfilling creative partnership that will continue for the rest of their lives.
After a Fashion
Austin style is rocking into spring as local fashion steps out — again — at the Club DeVille Spring Fashion Extravaganza.
Head Out on the Highway
Willow City Loop The Willow City Loop is a 13-mile stretch of farmland back road where time slows down and gentility returns to city drivers who climb behind the wheel. The narrow, dusty pink road winds up and down over green-washed hills streaked with wildflowers — a primary-color jumble made up of bluebonnets, firewheel, Indian…
Intel Building Design Contest Winners
Kirk Watson Memorial Waterfall by John Borger If water falls in the central city, does it get an incentive package? John Borger suggested this Kirk Watson Memorial Waterfall in honor, presumably, of the $15 million in incentives the city offered Intel if it would build its chip design center downtown.
Articulations
Arts Center Stage got a new lease on life — or at least a new lease on Palmer Auditorium; the Bad Dog Comedy Theatre offers last call, and the Rude Mechanicals gets their second plug of the year in The New York Times.
About AIDS
Price-gouging tactics revealed
Head Out on the Highway
Transportation Museums Central Texas Museum of Automotive History Businessman and rancher Dick Burdick’s love for cars led to a collection of more than 100 classic cars including a 1948 Tucker that was in the movie of the same name. From the beautiful to the fanciful, there is some in the collection that will astound just…
Intel Building Design Contest Winners
Intel Not Inside by Todd Green Todd Green suggested hanging this banner on the outside of the Intel building. While it may not be a permanent solution, he suggested, it might keep Intel off the site for good.
Exhibitionism
Despite some fine performances, consistently lush and well-executed chorus numbers, and stunning sets and costumes, the Austin Musical Theatre production of Oliver! leaves one wanting more.
To Your Health
My daily headaches have cleared up since I began taking six tablets of acetaminophen (Tylenol) every day. Should I keep looking for a nutritional solution?
Sara Smile
Those teeth, those lips, those songs — the one and only Sara Hickman
Second Helpings: Chinese
The weekly Chronicle feature “Second Helpings” offers readers the opportunity to sample tasty, bite-sized restaurant listings compiled from new and previous reviews, guides, and poll results. This week’s entries were compiled by Chronicle Cuisines writer Mick Vann. When you need quick, reliable information about Austin eateries, check here. Pao’s Mandarin House 2300 Lohman’s Crossing, 263-8869…
Naked City
Local news this week in Austin.
Exhibitionism
In their newest sketch anthology, The LCP Sells Out, the Latino Comedy Project subjects the motivations of Latino artists and celebrities, as well as those of their media exploiters, to a jesterly scrutinizing in a fast-paced, enthusiastic, muy silly parade of skits, videos, and songs.
Coach’s Corner
To those who think the NBA is just a pale, slow-motion shadow of its former self, Coach says: Take another look; the running game is back, and you need only look at the eight surviving playoff teams to see it.
All There in the Music
Mandy Mercier puts down her fiddle to talk about her eventful life.
Outdoor Summer Film Series
When the sun goes down and a breeze kicks in, you might try getting your movie fix outdoors: Austin’s Bike-in theatre and aGLIFF’s drive-in spectacular are just two of the local outdoor summer film series.
Naked City
The county’s latest report on child fatalities contains some sobering statistics.
Exhibitionism
Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company’s latest offering, Royal Pair: Games We Play, offered abstracted versions of popular children’s games with subtle humor and playfulness, yet the production’s lighting and electronica-style accompaniment conflicted with the choreography in what seemed a friendly battle, for center stage.
Reliable Execution
Why it’s easy to like Eddie V’s Edgewater Grill
Dancing About Architecture
The rains came, sweeping away parking at Noahfest, Boozoo Chavis, and DJ Muppetfucker’s name. Clifford Antone, meanwhile, remains in the pokey, while Schatzi prepares to go the same route and sign a record deal.
Record Reviews
RammsteinMutter (Republic/Universal) Mein Gott! Every age deserves its own German techno-metal nihilists, but only ours is lucky enough to get Rammstein. When a band can get away with a line that translates into “a thousand elephants breaking out,” you know they’re good. It’s because Rammstein really do sound like a thousand elephants breaking out. “Links…
Naked City
The West Austin Park, for years an unofficial off-leash “dog park” for neighborhood residents, gets an unexpected makeover into a T-ball field.
The Secret History
That a man from San Antonio named Richard Santos has as much to add to the world of Jewish intellectual pursuits as an attorney named Rosen is as fascinating as it should be obvious, David Garza writes after he attended the Texas Jewish Historical Society’s 22nd annual gathering. For the first time, perhaps, an entirely…
Food-o-File
Where to pick berries, events to attend, and people to congratulate in this week’s Food-o-File.
Gabriela
Gabriela 2001, R, 93 min. Directed by Vincent Jay Miller, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jaime Gomez, Seidy Lopez, Zach Galligan, Troy Winbush, Lupe Ontiveros, Stacy Haiduk, Evelina Fernandez, Frank Medrano. The press materials for Miller’s debut feature offer a juicy quote calling it, “the best love story since Pretty Woman” and “a…
Record Reviews
Daft PunkDiscovery (Virgin America) Just how goofy do you have to be to incorporate a mid-Eighties hair god guitar wankfest into your so-groovy-it-hurts dance epic? Pretty goddamn goofy, baby, which aptly describes Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Mauel de Homem-Christo, better known (or unknown; the pair are given to snarky disguises) as Daft Punk. That they’re French…
Naked City
Café Mundi, already nearly invisible thanks to its location on a remote portion of East Fifth Street and a curb that cuts off customers’ access, became even more inaccessible last week.
Postscripts
Katherine Anne Porter would have turned 101 on May 15; details in Postscripts.
Mini-Review
For those favoring the flavors of the Middle East in a relaxed yet elegant atmosphere, Marakesh is the ticket.
Series 7: The Contenders
Series 7: The Contenders 2001, R, 85 min. Directed by Daniel Minahan, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Brooke Smith, Marylouise Burke, Glenn Fitzgerald, Michael Kaycheck, Richard Venture, Merritt Wever, Donna Hanover, Angelina Phillips. Forgive me for stating the obvious: American culture is in the grip of reality TV. Furthermore, every armchair sociologist in…
Record Reviews
Anouar Brahem Trio Astrakan Cafe (ECM) Having already recorded a handful of accomplished albums for ECM, Thimar and Conte de L’Incroyable Amour being two standouts, Tunisian Anouar Brahem’s latest release, Astrakan Cafe, may be the finest document of his formidable composing, performing, and bandleading gifts to date. Except for internationally known flute player Kudsi Erguner,…
Naked City
Architect Antoine Predock presents a sleeker, more sharply angled version of his City Hall design; the Bennett Tract faces a tough road with neighbors and the developer at an impasse over the size and scale of proposed development on the East Austin tract.
Readings
The Money and the Power The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America, 1947-2000 by Sally Denton and Roger Morris Knopf, 479 pp., $26.95 Las Vegas lifts out of the Mojave Desert in southwestern Nevada with stunning visual power and magnitude so intense its lights are the first seen by astronauts re-entering the…
Summer Fun on Wheels
Summer is the wistful season. It’s only natural to give in to the rush of nostalgia and memory. For most of us, childhood summers meant the all-important lack of structure, the release from the drudgery of the school day, and time to explore. The skating rink was the stage for so many rites of passage.…
When Brendan Met Trudy
When Brendan Met Trudy 2001, NR, 95 min. Directed by Kieron J. Walsh, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Niall O’Brien, Barry Cassin, Eileen Walsh, Maynard Eziashi, Don Wycherley, Pauline Mclynn, Marie Mullen, Flora Montgomery, Peter Mcdonald. Irish novelist Roddy Doyle is perhaps one of the luckiest authors working today. Beginning with The Commitments…
Record Reviews
Joe HenryScar (Mammoth) Scar is the third CD since Joe Henry traded in his B-team Jayhawks status for a kind of drowsy trip-hop motif, and it was a smart move. With his deliberate, choked-off delivery, he slips right into the genre, while his songcraft brings it something entirely new. Henry has had artistic aspirations from…
Naked City
The State Policy Committee overturns its earlier rejections of several progressive organizations applying for participation in the annual State Employee Charitable Campaign.
Readings
True Tales From Another Mexico The Lynch Mob, the Popsicle Kings, Chalino, and the Bronx by Sam Quinones University of New Mexico Press, 320 pp., $29.95 If Mexico’s idea of the United States as a bloated and heartless empire is an exaggeration of historical truths, so is our equally outrageous claim that our southern neighbors…
Rollergirl
A million lights are dancing and there you are, a shooting star! You are a muse on eight wheels! You are roller skating!
Latin Beat
Took in The Wedding Planner recently, the $1.50 special up at the fabulous Discount Cinema on Wells Branch. Bargain. Watching Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey flirt their perky way around San Francisco proved serious sitcom satiation for gente that doesn’t have cable. Kinda chistoso. No less worthy a laugh is J-Lo (Epic), attempt numero dos…
Capitol Chronicle
It’s reassuring to know that welfare programs are alive and well at the Lege. No, not that piddling couple of hundred bucks a month they hand out to poor people. I’m speaking of the serious and sacred welfare programs: those for the benefit of rich people. These are perennial and untouchable, and take myriad forms:…
Readings
The Trial of Henry Kissinger by Christopher Hitchens Verso, 160 pp., $22 Plenty of Americans shake their heads to find out that Japanese schoolchildren are still never taught about Pearl Harbor or Korean “comfort women” or certain other unpleasant episodes from Japan’s recent past. Of course, we ourselves are ripe for head shaking, too, over…
Skate Listings
Skate Parks INTELLECT ROLLERS REALM Turn off the Sega, and grab yourself a cold Mountain Dew. Intellect RR is a classic indoor skate park in the X-Games sense. With 20,000 square feet of ramps, there is bound to be something to fit any skater’s needs. It’s also one of the few places in the area…
Trench Warfare
Federal judge rules for LCRA on the Dripping Springs pipeline project, but the SOS lawsuit proceeds
The Hightower Lowdown
The Fundraiser-in-Chief, Harvard busts its workers, and Dick Cheney oils his own nest
In Person
“The moment, I think, in a mystery when the body is discovered is one of huge importance to the novel. I always describe it through the eyes, and therefore through the mind, through the senses of the character who actually does the discovering.” That’s Baroness P.D. (Phyllis Dorothy) James, of Holland Park, expounding on her…
A Life on Wheels
You may have never actually seen Fritz Blaw in person. And if you have, he may have been a blur, because he is usually on wheels. You have most certainly encountered his handiwork, however, most notably as the “Rollerblading poster guy.” His Motorblade Postering Service wallpapers Austin with fliers, posters, and handbills for a wide…
Phases and Stages
This map shows the Lower Colorado River Authority’s three-phase plan for water pipelines into southwest Travis County and northern Hays County. Phase I (which Judge Sam Sparks refused to halt with a preliminary injunction) is under construction, expected to be operational by November. It runs south along Hwy. 71 from a tank near the LCRA…
Short Cuts
St. Stephen’s kids make movie, Northcross 6 set to close.
Page Two
To what citywide scandal has our monopoly daily directed its powerful attention? It’s a local scourge, a plague, a deep-rooted city problem: the South by Southwest Conference and Festivals. (Okay, well, we don’t get it either.)
Skate the Rainbow
My roommate tried to convince me to go, with the promise of lots of cuties. I really wasn’t buying that one. But could it be so bad? After all, it was a gay function, in a part of town that totally reminded me of my childhood, and I was gainfully employed. Rainbow Skate Night ……
Intel Building Design Contest Winners
We sent out the call, and you responded: Literally dozens of you sent in suggestions about what to do with the still-abandoned Intel building. While the suggestions ranged from the sublime (wrapping the building in tinfoil, flexible movie screens, and banner art) to the absurd (see our winner, below), a few common themes emerged: Several…
Video Reviews
Like most children’s stories, Transformers: The Movie offers subtle lessons about the development of technology, but it might be best viewed as a piece of nostalgia.
Public Notice
“Public Notice” gets its motor running and hits the streets with Meals on Wheels.
Monster Duck
The Big Lumbering Tour Boat / Truck Known as Longhorn Lilly Offers a Bird’s Eye View of Austin
Intel Building Design Contest Winners
The Corporate Petting Zoo by Mark Lipset Mark Lipset, our winner, calls his proposed corporate petting zoo “a great opportunity for the city to put executives where they really belong. The corporate petting zoo will give children of all ages the opportunity to pet, feed, and play with those people who have the most say-so…
Video Reviews
The best way to enjoy this campy futuristic adventure is to get a case of cheapo beer, invite some friends over, and have your own personal MST 3000 session with it.
An Activity of Alchemies
The alchemy of baseball makes possible the elongation and compression of time.
2001 Austin Parks & Recreation Pool Schedule
The first day of AISD’s summer vacation is May 24. Most of the neighborhood pools open that week or the next, and stay open through Aug 5 or 12. Some (marked with ‘t’s) stay open for extra weekends through Labor Day. Note that the schedule is subject to change throughout the season. For hours and…
A Knight’s Tale
This warped medieval yarn about a peasant who passes himself off as a knight glides by on a funny, friendly, goofy sort of goodness.
