Adrenalin: Fear the Rush
Adrenalin: Fear the Rush 1996, R, 91 min. Directed by Albert Pyun, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Christopher Lambert, Natasha Henstridge. Not reviewed at press time. In this apocalyptic thriller by writer-director Albert Pyun, the year is 2007 and a toxic chemical leakage in the Soviet Union has caused all the citizens of…
Summer Reading
This auspicious debut, begun at the Michener Center for Writers, isn’t a mystery yarn or a family gothic, a romance, or a satire of radical environmentalism. It’s all of the above and then some.
The Common Law
Copyright – movie scripts
Women, Memories, and Food
Take Big Bites: Adventures Around the World and Across the Tableby Linda Ellerbee Putnam, 302 pp., $24.95 Linda Ellerbee readily admits that her “thirty-something years as a journalist allowed me to travel and eat while pretending to be working.” Luckily for her legion of fans, Ellerbee serves up mouthwatering stories about her “adventures around the…
Music Books
Whores and more for you musical summer reading
Naked City
Denver wants to be SAFER, and Walters only likes softballs in press conferences
DVDs
The Last American VirginMGM, $14.95 Summer vacation gets its last hurrah in high school. Then comes that most dubious of nightmares known as responsibility. Older working stiffs have to settle for second best: teen movies. Make mine goofy/horny comedies from the 1980s. Fast Times at Ridgemont High is too obvious. Released one week before Fast…
Summer Reading
For those new to speculative fiction in general and African-American writers of the form in particular, the newest ‘Dark Matter’ anthology, edited by Sheree Thomas, is the perfect guide
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Gyroscopic forces of spinning wheels don’t keep a bicycle upright
Women, Memories, and Food
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguiseby Ruth Reichl Penguin Press, 333 pp., $24.95 For years, stories have circulated about various prominent New York restaurant critics disguising themselves with hats and wigs, but it wasn’t clear just how far Ruth Reichl was willing to go in the pursuit of a genuinely…
Music Books
Whores: An Oral Biography of Perry Farrell and Jane’s Addictionby Brendan Mullen Da Capo Press, 324 pp., $26 You know you want the gory details. You want to know who “Jane” really was (not a prostitute). You want to know how much heroin Dave Navarro was shooting during the first Lollapalooza in ’91 ($700 a…
Naked City
Case must go through state courts first
DVDs
This 1951 film about a middle-class Japanese family trying to arrange a marriage for their ‘aging’ 28-year-old daughter is considered one of Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu’s most characteristic
Summer Reading
The familiar self-portrait on the front cover of ‘The R. Crumb Handbook’ offers a warning before you crack the spine:’I’m not here to be polite!’
Day Trips
Two Grannies’ Downhome Cookin’ in Glen Rose hands out hugs like most restaurants hand out mints
Food-o-File
News of the new and of the old; plus, a recipe you’ll want to hold on to
Music Books
To the Limit: The Untold Story of the Eagles by Marc Eliot Da Capo Press, 395 pp., $16.95 (paper) Originally released in 1998, To The Limit: The Untold Story of the Eagles still chronicles the historically laid-back and drug-fueled L.A. band’s story, with the addition of a 24-page postscript that will raise the hair on…
Naked City
APD whistle-blower files another retaliation allegation
South of France by Southwest
In keeping a journal during my five days in Cannes, where my first feature, ‘Room,’ premiered internationally, it occurred to me that it’s the creative energy in Austin that has carried me this far.
Summer Reading
He spent seven years smuggling marijuana into the United States over the border from Mexico and somehow lived to write about it
Soccer Watch
A Champions League teaser, and the triumphs of the brothers Guadarrama
Reissues
The CureThree Imaginary Boys (Rhino/Elektra/Fiction) The CureSeventeen Seconds (Rhino/Elektra/Fiction) The CureFaith (Rhino/Elektra/Fiction) The CurePornography (Rhino/Elektra/Fiction) Even though they hit paydirt right away with “Boys Don’t Cry,” their first single and possibly the finest of its era, the Cure were such a mess in their early days it’s a minor miracle they survived – not just…
Music Books
Searching for the Sound: My Life With the Grateful Dead by Phil Lesh Little, Brown, 338 pp., $25.95 “Jerry’s still dead,” my daughter is quick to admonish her hopelessly unhip dad, but that fact has hardly dampened the voracious appetite of “Deadicated” fans for more, be it artwork, tapes from the vault, or, in this…
Naked City
Obese military budget crushes local governments, group alleges
In Print
While it’s bad form to judge a book by its cover – stunningly iconic in this case – this glancing Buster Keaton biography betrays its shortcomings by its page count
Summer Reading
Rarely does a novel succeed in strengthening itself through its own dismantling
Oops!
A “Naked City” item about the judicial record of Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen incorrectly described her as a “former” justice; Owen awaits a possible federal court appointment (pending U.S. Senate confirmation) but is currently serving on the Texas Supreme Court. A story about the new Shoal Creek Boulevard Transportation Project, “Shoal Creek Boulevard…
Reissues
R.E.M.Green (Warner Bros.) R.E.M.Out of Time (Warner Bros.) R.E.M.Automatic for the People (Warner Bros.) R.E.M.Monster (Warner Bros.) R.E.M.New Adventures in Hi-Fi (Warner Bros.) R.E.M.Up (Warner Bros.) R.E.M.Reveal (Warner Bros.) R.E.M.In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003 (Warner Bros.) R.E.M.Around the Sun (Warner Bros.) R.E.M. has always been a record-collector’s nightmare, but their tenure with Warner…
Music Books
Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movementby S. Craig Watkins Beacon Press, 288 pp., $24.95 “You love to hear the story again and again, of how it all got started way back when.” Taking MC Shan’s infamous words to heart, UT professor Craig Watkins traces hip-hop’s legacy…
Naked City
Activist conference targets gentrification
Film News
The pair behind ‘Dear Pillow’ is at it again; plus, IFP issues, Cannes kudos, and Digital Light Processing lightsabers
TCB
Openings, closings, deals, and meals – all on ‘Deadwood’ Austin
Summer Reading
Ian McEwan’s observation of human experience is unflaggingly acute
Yummer Reading
From ‘Robbing the Bees’ to ‘The Eater’s Guide to Chinese Characters’, ‘Food & Wine’ to ‘Einstein,’ the best of this summer’s food books
Reissues
Dinosaur Jr.Dinosaur (Merge) Dinosaur Jr.You’re Living All Over Me (Merge) Dinosaur Jr.Bug (Merge) As influential as they were among the sonic misfits of the Nineties, Dinosaur Jr.’s career only spanned the latter five years of the “Me” decade with the original lineup of J Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Murph; most of those years were spent…
Music Books
Hot Property: The Stealing of Ideas in an Age of Globalizationby Pat Choate Knopf, 352 pp., $26.95 What do Napster and pharmaceuticals have to do with one another? More than you think, according to Pat Choate’s Hot Property: The Stealing of Ideas in an Age of Globalization. Over the course of 300-plus pages, Choate –…
Point Austin: The Lege v. Austin
The Austin-bashing bills are not just about water – also property, power, and democracy
DVD Watch
Jane Fonda is a fixture in the American imagination – and as it turns out, the French imagination, too
Applause! Applause!
Austin Critics Table nominations, 2004-2005
Summer Reading
Michael Connelly’s ace homicide detective Harry Bosch is back with LAPD after three years’ retirement
Yummer Reading
Robbing the Bees: A Biography of Honey – The Sweet Liquid Gold that Seduced the World by Holley Bishop Free Press, 336 pp., $24 Bees have always fascinated humans. They’ve been the subject of wonder, speculation, and scientific study since ancient Egypt, the Hindu Rig Veda, and the works of Homer. Something in today’s culture…
Reissues
Manic Street Preachers The Holy Bible: Tenth Anniversary Edition (Epic) Richey Manic is dead; long live Richey Manic. The psychologically embattled Manic’s guitarist is now, officially, Britain’s own Cobain. Ten years after their spindly-limbed guitarist simply vanished into the thick air of Cardiff, surviving band members James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire, and Sean Moore have…
Music Books
Guitar: An American Lifeby Tim Brookes Grove Press, 340 pp., $24 Given its hegemonic grip on American popular music, it’s hard to imagine the guitar as instrumenta non grata. But as National Public Radio commentator and National Geographic writer Tim Brookes details, the six-stringer was once an outsider’s tool, relegated to the back of the…
Point Austin: Beside the Point: Quality Time
This week’s City Council agenda
TV Eye
Next Wednesday, Punk’d creators Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg deliver a delicious slice of reality TV, high on guffaws, low on enduring value
Austin Arts Hall of Fame: Class of ’05
The Austin Critics Table has named the fourth group of individuals to be inducted into the Austin Arts Hall of Fame. As with the previous honorees, these six Austinites have made significant contributions to the community over many years, some as artists, some as educators, some as patrons, some as administrators, some as a combination…
Summer Reading
Anyone familiar with the musical output of John Wesley Harding (né Wesley Stace) knows that the artist possesses a sly wit and literary ear that sets him apart from his fellow folk singers
Yummer Reading
An Embarrassment of Mangoes: A Caribbean Interludeby Ann Vanderhoof Broadway, 320 pp., $14.95 (paper) OK, I agree that the premise may be trite, but it is an ideal subject for summer reading. After all, who hasn’t dreamed of ditching life in the rat race in exchange for the laid-back lifestyle of a tropical island? In…
Reissues
Yo La TengoPrisoners of Love: A Smattering of Scintillating Senescent Songs 1985-2003 (Matador) “Time goes by. I know it’s gonna happen; I know it’s goin’ away,” (“Tom Courtenay”). Yo La Tengo is a band of continuation and transfer. The Hoboken, N.J., trio makes music for first kisses, last sights, hellos, and goodbyes. Prisoners of Love…
Music Books
Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costelloby Graeme Thomson Canongate, 352 pp., $24 (paper) One of many moments Mojo contributor Graeme Thomson gracefully recalls from Elvis Costello’s career in order to better contextualize his “life and music” is the cry of “genius” from the audience at a 1991 concert. “Ah, not yet I’m…
The Voucher Death Dance
The House voucher vampires get a lesson in slaying the beast
Azul Gets Solid
The Blue Genie Art guys have taken it upon themselves to bring outdoor artwork back to Azul with a show that’s ‘Solid’ in aesthetic and material forms as well as in name
Summer Reading
One big, crippling thought that makes you wonder how long John McManus has been waiting to confide it, this naturalistic first novel from the former Michener fellow and author of the short-story collections ‘Born on a Train’ and ‘Stop Breakin Down’ takes place in late-Eighties East Tennessee at the base of a ridge in the…
Yummer Reading
The Eater’s Guide to Chinese Charactersby James D. McCawley University of Chicago Press, 248 pp., $15 (paper) For every adventurous Chinese restaurant diner, there’s nothing more frustrating than seeing that hand-lettered sign taped to the wall with lines of Chinese script and prices at the end of each line. You know there are culinary treasures…
Reissues
StereolabOscillons From the Anti-Sun (Too Pure) The old adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” could apply to Stereolab’s entire career. Their bubbly, bossa-art nouveau was consistent throughout the Nineties, all retrofit Moog and cutesy French pop. They exuded a certain, how do you say – joie de vivre – in their live and…
Music Books
The Rock Snob’s Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Rockological Knowledgeby David Kamp and Steven Daly Broadway Books, 151 pp., $12.95 (paper) Living in Austin, we’ve all been there. You’re enjoying a latte at Little City, or would be if not for the god-awful noise issuing from the speakers. Daring to ask the barista its provenance,…
Lege Notes
Odds and ends (mostly odds) from the 79th
Eating Out
Crude comedy of sexual errors falls flat.
Houston’s Miller Outdoor Theatre and Paul Beutel: They’re Playing His Song
After 35 years in Austin, former Paramount Theatre Director Paul Beutel is headed home to Houston to be the Miller Outdoor Theatre’s first artistic director
Summer Reading
In ‘Embroideries,’ Marjane Satrapi again returns to the Iran of her youth, this time taking readers to a more intimate place, the space inhabited by women
Yummer Reading
Food & Wine Annual Cookbook 2005: An Entire Year of Recipes edited by Kate HeddingsFood & Wine Books, 410 pp., $29.95 Food & Wine Cocktails 2005edited by Kate Krader Food & Wine Books, 232 pp., $14.95 (paper) Foodies love Food & Wine for its multifaceted coverage of recipes, restaurants, and drinks. We especially love the…
Reissues
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana BrassThe Lonely Bull (Shout! Factory) Herb Alpert & the Tijuana BrassSouth of the Border (Shout! Factory) Herb Alpert & the Tijuana BrassWhipped Cream & Other Delights (Shout! Factory) Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass!!Going Places!! (Shout! Factory) Herb Alpert & the Tijuana BrassWhat Now My Love (Shout! Factory) Herb Alpert…
In Memoriam
The Austin State Hospital Cemetery is the long final home for thousands
The Hightower Report
A Japanese, Chinese, and Canadian affair; and ‘The Hammer’ gets prayerful
Turtles Can Fly
New Iraqi drama by Iranian Kurd Bahman Ghobadi is lyrical and heart-wrenching as it focuses on the children of conflict.
Strange Visitor From Another Planet
Hip-hop poet Zell Miller III is special, one of those people who radiate energy like the brightest of stars breaking through clouds on the darkest of nights
Summer Reading
Some other summer reading possibilities …
Yummer Reading
Gardens of New Spain: How Mediterranean Plants and Foods Changed Americaby William W. Dunmire UT Press, 375 pp., $24.95 (paper) When the Spanish arrived in the New World, they brought with them not just their horses, guns, and colonists, but an entire agricultural system of seeds and animal stock to transplant onto their newly discovered…
Reissues
Count Basie The Complete Clef/Verve Count Basie Fifties Studio Recordings (Mosaic) Count Basie’s first band of the late-Thirties/early-Forties was his best. Accumulating so many outstanding musicians, William “Count” Basie didn’t need elaborate arrangements to produce music of great quality. With men like Lester Young and Buck Clayton, he just had to find enough room for…
Passing the Baton
City looks to future in wake of Texas Relays Controversy
The Longest Yard
Sandler and Rock keep the ball in play for this old prison football gem, although they fail to score any new points.
Arts Review
Despite its problems, Mainline Theater Project’s ‘Three Days of Rain’ succeeds in showing us two sets of young people puzzling out who they are and want to be
Page Two
On the faults of Democrats, the failure of Republican rule, and the fundamental need for Social Security
Yummer Reading
La Cocina de Mamá: The Great Home Cooking of Spainby Penelope Casas Broadway Books, 320 pp., $29.95 Penelope Casas is the last word when it comes to English-language Spanish food writers. She’s spent the past 35 years leading select culinary tours of the country and is an ambassador for Spain’s incredible food products. In Cocina,…
Reissues
Art Pepper(Mosaic) Art Pepper’s 1979 autobiography Straight Life made him one of the world’s most well-known jazz musicians. He deserved the acclaim; he’d been a terrific alto saxophonist in the L.A. area for decades. Now Mosaic Records has released a 3-CD set that makes some of Pepper’s finest recordings, cut 1956-1957 for a few small…
Reining in the Mother of All Big Boxes
Local activists seek community-wide benefits analyses of big-box proposals
DVDs
Jacques Tati’s signature film captures the essence of summer in 87 seaside minutes photographed so gorgeously they could only end with a postmark in the upper-right-hand corner
Madagascar
Animated zoo animals head back to the wild
Arts Review
What is extraordinary about artist Ana Fuentes is that in her works she aims to attain emotional states and alter external circumstances that are not part of her physical environment
Letters at 3AM
Happiness costs. I know better now than to indulge this happiness, but still I drive on and I can’t or won’t stop. It isn’t right that I and my Chevy, and you and your car, eat up the world’s resources at the rate we do. We’re driving in sin.
Yummer Reading
What Einstein Told His Cook 2: Further Adventures in Kitchen Scienceby Robert L. Wolke, with recipes by Marlene Parrish Norton, 464 pp., $25.95 If I had to describe this sequel to professor Wolke’s What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained in comparison to TV shows, a combination between Good Eats, MythBusters, and Monthy Python’s…
Reissues
Aretha Franklin & King CurtisLive at Fillmore West: Don’t Fight the Feeling (Rhino Handmade) Juggernauts from NYC’s Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra to Austin’s Grupo Fantasma suggest our era is ripe for a revival of the great soul revues of the Sixties and Seventies. Originally released as two LPs – a Gold record for the Queen of…
UT & Lockheed Woo Los Alamos
Peace activists urge UT to take a moral stand against weapons of mass destruction by refusing to bid on Los Alamos, while supporters see an opportunity for UT to increase its recognition and prestige, and protect national security
DVDs
Ostensibly a kids show, the series’ first season included jokes about draft evasion, strip clubs, and divorce
3-Iron
A young man steals into people’s apartments and adopts their identities in this largely wordless Korean drama.
Culture Flash!
‘The Death of a Cat’ gets another new lease on life, First Night Austin needs a lot of artists this New Year’s Eve, and an Austin art car Hoovers up the competition in Houston
After a Fashion
Peek into the future of death! At least that’s what your Style Avatar calls it. While you’re at it, peek into the future of a cool event or two, coming to a club near you.
Yummer Reading
Jasmine in Her Hair: Culture and Cuisine From Pakistan by Huma Siddiqui White Jasmine Press, 152 pp., $29.95 (paper) In general, trends in modern cookbooks are as fickle and fleeting as high fashion, but our appetite for memoir cookbooks is not yet satiated. A particularly charming and unaffected example of this popular genre is Huma…
Reissues
Charlie Poole You Ain’t Talkin’ to Me (Columbia/Legacy) Along with Jimmie Rodgers and Uncle Dave Macon, Charlie Poole (1892-1931) is among the founders of modern country music. Though a professional performer for a comparatively short time, he’s also cited as one of the precursors of bluegrass. Prior to that, Poole was a mill hand in…
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from Austin and beyond
DVDs
What begins as a film following two junior high basketball phenoms with aspirations for the NBA becomes, over five years of filming, ‘Hoop Dreams,’ the classic depicting the collision of the American dream and the reality of life on the streets of Chicago
About AIDS
Got medications you don’t need? Don’t throw them away! They could make the difference between life and death for HIV-infected people in poor countries.
Women, Memories, and Food
Three famed dames look back and ahead.
Reissues
EaglesEagles Box (WSM/Elektra) The FM radio kings of the Seventies were made for the medium. Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and Timothy B. Schmit inherited the Byrds’ SoCal vocal crown with sun-drenched harmonies on early staples “Take It Easy” and “One of These Nights,” and when axemen Don Felder and Joe Walsh got on board in…
Naked City
Bill would save state $6 million per year, author says
DVDs
The latest from Wong Kar Wai is slated for a U.S. Sony Classics theatrical release in August, but for those who’ve wearied of waiting, Netflix, as well as local independent stores, is offering a no-frills DVD of the film
Summer Reading
It’s been said that behind every great man there’s a woman, but Adrienne Miller kicks it up a notch
To Your Health
Qualified and unqualified health claims
Women, Memories, and Food
Dishing: Great Dish – and Dishes – From America’s Most Beloved Gossip Columnistby Liz Smith Simon & Schuster, 240 pp., $25 Fort Worth native Liz Smith has spent the entire second half of the 20th century and beyond in New York City writing about who’s who and what’s what and who did what to whom…
Reissues
The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 1: 59-61(Motown/Hip-O Select) The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 2: 1962(Motown/Hip-O Select) Motown’s 6-CD Big Bang is stamped with a bolded endnote. “It’s only the beginning. Future volumes – Volumes 2 through 12 – will document every A and B side from Hitsville USA, with box sets for every year from…
Naked City
Gay leader makes bold red-state predictions
DVDs
Even the ‘Sickness of Eros’ has unexpected side effects
Luv Doc Recommends: The Emotions
Memorial Day should be a peaceful time of quiet reflection, a good day to nurse that blistering sunburn and wicked umbrella drink hangover you got from two hard days of partying at the lake. Yeah, at the end of a long, beautiful spring, sometimes it’s nice to just relax sur le lac with some friends…
