Bad Company
Bad Company 1995, NR. Directed by Damian Harris, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Ellen Barkin, Spalding Gray, David Ogden Stiers, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Beach, Frank Langella, Gia Carides. Unfortunately for the talented Laurence Fishburne, he keeps bad acting company in Damian Harris’ overly sinister and under-plotted espionage thriller Bad Company. The story has…
Make Like Magic
Make Like Magic 2002, NR, 94 min. Directed by Alpesh Patel, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Abigail Spencer, Adrian R’mante. This high school romantic comedy follows two graduation-night storylines: the revenge of a nerdy duo on the jocks who tormented them throughout school and the surprises awaiting a low-key dreamer and the high-strung…
Martyrs of the Alamo
Martyrs of the Alamo 1915, NR, 70 min. Directed by W. Christy Cabanne, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Allan Sears, Walter Long, Alfred Paget, John T. Dillon, Douglas Fairbanks. This silent feature is the oldest surviving cinematic depiction of the defense of the Alamo, directed by D.W. Griffith’s former assistant who went on…
Ride Lonesome
Ride Lonesome 1959, NR, 73 min. Directed by Budd Boetticher, Starring Randolph Scott, Karen Steele, Pernell Roberts, James Best, Lee Van Cleef, James Coburn. One of the great Western pairings between Randolph Scott and Budd Beotticher also features James Coburn in his debut screen role. Scott plays an aging bounty huntner whose cryptic actions obey…
Obsession
Obsession 1976, PG, 98 min. Directed by Brian De Palma, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Cliff Robertson, Genevieve Bujold, John Lithgow, Sylvia Kuumba Williams. Double-billed with Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Brian De Palma’s Obsession provides the perfect complement. Obsession is a direct “tribute” to the transubstantiation of identity that occurs in Vertigo as Cliff Robertson…
One, Two, Three
One, Two, Three 1961, NR, 108 min. Directed by Billy Wilder, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Pamela Tiffin, Horst Buchholz, Arlene Francis, James Cagney. Wilder mixed the Cold War and the Berlin Wall with his comedic sensibilities and turned a diplomatic nightmare into a take-no-prisoners assault on the funny bone. In his last…
Dunston Checks in
Dunston Checks in 1996, PG, 88 min. Directed by Ken Kwapis, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jason Alexander, Faye Dunaway, Rupert Everett, Eric Lloyd, Graham Sack, Paul Reubens. “I have two words for you,” threatens jewel thief Lord Rutledge (Everett) to his disgruntled simian sidekick Dunston: “Medical experiments.” More lines like this would…
They Call Me Bruce?
They Call Me Bruce? 1982, PG, 86 min. Directed by Elliot Hong, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Margaux Hemingway, Ralph Mauro, Martin Azarow, Johnny Yune. Korean comic Johnny Yune stars as an inept frycook who keeps being mistaken for Bruce Lee.
Sing-Along Sound of Music
Sing-Along Sound of Music 1965, NR, 174 min. Directed by Robert Wise, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, Peggy Wood, Richard Hadyn, Marni Nixon, Julie Andrews. The Paramount’s alive with The Sound of Music as the audience chimes in singing during the screening of this cheery classic. Costumes are encouraged…
Summer Reading
The scene is dead,” according to no less an authority than Sonic Youth. But what was the scene? In 1910, it was definitely Greenwich Village. If you were young, not so dumb, and full of lust (as well as white and middle class) in Cleveland, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Boston, in Mudville or Whoville, there was no…
To Your Health
I’m a distance runner, not too much overweight but I would still like to lose about 10 more pounds. Some of my friends are losing weight on the Atkins Diet, but it takes away some very good foods. Is it still worth doing?
Phases and Stages
Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times and Short Life of Darby Crash and the GermsBy Brendan Mullen, with Don Bolles and Adam Parfrey Feral House; 312 pp., $16.95 The career of Darby Crash lasted only a couple of years. He made one album that didn’t sell very well, and then committed suicide by heroin overdose in…
New in Print
THE GREAT MOVIESBy Roger Ebert Broadway Books, 511 pp., $27.50 In the universally accepted hierarchy of Big Baddies, film critics tend to be wedged somewhere between lawyers, dentists, and people who swing cats by their tails. Were we in a fightin’ mood, we might argue that, when done right, criticism of art can be an…
Summer Reading
Harlan Coben has once again mothballed the lovable, Yoo-Hoo-swilling sports agent sleuth Myron Bolitar. In his stead is Coben’s second stand-alone mystery — Gone for Good (Delacorte, $23.95) — another witty-gritty gut-churner in the mold of 2000’s bestselling Tell No One. Here, young Will Stein’s world is shaken to its core for the second time.…
Coach’s Corner
After a century of “development,” baseball needs to reinvent itself. If it takes a long, bloody strike for the players and owners to understand that they have to work together, then so be it.
Still Bleeding
APD Officer Jeff White’s lawsuit against the department gives new life to allegations of corruption and retaliation.
Kid’s Summer Movie Camps
Parents can catch a breath after dropping off their young tykes at the Kids’ Summer Movie Camps.
Summer Reading
In 1977 Eustace Conway was 17, a heady age to move out of his family’s home, forsake civilization, and begin living off the land. He created a teepee, rubbed two sticks together to make fire, used a blowgun, and wore the skins of animals he had hunted. His mother was an “unrepentant tomboy,” and his…
Letters at 3am
Learning about “manhood” from the movies.
Dude, Are You Recycling?
Environmentalist demand that Dell recycle obsolete computers; Dell replies that it is already doing so.
Not Your Average Arts & Crafts: Summer Media Camps
When is that cringing adage “Be cool, stay in school” a little less wince-worthy? When school actually is cool — ridiculously cool in the case of the Austin Film Society’s Summer Media Camps, at which kids age 13-17 can crash-course in either Super-8 or DV movie-making. AFS Director of Artist Services Elisabeth Sikes will handle…
Summer Reading
There are days in Texas when it’s too damn hot to read anything taxing. Luckily, Laura Zigman, author of Dating Big Bird and Animal Husbandry (later adapted as Someone Like You, starring Ashley Judd), offers a breezy new novel just in time for the heat. One of the founding members of the now-ubiquitous “goofy single…
Great Expectations
Rebecca Chastenet de Géry hopes for the best at Collin B’s Bistro and Wine Room.
Too Much Room at the Inn?
Plans for New Downtown Hotel Generates Welcomes and Skepticism
Short Cuts
New digs at dirt-cheap prices for filmmakers, plus Alan Watts’ summer camp for kids, a free film series at UT, and some sticky fingers over at News 8 Austin.
Second Helpings
Food Editor Virginia B. Wood surveys Austin deli sandwiches in this week’s “Second Helpings.”
Summer Reading
When Louise White Elk was nine, Baptiste Yellow Knife blew a fine white powder in her face and told her she would disappear.” So begins Perma Red (BlueHen, $24.95), the debut novel by Debra Magpie Earling, a love song to Louise and the story of her fight to remain visible against the desolate backdrop of…
Liquid Assets
Wes Marshall scrutinizes the best wine lists in Austin.
Cedar Door Goes Central
The twisting, turning story of Austin’s most nomadic bar
TV Eye
Stephen Harrigan cozies up to Shakespeare for a Texas tragedy
Summer Reading
When Talcott Garland, the law professor sleuth behind The Emperor of Ocean Park (Knopf, $26.95), acknowledges that he’s depressed on page 152 of this lengthy but engrossing literary thriller, his revelation comes as something of a relief. “To be depressed is to be half in love with disaster,” observes our slightly stuffy narrator, who will…
Food-o-File
One week without a column and news surely does back up around here. Restaurant openings, exciting new products, chef stories: You name it, we’ve got it!
Endorsements: Austin Community College Board of Trustees
There are two run-offs for the remaining Austin Community College board seats. Election day is June 1. (For additional info, including brief biographical info about the candidates, visit ACC’s Web site at www2.austin.cc.tx.us/ grantdev/election.htm or call 223-7889.) Here are the Chronicle endorsements (for full versions of the endorsements, see the May 17 issue). Place 2:…
Trembling Before G-d
Trembling Before G-d 2002, NR, 84 min. Directed by Sandi Simcha DuBowski, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Sex and religion rarely make for the most comfortable of bedfellows. But what happens when the two urges are downright irreconcilable? That’s the conundrum examined in Trembling Before G-d, a provocative documentary that shines light…
Summer Reading
Suffering from a potentially terminal case of “orgagenic disintegration,” Paul consults a specialist — in fraud, most likely — whose Institute happens to offer harvested organs for transplant. Iceland (Dalkey Archive, $14.95), a brilliant black comedy of the semi-surrealist strain, opens here, during Paul’s first visit to the organ pool. By pool, I mean one…
Queer & Now
Just when you think you and the six other visor-wearing lesbitrons at the Forum are the only dykes left in town, along comes June 2 — and all of a sudden every mullet, fierce femme top, tranny baby butch, pitcher, catcher, and their mama comes out. That’s why chicanery like Gay Pride Month is so…
Naked City
Friday’s American-Statesman reported that the average median family income in the five-county Austin area increased by 22% from 1989 to 1999 — the biggest increase among other regions in the state. But as Texas AFL-CIO Communications Director Ed Sills points out, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in the same period, the…
American Chai
American Chai R, 92 min. Directed by Anurag Mehta, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Paresh Rawal, Ajay Naidu, Josh Ackerman, Aasif Mandvi, Sheetal Sheth, Aalok Mehta. Not reviewed at press time. Sureel is a young, first-generation Indian-American who faces telling his strict and traditional parents the real truth about his life in this…
Summer Reading
In the history of mutiny, the Bounty is by far the most famous. In the annals of American maritime history, however, the 1825 Globe in the South Pacific — once celebrated, now forgotten — was the bloodiest. It was the subject of three books at the time, one by the brother of mutinous instigator Samuel…
Why Do Black Divas Die So Soon?/Tales of a Gypsy Cowboy
The Hideout, May 30-June 1 Can cowboys and divas play well together? Find out this weekend when Vincent Woodard’s Why Do Black Divas Die So Soon? and K. Bradford’s Tales of a Gypsy Cowboy play back-to-back at the Hideout. The self-described “gender warriors” explore in separate but complementary performances the barriers that limit personal self-expression…
Who’s Polluting Barton Springs?
The city of Austin aims to track down and expose the biggest polluters of Barton Springs as part of an overall plan to clean up the waterway and prevent future problems. The City Council passed the proposal on consent last week, instructing staff to determine the cost and time of such an undertaking, which will…
The Sum of All Fears
Tom Clancy’s CIA agent Jack Ryan makes his fourth film appearance in this thriller.
Summer Reading
Fluff or Fancy? For some time now, the publishing industry has tended to predicate its summer sales on the idea that the best books for reading under the sun are the easy, fluffy ones. We don’t disagree; it’s generally too hot here to do big thinking, anyway. But summer reading is also the season to…
I Before E
A career retrospective on one of the lost cosmic cowboys, Rusty Wier
From the Bottom Up
Author and social critic Barbara Ehrenreich visited UT’s LBJ School last week to deliver a talk sponsored by the KLRU Distinguished Speakers Series. Introduced by UT economist James Galbraith as “a George Orwell for our time, with a touch of the wit and perception of Thorstein Veblen,” Ehrenreich recounted her experiences in researching and writing…
The Importance of Being Earnest
For better or worse, Oliver Parker’s adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s comedy of mistaken identities liberates the play from its drawing-room trappings.
Austin Arts Hall of Fame Critics Table Honors Cultural Heroes
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Austin Critics Table Awards, member critics are inducting 12 individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the community through the arts into the newly established Austin Arts Hall of Fame.
Summer Reading
One Polish count, one graceful Southern belle, and a lavish, pastoral chunk of land in Virginia: The Count and the Confession (Random House, $24.95) is not, despite its subject matter, a romance novel. Journalist John Taylor’s account of the 1992 death of Roger de la Burde, a wealthy, controlling scientist who may or may not…
Cloud 9 and Rising
Jesus, space rock from Denton: Lift to Experience
Wrongs and Rights
This week Amnesty International released its 2002 Annual Report on the status of human rights around the world. The report, which documents human rights concerns in 152 countries, provides numerous examples of how governments worldwide have used the post-September 11 “war on terrorism” to quash legitimate dissent, justify ongoing conflicts, and limit criticism of abuses…
Nine Queens
Inventive and lively caper film is as low-key in its technical execution as a sidewalk shell game but fueled by a frisky energy and a blithely circuitous storyline.
Articulations
Austin loses a longtime artist, Mickey Joe Mayfield, and Vortex Repertory Company gains a managing director, Barry Pineo.
Summer Reading
The Latest in Paper Nonfiction & Memoir What makes better reading in the summer — whether it’s in a cold, dim room or on a sticky, sandy towel — than reading about other people? That’s a rhetorical question, of course, but there’s no doubt about the craving we experience when it comes to essays, memoirs,…
Dancing About Architecture
Everyone is retiring or dying.
In Our Names
The case of Napoleon Beazley shines a spotlight on the Texas system of capital punishment.
Exhibitionism
Chicken and Beans, a dance / variety show created and performed by Heloise Gold and Leticia Rodriguez, gives the viewer vibrant multi-sensory glimpses into the performers’ Jewish and Hispanic heritages, respectively, revealing the cultural environments which molded these two women into the talented performers they are.
Christopher Middleton: Translating a German Genius
Translator and former UT professor Christopher Middleton has shed some literary light on 20th-century German writer Robert Walser, a favorite of few and forgotten by most.
For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Our resident Marshmallow Peep relates the news and hearsay in and around the Live Music Capital…
Austin @ Large: Sense of the Census
Census 2000 has some interesting things to say about the future of Austin — and Austinites
Exhibitionism
Vortex Repertory Company’s The Music of Erica Zann brings H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Music of Erich Zann” to the stage as a chamber opera, and the result is a fever dream, a hallucinatory state in which you’re overwhelmed by strange visions and a palpable sense of anxiety and apprehension.
Page Two
An exhilarating account of how the Zephyr Skating team changed skateboarding forever, Dogtown and Z-Boys finally opens at Dobie on Friday; in a summer of some truly great movies, it’s a ripping piece of street storytelling not to be missed, even if you don’t care about the sport.
Phases and Stages
Sasha & DigweedAustin Music Hall, May 23 First the bad news: either the show wasn’t loud enough or I’m going deaf. Then there was NYC-based progressive house opener Jimmy Van M, mysteriously unlit on the AMH stage, which made the assembled near-sellout massive wonder if, in fact, there was anyone up there. Such was not…
The Hightower Report
George W. puffs out his chest over Cuba, and Dick Cheney invites Jim to dinner.
Exhibitionism
In Marion Bridge, playwright Daniel MacIvor reveals how the death of a parent causes a major shift in the lives of three sisters, and the actresses who play them in Hyde Park Theatre’s production fit so naturally in these characters’ skins that they project a sense of belonging together and to the lives they describe.
Mr. Smarty Pants
They say 96 used to be synonymous with 69.Mongols’ drink of choice is airag. Made from fermented mare’s milk, it tastes a little like yogurt, and an average serving has as much alcohol as a light beer.Scholars often can’t tell the difference between portraits of Octavian’s sister and his wife because they looked alike.According to…
Phases and Stages
Jay Bennett & Edward BurchThe Palace at 4am (Part 1) (Undertow) Some people may recognize Jay Bennett’s name from his work as a multi-instrumentalist in Wilco. When Bennett split with Jeff Tweedy & Co. last year, he returned to writing songs with Edward Burch, a fellow Chicagoan who’s worked with a few lesser-known bands in…
Bigger Than Life
Paramount Theatre plays host to two summer film series
Summer Reading
Our Books writers beat the heat with the summer’s best — and breeziest — books.
After a Fashion
What do you get when you skewer a Spears? And why has it taken Austin so long to get a Gay Pride parade???
Phases and Stages
Mark EitzelMusic for Courage & Confidence (New West) If there’s one sure thing about Mark Eitzel, it’s his unpredictability. What one makes of Music for Courage & Confidence will depend on where you stand on the Bay Area-based singer-songwriter/ex-American Music Club-er as an artist, and just how far you’re willing to follow him. A collection…
Paramount Summer Classic Film Series
The Paramount summer series runs through August at the Paramount Theatre (713 Congress). Admission for adults is $6.50 ($5.50 for matinees before 6pm); $4.50 for students/seniors/children. (**) Denotes seats reserved, no passes or Flix-Tix. For more info visit www.austinthetrealliance.org or call 472-5470. The Last Picture Show (D: Peter Bogdanovich, 1971): Thu, 5/30, 7:30pm Casablanca (D:…
Summer Reading
Part two of Darin Strauss’ four-part The Real McCoy (Dutton, $24.95) opens with a quote from Emerson: “Trust men, and they will be true to you.” It’s countered by a boast from Baudelaire: “Americans love so much to be fooled.” Of course, Emerson also said “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.” Whether Strauss…
Day Trips
The Whitehead Memorial Museum captures the spirit of Del Rio in a compound of buildings that preserves the essence of this colorful border town and tells the story of early Texas. The centerpiece of the 2.5-acre historical museum is the Perry Store; a two-story rock building that was once the largest mercantile business between San…
Phases and Stages
Fever Pitch: The Official Music of the 2002 FIFA World Cup(Epic) I love soccer. Watching or playing, it truly is, as the Brazilians say, “the beautiful game.” And then there’s FIFA, the international ruling body of the sport. I suppose most fans hate the ruling bureaucracy in their chosen field. Basketball fans hate David Stern.…
AFS Summer Free for All
Series runs Mondays through July at the Paramount Theatre (713 Congress). $2 general admission; free for AFS members. For more info visit www.austinfilm.org. The Girl Can’t Help It (D: Frank Tashlin, 1956): 6/3, 7:30pm Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (D: Frank Tashlin, 1957): 6/3, 9:30pm Ride Lonesome (D: Budd Boetticher, 1959): 6/10, 7:30pm Comanche Station…
