Cover Story
Honky-Tonkers Don’t Cry
Dale Watson’s heads for the streets of Baltimore
Aparahan
Not reviewed at press time.
Nudge 2.5: A Micro-Digital Film Festival
Nudge 2.5: A Micro-Digital Film Festival This is the fourth installment of screenings of projects made by students at Austin FilmWorks. “Classic Shorts” screens at 7pm on Wednesday; highlights include “Against Medical Advice” by John Merriman, “Abuela’s Home” by Miguel Alvarez, “Love Me Tender” by Courtney Davis, “Transference” by Guy Juke, “The Gift” by Elizabeth…
The Ringer Premiere
The Ringer Premiere 2005, PG-13, 94 min. Directed by Barry W. Blaustein, Starring Johnny Knoxville, Katherine Heigl, Brian Cox. This is the Austin premiere of this new Farrelly Brothers production, which was filmed in Austin and San Marcos and includes several local residents and Special Olympics Texas Athletes. Expected guests include star Johnny Knoxville, director…
The Visitor
The Visitor 1979, R, 108 min. Directed by Michael J. Paradise, Starring Mel Ferrer, Glenn Ford, Lance Henriksen, John Huston, Joanne Nail, Sam Peckinpah, Shelley Winters, Franco Nero. A little-seen curiosity, this supernatural Italian film about a possessed girl features cast members whose names just don’t belong together. Shelley Winters and Sam Peckinpah, anyone?
“I Had an Abortion,” “The Abortion Diaries,” and “43%”
“I Had an Abortion,” “The Abortion Diaries,” and “43%” “Speak Out: I Had an Abortion” by Gillian Aldrich documents the stories of 11 women representing a huge span in age, race, religion, region, class, sexuality, and politics. “The Abortion Diaries” by Penny Lane is a documentary that features 12 disparate women, who also speak candidly…
Day Trips
The Famous! King’s Inn on the shores of Baffin Bay has been serving crowd-pleasing seafood since 1935
Texas Platters
Curt Kirkwood Snow (Little Dog) Meat Puppets guitarist, primary songwriter, and Austinite Curt Kirkwood’s solo debut is a languid, homespun affair. Although Snow flickers intermittently with the sky-spanning illumination that characterized the Puppets’ sound, this is a man-and-his-acoustic-guitar LP at its foundation, eschewing high desert rock & roll for an eclectic, folk-flavored country approach. Opener…
Prisoners’ Rights Crusader Ruiz Dies
David Ruiz, the Texas prison inmate whose name became synonymous with state prison reform, died Nov. 12 at the TDCJ hospital in Galveston.
Yours, Mine & Ours
This supersized family comedy makes The Brady Bunch look like an example of prudent family planning and sophisticated humor.
TCB
CDFuse, the Wannabes, Last Waltz, and MySpace make for a very happy (and busy) Thanksgiving.
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
On portmanteaus and other things you can’t be bothered to look up for yourself
Texas Platters
The BlackTanglewood (K Woo) The Black flows from the songwriting collaboration of singer/guitarist David Longoria and guitarist Alan Schaefer, and their ears are trained toward Seventies Southern rock; they have an affinity for the Band, if not in their swagger than in the several live songs they’ve covered. The Black seems as misnomer, though, as…
AISD Parents – Some of Them – Debate School Calendar Changes
District says getting parents involved poses challenges
Rent
Despite the grating, workmanlike direction of Chris Columbus, this boisterous film is a vivacious, wiseacre musical and an inarguable morality lesson: Love is all you need.
Here Yet Ever There
From Austin, New Orleans artists strive to save what remains of their city and work to recover it
Soccer Watch
There was a lot of talk about parity in NCAA women’s soccer this year – how any of a couple dozen teams could win it all. But when the dust settled on the final eight this week, who’s left standing is all the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds. This Friday, it’s Florida State at…
Texas Platters
Barbara KooymanUndercover: The Songs of Timbuk 3 (Sparrows Wheel) Most folks have relegated Austin’s Timbuk 3 to the bright and shiny nostalgia heap of I Love the 80s, and while it doesn’t set out to, Undercover proves just how wrong that designation is. Barbara Kooyman, formerly Barbara K, revisits her former band’s catalog, and with…
Trouble on Green Mountain
Green Mountain blames regulatory and market obstacles for its woes, but critics cite lack of investment in clean energy.
Just Friends
A tepid romantic comedy with a side order of vitriol.
‘The Santaland Diaries’: Zach’s New Home for the Holidays
When it has three popular shows and only two theatres to run them in, what does Zach do? Turn the old bicycle shop next door into Santaland.
Harvesting History
An appreciation of the pecan
Texas Platters
Les Saucy PantsAsstacular! Les Saucy Pants are smart. Some might even say they’re too smart for their own good, but that’s what happens when you follow in the propriety-slaying footsteps of righteous malcontents like Frank Zappa, Devo, and Chumbawamba. Spawned from eclectic Houston bands like Sprawl, Middlefinger, and Closeaux, the Pants combine canvas-covering splays of…
Texas Republicans Dodge Criminal Campaign Finance Bullet
Republican Party of Texas cuts deal with Travis County on corporate money charges.
Naked in Ashes
This documentary follows a group of spiritual voyagers through a series of pilgrimages and trips to Indian ashrams and holy festivals in order to create a portrait of the yogi life.
Queertown: Laughs for Gays … and Everyone Else
Dallas comedy troupe Queertown isn’t coming to Austin to find refuge from Prop. 2; it’s just seeking new fans for its upbeat sketch work that has quickly captivated Big D
Nuts to You
The Food writers reveal their favorite pecan recipes
Texas Platters
The Mars VoltaScabdates (GSL/Universal) True to the Hispanic heritage of Mars Volta alchemist Omar A. Rodriguez-Lopez, who wasted no time assembling, mixing, and producing a live disc culled from this year’s Frances the Mute tour, surrealism reigns on Scabdates. Song titles, run times, beginnings and endings matter about as much to these El Pasoans as…
FLDS First Family Update
Federal grand jury in Denver indicts little bro of fugitive polygamist FLDS “prophet.”
The Ice Harvest
Instead of an action comedy that’s as slick as ice, Harold Ramis’ sardonic new comedy is more like an uncongealed river of slush.
Arts Review
As the weather cools, Different Stages brings the warmth of rural Ireland to town in its staging of J.M. Synge�s �The Playboy of the Western World�
Food-o-file
What’s cooking in the Central Texas food scene
Texas Platters
ChamillionaireThe Sound of Revenge (Universal) “Catch me today with a Canon or a Kodak, ’cause by tomorrow, yesterday gone be a throwback.” Bun B’s Screwed hook on “Picture Perfect” spotlights Houston’s Chamillionaire as one of the most talented sing-song rappers anywhere. The former Swishahouse thoroughbred and Paul Wall collaborator parlays the melodic mastery of 2002’s…
Heflin Seeks Lotto Helm
Former House Appropriations Committee chair added to short list of Lottery Commissioner finalists.
Arts Review
D Berman’s exhibition ‘Denny McCoy: The Blue Paintings’ is just that, but to the patient viewer, the simple vertical bars of blue shimmer to life and transport you distant settings
Texas Platters
Blaze Foley Wanted More Dead Than Alive (Waddell Hollow) Blaze Foley is as popular today, 16 years after his death, as he’s ever been. Even John Prine, one of his heroes, put a Foley song on his latest album. Still, the appearance of these recordings is a surprise to everyone involved. A few months before…
Weed Watch
The Feds and Mounties whisk a medi-pot patient from his Vancouver hospital bed and into jail.
Culture Flash!
The Gilbert & Sullivan Society finds a new artistic director in an old friend, Robyn O’Neil is the People’s Choice for the Arthouse Texas Prize, and Laguna Gloria is the spot to start that yuletide spending spree
Ten Minutes Till Heartaches
Martí Brom’s ‘Heartache Numbers’ comes together just in time for her departure from Austin
Getting on the KUTting Edge
Austin NPR affiliate’s lofty goals aim well beyond the status quo
Texas’ Child Well-Being Report Card Mixed
Teens less likely to die since 2000, but infant mortality up
Readings
The American-born, Australian-educated Kris Saknussemm has created the most original novel of the year with this wildly imaginative near-future satire
Texas Platters
KGSR Broadcasts Vol. 13(107.1 KGSR-FM/Radio Austin) Lucky 13 for the KGSR Broadcasts series! Thirty-seven tracks over the now customary 2-CD package range from merely good (Mary Gauthier’s “Mercy Now,” Ani DiFranco’s “Recoil”) to spiritually uplifting (Mavis Staples’ “God Is Not Sleeping,” Neville Brothers’ “Rivers of Babylon”) to once-in-a-lifetime stellar (Natalie Maines, Bruce Robison, and Kelly…
Schroeder Fired for Rocha Shooting
Police union accuses Knee of caving, calls for resignation
The Hightower Report
This basic human right gets short shrift in today’s materialistic world; and Support Your Local Farmers
Readings
As friends and foes, they forged the most ferocious rivalry in midcentury American sports, and in the process turned a struggling, ragtag National Basketball Association into a thriving sports empire
Texas Platters
Alejandro Escovedo String QuintetRoom of Songs (More Miles Than Money) This Room of Songs, Austin’s Cactus Cafe, is one of the birthplaces of Alejandro Escovedo, songwriter. He left plenty of shotgun casings on the floor of the True Believers, but in their aftermath, Escovedo emerged a songwriter with Gravity. Solo, with strings, and later an…
Rethinking Reagan … and LBJ
AISD searches for student and community involvement in high school redesign program
Restorative Powers
Moving Image Archivists converge on Austin, ready to party
Page Two
In the Iraq war, there is no course to stay
Texas Platters
Sound TeamWork (Big Orange) Sound Team’s latest EP is a sure thing from the get-go. Recorded at their Austin analog studio Big Orange by Trail of Dead and Spoon knob twiddler Mike McCarthy, Work features four songs from their 2004 vinyl-only release Marathon and one new song. Opener “Fastest Man Alive” is poppy guitar work,…
Reagan Film Fest
A group of student filmmakers hopes to reshape Ausinites’ vision of the Eastside school
Hollywood Detour
The independent mind of Edgar G. Ulmer
Letters at 3AM
Stanley Crawford’s 1966 novel ‘GASCOYNE’ has been out of print for 35 years, a literary crime redressed this month by the Overlook Press
Texas Platters
The Glass FamilySleep Inside This Wheel (I Eat Records) Michael Winningham has an honest voice: a little downtrodden, a little uneasy, but mostly optimistic. The Glass Family’s debut LP is a throwback to the days when indie rock wasn’t so complicated. Remember when you had never heard the phrase “dance-punk” or “post-rock”? The Glass Family…
Changing Focus and Location at the Sustainable Food Center
Critics charge original mission of serving poor has strayed
‘SXSW Presents’
‘Bike Like U Mean It’
After a Fashion
Travel across Texas with your Style Avatar, and how was Stitch?
Texas Platters
Awesome Cool Dudes Maxin and Relaxin (Furniture) Just in time for fall, the Awesome Cool Dudes harness their sub-platinum pop instincts to take us on a Casio-flavored beach party weekend. Maxin and Relaxin cooks with über-sleek synthetic sunshine channeled through Lambda Lambda Lambda’s musical number in Revenge of the Nerds. Opener “LOL” surfs an irresistible…
Katrina Evacuees: Precarious Times at La Quinta
FEMA’s new Dec. 1 cutoff deadline for picking up the tab of hurricane evacuees living in Texas hotels and motels leaves thousands of people in housing limbo
DVD Watch
As shape-shifting, lavender-scented ‘regulator’ Robert E. Lee Clayton, Marlon Brando delivers the most self-indulgent performance of his career, and that’s saying a lot
About AIDS
Wright House to host World AIDS Day event
Texas Platters
ExitThe Way Out Is Through (Some) Exit is Ben Londa, an Austinite with a penchant for the electro-industrial, and The Way Out Is Through mostly delivers on that. “This Is Your Year” rips things open with Londa invoking Trent Reznor over a grinding beat, à la “Head Like a Hole.” More down tempo is “Slip,”…
Council Notes: Stack and Shuffle
Mayor worries that bond wish list doesn’t anticipate SH 130
TV Eye
So, you wanna be in pictures?
To Your Health
Even more reasons why vitamin C is good for you
Texas Platters
At All CostIt’s Time to Decide (Koch) Indeed, It’s Time for this Austin quintet to Decide what genre they’re most adept at: emo, punk, nü metal. They splatter all three convincingly on their major-label debut, and far be it from any band anywhere to conform to musical categorization, but the collision of styles and sounds…
Beside the Point
City Council takes action on Spring condos, and another homelessness ordinance
The Common Law
Free stuff – is it really free?
Texas Platters
The Gene Pool3rd and Main If you were wondering when the Los Lonely Boys clones were arriving, here’s exhibit numero uno. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Nevertheless, the Gene Pool’s debut full-length, 3rd and Main, is a mess in so many ways it’s difficult to know where to begin. On the surface, the…
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from Austin and beyond
The Dying Gaul
Playwright and screenwriter Craig Lucas debuts as a director of his own material with this nasty little story about interpersonal deceptions and Hollywood ethics.
Luv Doc Recommends: All American Rejects, Rooney, The Action Is
Thanksgiving, like communism, cat bathing, and anal sex, is much better in concept than execution. The idea is great: Take some time off … reflect on all the good things that are going on in your life. Everybody has something to be thankful for, right? Even Osama bin Laden has to at least give it…
