The Texas Show: Dallas Video Festival
The Texas Show: Dallas Video Festival NR. Directed by , Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . The Texas Show: Dallas Video Festival 1999 is a juried compilation of short works by Texas artists for the 12th Annual Dallas Video Festival held in March 1999. Works include “Gateway Drug” by Dylan Hoey; “Lyle’s World…
The Third Man
Based on a story by Graham Greene, the movie is a noir classic set in a shadowy postwar Vienna. It’s one of Orson Welles’ best-remembered roles, and the film’s now-familiar zither music sets the story’s ambiguous tone perfectly.
Lucio Fulci Halloween Horror Festival
Lucio Fulci Halloween Horror Festival NR. Directed by Lucio Fulci, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . The 1st Annual Lucio Fulci Halloween Horror Festival features three nights of the Italian Godfather of Gore’s blood-soaked masterpieces. All shows begin at midnight and promise spookhouse surprises and over 50 ultra-rare horror trailers. Comic books, videos,…
The Old Dark House
The Old Dark House 1932, NR, 72 min. Directed by James Whale, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Boris Karloff, Raymond Massey, Gloria Stuart, Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton. The Austin Film Society’s current series examines the horror films from 1930 – 1960. The first six months of the series highlights classics of the Thirties.…
Food-o-File
More delectable hot dogs in Austin, several businesses that cater wedding receptions, and updates on chefs’ changes in Austin.
Silent Partner
You don’t hear much about Wayne Bell when the Long Center for the Performing Arts is discussed. That may be because this honored Austin architect is low-key, modest, the consummate team player. But he’s the point man on this $60 million project and arts writer Robi Polgar reveals how integral he is in getting it…
Page Two
The Statesman is back to its old ways.
Naked City
The convoluted and often abstruse Texas Constitution, amended 377 times since it was adopted more than 120 years ago, is a document that few in the state have read and even fewer comprehend. Two attempted overhauls of the weighty, at times redundant, tome — in 1974 and during the most recent legislative session — failed…
TV Eye
From Ethel Mertz to Margaret Cho, we examine how the small screen has portrayed big women; also, a look at Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends.
Mini-Review
Julio’s 4230 Duval, 452-1040 Mon-Thu, 8am-10pm; Fri, 8am-10pm; Sat, 9am-10pm Julio’s is a little neighborhood jewel tucked in among the restaurant crowd of Hyde Park Bar and Grill, Manga’s, La Dolce Vita, and Mother’s Cafe. What a treasure to the Hyde Park neighbors to have such an excellent, eclectic mix to choose from in this…
How to Hire an Architect
First, gather a committee of all sorts of interested parties, whose input is crucial to creating a facility that will support as much art as is architecturally possible. Call it the ARTS Center Stage Architectural Design Committee. “I think it’s about 18 people,” offers Christina Read, executive director of ARTS Center Stage (ACS), “that will…
Public Notice
Fundraising season is upon us …
Naked City
Gary Cornwall, the prosecutor who headed up the 1977 investigation into John F. Kennedy’s assassination, will speak about his book Real Answers at the LBJ State Historical Park Auditorium at 2pm on Saturday, Oct. 16, as part of a program focusing on the investigation. Call 830-644-2420 for more info. The Coalition for Fair Trade is…
Mini-Review
On Good Land: The Autobiography of an Urban Farm by Michael Ableman Chronicle Books, $18.95 hard “Sustainable agriculture” is a common catch phrase tossed around by a new generation of chefs and farmers. Broadly, it refers to the community effort to support small farms, gone quickly bankrupt by corporate agriculture and/or bought out by shortsighted…
Articulations
Forward motion on a renovation of UT’s Harry Ransom Center and the lack of motion in the design of the new Blanton Museum of Art.
Mr. Smarty Pants
Close encounters of the illegal kind.
Council Watch
City inks 50-year water deal with LCRA
The Story of Us
The Story of Us 1999, R, 94 min. Directed by Rob Reiner, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Red Buttons, Betty White, Tom Poston, Jayne Meadows, Jake Sandvig, Colleen Rennison, Paul Reiser, Rita Wilson, Julie Hagerty, Rob Reiner, Tim Matheson, Bruce Willis, Michelle Pfeiffer. Rob Reiner’s gone back to the well for this drama…
Tiger Cry
Baseball enthusiast Lisa Tozzi takes a trip to Detroit and memory lane as she visits Tiger Stadium on the eve of its destruction.
Exhibitionism
Reviews of recent and ongoing exhibitions and performances around Austin
After a Fashion
Announcing the Fashion Amnesty Program.
Media Clips
Corporate media giants cause journalism to become less competitive; Walter Cronkite and Bill Moyers speak at The Daily Texan‘s 100th birthday event; Grassroots Media Conference held in Austin
Black Cat, White Cat
Black Cat, White Cat 1998, R, 129 min. Directed by Emir Kusturica, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Srdan Todorovic, Sabri Sulejmani, Zabit Mehmedovski, Branka Katic, Adnan Bekir, Jas’Ar Destani, Florijan Ajdini, Bajram Severdzan. Black Cat, White Cat marks a decided change in tone for Bosnian-born filmmaker Emir Kusturica since his previous film Underground…
The Mother of All Texas Honky-Tonks
A look back at the Mother of All Texas Honky-Tonks
Exhibitionism
Reviews of recent and ongoing exhibitions and performances around Austin
Record Reviews
Vibes With Drawn (Knitting Factory) Brad Jones’ AKA Alias Uncivilized Poise (Knitting Factory) Vibes contains three Jazz Passengers members, vibist Bill Ware, bassist Brad Jones, and drummer E.J. Rodriguez. That seems like a pretty stripped-down lineup, but they create a far greater variety of timbres and textures, because Ware uses four mallets, enabling him to…
Screen Play
The sixth annual Austin Heart of Film Screenwriters Conference and Austin Film Festival winds to a close tonight, Thursday, Oct. 14, after a seven-day flurry of panels, screenings, Q&As, afterparties, and general schmoozing. Presented here are reviews of some of the collected shorts and features that screened during the festival and a list of the…
Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember … Yes, I Remember
Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember … Yes, I Remember 1997, NR, 198 min. Directed by Anna Maria Tato, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Surprisingly, the sheer length and creative fecundity of Mastroianni’s career seems to have little to do with this unconventional 1997 biography’s three-hours-plus running time. Director Tato, the Italian film icon’s…
The Pilgrim Returns
Q&A with Kris Kristofferson
Celebrated for the Least of Reasons
Chronicle reviewer Tom Doyal has took to writin’ just like Larry L. King, the playwright behind The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (and much more, Doyal reveals, in his review of King’s new book of letters).
Record Reviews
Nine Inch NailsThe Fragile (Nothing/Interscope) “Got to get back to the bottom,” hollers Trent Reznor on “The Big Come Down.” Question is, when did he leave? NIN’s first outing in half a decade, The Fragile already sounds like five years ago. Where The Downward Spiral was chock-full o’ scabby, wicked notes with razor edges like…
Afraid of Everything
D: David Barker; with Nathalie Richard, Daniel Aukin, Sarah Adler. This vaguely humorous take on somnambulant NYC denizens with nowhere to go but out may put you in mind of early Jim Jarmusch — there’s just not that much going on here, outside of protagonist Anne’s inability to leave her SoHo flat in the wake…
Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human
Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human 1999, NR, 105 min. Directed by Jeff Abugov, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Mackenzie Astin, David Hyde Pierce, Lisa Rotondi, Lucy Liu, Markus Redmond, Sharon Wyatt, Carmen Electra, Jack Kehler. A faux documentary about human reproduction from an extraterrestrial point of view, this has to be one…
Dancing About Architecture
Austin City Limits to enter its 25th season two shows lighter; Steamboat loses more relocation prospects; and Ozzy Osbourne declines Black Sabbath’s nomination for entry into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Larry L. King on . . .
His successes: “Aw, shucks, folks. Ain’t nothin’ to it but talent and clean livin’.” Reader/critics: “… thought buying a magazine in which I had an article they didn’t like gave them the right to piss on my feet without danger of receiving return water.” A fat ballplayer: “He couldn’t trap a fat bear in…
A Rural Riddle
Hays County Water Planning Partnership forms to try and stop unmitigated growth
American Detective
D: Dan Brown; with Jonny Mars, Juliana Sheffield, Bill Wise. Dan Brown’s impressive debut feature successfully establishes an unsettling tone that veers between the humorous and the creepy. It tells the story of a young, socially awkward loner, Owen Mercer (Mars), who impulsively responds to a magazine ad and sends away for his credentials to…
A Chinese Ghost Story: The Tsui Hark Animation
A Chinese Ghost Story: The Tsui Hark Animation 1997, NR, 84 min. Directed by Andrew Chen, Narrated by , Voices by Jordan Chan, Kelly Chen, Charlie Young, Ko Min-Fai, Tsui Hark, Lai Sui-Yan, Jan Lam, Starring . You’ll probably never really understand what on earth (or elsewhere) is going on in this Tsui Hark-produced-and-written animated…
Record Reviews
Negativland/ChumbawambaThe ABC’s of Anarchism (Seeland)TeletubbiesNursery Rhymes & Other Fun Songs (Mammoth) After a late night of partying, we find ourselves at the 24-hour Sambo’s, bored, waiting for a table. As the letters “T,””H,”and “C” dance merrily around our heads in various permutations, we rearrange the marquee greeting, “Please Wait to Be Seated” to read “Please…
Postscripts
Well I’ll be damned : the Texas Institute of Letters has decided to name an award after Mr. Joe Bob Briggs his own self. Also, the news about what Tom Grimes will attempt to do in public in the near future with his new collection of writings from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, The Workshop.
Benign Growth?
Hays County officials estimate that about 20,000 acres are available for development in the northern section of the county, some of which lie over the Edwards Aquifer or its recharge and contributing zones. Environmentalists say new development could pollute the aquifer with runoff from the new homes, businesses, roads, and highways. Pollutants could eventually make…
Get Bruce!
D: Andrew J. Kuehn You may not know Bruce Vilanch, but you’ve heard him on TV. As one of the industry’s premier comedy writers, Vilanch “has given more lines to celebrities than a Hollywood coke dealer” — or so quipped actor Nathan Lane. In this joyous ode to laughter as a way of life, former…
Finding North
Finding North 1998, NR, 95 min. Directed by Tanya Wexler, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Molly Mcclure, Freddie Roman, Angela Pietropinto, Rebecca Kreskoff, Anne Bobby, John Benjamin Hickey, Wendy Makkena. It begins on a bridge and ends there, too, but in between Tanya Wexler’s debut feature is anything but your ordinary bridge story.…
Record Reviews
David BowieHours (Virgin)Iggy PopAvenue B (Virgin) Iggy and Ziggy, masters of space and time in truly remarkable ways, offer their fin de siecle albums as confessions of the soul. Like fellow punk schoolmates Blondie’s No Exit and the Pretenders’ Viva Amor!, these are statements of introspection saying goodbye to the millennium that spawned them in…
Book Reviews
In the Slipstream: An FC2 Reader edited by Ronald Sukenick and Curtis White FC2, $13.95 paper The art of fiction, in this country, has often depended on the heroic efforts of small presses. If it hadn’t been for New Directions, the scope of international modernism would still remain a mystery to American readers. In the…
Hot Buttons in Hays County
Hays County residents are faced with several issues that will permanently impact the community. The biggest challenge, residents say, is accommodating new development and ensuring that it does not have a devastating impact on their quality of life and pocketbooks. In addition to dealing with potential traffic, noise, water needs, and pollution, residents will also…
Mr. Show; I Created Lancelot Link
D: Jeff Krulik Depending on how you look at it, late-Sixties kid-show primate “Lance Link, Secret Chimp,” the creation of comedy team Stan Burns and Mike Marmer, either elevated the Saturday-morning format or paved the way for TNT’s excremental Chimp Channel. The fact that Burns and Marmer had already cracked wise for golden age television…
Second Helpings: Indian
Tasty, bite-sized restaurant listings compiled from new and previous reviews, guides, and poll results. This week’s entries were compiled by Chronicle Cuisines editor Virginia B. Wood. When you need quick, reliable information about Austin eateries, check here. Bombay Grill 3201 Bee Caves Road, 329-0234 Mon-Fri, 11am-2:30pm; 5:30-9:30pm Sat-Sun, 5:30-9:30pm Owned and operated by the same…
Record Reviews
Handsome Boy Modeling SchoolSo … How’s Your Girl? (Tommy Boy) It’s getting hard to write about hip-hop visionary Prince Paul without invoking the phrase “year-end best contender.” In February, Paul released Prince Among Thieves, a dramatic concept album that lived up to its hip-hopera billing by combining a great script and a collection of well-cast…
Book Reviews
Welding With Children: Stories by Tim Gautreaux Picador USA, $22 hard Tim Gautreaux’s writing thrives on gaps. Whether separated by generations, cultures, or even death, his incongruous characters encounter one another with dark and tender curiousity. In the title story, a blue-collar repairman copes with a gaggle of fatherless grandchildren. When the grandfather tries to…
Dueling Missions
The LCRA Mission Statement (Part I): The mission of the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) is to provide reliable, low-cost utility and public services in partnership with our customers and communities… The LCRA Mission Statement (Part II): …and to use our leadership role and environmental authority to ensure the protection and constructive use of the…
Reel Women Shorts
D: various Family woes, the minefield of adolescence, depression, mortality, and, of course, love were all there in the spotlight at this (mostly) pleasant evening of shorts made (mostly) by women and sponsored by Reel Women, our local network of women filmmakers. Although weightier shorts like Annette Apitz’s “A River in India” showed an artful…
Day Trips
Old Settler’s Park in Round Rock is one of the best city parks in Texas.
Record Reviews
Ol’ Dirty BastardN***a Please (Elektra) Where to begin? As the most controversial figure in hip-hop’s past five turbulent years, Ol’ Dirty Bastard certainly seems happy to be rapping here. Guess it beats being in court. So, how about the expropriately filthy “Cold Blooded”? That at least explains Dirty’s Rick Jamesian locks on the cover of…
Book Reviews
Ethics for the New Millennium by the Dalai Lama Riverhead Books, $24.95 hard For many of us, our first acquaintance with the Dalai Lama is through Richard Gere or Steven Seagal — and these are men who haven’t exactly made their careers as religious leaders. Having Gere and Seagal as a religious figure’s most prominent…
Naked City
South Austin Democrats give Mayor Kirk Watson the Yeller Dawg award of the year, Geoff Rips goes to work for AISD, City Council will have new meeting places next year.
Sweet Thing
D: Mark David; with Jeremy Fox, Amalia Stifter, Ev Lunning Jr., Lana Dieterich, Michael Dalmon, Evan Greenwalt, Stephen Bruton. Mark David’s ambitious debut is all splash and flash and unfortunately, little else. The sprawling narrative follows college artist Sean Fields (Fox), a waifish painter whose toxic past continually wrecks his emotional life but fuels his…
Coach’s Corner
In this year’s Super Bowl: Rams vs. Titans?
Record Reviews
Wilson PickettIt’s Harder Now (Bullseye Blues & Jazz) “With a string of hits as long as Dirty Old Bastard’s rap sheet, the Wicked Pickett could singlehandedly take an audience into the palm of his hand, make them weep, make them moan, bring them to their feet, and make the ladies a little moist around the…
Off the Bookshelf
Short reviews of recently published books.
Naked City
It’s second-season time for Capital Metro and a whole new ball game in the light-rail league. With last week’s presentation of the agency’s staff-recommended transit alternative — the “blueprint,” in their words, for what Austinites will be asked to okay next year at the ballot box — the formerly cellar-dwelling Cap Met has kicked off…
Wednesday’s Child
D: Brad Marlowe; with Sommer Knight, Brandon Hiott, Robert Schramm, David King. Winner of the festival’s Best Feature Film honors, Wednesday’s Child is a sentimental fable about a modern Boo Radley and the troubled teens who intrude into his solipsistic world. After decades spent holed up alone in his house, the subject of local legend…
Fight Club
There’s no middle ground in Fight Club: Either you go with its berserker ethos or go nuts.
About AIDS
Another compound from the Amazon rain forests can help HIV+ patients.
Record Reviews
Sister CarolIsis (Tuff Gong) In a genre so often awash in a tidal wave of testosterone, it’s always refreshing to hear from a woman, and no female reggae artist has more to say or the ability to say it more convincingly than Sister Carol. Also known as Mother Culture, the Brooklyn-based DJ/singer is back with…
Off the Bookshelf
Short reviews of recently published books.
Naked City
Death Takes a Holiday Now that four suspects have been arrested for the yogurt shop murders, Travis Co. District Attorney Ronnie Earle must decide if he will seek the death penalty for Robert Burns Springsteen Jr. and Michael James Scott. The other two suspects, Forrest Welborn and Maurice Earl Pierce, were too young at the…
Psycho Analysis
An interview with Psycho scribe Joe Stefano
Letters at 3AM
Is “progress” an unconscious compulsion?
Record Reviews
Split Lip RayfieldIn the Mud (Bloodshot) Ever go for a ride with someone driving waaay too fast in a trashed out ’71 Buick? Someone who’s good enough to handle it — keep the car between the ditches — while your butt pinches buttons out of the stained, threadbare upholstery in exhilarated terror? Split Lip Rayfield…
Off the Bookshelf
Short reviews of recently published books.
Naked City
County; Population; Murder Rate*; Death Row Inmates* Harris; 3,200,000; 9.1; 141 Dallas; 2,000,000; 9.2; 40 Bexar; 1,350,000; 7.4; 29 Tarrant; 1,350,000; 6.8; 24 Travis; 710,000; 5.8; 5 El Paso; 703,000; 4.6; 7 Note: The murder rate for Tarrant County includes Hood, Johnson, and Parker counties. The rate for Dallas County includes Collin, Denton, Ellis, Henderson,…
American Filmmaker
Chris Smith’s American Movie depicts one man’s passionate struggle to make a film.
Italian American
Chronicle food writer Rachel Feit went to Mama Mia�s looking for her Big Night, but found instead the sort of place that put the little restaurant in Big Night out of business.
Record Reviews
The Folk ImplosionOne Part Lullaby (Interscope) Evolving from a one-off collaboration for a movie soundtrack (“Natural One” for KIDS) to a functional, evolving musical entity, Lou Barlow now has the Folk Implosion. The most noticeable change is the sense of contentedness that presides over the band’s third full-length, which is odd, considering the source. While…
Off the Bookshelf
Short reviews of recently published books.
Naked City
What do left-leaning environmentalists, free-market Libertarians, and disaffected Reform Party members have in common? They all feel alienated from a two-party system that often excludes outside-the-mainstream views, and they’re all pulling together to chart a course for third-party victory in next year’s November elections. The Third Choice Conference, scheduled for this weekend at St. Edward’s…
Video Reviews
(“Video Reviews” wishes to thank Encore Movies & Music, I Video, Vulcan Video, and Waterloo Video for their help in providing videos, laser discs, and DVDs.)sex, lies, and videotape D: Steven Soderbergh (1989); with James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher, Laura San Giacomo. King of the HillD: Steven Soderbergh (1993); with Jesse Bradford, Jeroen Krabbé,…
Uncorking Texas
The Texas wine industry has certainly come a long way since the first vineyards were planted by Spanish monks nearly 400 years ago. A recent state government plan could help the industry grow even more.
Record Reviews
Philip Glass Dracula, performed by Kronos Quartet (Nonesuch) Perhaps he’s so terrifying because he represents our potential for evil, the incarnation of our collective dark side. That, and the fact he drinks fresh human blood. Either way, even the name — Dracula — rubs sandpaper on your spine. The original, 1931 celluloid interpretation of Bram…
Local Bestsellers
Local bestsellers are based on recent sales at Austin bookstores selected to reflect varied reading interests.
Naked City
The City Council-appointed Police Oversight Focus Group has been doing a whole lot of talking for the last two and a half months, and — despite accomplishing little in the way of concrete resolutions — it appears to be inching toward a set of recommendations, which it is slated to present to the council on…
Short Cuts
If you’ve been wondering what happened to ACAC’s public access film program The Show With No Name, that’s because it has been re-slotted from its usual running time on Sundays at 11pm to Sundays at 10pm. What ACAC neglected to tell anyone, much to the consternation of host Charlie Sotelo, is that the show has…
