Film Reviews
KIDSD: Larry Clark; with Leo Fitzpatrick, Justin Pierce, Chloe Sevigny. For once, the hype is right on the money. Kids is an emotional sucker punch, a raw, dirty, disturbing piece of cinema verit� filmmaking that simultaneously hooks and repulses you from its opening scenes of the teenaged Lothario Telly adrift in his favorite pastime: deflowering…
Captain CapZeyeZ
by Andy Langer Weird politics and weird sex may get Austin Community Television the headlines but for five years Dave Prewitt has been quietly reigning over a pair of programs that have become access’ real calling card: CapZeyeZ and Raw Time. The former show features live footage from local bands, while the latter runs videos…
Film: Showtimes
Showtimes listed below start Friday, September 1 and cover the week ending Thursday, September 7. *An asterisk (*) before a title means that no passes or special admission discounts (apart from matinee discounts) will be accepted for any screening. *Parentheses indicate weekend showtimes for Saturdays and Sundays only, unless otherwise noted. *Changes may sometimes occur,…
Music Recommended
Backyard, Saturday 2 Shawn Colvin’s sweet, soothing voice, and the lone accompaniment of her acoustic, are the only gentle stirrings on the re-issue of a 1988 concert in Somerville, MA – Live ’88, out now on Plump. No word yet whether Colvin will have a backing band for her first live Austin gig since the…
Post Scripts
*SAT, SEPT 2: Legendary British novelist Michael Moorcock will be at Adventures in Space and Crime, 2-4pm. His latest book, Nomad of the Time Streams, will soon be published in America… *WED, SEPT 6: A free screenwriting workshop will be presented by the Austin Writers’ League at Dougherty Arts Center. Hollywood screenwriter Katherine Ann Jones,…
Neither a Lender, Nor a Borrower Be…
by Alex de Marban A street refurbishment here… A nuclear power plant there… Throw in an airport and sundry multi-year projects that Austin has bankrolled with borrowed money and the city government is in a $3.7 billion hole and going deeper. Rapidly. Just two years ago, Austin owed $3.2 billion, but a $390 million loan…
Marina Budhos Goes Home Again Gravity, Family, and Country
House of Waiting by Marina Tamar Budhos Global City Press, $12 paper You may not be able to go home again, but nothing can keep you from circling the place continuously. Sarah Weissberg, the protagonist in House of Waiting, Marina Tamar Budhos’ first novel, desperately wants a home. Left on the orphanage steps with a…
What You Don’t See…
Perhaps the three most controversial capital projects on Austin’s drawing board are big-dollar items that taxpayers won’t have to pay for in the upcoming fiscal year. * Water service for Lantana. A $4.1 million interest-free loan from FM Properties will pay for the water system for this property, which backs up to the southern portion…
Muy Caliente
For once, the introduction for the results of the world’s largest salsa contest won’t refer to the temperature. It just wasn’t as hot outdoors this year, which may explain why nearly 12,000 showed up for the Fifth Annual Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival and Contest on Sunday, August 27 at the Travis County Farmers’ Market.…
Council Watch
No matter what legacy Eric Mitchell leaves after his political junket ends, Austin will never forget his contributions to the ailing state of fashion in local politics. Why, even Max Nofziger was reportedly seen sporting a necktie at last Thursday’s meeting. Overall, Mitchell’s colleagues are still decades from challenging his glamour, but they should take…
About AIDS
Straight Voices Over the past five years, the percentage of AIDS cases contracted through heterosexual contract alone has increased dramatically. This is true for Austinites of all backgrounds. Heterosexual persons living with HIV/AIDS may experience feelings of isolation, grief, anger, frustration, fear, and other emotions. People’s Community Clinic will offer a support group for straight…
It Pays to Recycle
by Robert Bryce Recycling has suddenly become profitable for the City of Austin. In the last fiscal year, the city got $129,725 for all of the scrap aluminum, newspaper, glass, and steel collected from city residents. By the end of the city’s current fiscal year in September, it will have collected an estimated $1.5 million…
Coach’s Corner
by Andy “Coach” Cotton I’m thrashing about, as if trying to catch a trout with my bare hands, for another way to do this column. Even my totally sports-impaired friends – and they are legion – know who the only two real teams in the NFC are… Most of them can identify who plays quarterback,…
Naked City
Edited by Louisa C. Brinsmade, with contributions this week by Andrea Barnett, Andy Langer, and Alex de Marban. SLICING UP THE BACON: The age-old endeavor to reverse East Austin’s economic “blight” is again bringing together a nucleus of governmental officials and private investors trumpeting their plan as the panacea to that area’s woes. The latest…
Mister Smarty Pants Knows…
Marlene Dietrich had a free lifetime supply of Ajax cleanser. According to The New York Times, the tune “Yankee Doodle” has been traced to Shakespeare’s day by some sources, to the Netherlands, Hungary, and Spain by others, and even to a 12th-century papal chant. A Duke University study found that about 30,000 western fence lizards…
Day Trips
New Canaan Farms’ Jam Hour has discontinued its live Saturday night radio show, which was broadcast from under a tent at the jelly factory west of Dripping Springs. The popular hour-long musical variety show, which touted New Canaan Farms’ condiments and Doc Toler’s Torpedo Tonic while showcasing local talent, had its final show in June.…
Super 8
Austin Gay/Lesbian Film Festival’s Eighth Year Super 8 by Alison Macor As it hits the ripe age of eight, the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival (aGLIFF) is expanding in some subtle and not-so-subtle ways. The 1995 edition of the event kicks off September 1, two weeks earlier than usual to coincide with Last…
Hearth and Soul
Pack Rat Patrol It’s too hot to even think about a home improvement project. This may explain why I gleefully volunteered to leave town for a few days to help someone (who prefers to remain anonymous) clean out years of accumulated household flotsam, like every issue of Texas Monthly back to 1977, a multi-dozen collection…
aGLIFF Schedule
The Eighth Annual Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival runs Sept. 1-14. All screenings are held at the Dobie Theatre, 2021 Guadalupe (second level, Dobie Mall). Tickets are $5.50 ($3.50 for screenings before 6pm), with festival passes, good for six screenings, available for $28. Seating is limited. Below is the schedule for the full…
Matthew McConaughey: Lone Star Rising
At’s late March of 1995 and Los Angeles is a beautiful city – or at least it’ll be beautiful for the next couple of weeks, until the heat picks up and the sweet breeze dies down and the hazy film of smog boils into something shiny and mean and almost solid. Matthew McConaughey, a lean,…
Desperado HoursFor a Few Dollars More
“Just add a few zeroes.” That could very well summarize the production strategy adopted by Robert Rodriguez on his brand-new film Desperado, the follow-up to his runaway action hit of 1993, El Mariachi. One of the lasting effects of El Mariachi was a redefinition – downward – of the term “low-budget film.” Made for a…
7 and 7 is
Seeing as how lawnmower guitars mulching up teeny-bop happy-pop is all the rage in the wake of New Age punk morphing into the New Wave re-runs, can S.A.’s Big Drag remain indie much longer? Not if their recent Sleep King four-song EP is any indication. Only Freddie Cannon’s classy-chassis driven “Tallahassee Lassie” is from their…
The Education of Max Nofziger
by Mike Clark-Madison In the far northwestern corner of Ohio, nearest to Detroit, amidst hamlets like Assumption and Defiance, West Unity and Liberty Center, lie the bottomlands of the Maumee and Tiffin rivers, known cheerfully as the Black Swamp, and adjoining them the town of Archbold, whose high-school valedictorian in 1965 was one Michael Nofziger.…
Bonus Tracks
AARON ATCHLEY Edge of Time (Austin Records) This record blows worse than a leaky gasket. I can’t think of a single good thing to say about it except that, 37 excruciating minutes after it starts, it ends. Of course, if you get off on sensitive-guy, singer-songwriter pabulum with all the artistic content of a cereal…
Peeling Back De Layers
by Daryl Slusher Ever heard of delayering? It’s a new thing down at City Hall. City Manager Jesus Garza describes it as “decreasing bureaucratic layers.” This may not sound that exciting to some of you, but to me it is a very exciting development. Along with quite a few other folks, I have long maintained…
Dancing About Architecture
KUTZ-FM, local affiliate of the Z-Rock radio chain, whose programming largely originates via satellite, has canceled their Friday night (8:20-10:20pm) locally oriented Texas Shock Syndrome program and released its host Andy Langer from his contract. In its place, DJ Ward Cleaver will be programming what KUTZ describes as “more traditional Z-Rock music programming,” and what…
To Inform and Serve
The American-Statesman (in one of their better moments) reported earlier this summer that the city has a budget of $2.39 million in salaries for public relations and media relations employees. As they mentioned, some of these jobs involve valuable services, such as providing information to the press and educating the public on city programs and…
Now You See Us
by Ken Lieck All right, so you’ve got a band together. You’ve got enough to deal with just getting everybody to rehearsals, writing songs that everybody agrees are just the rockinest tunes ever to come out of Texas, and keeping the guitar player’s cats from crapping in the back of the amps. The last thing…
5th Annual Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival Contest Winners
Individual Category Red Sauce 1st Place: Randy Wilkowich 2nd Place: John Randall 3rd Place: Pete Gaitan Green Sauce 1st Place: Bella Elena Grosik 2nd Place: Randy Wilkowich 3rd Place: Jim Walsh Special Variety 1st Place: Barry McAtee 2nd Place: Gary Smith (Houston) 3rd Place: Michael Walters (Galveston) Restaurant Category Red Sauce 1st Place: Trudy’s 2nd…
