Foreign Land
Foreign Land 1995, NR, 100 min. Directed by Walter Salles Jr., Daniela Thomas, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Fernanda Torres, Fernando Alves Pinto, Luis Melo Alexandre Borges, Tchécky Karyo. A black-and-white thriller that recalls Brazil’s Cinema Novo, Foreign Land tells the love story of a man and a woman whose lives are affected…
Cinematexas Screenings
Cinematexas Screenings NR. Directed by , Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Cinematexas is a series of screenings, concerts, and events. Showcases include presentations (some in competition and some not) of student film work, international shorts, faculty screenings, and Conduit digital selections. Kicking things off on Wed (9/22) is a presentation by the…
Dr. Butcher M.D.
This Italian horror movie features cannibals and zombies. Just be happy that this is one doctor that Obamacare won’t cover.
Night of the Living Dead
George Romero’s granddaddy of the modern flesh-eating zombie movies gets under your skin.
Exhibitionism
Venus:A Vessel for Others Under the Big TopThe Big Top (southwest corner of West Fifth & Lamar), through September 26 Running time: 2 hrs, 30 min It’s there, on the corner of Fifth and Lamar: the Big Top. Under the stretched canvas, you find the luscious, exotic, colorful cocktail of circus paraphernalia. A 19th-century, Barnumesque…
Food-o-File
Tracking recent restaurant openings and closings; plus upcoming events in Austin that cater to chileheads.
Record Reviews
Dave DouglasSongs For Wandering Souls (Winter & Winter) Nowadays, it’s hard not to hear Dave Douglas in some context or other. Besides being a much-in-demand sideman, the sanguine trumpeter fronts several different, unorthodox small groups of his own, and records for a variety of acclaimed independent record labels. Although he’s barely known to the jazz…
Corner to Corner
There’s more development slated for the already-crowded RM 2222 and Loop 360 interchange.
TV Eye
O St. Clare, help us in this time of Emmy nominations.
A Sort of Legend
Author Neil Gaiman is a fantastist and storyteller. Marc Savlov talks to the author and reveals why he’s also a legend. Sort of.
Southern Comfort
Bite-sized reviews of local comfort food restaurants.
Record Reviews
The Bottle RocketsBrand New Year (Doolittle) Tube-top Tammys riding atop the shoulders of mustached heshers, Jack Daniels bottles and Bic lighters raised in the air, dudesicles with three-foot bongs in the trunks of their Camaros. The Doolittle debut from Festus, Missouri’s pride and joy finds the Bottle Rockets mining familiar territory: Bad Company, ZZ Top,…
The Champion Tract…
…is actually five tracts surrounding the RM 2222/Loop 360 interchange. The Champion sisters, whose family has owned this land since 1866, want to build: A shopping center (Tract 1C) Office buildings (Tracts 1D and 3) Apartments (Tract 1B) Restaurants (Tracts 2, 4, and 5), Single-family homes (Tract 1A), plus Homes for each of the sisters…
Feel-Good Generations
There’s a reason scholar Rachel Maines, the author of The Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria,” the Vibrator, and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction has survived the various assualts on her intellectual freedom: She’s smart, she’s funny, and she also “dances circles around reactionary clod-like thinking.”
Good Eats Cafe
Good Eats Cafe 6801 Burnet Road, 451-2560 Mon-Fri, 7am-10pm; Sat-Sun, 8am-10pm Saturday and Sunday breakfasts are generally packed at this old Austin hangout that whips up fresh biscuits and gravy, migas, omelettes, and more. Lunches and dinners offer burgers, chicken fried steak, chicken fried chicken, pork chops, and grilled sirloin. Two sides come with every…
Record Reviews
Johnny DowdPictures From Life’s Other Side (Koch) In 1996, Chicago’s upstart alt.country label Checkered Past released Johnny Dowd’s Wrong Side of Memphis. The 15 tales of beautiful terror and trying love — far from easy listening — became one of that year’s best albums. In the three years since, Checkered Past has gone belly up,…
Naked City
Austin Energy budget comes under fire as the utility prepares for competition; the Texas Our Texas Heritage Program has big plans for state parkland and conservation; and a new state audit highlights problems with the Texas Workforce Commission’s oversight of local welfare and workforce boards.
A Dog of Flanders
A Dog of Flanders 1999, PG, 100 min. Directed by Kevin Brodie, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jesse James, Madylin Sweeten, Deborah Pollitt, Farren Monet, Stephen Hartley, Cheryl Ladd, Jeremy James Kissner, Jack Warden, Jon Voight. You can take your child to see this adaptation of the classic children’s tale, but don’t blame…
Postscripts
Fall is officially here once the press releases grow to an unmanageable heap on Clay Smith’s desk. This week, upcoming literary events are listed, including Nathan Englander, John Phillip Santos, Elmer Kelton, and Dan Savage.
Threadgill’s
Threadgill’s 6416 N. Lamar, 451-7201 Mon-Sat, 11am-10pm; Sun,11am-9pm 301 W. Riverside, 472-9304 Mon-Fri, 11am-10pm; Sat, 11am-11pm; Sun, 10am-9pm The original location on Burnet was opened in 1933 by Kenneth Threadgill, and was made famous as the place where Janis Joplin used to play in the Sixties. The new location on Riverside sits next to the…
Record Reviews
Jim Lauderdale & Ralph Stanley I Feel Like Singing Today (Rebel) Jim Lauderdale is an interesting character to say the least. He’s had a wildly successful career as a Nashville songwriter, with folks like George Strait, Patty Loveless, Mark Chesnutt, and Vince Gill all recording his songs, while still being held in high regard by…
Naked City
We’ve been hearing about “impending electric deregulation” for years, with the clear implication that Austin’s city-owned utility better shape up quickly and be prepared, lest it get swept away in a wave of competition from better-equipped private contenders for our electricity dollars. So you’d think it would come as good news that the city was…
The Trio
The Trio 1998, NR, 97 min. Directed by Hermine Huntgeburth, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Angelika Bartsch, Christian Redl, Felix Eitner, Jeanette Hain, Götz George. There’s honor among thieves, loyalty among family members, and love between lovers. It gets complicated, however, when all these traits and associations become the ties that bind the…
Off the Bookshelf
Can You Wave Bye Bye, Baby? by Elyse Gasco Picador, $17 hard In these seven stories, Canadian writer Elyse Gasco humorously and painfully meditates on mothers — women who need them and women who are becoming them. These stories tell it like it is, the aching disaster of early motherhood, the soaring insanity, the overwhelming…
Soul Kitchen
Soul Kitchen 2931 E. 12th, 478-0251 Mon-Fri, 10:30am-5:30pm; Sat-Sun, 12-5:30pm Don’t be fooled by the Soul Kitchen façade’s closed-for-business appearance. The tiny Eastside restaurant is, in fact, very much alive and serving authentic down-home cuisine to Austinites of every color. Patrons order at the counter from a menu offering luscious fried chicken, tender fried pork…
Record Reviews
Randy NewmanBad Love (DreamWorks) Randy Newman’s sidecar success as a film composer reflects his unerring sense of arrangement and orchestration, which when paired with his satirically bent protagonists has proven a one-of-a-kind sweet & sour combination. Having spent the better part of a decade immersed in film scores and his criminally ignored musical treatment of…
Naked City
There’s no polite way to put it — Texas has a lousy state parks system. Sure, there are some beautiful parks, and some of them are magnificent. There just aren’t enough of them. And the parks that we do have are either too crowded, poorly maintained, or both. Texas ranks 48th out of the 50…
Trick
Trick 1999, R, 90 min. Directed by Jim Fall, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Quentin Leupp, Tori Spelling, John Paul Pitoc, Christian Campbell. Its title bluntly suggests the impersonal, the emotionally detached, but that’s just an illusion: Trick is as sweet and sublime as any recent movie has come. The film’s premise is…
Off the Bookshelf
Splash Across Texas! by Chandra Moira Beal La Luna Publishing, $16.95 paper Chandra Moira Beal must have stuck her toe in every waterhole throughout Central Texas. And then hunted down every morsel of information she could about each one of them to compile this thorough, informative, and loving dedication to the joys of swimming in…
Cafe 290
Cafe 290 11011 Hwy290 E., 272-4212 Mon-Fri, 6am-10pm; Fri-Sat, 6am-10:30pm; Sun, 7-10pm Cafe 290 runs a popular buffet stocked with old-time favorites such as baked ham, chicken and dumplings, chicken pot pie, smothered pork chops, meatloaf, stuffed peppers, fried catfish, and more. Three or four selections are offered each day. À la carte meals come…
Record Reviews
BISSocial Dancing (Grand Royal/Capitol) This Scottish cartoon pop trio made a name for themselves by dropping ultra-catchy DIY singles whose hooks and beats were inflamed by punk’s insolence. While Social Dancing is enjoyable as a hyperactive whirl through Brit-pop forms of the Eighties and early Nineties, this homage to the material world lacks the rebel…
Naked City
Working It Out During George W. Bush’s first session as governor, the Texas Legislature was instructed to fabricate a “welfare reform” initiative that would jibe with the state’s — and the governor’s — pro-privatization, local-control-oriented, “right to work” philosophy. Four years later, according to a report issued by the state auditor’s office, much of that…
Love Stinks
Love Stinks 1999, R, 92 min. Directed by Jeff Franklin, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring French Stewart, Bridgette Wilson, Tyra Banks, Bill Bellamy, Jason Bateman, Tiffani-Amber Thiessen. An “unromantic comedy” of deep marital paranoia, Love Stinks may spell relief for men whose bowels shake at the sight of baby booties, wedding rings, and…
Off the Bookshelf
Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind by Ann B. Ross Morrow, $23 hard Just picking up this novel of a feisty Southern matron finding her core of steel inspires the reader to begin humming the theme to Driving Miss Daisy (and the publicity for the comic novel hits us pretty hard with the Steel Magnolias comparison).…
Barbara Ellen’s
Barbara Ellen’s 13129 Hwy71 W., 263-2385 Mon-Thu, 7am-9:30pm; Fri-Sat, 7am-10:30pm; Sun, 8am-9:30pm They provide the food, you provide the grandma at this cute, homestyle kitchen located near Lake Travis. Daily specials include chicken with dumplings, pork roast, meatloaf, and sirloin steak. Meals come with a choice of two veggies and a roll or cornbread.
Record Reviews
L7Slap-Happy (Bong Load/Wax Tadpole) The Nineties are over, and with them goes another disposable: modern rock. Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Hole. And now L7 — at least if Slap-Happy is any indication. Following a hard-to-find one-off for Frank Kozik’s Man’s Ruin label, the live hootenanny Omaha to Osaka, L7’s post-major label return to the studio…
Naked City
Action Items Plaza Saltillo, an open-air marketplace at 412 Comal, will be inaugurated at 6pm, Saturday, Sept. 11. Call the office of City Council Member Gus Garcia for more info; 499-2264. The League of Women Voters of the Austin Area is hosting an 11:30am forum on Austin’s downtown community court on Monday, Sept. 13, at…
Stir of Echoes
Stir of Echoes 1999, R, 110 min. Directed by David Koepp, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Kevin Bacon, Jennifer Morrison, Illeana Douglas, Zachary David Cope, Kathryn Erbe. Taken from Richard Matheson’s novel of the same name, Stir of Echoes is as much a showpiece for Kevin Bacon’s remarkable acting chops as it is…
Local Bestsellers
Local bestsellers are based on recent sales at Austin bookstores selected to reflect varied reading interests.
Big Earl’s
Big Earl’s 1804 Briarcliff, 926-2285 Mon-Fri, 11am-7pm; Sat, noon-5pm Named after the owner’s son, who died in 1992, Big Earl’s is a low-key neighborhood joint located in Northeast Austin. Customers order from the window and are then served in a sparsely decorated dining room, the centerpiece of which is a television. Menu items include Salisbury…
Record Reviews
QuasiField Studies (Up) “We’ve seen it all before. In fact, I’ve seen it many times and I’ll see it many more,” snipes Sam Coomes about the “new newest thing” on Field Studies’ opening track, but the singer/Roxichordist could just as easily be talking about the album itself, Quasi’s fourth. Sure, Coomes and drummer Janet Weiss…
Council Watch
East Austin residents have a say in neighborhood planning; local advocates ask for more money in city budget to fund their special interest; Bill Spelman issues some strong words against the Statesman‘s criticism of council on the LCRA water deal.
Chill Factor
Chill Factor 1999, R, 102 min. Directed by Hugh Johnson, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Skeet Ulrich, Peter Firth, David Paymer, Hudson Leick. As Labor Day passes, triggering the inevitable retail flurry of Sizzlin’ Summer’s End Sales, Hollywood follows suit with its annual inventory dump of duff action movies that…
Page Two
The LCRA water deal with the city of Austin is suspicious.
Laura’s Bluebonnet Kitchen
Laura’s Bluebonnet Kitchen 5408 Burnet, 467-9552 Mon-Fri, 6:30am-2:30pm; Sat-Sun, 7:30am-2:30pm Homestyle food with an urban flair, Laura’s Bluebonnet Kitchen serves a hearty dollop of kitsch with each Southern comfort meal at this blue-hued restaurant decorated with vintage kitchen appliances. Specialties such as tender pork loin with savory cornbread dressing, spinach casserole, and cheese mashed potatoes…
Record Reviews
BrokebackField Recordings From the Cook County Water Table (Thrill Jockey) Besides being bassist for two of Chicago’s best bands, Eleventh Dream Day and Tortoise, Douglas McCombs is emerging as something of a musical visionary. Now with Brokeback, McComb’s latest side-project turned full-blown concern, he’s put together one of the most unique and enjoyable instrumental albums…
Autumn Tales
The fall 1999 film season looks to be busier and noiser than ever.
Public Notice
It’s International Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Awareness Day and Discover Commute Solutions Month!
Hoover’s
Hoover’s 2002 Manor, 479-5006 Mon-Fri, 11am-10pm; Sat-Sun, 9am-10pm A longtime luminary in the Austin restaurant scene, Hoover Alexander has finally hung his own sign out front of this unassuming storefront located on the Manor Road restaurant row. The menu offers a variety of mother-inspired meats, such as barbecued pork ribs, braised pork roast, and smoked…
Record Reviews
Basement Jaxx Remedy (Astralwerks) There’s no denying that Basement Jaxx have harnessed the awesome power of rump-shaking beatitude. That’s a good thing for lovers of pure, funky house music, the likes of which have been overshadowed of late by big beaters Stormin’ Norman Cook and jungle gymnasticizers Roni Size et al. For a while there,…
September Previews
BEDROOMS & HALLWAYSD: Rose Troche; with Kevin McKidd, Tom Hollander, James Purefoy, Hugo Weaving, Simon Callow. Rose Troche, the director of Go Fish, at last returns with her second film — a romantic comedy set among gay men in England. Two flatmates (but not bedmates) are on opposite ends of the casual sex/commitment equation, but…
Coach’s Corner
Pre-season NFL predictions to assist you in your betting pools.
Sallie’s
Sallie’s 4140 E. 12th, 926-6804 Mon-Thu, 10:30am-10pm; Fri-Sat, 10:30am-sometime after lunch In April 1999, Sallie Foster moved her eight-year-old business from her stand on Rosewood Avenue to this new and larger space on the corner of 12th and Springdale, where she has expanded both the menu and service for her home-cooked comfort and soul food.…
Record Reviews
Mobb DeepMobb Muzik (Loud) Finally — a hip-hop album the whole family can enjoy! Now before you all go rushing off to Best Buy or Music Mania to secure this for your pre-adolescent cousin/niece/nephew, bear in mind that’s “family” as in Gambino, not Barney. More Scorcese than Sesame Street, Mobb Muzik opens with former President…
October Previews
THE ACID HOUSED: Paul McGuigan; with Ewen Bremner, Martin Clunes, Stephen McCole, Jenny McCrindle, Gary McCormack. Scripted by Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting) from a collection of his short stories, the film is composed as a surreal triptych of black comedies featuring characters who sound as if they’ll make the Trainspotting bunch seem as bland as a…
Mr. Smarty Pants
Rattlesnake bites will get you in The Zone; plus tidbits on Sacajawea, George Washington, ants, and more.
Southern Comfort
Marimont Cafe 623 W. 38th, 458-5944 Daily, 11am-8pm Voted best dependable comfort food in the 1996 Chronicle Critic’s Poll, the Marimont is the kind of place you went to as a kid with your aging aunt who insisted on eating only soft, easily digestible food. Since 1976, this cafeteria-style restaurant has been serving real homestyle…
Record Reviews
Ali Farka ToureNiafunke (Hannibal/Rykodisc) Taj Mahal & Toumani DiabateKulanjan (Hannibal/Rykodisc) Africa is the land where the blues were born. If you’ve always thought that was just another way of saying that black folks invented it, you’ve missed the point: American blues has been shot through with African forms from the day the first slave landed…
November Previews
AMERICAN MOVIED: Chris Smith. This year’s contender for Documentary Breakout Hit is this gentle, funny, passionate, and focused study of a man in Wisconsin pursuing his American Dream. The movie’s subject, Mark Borchardt, is obsessed with making his dream movie, but the would-be filmmaker possesses more drive than cash. Yet nothing daunts his ambition and…
After a Fashion
Fur is back, just like it’s always been.
Bad Dog
When we see a dog running free, why are we frightened? Longtime Austinite Paula James meditates on the effect that fear of the natural world has had on us.
Record Reviews
Estrellas de Areito Los Heroes (World Circuit/Nonesuch) If you liked the Buena Vista Social Club recordings, you’ll love this 2-CD all-star set. Noting the popularity of New York-based salsa musicians in the Seventies, Paris-based Ivory Coast producer Raoul Diomande, a great admirer of Afro-Cuban music, went to the source — Havana — and cut these…
1999 Texas Filmmakers’ Production Fund Grants
Thirty-two recipients of filmmaking grants from the Austin Film Society, totaling $50,000 and ranging from $1,000-5,000.
Greil Marcus and the Mad Parade
In his book Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century, Greil Marcus explained punk to the world and created a bible for that music’s true believers. As Austin theatre company Rude Mechanicals opens its stage adaptation of Marcus’ book, the author talks about the Stones, the Sex Pistols, and the “mad parade” of…
Day Trips
Georgetown’s Palace Theatre Guild’s You Can’t Do That, Dan Moody! is staged in the actual courtroom in which the play’s events first took place.
The Sound and the Fury
Local theatre Alamo Drafthouse teams silent films with live musical scores by favorite Austin acts.
Record Reviews
Loreena McKennittLive in Paris and Toronto (Quinlan Road/Warner Bros.) After her single “The Mummers’ Dance” went gold last year, and the album that spawned it, Book of Secrets, sold over 3 million copies, Canadian chanteuse Loreena McKennitt ever so quietly became one of the most independently powerful women in the music business. Having completed the…
Video Reviews
Die Hard D: John McTiernan (1988); with Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, Alan Rickman, Alexander Godunov, Reginald VelJohnson, Paul Gleason, De’voreaux White, William Atherton, Hart Bochner. The astonishing and unexpected success of this summer’s Sixth Sense has been fueled by extraordinary word of mouth. I really can’t think of the last time so many different people…
Articulations
The Austin Museum of Art has a new chief curator.
About AIDS
The group AIDS Action exposes AIDS drugs profiteering.
Scavengers of the Vast Wasteland
Whether they’re riffing on punk, metal, funk, jazz, film scores, or even klezmer music, Brown Wh�rnet attacks each passage with a vociferous intensity that seldom fails to keep an audience at attention.
Making Waves
The growing number of cellular towers in Austin has prompted changes to the ordinance regulating the towers.
Video Reviews
Blood FreakD: Brad Grinter, Steve Hawkes (1971); with Hawkes, Dana Culliver, Randy Grinter, Tina Anderson. I watch a lot of movies. A lot of my movie-watching time is admittedly spent plumbing the depths of the cinematic septic system. It’s sort of a fetish of mine; I mean, I’d rather watch some obscure piece of drive-in…
Exhibitionism
In this week’s section of Austin Chronicle Arts reviews, Robert Faires gets hooked on Rob Nash’s Junior Blues and Robi Polgar goes under the Big Top for Suzan-Lori Parks’ Venus.
The Fine Art of Dining
The work of local artisans enhances restaurant decor.
Dancing About Architecture
Austin Jazz & Arts Festival doesn’t need saving after all; the strange sounds coming from Austin’s backyards; barbecue to replace Austin Blues; Honky attacked by lesbians in Chicago!; and more news from the Live Music Capital of the World.
Cellular Towers: At Watt Cost?
How dangerous is electromagnetic radiation? At the University of Washington in Seattle, Dr. Henry Lai has been conducting extensive experiments with rats to determine the effect of both thermal and non-thermal radio frequency radiation (RFR) from cellular towers and cellular phones. Lai says his studies show that prolonged exposure to electromagnetic radiation at constant but…
Short Cuts
Local screenwriter Aubrey Horton offers a comedy screenwriting workshop; aGLIFF screenplay competition winners announced (and more screenplay madness); Kevin Costner to be in attendance at the premiere of For the Love of the Game, the Alamo’s Cannibal Film Series; and more news from the Austin film scene.
