Movie Midwifing
Movie Midwifing NR. Directed by Various, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Winners of the Movie MIdwifing’s statewide screenwriting contest will have their scripts read by professional actors on Thursdays through mid-October. Sept. 19: The Hole Thing by Michele Stanush; Sept. 26: What the Doctor Ordered by John L. Shea III (“A quirky…
Underground Zero: Part 2
Underground Zero: Part 2 2002, NR, 76 min. Directed by Various, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . One week after the events of September 11, San Francisco-based independent filmmakers Jay Rosenblatt and Caveh Zahedi (the character seeking a “perfect moment” in Waking Life) invited 150 filmmakers to create a short film or video…
Two-Year Anniversary Pajama Party
Two-Year Anniversary Pajama Party NR. Directed by Various, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . It’s an all-night “Pajama Jammy Jam” with the men of Mr. Sinus. On the agenda includes a reprise screening of every movie Mr. Sinus has ever put through the ringer, from Nude on the Moon to Dirty Dancing, plus…
Enterprise: Shockwave (Part 1 & Part 2)
Enterprise: Shockwave (Part 1 & Part 2) 2002, NR, 95 min. Directed by Allan Kroeker, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Scott Bakula, John Billingsley. Last season’s finale and this season’s opening episode of the fifth Star Trek television spinoff series, Enterprise, will screen as a charity event. 100% of the voluntary donations will…
The Earth Will Swallow You
The Earth Will Swallow You NR. Directed by Christopher Hanson, Geoffrey Hanson, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Beloved jam bad Widespread Panic is the subject of this tour documentary from brothers Christopher and Geoffrey Hanson. Walk-ons include Vic Chestnutt, Jefferson Airplane, and Taj Mahal. Dallas rockers Mellowship will perform before and after…
The Wild One
The Wild One 1954, NR, 79 min. Directed by Laslo Benedek, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Marlon Brando, Mary Murphy, Lee Marvin, Jerry Paris. This Stanley Kramer-produced film is the original biker movie. When this motorcycle gang terrorizes a sleepy town gangleader played by Brando is asked by a citizen, “What are you…
Eskimo Nell
Eskimo Nell 1975, R, 85 min. Directed by Martin Campbell, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Terence Edmond, Michael Armstrong, Christopher Timothy, Roy Kinnear. In this British sex farce, three first-time filmmakers make four different versions of their film in order to meet the demands of their various backers.
Earth
Earth 1930, NR, 62 min. Directed by Alexander Dovzhenko, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Stepan Shkurat, Semyon Svashenko. Dovzhenko’s most celebrated film has long been a staple of greatest world cinema lists. Earth takes its agitprop story about the wonders of Soviet collectivization and turns it into a poetic – almost Jungian -…
Phases and Stages
Susan GibsonChin Up Susan Gibson is deeply proud of having written the Grammy-winning “Wide Open Spaces” for the Dixie Chicks — it became the best-selling song in country music history — but she remains in unknown quantity as a local artist. And her success with “Spaces” is going to dominate every press mention until she…
Sailing Without Anchors
It’s been more than two months since Bee Cave officials signed a controversial deal with the developers of a large-scale shopping center project, but peace has hardly returned to the valley in this semi-rural community.
Austin @ Large: Austin at Large
Will Wynn suggests some belt-tightening at Council, drawing the wrath of colleagues.
Six Legs to Tango:
In Moscow in 1910, the entomologist and aspiring documentarian Wladyslaw Starewicz sat in the studio of his very first employer, attempting to film a battle between stag beetles. To his frustration, though, the beetles refused to fight — one of them even passed away under the intense heat of the studio lights. Starewicz, dismayed, then…
One Hour Photo
One Hour Photo 2002, R, 98 min. Directed by Mark Romanek, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Erin Daniels, Eriq LaSalle, Gary Cole, Dylan Smith, Michael Vartan, Connie Nielsen, Robin Williams. One Hour Photo offers a very interesting snapshot of some decidedly modern pathologies — suburban alienation and the illusions generated by the advent…
To Your Health
Why can’t I just completely eliminate fat from my diet?
Phases and Stages
The Hot Club of CowtownGhost Train (HighTone) Starting in Austin a handful of years back, this modern western swing trio has steadily and successfully gained performative composure and with it, a wider audience. On Ghost Train, the band — upright bassist Jake Erwin, guitarist/vocalist Whit Smith, and fiddle player/vocalist Elana Fremerman — stretch their muscles…
Disputing the “Deputy’ in Deputy Ruiz
Can a deputy still be a deputy without swearing to oaths required by law? One lawyer doesn’t think so.
“Fair” Play
Director Scott Thompson doesn’t want the audience for Austin Musical Theatre’s production of My Fair Lady to get too comfy, and here’s why.
Djibril Diop Mambety
The far-from-prolific Senegalese director Djibril Diop Mambety (1945-98) made only two features and a number of shorts in three decades of filmmaking (he was working on a third feature when he died), but these two inspiring 45-minute short films show a remarkable artist at work. In 1994’s Le Franc, Marigo, a dirt-poor musician, picks up…
City by the Sea
City by the Sea 2002, R, 108 min. Directed by Michael Caton-Jones, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Eliza Dushku, William Forsythe, Patti Lupone, George Dzundza, James Franco, Frances Mcdormand, Robert Deniro. The theme of parental guilt is laid on thick in the psychological drama City by the Sea, nearly to the point that…
About AIDS
Prevention Focus Shifting to HIV-Positive People “HIV Stops With Me” should be the life motto of all HIV-infected people. It’s the message of a San Francisco ad campaign urging HIVers to take responsibility for not transmitting their virus to others. Traditional prevention approaches informed HIV-negative people about protecting themselves. However, this method has lost much…
Phases and Stages
High NoonWhat Are You Waiting For? (Goofin’) For a good rockabilly band, a drummer is redundant. Witness Elvis, Scotty, and Johnny Cash’s Tennessee Two, or for that matter, Austin’s High Noon. The insistent slap-and-click of the standup bass and percussive rhythm of an acoustic guitar is enough to drive the songs, and enough to send…
Harangued in Huntsville
Officers from the Office of the Inspector General arrest a political activist for asking a question. There, now don’t you feel safer?
Articulations
Public arts funding doesn’t get much messier than the City of Austin’s Cultural Contracts Program, but this year’s process may go down in history as the messiest yet.
He Who Hits First, Hits Twice
In his first 40 years, Cuban filmmaker Santiago Alvarez did not make a single film. In his last 40 years, he made more than 600. “I am a product of ‘accelerated underdevelopment,'” Alvarez would say. “The Revolution made me a film director. I learnt the job fondly handling millions of feet of film.” Some of…
The Chateau
The Chateau 2000, R, 91 min. Directed by Jesse Peretz, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Paul Rudd, Romany Malco, Sylvie Testud, Didier Flamand. Despite its trite conceit — adopted brothers inherit a French castle from an uncle they never knew — The Chateau is a likable culture-clash comedy that showcases the talents of…
The Point About DemiEpicurious
Wes Marshall evaluates an Austin restaurant according to a legendary master’s exacting standards.
Phases and Stages
Jason RobertsTexas Fiddle Man As fiddler for multi-Grammy winners Asleep at the Wheel, Jason Roberts steps into the spotlight on a regular basis, plays his solo, and takes his bow. The six-year Wheel vet has also played with Hank Thompson, Don Walser, and Johnny Bush, and under the sound guidance of co-producer Ray Benson, releases…
Budget Blitz
The City Council on Tuesday approved its $1.8 billion budget for fiscal 2003, but not before mollifying some angry citizens and mopping up some of the blood on the floor.
Exhibitionism
In his History of the World as the Center of the Universe, Stephen Pruitt proves that he is gifted not only as a lighting designer, but as a writer and performer who can tell an interesting anecdote or formulate a unique view of just how the various facets of the universe fit together.
International Competition
Before May of 1995, Clairemont, Calif., a suburb of San Diego, was nothing more than one of the many U.S. communities established in the postwar boom of the Fifties that had seen better days. But Shawn Nelson changed all of that when he ganked a tank from an armory near his home and took a…
Barbershop
Barbershop 2002, PG-13, 100 min. Directed by Tim Story, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Ice Cube, Anthony Anderson, Cedric the Entertainer, Sean Patrick Thomas, Eve, Troy Garity, Michael Ealy, Leonard Howze, Keith David. “I told you: Stop that cussin’!” hollers former NWA all-star Ice Cube, not once but twice in this genial ensemble…
Food-o-File
Virginia B. Wood believes that she has found the elusive pie in the sky, and tells you all about it while reviewing Pascale Le Draoulec’s American Pie: Tales of Life (and Pie) From America’s Backroads.
Phases and Stages
Roy Heinrich & the Pickups Playing Favorites (3H) KUT’s Live Set is a wonderful thing. Even a dozen people in the studio can sound like a beer joint full of rowdies if they put their minds to it. With a skilled engineer behind the board, a band can (and in this case, does) come away…
Naked City
City Council passed the $1.8 billion budget for fiscal year 2003, squeezing out many positions and “extras” but squeezing in a little classic rock. p.24. A Travis Co. judge this week refused to reduce developer Gary Bradley’s child-support payments of $4,800 per month, a ruling that could affect his bankruptcy case. See “Is He or…
Exhibitionism
In Vigil, playwright Morris Panych has written a rich character study that is also an extremely perceptive, wise rumination on death, but it’s also very funny, and Hyde Park Theatre’s production allows Panych’s script to shine like a light through a lonely window.
International Competition
Short film may be suffering a crisis of distribution these days, but you’d never know it from this series (10 distinct programs altogether) of international micro-films, which likely wouldn’t be found in your grocer’s freezer, anyway. Certainly there’s nothing lacking on the part of the filmmakers’ avant-prowess or imagination, although while subtitles may translate language,…
Mini-Review
“Sampaio’s features truly representative Brazilian cuisine, in a very welcoming space, served by an efficient and knowledgeable staff,” writes Mick Vann. But there’s more!
Phases and Stages
Penny Jo Pullus My Turn to Howl (Art of Balance) Penny Jo Pullus has been honing her craft around Austin for quite a while now, playing on just about any stage that will have her. The results of this hard work are evidenced on her third disc, My Turn to Howl, which shows substantial growth…
Naked City
The Austin Fire Fighters’ Political Action Committee, the political arm of the Austin Association of Professional Firefighters, has announced its endorsements for the Nov. 5 election: state attorney general, Kirk Watson; state senator, Dist. 14, Gonzalo Barrientos; Dist. 25, Jeff Wentworth. State rep. Dist. 46, Dawnna Dukes; Dist. 47, Terry Keel; Dist. 48, Ann Kitchen;…
Exhibitionism
By billing it as a “neurotic” comedy, Naughty Austin seems to position Beyond Therapy in the Woody Allen movie genre, and its production best compares to the filmmaker’s late career efforts — one that he seemingly wrote during a spare hour in a psychiatrist’s waiting room
Cinematexas 2002 Schedule
TICKET INFORMATIONFilm Pass ($35/general; $25 student/AFS & AMODA members) includes admission to all film screenings, parties, receptions, Parallax View, and Terra Cognita. Everything Pass ($50/general; $40/student) includes admission to Austin Eye+Ear events, all film screenings, parties, receptions, Parallax View, and Terra Cognita. Single tickets for the following special events are available at www.cinematexas.org: Lessons of…
Mini-Review
Trust us: 30 years later, it’s still one of the best tastes in town.
Phases and Stages
Ted Roddy & the King Conjure OrchestraChannelin’ E (Continental) Boy, does Channelin’ E open a can of worms. Recording an album of songs a long-dead icon “might” have sung is risky business — to say the least — but if anyone’s got to do it, thank God it’s Ted Roddy and his Graceland Revue compadres.…
Naked City
Tit-for-tat on the campaign trail: Several GOP bigwigs have announced the formation of Republicans and Independents for Tony Sanchez. The group includes San Marcos auto baron Chuck Nash (a Bush pioneer, like Sanchez), and claims Sanchez is an independent candidate who understands bipartisanship better than Gov. Rick Perry. The incumbent’s campaign rolled out its Democrats…
The World as He Knows It
H.W. Brands? The Age of Gold is just the latest in a long line of well-crafted history.
Let Your Freak Flag Fly
Gonna let it all hang out at Dragon*Con, where 20,000 sci-fi enthusiasts meet up, make merry, and sometimes cop a feel.
Mini-Review
Hot Jumbo Bagel hosts a tearoom brimming with sophisticated exotica into the wee hours? Who knew?
Phases and Stages
Radney FosterAnother Way to Go (Dualtone) Radney Foster is a born songwriter, able to fill albums with hit-worthy material, and create chart topper after chart topper since his days as one-half of Foster & Lloyd. It has been four years since the Del Rio native released a studio album, and for his latest venture, Another…
Naked City
Envision Central Texas, a five-county citizens coalition focused on regional planning, will hold the first in a series of planning workshops Friday, Sept. 13 from 7:30am to noon at the Convention Center, 500 East Cesar Chavez. For more info, call 476-5461. On Saturday, Sept. 14, insurance industry nemesis Melinda Ballard will discuss her efforts to…
Present and Future
H.W. Brands’ scholarly specialty is U.S. foreign relations. So Tim Walker asked him to address some of the disintegrating ones.
Night of the Living Dead
Cinematexas supporters stage a publicity stunt cum protest march at a local Blockbuster.
Life, Death, and Shoofly Pie
Chatting with the Gourds’ rabid online fan base, family through thick and BAD.
Phases and Stages
Moonlight Towers(Spinster) One good thing about the weather here: Those perfect summer albums go a long, long way. It has probably been pretty close to a perfect summer for the members of Austin’s Moonlight Towers, who’ve sprung from out of nowhere and grabbed a piece of both the local barroom pie and the radio-ready-rock pie,…
Naked City
Mark Rose’s multifaceted career has taken him from the Austin City Council to the Lower Colorado River Authority, to Public Strategies Inc., to solo consulting, to his latest stopover at the Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative in Giddings, east of Austin.
Readings
Kinky Friedman will be at BookPeople on Thursday, Sept. 19, and Tom Doyal takes a look at his latest novel, Meanwhile Back at the Ranch.
Short Cuts
Austin Film Commission no more
Jan the Lazyman
Message: 1 Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 10:30:06 -0000 From: “janthelazyman2001” (janthelazyman@hotmail.com) Subject: help I’m melting who give me a beer. Jan the Lazyman Message: 2 Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2002 08:34:09 0000 From: “janthelazyman2001” (janthelazyman@hotmail.com) Subject: I see myself in a mirror and see that grin The nights are slow and the weather is…
Phases and Stages
Sin PeloNavigation (GFY) Possessed of more inner glow than E.T. himself, Sin Pelo’s Navigation gives off enough radiant heat to cook a whole freezer-case full of rotisserie chickens. The nombre de rock y roll of Austin’s busiest bassist Andrew Duplantis (Superego, Bob Mould, Dismukes), Sin Pelo’s sound is closest kin to two Duplantis employers: the…
Naked City
Last week Austin Congressman Lloyd Doggett took the House floor to strongly oppose the Bush administration’s drumbeat for unilateral military action against Iraq.
Page Two
To completely pretend this week isn’t somehow special was ludicrous, but we’re paying our respects with silence.
TV Eye
After a 16-month hiatus, The Sopranos’ fourth season finally arrives, accompanied by a slew of related books.
The Gourds Reviewed
The GourdsCow Fish Fowl or Pig (Sugar Hill) Having become a prolific recording outfit with a couple of solo side projects to boot, the Gourds have elevated themselves far above the status of good local band and well-oiled live machine. With each new album, they only get better. Their latest, the oddly named Cow Fish…
Phases and Stages
Sound TeamInto the Lens (Chinook Sounds) Sound Team = a band. Or so says the little disembodied head that serves as our guide through the eight-page promotional Sound Team coloring book titled Sound Team Goes to Space. Good thing our fine fedora-wearing host was kind enough to clue us in. We might have otherwise mistaken…
Naked City
Developer Gary Bradley insists he’s broke, but a Travis County judge this week refused to reduce his child-support payments of $4,800 per month.
Mr. Smarty Pants
Cadbury Chocolate recently ran an ad in India comparing the disputed Kashmir region to chocolate with the tag line “too good to share.”Actor Carroll O’Connor didn’t wear a wedding band in All in the Family.Handel wrote a hymn in 1748 referring to “light years” and “interstellar space.”Female lions prefer male lions with darker manes, according…
Video Reviews
This may not be the best Chandler adaptation, but it’s a shoo-in for the weirdest, and not just because it’s the only flick ever shot in Marlowe-vision.
Dancing About Architecture
As the Live Music Capital dries up, along comes the Austin City Limits festival to quench parched musical thirst.
Phases and Stages
PeglegasusLearning Curve Here’s another reason to tip a lobe toward this tightly honed yet perennially under-recognized Austin band. The curve imagery in the title of Peglegasus’ fifth album is appropriate given the local quartet’s tendency to eschew straightforward pop in favor of winding mini-sagas that meander about like a lazy river. Despite the lack of…
Naked City
State District Judge Scott McCown leaves the bench Sept. 20 to become the executive director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities.
Day Trips
Autumn trips are perfect for exploring the roads and sights of Texas. As the long, hot summer winds down and before the capriciousness of winter comes howling across the plains, the fall weather can be an ideal combination of day and night temperatures that won’t be matched again until spring. The kids have gone back…
Second Helpings: American Cafes III
America is the land of opportunity … to eat! “Second Helpings” gets you started.
Backing Over the Ledge
Next Wednesday, Sept. 18, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy is playing a brief show at Club DeVille that’s being filmed for Amy Manor’s documentary on West Texas music. It’s free and open to the public. Says the notice I received, “There may be some special guests involved (the Flatlanders are playing at Stubb’s the night after).”…
Phases and Stages
The BulemicsSoundtrack to the Apocalypse (Steel Cage) Everything one could garner about the Bulemics without hearing their music — song titles, album title, band title — would lead to the conclusion that these boys have a penchant for extreme naughtiness, oozing with surfeit self-exaggeration. Bingo. With a goal of keeping the evil in rock &…
Naked City
Jurors spent week four in the capital murder trial of Yogurt Shop Murders defendant Michael Scott considering DNA evidence and testimony from several of Scott’s high school friends.
After a Fashion
What are the kids sporting in the clubs these days and what are they thinking???
Stealing Harvard
Stealing Harvard 2002, PG-13, 83 min. Directed by Bruce McCulloch, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Seymour Cassel, Chris Penn, John C. McGinley, Richard Jenkins, Megan Mullally, Dennis Farina, Leslie Mann, Tom Green, Jason Lee. Stealing Harvard is about a good man feebly attempting a life of crime. Life imitating art: The result is…
Phases and Stages
West Side HornsSan Quilmas (Dualtone) Within the first few bars of “Rainbow Riot,” the opening track of the West Side Horns’ San Quilmas, three great revelations came to me while getting reacquainted with the honey-dripping saxophones of Eracleo (Rocky) Morales, Spot Barnett, and Louis Bustos blending with Al Gomez’ trumpet, Jack Barber’s swinging bass, and…
Phases and Stages
James McMurtrySt. Mary of the Woods (Sugar Hill) As the new overtakes and displaces the old, the world changes. An obvious truth, sure, but also a source of constant inspiration and vexation for James McMurtry. The lyrics of many of this Austin singer-songwriter’s compositions address said alteration of the landscape, especially those on the bold…
Naked City
An attorney for Lacresha Murray and her grandparents and siblings filed suit in federal court claiming a litany of civil and constitutional violations stemming from Murray’s 1996 arrest and subsequent three-year incarceration.
The Hightower Report
Who decided that the WTO rules the U.S.?; who decided that the U.S. rules Iraq?
Happy Times
Happy Times 2000, NR, 122 min. Directed by Zhang Yimou, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Fu Biao, Dong Lihua, Dong Jie, Zhao Benshan. Luckless, middle-aged bachelor Zhao (Zhao Benshan) lives in a squalid apartment and is flat broke, but he’s got one million-dollar asset: his powers of persuasion. His friend Fu (Fu Biao)…
Phases and Stages
Ray PriceTime (Audium) Ray Price’s forte has got to be the shuffle. Smooth, romantic, melancholy shuffles. This time around, the 76-year-old country music legend is reunited with members of his Sixties Nashville A-team of studio players, with none other than Billy Sherrill producing. The results are typically lush and supple. “You Just Don’t Love Me…
Making Everyone Happy
The state’s textbook adoption process focuses more on pleasing everyone than on teaching children.
Naked City
File Waco Tribune-Herald publisher Rowland Nethaway’s Sept. 9 Statesman column under the category, “Dead on Arrival.
Cinematexas 2002 International Short Film Festival
The ins and outs of the Cinematexas 2002 International Short Film Festival
Mostly Martha
Mostly Martha 2001, PG, 107 min. Directed by Sandra Nettelbeck, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Martina Gedeck, August Zirner, Maxime Foerste, Sergio Castellitto, Ulrich Thomsen. When it comes to cooking for the masses, the jaunty theme music to the little-seen but immensely appetizing BBC Channel 4 comedy Chef! said it all: It’s a…
Phases and Stages
Dixie ChicksHome (Open Wide/Monument/ Columbia) Chiding country radio for losing touch with its roots while releasing Stevie Nicks covers as singles: arrogance or naiveté? To the Dixie Chicks’ credit, Home makes that a much harder question than it should be. The album starts out promisingly with the breezy “Long Time Gone,” an enjoyable slice of…
Why Johnny Won’t Read
The State Board of Education is supposed to stick to the facts, but their opinions weigh pretty heavily in textbook selection.
Naked City
Houstonian Billie Carr, a longtime Democratic Party activist and dedicated organizer for the liberal wing of the party, dies from a stroke.
Bring It
Has there ever been another filmmaker like Germany’s Werner Herzog? He has famously eaten his shoe (in a short film by Les Blank and on the losing side of a bet with Errol Morris), he has shot some 50 films, ranging from sprawling epics like Aguirre: The Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo — films that…
Swimfan
Swimfan 2002, PG-13, 85 min. Directed by John Polson, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Dan Hedaya, Jason Ritter, Clayne Crawford, Kate Burton, Shiri Appleby, Erika Christensen, Jesse Bradford. More likely to produce titters than anything approximating a shiver, this Fatal Attraction retread for the high school set promises thrills galore but delivers only…
