Cover Story
ACL Prime Time
Blurbs to ACL Music Fest by.
Hell’s Highway
Hell’s Highway 2003, NR, 97 min. Directed by Bret Wood. Filmmaker Bret Wood interviews Earle Deems and John Domer, two of the few surviving people who made films for the Highway Safety Foundation in the Fifties. The men worked for the Ohio State Highway Patrol, which made some of the grisliest, graphic educational films around,…
Ichi the Killer
Ichi the Killer 2001, NR, 129 min. Directed by Takashi Miike, Starring Tadanobu Asano, Nao Omori, Shinya Tsukamoto, Paulyn Sun. Reputed to be the most graphically disturbing of all Japanese cult director Takashi Miike’s films, Ichi the Killer tells the story of a psychopathic yakuza killer who has a secret in his past. Miike’s violence…
Kiss Me Kate
Kiss Me Kate 1953, NR, 109 min. Directed by George Sidney, Starring Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel, Ann Miller, Bobby Van, Keenan Wynn, James Whitmore, Bob Fosse. Kiss Me Kate is the film version of Cole Porter’s musical rendition of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.
Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan
Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan 1972, NR, 90 min. Directed by Chu Yuan, Starring Lily Ho, Yue Hua, Bei Di, Dong Lin. Director Chu messes with the generic conventions of the martial-arts film with this murder mystery. The fight school is set in a brothel, and the disciple is a prostitute. The madam is…
Spaceballs
Brooks takes parodic aim at Star Wars; zaniness ensues.
About AIDS
How often do HIV-positive people — and their families — get to have a blast while learning about the ins-and-outs of HIV/AIDS? With free lunch, no less! That’s just what’s planned for the “Summer of Strength” festival on Saturday, Sept. 27. Summer may technically be over then, but the weather should still be great for…
ACL Fest Interviews
Cody Chesnutt 1pm, Friday, Capital Metro stage Cody Chesnutt can’t come to the phone right now. At least, that’s what his answering machine at home says. Chesnutt’s schedule is packed after crafting and guesting on “The Seed,” the hit single from the Roots’ Phrenology. No extra time exists after his own acclaimed hip-hopper, The Headphone…
ACL Fest Record Reviews
Jeff KleinEverybody Loves a Winner (One Little Indian) With his debut, 2000’s You’ll Never Get to Heaven if You Break My Heart, Jeff Klein turned heads here in Austin. Since then, he’s developed a following in the UK, and has shared stages with like-minded songwriters Alejandro Escovedo, Richard Buckner, Will Sexton, and Eliza Gilkyson. Everybody…
Naked City
Texas voters give their assent to all 22 constitutional amendments.
Where the Wild Things Star
‘Secondhand Lions’ is only the latest production in which Bobbi Colorado-trained beasts play a part.
Second Helpings: American Cafes, Part II
“Second Helpings” offers tasty, bite-sized restaurant listings compiled from new and previous reviews, guides, and poll results. This week’s entries were updated by Erin Mosow. For quick, reliable info about Austin eateries, check here. Bennigan’s 7604 N. I-35, 451-7953 Daily, 11am-2am 301 Barton Springs Rd., 472-7902 Daily, 11am-2am 2500 Hoppe Trail, Round Rock, 512/671-1500 Monday-Saturday,…
The Asian Destination
We first met Suzi Yi when she was the überserver at Taiwan Restaurant on William Cannon back in the Eighties. In its day, Taiwan was one of the best Chinese venues in town, and Suzi was their top waitperson. We always made sure that we sat in her section, because she knew our order without…
ACL Fest Interviews
Kings of Leon Noon, Sunday, Heineken stage When Dusty Springfield found love in Memphis with the “Son of a Preacher Man,” she birthed Nathan, Caleb, Jared, and (cousin) Matthew Followill — Kings of Leon. Preacher/ patriarch Leon Followill must be proud. “He thinks it’s great,” agrees Caleb Followill in the same tree-sap tongue that varnishes…
ACL Fest Record Reviews
Ed HarcourtFrom Every Sphere (Astralwerks) From the Rufus Wainwright school of fey piano comes Ed Harcourt, who somehow manages to be sensitive while avoiding the pitfalls of treacly lovesick puppyness. The young Briton’s sophomore release, From Every Sphere, opens on a perfect sweet-and-sour note with “Bittersweetheart,” a languid tune with teeth that sink in and…
Naked City
Friends mark the passing of a veteran gay rights activist.
McCanlies, Texas
Tim McCanlies is known in the movie business as a great script writer with few scripts that have actually hit the big screen. With the Sept. 19 release of Secondhand Lions, long thought to be one of the best unproduced scripts around, that will change.
TCB
Dead people and live music.
Food-o-File
Want to get the scoop on everything going on in the Austin foodie community? Look here.
ACL Fest Interviews
Robert Earl Keen 7pm, Friday, Cingular stage Robert Earl Keen has always had a way with words. As he sings on the new “So Sorry Blues,” “I’ve been in this rut so long now, I believe I’ve found my groove.” The onetime Texas A&M journalism student has indeed found his groove, so to speak. Or…
ACL Fest Record Reviews
Josh RitterHello Starling (Signature Sounds) Originally from Idaho, currently part of the eternally fertile Boston folk scene, Josh Ritter scored a hit with his last CD, Golden Age of Radio. A critic’s darling at home and a phenomenon in Ireland, Ritter draws comparisons to such divergent talents as Guy Clark and David Gray. Hello Starling…
Austin @ Large: Austin at Large
Why is Mala Sangre less poisonous than Barton Springs?
Flicking the Switch
An interview with New York playwright and director Richard Maxwell, who has developed a following for his work featuring painstakingly realistic language rendered onstage by actors who move, speak, and sing seemingly without expression.
Mini-Review
One dinner to check things out turned into several lunches and dinners because the menu’s new direction and newcomer Katherine Clapner’s flourishes are my kind of food.
ACL Fest Interviews
Pat Green 8:45pm, Saturday, Cingular stage Pat Green knows a thing or two about big shows. Last September, he played to nearly 30,000 rabid fans, headlining the inaugural ACL Festival, then turned around and sold just under 60,000 tickets to a Houston Rodeo performance in March. “I hear musicians complain you can’t get intimate at…
ACL Fest Record Reviews
The Dandy WarholsWelcome to the Monkey House (Capitol) Did you hear the one about the Velvets-inflected Portland, Ore., garage rockers who traded their smirking Dilaudid fuzz grope for slick electro beats and Nick Rhodes production? Do you really want to? After honing their wickedly insouciant chops (and frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor’s bleery smirk) on a trio…
Capitol Chronicle
The Texas 11 Minus One return, and the gallery goes wild.
Rivers and Tides
Andy Goldsworthy’s art of the ephemeral in nature is granted permanence in this feature documentary.
A Work That Houses Us All
Bach’s Mass in B Minor is the center around which Conspirare orbits, and next week the choir will be performing the work for the third time since it was founded in 1991. “It feels like a return to our foundation and our roots,” says director Craig Hella Johnson.
ACL Fest Record Reviews
Yo La TengoSummer Sun (Matador) Up until last year, Yo La Tengo was critically bulletproof. They seemed incapable of putting anything out that wasn’t damn good, all the way from 1986(!) debut, Ride the Tiger, to 2000’s sublime treasure, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out. Then, in 2002, we were hit with a full-scale Nuclear…
On the Lege
The Lege week in court, in correspondence, and in West Texas
Underworld
Kate Beckinsale bares her fangs as a vampire assassin in in a shaggy werewolf story.
Articulations
Actor, writer, director, singer, and Texas State University teacher and mentor Larry Hovis has passed away.
ACL Aftershows
THURSDAY Steve Winwood, Stubb’s FRIDAY Old 97’s, Li’l Cap’n Travis, Antone’s Robert Randolph, North Mississippi Allstars, La Zona Rosa Lucinda Williams, Mercury String Cheese Incident, Stubb’s SATURDAY Ween, Stubb’s Garage a Trois, Stubb’s inside [SOLD OUT] Keller Williams, Charlie Hunter Trio, La Zona Rosa Particle, Vibe Drive-by Truckers, Damnations, Mercury The Shins, Zykos, I Love…
ACL Fest Record Reviews
South Austin Jug Band If you’re gonna play acoustic neo-bluegrass, you better have some good wood to swing when you step up to the plate. The South Austin Jug Band certainly meets that requirement (and no, there’s no jug anywhere in the band), with chops aplenty and some darn good songs under their belts. It…
ACL Fest Record Reviews
WeenQuebec (Sanctuary) Ween’s first studio album in three years reaffirms the iconoclastic duo’s ability to be novel without succumbing to novelty. Although Dean and Gene Ween’s lyrical bent is, um, unique, they never let it become a disservice to the greater song. Moreover, Ween’s solid, history-informed chops enable the band to hopscotch across pop genres…
The Hightower Lowdown
Questionable capitalist claims; and the EPA’s deal with hog farmers stinks.
The Fighting Temptations
Cuba Gooding Jr. and Beyoncé join the church choir.
Exhibitionism
How Late It Was, How Late, adapted from James Kelman’s novel, finds the Rude Mechanicals depicting a sightless, Scottish ex-con’s odyssey through the humiliating and confusing bureaucracy of Britain’s welfare state with intensity, hilarity, and the company’s outstandingly creative theatrical vision.
ACL Fest Interviews
Chatting with some ACL Fest headliners.
ACL Fest Record Reviews
THE String Cheese IncidentUntying the Not (SCI Fidelity) With Untying the Not, the String Cheese Incident has taken a significant jump into the unknown. For a band that has used improvisation and experimentation as a major component in what they do, that’s quite a leap. A great part of this disc is dark and full…
ACL Fest Record Reviews
Cafe TacubaCuatro Caminos (MCA) The four paths of Cuatro Caminos are found on “Puntos Cardinales” (Cardinal Points): “love and sweetness, strength and courage.” On the Mexico City quartet’s fifth album, Cafe Tacuba — to quote the song — “navigates the streets and cities without knowing names.” It’s their way or the highway (carretera), you might…
More McCanlies, Texas
The full interview with the director of ‘Secondhand Lions’
Secondhand Lions
In this unique family film that’s also an ode to heroic movies gone by, a boy is sent for the summer to live with his two eccentric uncles in Texas.
Exhibitionism
On one level, Annie Weisman’s Be Aggressive skewers SoCal culture, from Spanish stucco to smoothie shops, but at its heart this tale of a cheerleader whose mother has just died shows us with humor and affection how to deal with the unexpected holes in our lives.
ACL Fest Interviews
Al Green 8:45pm, Friday, Capital Metro stage The Rev. Al Green is no saint. “It’s not just the Catholic Church,” cries Sam Cooke’s soul heir from his office in Memphis. “There’s a lot of churches that hide their dirty laundry under the rug, and I know about that from being in the church 27 years.…
ACL Fest Record Reviews
Keller Williams Home (SCI Fidelity) The one-man band was once a hobo-esque, top-hatted cockney with a bass drum strapped to his back, a harmonica dangling from around his neck, cymbals between his knees, and some sort of wind instrument or additional horn in his hands. Virginian Keller Williams, dubbed “jam’s mad scientist,” has been quietly…
‘Natural Capitalism’ in the Hills
The Crossings’ earth- and economy-friendly integration into the Hill Country really is something to feel good about.
Family Circle
Don Howard’s new documentary turns Texas football, cheerleading, and weddings into an anthropological model — with a little help from Jung.
Beyond Re-Animator
The mad scientist is back in a sequel that was not screened before press time.
Robbie Conal
Iconic anti-icon master Robbie Conal is in town. Hide everything.
ACL Fest Interviews
Mavis Staples 7:15pm, Friday, American Original stage “Good morning! It’s a beautiful day. I’ve had my 4-mile walk, and I’m feeling good!” At 63, Mavis Staples is one active woman. In the last nine months, she’s appeared on PBS with Booker T. Jones, posed for Vanity Fair, recorded a Johnny Cash tribute and on a…
ACL Fest Record Reviews
Steve WinwoodAbout Time (Wincraft) The “return to form” tag bandied about for About Time, Steve Winwood’s first album in six years, is a misnomer unless your introduction to him was Traffic’s second go-round in the early Seventies. Winwood sprang from the English midlands in the mid-Sixties, a teen wunderkind with the soulful voice of a…
The Wal-Mart War
Citizens continue to battle the Beast of Bentonville on several Southside fronts
Cinematexas Spotlight
French filmmaker Robert Bresson (1901–1999) is as famous for his technique as for the films it produced. A perfectionist who managed every glance and gesture onscreen, Bresson cast only nonactors and forbade them from viewing the daily rushes. Notoriously, he required 20 or 30 takes of each scene, stripping away the artifice of performance by…
Charlotte Sometimes
A sophisticated relationship drama about young Asian-Americans.
Page Two
Attending the Toronto Film Festival provides some perspective on global perceptions of the United States — as well as a truly great film experience; the City Council’s budget performance is embarrassing, as is Rick Perry’s state of vacuous denial.
ACL Fest Interviews
R.E.M. 8:30pm, Sunday, Capital Metro stage The ACL Festival represents a kind of coming-out party for Athens, Ga.’s sure-fire Hall of Famers R.E.M. They’re on the road stateside for the first time since 1999, jogging people’s memories just in time for this fall’s 2-CD greatest-hits set, featuring new songs “Bad Day” and “Animal.” Then they…
ACL Fest Record Reviews
Garage a TroisEmphasizer (Tone-Cool/Artemis) For the past 30 years, hip-hop producers have experimented with turntables, synthesizers, and samplers in an effort to replicate the brilliance of early-Seventies instrumental sessions by the likes of funksters like the J.B.’s, Roy Ayers, and Kool & the Gang. Garage a Trois, with Charlie Hunter on guitar, Galactic’s Stanton Moore…
Chapman off the Job as Mala Sangre Probe Continues
The APD assistant chief is (finally) placed on restricted duty as questions swirl about his honesty under oath.
Cinematexas 8 Schedule
Go see Cinematexas!
Letters @ 3AM
Europe, Russia, and China can help install a new administration in the White House in 2008 by refusing to bail out Bush on his Iraq misadventure now.
ACL Fest Interviews
String Cheese Incident 7 & 8:45pm, Saturday, Capital Metro stage Among all the groups in the jam-band scene, Boulder, Colo.’s String Cheese Incident takes the most chances on stage. Still, with the release of Untying the Not, SCI is going to turn heads all the way around. It’s a radical departure from anything they’ve done…
ACL Fest Record Reviews
Michael Franti & SpearheadEveryone Deserves Music (Boo Boo Wax/iMusic) For nearly 20 years, Michael Franti has expressed himself through music. He’s realized his message as founder of the industrial/punk Beatnigs, one-half of Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, and most recently with Spearhead, a band that mixes rock and hip-hop with rare fluidity. Throughout, Franti’s been a…
In Search of Intelligent Life at the SBOE
The State Board of Education reviews biology textbooks, and the battle over evolution rejoins.
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Armadillos are the only mammals in which multiple young form from a single egg with any regularity.The Budweiser Clydesdale Stables at Grant’s Farm, in St. Louis, is home to approximately 35 Clydesdale mares, stallions, and foals.Electric companies often “celebrate” Valentine’s Day by dealing with the many power interruptions and outages caused by drifting metallic balloons.From…
ACL Fest Interviews
The Polyphonic Spree 3:30pm, Sunday, HEB stage “We’ve actually turned down a couple of offers for reality shows,” says the Polyphonic Spree founder Tim DeLaughter. “Day-to-day life with us is all that and more.” The “more” part of the equation is ultimately the blessing, curse, and biggest calling card for DeLaughter’s self-described “choral symphonic pop…
ACL Fest Record Reviews
Robert Randolph & the Family BandUnclassified (Dare/Warner Bros.) Robert Randolph sounds like he has the power of God running through his guitar-playing fingers. A maestro of sacred steel, Randolph takes the skills he picked up at the House of God Church in New Jersey and injects them into pop compositions on his band’s debut studio…
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from around Austin and beyond.
Cinematexas Games Without Borders
Games Without Borders, indeed: Katie Salen defies the rules of digital design.
After a Fashion
THE POWER OF THREE To be a female in Austin means having a plethora of shops and boutiques catering to your every mood. There are stores such as SoLa, Jezebel, Therapy, Giada, Adelante, Shiki, and Vylette brimming with stylish merchandise for women, each with their own particular twist on fashion. To enter into this contest…
ACL Fest Interviews
Ween 6:30pm, Sunday, Capital Metro stage With their multifaceted predilection for the odd and profane, Ween does well in Austin. A 1992 SXSW appearance helped cinch their Elektra deal, and a memorable July 2000 stand at Stubb’s was immortalized with last year’s Web-only 3-CD live set. “You make an asterisk in your head for places…
ACL Fest Record Reviews
North Mississippi AllstarsPolaris (Tone-Cool) The North Mississippi Allstars’ debut, Shake Hands With Shorty, and sophomore effort, 51 Phantom, deserved the critic’s choice status both garnered. Their loping Mississippi Hill Country blues is tough to resist in the hands of pedigreed musicians Luther and Cody Dickinson and bassist Chris Chew. With the addition of Duwayne Burnside…
Naked City
Union members overwhelmingly endorse a no-confidence vote in Gary Warren.
Cinematexas Games Without Borders
An interview with Cinematexas “Games Without Borders” keynote speaker, Mark Dery
Soccer Watch
Days before Saturday’s kickoff of the Women’s World Cup, the big news is the announcement Monday that WUSA, the host nation’s pro soccer league and easily the premier women’s league in the world, has suspended operations, effective immediately. It’s a PR person’s nightmare, no doubt. But league officials — able to draw only two of…
ACL Fest Interviews
The Dandy Warhols 2pm, Saturday, HEB stage With Welcome to the Monkey House (Capitol), Portland, Ore.-based quartet the Dandy Warhols, specialists in snide glam-pop for the past 10 years, have nearly out-cooled themselves, turning in a collection of songs that lacks the bitchy oomph of previous records. Guitarist Peter Holmstrom blames the band’s overreliance on…
ACL Fest Record Reviews
Dwight YoakamPopulation Me (Koch/Audium) In recent years, Dwight Yoakam has chiseled himself a unique niche as country music’s leading interpreter of Seventies classic rockers like Queen and Cheap Trick, but on Population Me, he revisits his own “classic” period: the coltish honky-tonk of early albums Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. and Hillbilly Deluxe. Produced as always…
Naked City
The business lobby rolls out its “Opportunity Austin” strategy for economic recovery.
Short Cuts
There’s so much going on in Austin film this fall that it almost feels like a real city.
Day Trips
Fort Phantom Hill never had much of a chance as a military post or as a settlement 14 miles north of modern-day Abilene. More than 150 years after its establishment, 13 rock chimneys stand as silent sentinels to the Army’s efforts to colonize the West Texas plains that died primarily due to the lack of…
ACL Fest Interviews
Alexi Murdoch 6:45pm, Friday, BMI stage Alexi Murdoch Inc. is wholly independently owned and operated. And business is good. Really good. With no label and just a four-song EP to his credit, the folksy troubadour has earned substantial radio play, a hearty Entertainment Weekly endorsement, and invites to Sundance, SXSW, and the ACL Festival. It…
ACL Fest Record Reviews
The Mavericks(Sanctuary) Mavericks singer Raul Malo has a honey-soaked vocal range that perfectly embodies the textured tastes of his country band. On their first album since 1998, the Mavericks return to said landscape with a self-titled album so textured, its eclectic influences make for a slightly congested, albeit enjoyable, ride. On pop-country radio, their work…
Naked City
Good Shepherd Episcopal Church makes peace with its neighbors.
DVD Watch
If it hadn’t been such a hack job (and a transparent, two-star rewrite of one of Edwards’ numerous commercial peaks), Skin Deep might’ve done for John Ritter what its blueprint, 10, did for Dudley Moore: transform the TV vet into a viable leading man at the box office.
To Your Health
Is grass-fed beef healthier or better than grain-fed?
ACL Fest Interviews
Nickel Creek 7pm, Saturday, Cingular stage Youth, great songs, and stellar-level playing make Nickel Creek a necessity for progressive-bluegrass fans. That, and a love of the road. “We love playing on the West Coast,” noted Nickel Creek fiddler and native San Diegan Sara Watkins. “But what we’re really looking forward to is coming back to…
ACL Fest Record Reviews
Jay FarrarTerroir Blues (Artemis) How long can you be introspective and mopey? Jay Farrar’s gonna find out. On this third solo outing, Farrar reflects on tribulations both personal and worldly, and lets the quiet passages say as much as the music itself. It’s an effort that’s likely to be inaccessible for a lot of folks,…
Naked City
Tommy Chong gets jail time, but hemp food products may be free.
TV Eye
Las Vegas and Lee Kyung Hae?
Luv Doc Recommends: Summer 2003 H2Ho Show
Thirty-thousand of any species confined in a 15-acre space is a potentially combustible situation. This year’s ACL fest may hit that mark before headliners Dwight Yoakum and the Right Reverend Al Green even take the stage. Fortunately on the evolutionary scale, genus homo rests a comfortable distance from both spider monkeys and elephants, so some…
