Cover Story
News 8 at 5
Can Austin’s little news station that could survive the grim reapers at Time Warner?
Godsmack: Changes
Godsmack: Changes 2004, NR. Changes gives an intimate portrayal of life on tour with hard rock band Godsmack. Shot during the band’s 2003-04 Faceless tour, the film lets viewers experience the rigors of being on the road and traveling from city to city to perform music for tens of thousands of die-hard fans.
His Secret Life
His Secret Life 2001, R, 106 min. Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek, Starring Margherita Buy, Stefano Accorsi, Serra Yilmaz, Gabriel Garko. After her husband’s sudden death after 10 years of loving marriage, a woman discovers the truth about her spouse. Expecting to find the “other woman,” she instead finds his secret life in an apartment building…
THX 1138: The George Lucas Director’s Cut
THX 1138: The George Lucas Director’s Cut 2004, R, 95 min. Directed by George Lucas, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Maggie McOmie. Despite the whiff of pontifical redundancy that arises from the “George Lucas Director’s Cut” title, this new THX 1138 is a nifty reissue. It’s belongs to a…
Phases and Stages
Steve EarleThe Revolution Starts Now (Artemis) The Revolution Starts Now, just in time not only for election season, but also at a juncture when Steve Earle could use a shot of musical redemption. Since getting sober, Schertz, Texas’ favorite son, has produced the best music of his career, but lately affairs of state have been…
Weed Watch
Find your friendly local narc on a new Web database
Austin Film Society
The Austin Film Society’s Gay and Lesbian Images in Global Cinema series opens Tuesday, Sept. 7, 7pm, with a screening of Wong Kar Wai’s Happy Together (Hong Kong, 1997) at the Alamo Drafthouse Village (2700 W. Anderson, 476-1320). Subsequent Tuesdays through Oct. 12 will see 7pm screenings of Fire (India, 1996), His Secret Life (Italy,…
Readings
“The stories told here do not recount dead issues from our shameful past,” Lee Nichols writes. “Instead, we see them with here-and-now vitality, the eyes of the time.”
Phases and Stages
Country Mile Though it’s nearly eclipsed by Tim McGraw’s shoot-me-now cancer ballad “Live Like You Were Dying,” the most wretched song currently on country radio has to be Kenny Chesney’s “I Go Back,” all about how he gets weepy upon hearing “Only the Good Die Young.” Billy freaking Joel, meet Jesus Harold Christ. Conversely, Austin’s…
Endorsements
‘The Austin Chronicle’ endorsements for the Sept. 11 Austin ISD bond election
Short Cuts
Invest in the fests!
In Person
BookPeople, Monday, Aug. 30
Phases and Stages
The Arm(Last Gasp) The Arm is not a side project. Yes, This Microwave World frontman Sean “Oh-No” O’Neal begot the Arm, and TMW drummer Kevin Bybee keeps the dance beats steady with both bands, but the Arm is strong, poignant, and formed before TMW. The latter band almost disbanded earlier this year in hopes of…
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from Austin and beyond
TV Eye
For those who like their comedy spiked, raw, and still kicking, Trio unleashes a wickedly delicious treat
Page Two
In the beginning, we kept the Chronicle going mostly out of sheer perversity and stubbornness; 23 years later, it looks like there was more to it than that
Phases and Stages
Gibby Haynes & His Problem(Surfdog) No one who discovered the Butthole Surfers through their radio hits will be surprised at Gibby Haynes’ solo debut. Gibby Haynes & His Problem is an LP of unexpectedly catchy alt.pop that avoids genre banality by employing the singer’s trademark irreverent lyrics. The 11 tracks sound astonishingly commercial, and while…
Hospital District Births a Budget
Size of salaries, reserves still at issue in spending plan
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Cricket fights, cousins, and birds
Phases and Stages
MinistryHouses of the Molé (Sanctuary) Twelve years ago: The scene was a bombed-out wasteland. Emerging from the soup-heavy smoke was the oversized head of George Bush. Al Jourgensen, for one, has not forgotten 1992’s “NWO,” with its scathing satire and molten riffage. It’s back as “No W,” a send-up of the infamous choir-piece from Carmina…
Lowe’s Gets More Complex
The retailer wants the county to be a co-defendant in its SOS lawsuit
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism
The Fox News Channel’s “fair and balanced ” reporting is put to the test in this partisan documentary.
About AIDS
The Federal Trade Commission has gotten a court order to halt sales of the Discrete home HIV test in the US
Phases and Stages
BalisticaThe Jungle Science e.p. In a gag audio clip on Balistica’s debut EP, an interviewer describes these Austinites as “a sonic, punk outfit.” Then comes the kicker: “Why did you guys leave the sombreros at home?” One only hopes that was a gag! In any event, the name Balistica says it all – insolent, urgent,…
Ben Barnes in Heavy Rotation
Old stories become big news in the presidential race
Dear Pillow
Provocative Austin-made feature pushes sexual buttons meant to arouse and provoke, but never satisfy.
Trial by Fire
The 14th annual ‘Austin Chronicle’ Hot Sauce Festival results and winners
To Your Health
What are the pros and cons of taking fish oil supplements?
Phases and Stages
Devin the DudeTo tha X-treme (Rap-A-Lot) Mesmeric cadences ease by like traffic signs on I-59 as an inebriated driver weaves through the mental strains of a disloyal relationship. “Anything is plenty,” becomes the thought at work as Devin the Dude comes to the conclusion that there “really ain’t no need for self pity.” Whether rapping,…
Strayhorn vs. Perry: The Prelims
Yet another preview of coming attractions …
SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2
Let’s just call SuperBabies what it is: child abuse.
Judgment Days
Pigging out at the Taylor International BBQ Cookoff
Letters at 3AM
‘The 9 / 11 Commission Report’ only shows us how much we still do not know about what happened on that day
Phases and Stages
Ashlee SimpsonAutobiography (Geffen) Only seconds into her debut, Autobiography, Ashlee Simpson reveals something even her hit MTV reality show couldn’t: She’s lying. “I walked 1,000 miles while everyone was asleep. Nobody’s really seen my million subtleties,” the Texan sings on the title track. Anyone who’s watched a few episodes of The Ashlee Simpson Show knows…
Can Walgreens Be SNIMBY?
Even Maria’s Taco Xpress might not make the chain ‘something nice in my backyard’
Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid
A Hollywood vessel of doom hunts for the Big Squeeze.
TCB
Party on Red River or in Kansas, with Attack Formation if need be, but you must submit to the all-consuming power of BOB
The Common Law
Security deposit issues
Phases and Stages
Windsor for the DerbyWe Fight Til Death (Secretly Canadian) Windsor for the Derby is an ongoing saga of growth and change, like a personal blog with a 10-year archive. It’s primarily the story of Jason McNeely and Dan Matz, who founded WFTD in Austin in the mid-Nineties before briefly relocating to New York and then…
Mala Sangre – So Not Over
The city is bound (and determined?) to take the APD scandal to court
Vanity Fair
Disappointing screen adaptation lacks the novel’s satiric edge.
Change in the Weather
A different kind of summer for the city arts funding process
Soccer Watch
U.S. women go out in a blaze of glory; and a Saint takes on the Word
Phases and Stages
Amberjack RiceGet So Little It’s not that Amberjack Rice’s Get So Little leaves a bad aftertaste. It leaves no aftertaste at all. This collection of bar-friendly roots rock and blues skips to a forgettable finish line without much of a fight. Too bad. Rice tries to start a brawl or two during the album’s 12…
ACC Scrambles for Staff
The college’s accreditation troubles leave students without teachers
Wicker Park
Paul McGuigan pulls out all the stops on his Wurlitzter Organ of Incessant Camera Trickery to muddy the waters of rationality in this bizarre remake of a fine French thriller.
A Ham for This Season
Hans Frank’s political drama is timely fare for election time
After a Fashion
George-ness, Weird-ness, and what happens when Stephen does not get invited to a party
Phases and Stages
Beaver NelsonMotion (Freedom) Motion, as in swinging, seesawing, sliding. Beaver Nelson, Dad Who Rocks, has been spending a little too much time at the playground. A loving father, Nelson has taken that paternal instinct and put it into his music, where quite frankly, it sounds trite and frivolous. He’s rocking the wrong cradle. The rightly…
Biscoe Defends the M.E.
A response to the Rev. Sterling Lands’ charges of coroner misconduct
We Don’t Live Here Anymore
What people fight about when they fight about love.
Always in the Best Spot
Harry Benson caught history in the making, at the center of it all
Day Trips
Abilene State Park is an oasis in the parched, red-dirt prairie
Austin @ Large: Lesson Planners
All I need to know about cities, I learned in kindergarten
City of Brotherly Rudes
The Rude Mechs hit Philly with ‘How Late It Was, How Late,’ while company member Lana Lesley goes touring with SITI Company
Oops!
Due to a misplaced quotation mark, we inadvertently altered the Texas Constitution in last week’s coverage of the West Orange-Cove school finance trial. The Constitution calls for an educational system to further the “general diffusion of knowledge.” The term “adequate” is part of past court decisions and legislation on the subject, but not of the…
How Do I Look?
‘Chronicle’ writer and News 8 music reporter Andy Langer provides a tongue-in-cheek view of the glamour of television
The Operation Was Successful …
The jury’s still out on “tort reform” – but the courthouse door is closed
Culture Flash!
Rob Nash’s latest gets a holdover, and those truly were picketing clowns
Food-o-File
Don’t leave the table till you clean your plate of local food news; while you’re at it, Eat, Drink, Watch Movies
Capital Metro Stays Its Course
All Systems Go!, but no extensions added, to a November commuter-rail vote
The Hightower Report
The culture of lying goes cellular; and Wal-Mart tries to buy a new image
Exhibitionism
The comic skill of the actors in OnStage Theatre Company’s revival of Bell, Book, and Candle makes magic
Definitely Famous
Heart’s Nancy Wilson, younger, wiser
Toll Roads May Take a (Minor) Detour
Krusee contemplates changing strategy, but not retreat
Me Talk Dirty One Day
Bryan Poyser and Jacob Vaughan come clean on their ‘Dear Pillow’
Exhibitionism
A group of nine artists has created “Open Doors,” an energetic, fun installation show with a piece of art in each room of a bubble-wrapped house
Monster Mash
Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, plus filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, marvel at Some Kind of Monster
Saving South Congress – for Whom?
This weekend’s street fest raises questions about the future of the Southside’s main drag
The Final Act
The Texas Documentary Tour hosts Robert Stone’s ‘Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst’
Exhibitionism
In the concert Leave It to Biber, violinist Boel Gidholm, cellist Christopher Haritatos, and keyboardist Keith Womer exulted in the expressive freedom that this music offers the interpreter
Some Kind of Documentary
When filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky began work on Metallica: Some Kind of Monster in 2001 they had no way of knowing they’d end up, three years later, with one of the most riveting and original rock & roll documentaries ever made. The working relationship of the pair, who had previously collaborated on the…
Luv Doc Recommends: The South Austin Celebration
If you’re hungover from First Thursday, take heart: Saturday down on South Congress you’ll find a whole street full of hair of the dog. Yes, Saturday from noon to 9 is the South Austin Celebration. Can you believe it? Somehow those happy hedonist trust-a-billies in South Austin have found another reason to drink beer and…
14th Annual Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival Contest Winners
Individual Category Red Sauce 1st Place: Ty Savell 2nd Place: Dana Richie 3rd Place: Anita Zamora Green Sauce 1st Place: Michael Rypka 2nd Place: Fernando Erdely 3rd Place: Ciro Jaimes Special Variety 1st Place: Robert Mayberry 2nd Place: Trudy Hill 3rd Place: Victor Hernandez Restaurant Category Red Sauce 1st Place: El Chile Cafe y Cantina…
