NEW REVIEWS
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys “Cool live-action/animation blend lacks black-collar hanky panky” Dir. Peter Care; writ. Chris Fuhrman (book), Jeff Stockwell (screenplay); feat. Kieran Culkin, Jena Malone, Emile Hirsch, Vincent D’Onofrio, Jodie Foster, Jake Richardson (R) In the screen version of Altar Boys, newcomer Emile Hirsch plays Francis Doyle, the more sensitive half of…
NEW REVIEWS
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys “Cool live-action/animation blend lacks black-collar hanky panky” Dir. Peter Care; writ. Chris Fuhrman (book), Jeff Stockwell (screenplay); feat. Kieran Culkin, Jena Malone, Emile Hirsch, Vincent D’Onofrio, Jodie Foster, Jake Richardson (R) In the screen version of Altar Boys, newcomer Emile Hirsch plays Francis Doyle, the more sensitive half of…
SPECIAL SCREENS
SEÑIORITA EXTRAVIADA (MISSING YOUNG WOMAN) “Disquieting documentary about murders in Mexico” Dir. Lourdes Portillo (not rated) During the past decade, 200 to 400 young women have been abducted, molested, and murdered in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Lourdes Portillo, whose films include The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, La Ofrenda: The Days of the Dead, and Corpus:…
VIDEO/DVD
AN ARTIST’S LIFE Portraying an artist on film is dicey for a number of reasons. The artistic process itself – a painter staring at a canvas, a poet at the typewriter, a songwriter at the piano – is a visual bore, and few filmmakers have been successful at showing what’s going on inside an artist’s…
JAZZBUGS IN JUNE
By Bett Butler As a music major at Trinity University, I sat through countless required student recitals at the acoustically exquisite Ruth Taylor Concert Hall, bored senseless. But on Saturday, June 29 and Sunday, June 30, those warm, woody rafters will ring with some of the best straight-ahead jazz ever heard in San Antonio. Musical…
JAZZ RADIO IN SAN ANTONIO
The bad news: San Antonio hasn’t had 24/7, on-the-air jazz since the megacorporate-owned smooth jazz station changed its format to “jammin’ hits.” The good news: You can still hear jazz every day; and as station managers and underwriters discover the desirable demographics (well-educated, professional/academic/creative, usually with disposable income) of the ever-growing jazz audience, airplay is…
BREATHE UNEASY
Here’s a shock: I love driving in Houston. What sounds like a contradiction in terms isn’t: The city offers up a unique visual drama that compensates for its frequently car-choked freeways. It makes up, too, for the long haul in from San Antonio. After three hours of pushing the pedal to the metal on Interstate…
ESQUIRE’S LAST STAND
With a smart hat, newspaper, and Budweiser, professional dog groomer Tony Martinez lends the back room of the Esquire bar a bit of post-modern/Old-World charm; the white-shirted and black-vested waiter serving Martinez bumps the class meter up a notch, too. “Like I said, I’ve been coming here for 13 years, and this is the only…
A PROMOTER’S PREROGATIVE
Bouncers — like Rottweilers, business partners, and police — will turn on you in the blink of an unsuspecting eye. Local electronic music promoter Deren Bushala learned this the hard way: He was beaten, bloodied, and bruised by “security” staff at the now-defunct Spy Room. The staff he had hired, along with the facilities and…
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
The subtle power of owning a home comes in sweet, simple pleasures – turning up the music as loud as you want; painting your walls orange, fuchsia, or black if you’d like; having a quiet place of refuge. So says Bill Bamberger, who has been researching the subject through his photography for years. He is…
VISITING VEGAS VISIONS
I hate Las Vegas. I like it only in theory: I like the idea that there is a city where some of the nation’s victimless crime laws don’t apply, and I like the way it’s depicted in the movies — everyone is quick-witted, well-dressed, and moves with a confident urban tempo, regardless of his or…
THE CHEATING KIND
In the fictional universe of Richard Ford’s A Multitude of Sins, adultery is the emotional equivalent of the Big Bang — its origins aren’t nearly as important as its consequences. Ford uses the novella and nine short stories within his intriguing new collection to plot the trajectory of adulterous relationships, from the empty lust of…
A POUND OF PREVENTION
‘Prediction is very difficult,” observed physicist Niels Bohr, “especially about the future.” Though Washington, D.C. has sometimes been the national capital for murder, Philip K. Dick, who died in 1982, imagined that by 2054 it would be the safest city in America. Minority Report, Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of a story by Dick, begins with the…
Lubbock’s (living) Legend
The name “Flatlanders” isn’t all that appropriate any more. All three of the principals in the Lubbock-born group have spent many of the last 30 years in the bumpy terrain of Central Texas; and even though Butch Hancock has moved back out west, he frequents places like Big Bend, where the ground is broken by…
