Sheila McNeil isn’t afraid of Tommy Adkisson
As you’ll recall from this week’s QueQue, Precinct 4 County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson is a pugilistic campaigner — even when the election contest isn’t yet officially on. But McNeil, who is overseeing the new Gervin Academy for dropouts who want a real diploma instead of a GED (it’s a very interesting model; more on that…
Chaléwood No. 17: Sara Paxton
By Kiko Martinez San Antonio Current contributing writer kiko@cinesnob.net Whatever you’ve heard about the remake of Wes Craven’s 1972 thriller The Last House on the Left, which hit theaters in March, actress Sara Paxton, 21, says not to underestimate just how controversial the new film is when compared to the original. “I know a lot…
The trailer for Michael Moore’s new film
The trailer for Capitalism: A Love Story (hint: the title employs sarcasm, get it?) debuted today, and it’s basically a teaser based on a joke that was tired and infuriating the first time it was told like 10 months ago. He’s supposedly moving to fiction again (anybody remember Canadian Bacon?). What do you guys think?…
Cookies Enabled
By Bryan Rindfuss brindfuss@sacurrent.com Here’s a shocker: 28 films were made last week in San Antonio. Who knew we had so much local talent? For three years, SA has been participating in the world’s largest timed film competition, the 48-hour Film Project. Last Friday, teams of varying size drew from a hat to determine the…
Wild Animal Orphanage press conference at 3:30 today
Carol Asvestas, director of the Wild Animal Orphanage, is holding that promised press conference today at 3:30pm at the WAO’s Leslie Road facility, where, she told the Current last week, she’ll release autopsy reports for the recently deceased Bengal tiger, Vi Vi, as well as several cougars who’ve passed away at the facility in the…
City-owned CPS Energy still fighting climate bill in D.C.
By Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com Way back on April Fool’s I told you how your city-owned utility had spent more than $91,000 fighting global warming solutions in Washington. It wasn’t a joke. At the time, mayoral candidates were outraged (overheard at one debate: “If that is trueâ?¦”). Hey, City Hall/CPS Board members! If you want the…
Sleepwalkers
Sleepwalkers Composer: Dead Swans Conductor: Dead Swans Label: Bridge Nine Release Date: 2009-08-19 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Like much of the Bridge Nine roster, Dead Swans temper traditional hardcore with contemporary influences and a personal voice. While their first two releases sometimes veered into bro-core territory — using metallic double-bass patterns and mile-thick guitar crunch…
District 9
Critic’s Pick District 9 Director: Neill Blomkamp Screenwriter: Neill Blomkamp Cast: Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, Nathalie Boltt, Sylvaine Strike, John Sumner Release Date: 2009-08-19 Rated: R Genre: Film Our Rating: 4.00 District 9’s awesome ad campaign has done such a good job of concealing all but the barest premise for the film, it’d be a…
Bone Thugs-n-Harmony
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2009-08-19 Be honest: You haven’t heard a Bone album since 1997’s Art of War. That’s what the Billboard numbers kind of suggest anyway, despite a loyal following that’s ensured all of the five albums released since have charted their first week. Their iconic style — liquid steel R&B hooks morphing seamlessly…
Baroque Italian on the banks
Zocca takes rustic and contemporary over the top
Stations of the ‘cue: I & II
Release Date: 2009-08-19 A review copy of Texas BBQ: Photographs by Wyatt McSpadden (University of Texas Press) recently arrived on an already cluttered desk, and it might have languished there longer but for the evocative cover photo of a pitmaster inspecting his clods and links. Like most of the photos in the book, its composition,…
The Scientists
(doctors of drinking)
Blood in the water
The Cove sheds light on the Japanese dolphin slaughter and revisits SeaWorld’s past sins
Instant clas`sic`
Inglorious Bastards Director: Quentin Tarantino Screenwriter: Quentin Tarantino Cast: Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger, Sylvester Groth, B.J. Novak, August Diehl, Samm Levine, Mike Myers Release Date: 2009-08-19 Rated: NONE Genre: Film To be honest, I’ve had a smuggish little wiseacre-y lede for this review…
The AIDS Quilt
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2009-08-19 Until September 20, the Institute of Texan Cultures will display 12 “blocks” of the AIDS Quilt, the traveling , commemorative, ongoing phenomenon that began in 1987 and now includes 47,000 individual panels. It’s not been a wholly uncontroversial public/folk/activism art project (cultural critic Daniel Harris once infamously decried it as…
Tongue Tied Lightning
Tongue Tied Lightning Composer: Tongue Tied Lightning Conductor: Tongue Tied Lightning Label: Self released Release Date: 2009-08-19 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording The experimental-ish noise collage that begins opening track “The Window, the Blanket and the Road” collides head-on with singer Aaron Patterson’s smooth adult-contemporary voice. It’s a disorienting but fitting setup for the uneven self-titled…
I Love You
I Love You Composer: Amanda Blank Conductor: Amanda Blank Label: Downtown Release Date: 2009-08-19 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Philadelphia rapper Amanda Mallory picked a fitting moniker. On her debut album, Amanda Blank glides through chilly beats with a detached demeanor as empty as her soulless vocals. It’s hipster hip-hop with raunchy rhymes about fucking designed…
The Bachelor
The Bachelor Composer: Patrick Wolf Conductor: Patrick Wolf Label: Nylon Release Date: 2009-08-19 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording The Bachelor is a barely there concept album about love, doubt, and all those other traumatic things that pop up when the two are combined. It was originally supposed to be a double album, but British multi-instrumentalist Wolf…
Dear Uncle Mat
I am dating two guys, and I really like them both. I want a boyfriend, but I’m not sure how to handle this situation. Each one has their good and bad points, but mostly great points. This would be a cool situation to follow through and discover which one develops into a relationship, but they…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Maybe you weren’t listened to very attentively as a child. Perhaps you were dressed in clothes you didn’t like, hugged only three times a year, and fed food you were allergic to. I suppose it’s even possible that your parents were psychotic drug dealers who kept you chained to a radiator…
Dog Days
Here at the Current, we feel completely crazy from the heat. Our sunblasted senses ache for a three-day thunderstorm. Our deep-fried nerve endings crackle unless placated by a near-continuous dousing of ice-cold beer. Our extensive Current office gardens and koi ponds have become tumbleweed-infested dirt patches teeming with carp jerky, and we’ve petitioned Management to…
S’nuff Film
San Antonio resident and Texas State Spanish student Juliana Hinojosa took second place in the Bridgestone Americas Safety Scholars Video Contest for her short film encouraging safe driving practices. Hinojosa was awarded a $5,000 scholarship and a set of shiny new Bridgestone tires for the PSA — a tribute brother, Ryan, an Iraq War vet…
Fitz resigns, the Lightning roars
From: Fitzgerald, BillSent: Monday, August 17, 2009 5:10 PM To: All Adult Probation Subject: Resignation I am respectfully informing you of my decision to resign effective January 4, 2010.? My tenure here has been a wonderful experience and I truly appreciate all of your efforts to move this department forward. Thank you, Bill ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Were…
“Out the Door” – IND
The clip of Vincent Price accusing screen wife Carol Ohmart of serving him “arsenic on the rocks” in The House on Haunted Hill sets the tone for this song about “the fighting, the fucking, the hugging, the loving” of marital betrayal. The narrator drops verses accusing his ex and himself of backstabbing before the chorus…
Steubing litmus test
If you think there are just too many species on the planet the way it is (despite the Sixth Mass Extinction now under way), if “a little toxic contamination of the aquifer never hurt anyone” seems like a reasonable statement, or if you’d welcome the chance to share your daily commute up and down 281…
LIVE & LOCAL
Sometimes it’s just hard to pin a band down. Our Sleeping Giant, for instance, whose songs fly all over the genre radar. Singer Danny Gibbons opens the night with four solo acoustic tracks in rapid succession, journeying through the Dashboard Confessional-esque “Lost Art of the Mid-Range Jump-Shot,” to slightly country songs. The best of these…
A kinder, gentler Gitmo?
The New York Times recently reported that the Obama administration intends to reconfigure immigration detention policy, including the closure of the controversial T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility in Taylor, Texas. `See “Same dog, different collar,” August 5, at sacurrent.com.` While that step is long overdue, it is doubtful that Obama will do more than…
Dark side of the Moog
The last time Austin’s the Boxing Lesson played Rock Bottom Tattoo Bar, says lead singer and guitarist Paul Waclawsky, it was “the hottest club on the whole tour,” and, as you San Antonians can imagine, he’s not using an idiom. “I’m preparing myself for it,” he vows. “I’m bringing fans this time.” Good luck with…
The Sound & The Fury
Egshan — Nick Pacheo on vocals/guitar/keys, brother Rickey on bass, and Robert Luna on drums, a local self-proclaimed “bar-rock in baroque times” kind of band — spent nine months recording the fine Full Time Daydreamer at SA’s the Farm, and will celebrate with a show Saturday at Rock Bottom Tattoo Bar (1033 Avenue B, $5,…
Love the Sin
It’s sometime in the witching hour in Sweden. In Murfreesboro, Tennessee, it’s … 5 o’clock? 6 o’clock? 7? Who knows? The jet-lagged band is on the American time-zone carousel — Mountain, Central, Eastern, Central, Eastern — and apparently has no idea, at any given moment, which one it’s in. As a result, it’s taken two…
Amuse-BOUCHE
The American Cheese Society held its annual competition in Austin this year, and the results are out: Best of Show was a blue cheese from Oregon, Rogue Creamery’s Rogue River Blue. Despite homecourt advantage, Texas barely registered. But things are looking up. One of the top-ranked Texas cheesemakers, in a competition whose categories ranged…
¡Ask a Mexican!
Dear Mexican: My family hasn’t been long in this country, came here because of lousy treatment by other Europeans, and didn’t live close enough to the southern U.S. border to have exposure to Mexico or Mexicans. So, anyone looking down on Mexicans can be mysterious to many of us that have migrated to the Southwest,…
Oh, those lazy hazy days of summer
I am in a mild panic. As I write this, only two weeks remain till the first day of school. The stern immunization reminders and cheery meet-the-teacher postcards are accumulating on all available surfaces, and by the time you read this, the Big Day will be upon us. It’s not the whole mandate to go…
ARTifacts
Michele Monseau — artist, Palo Alto College art instructor, and Contemporary Art Month board member — is this month’s featured artist in the McNay’s “Artists Looking at Art” reception-and-chitchat series. Monseau’s presentation was supposed to happen last Thursday, but a small electrical fire at the venerable museum postponed it. “I’m not sure how bad it…
Buried on a country estate
Anton Chekhov famously termed his full-length plays “comedies,” and audiences have been expecting Russian penis jokes ever since. Alas, that is to misapprehend the nature of Chekhov (and perhaps even the nature of comedy): The line between comedy and tragedy is far blurrier than that between, say, farce and Götterdämmerung. For Chekhov, the minutiae of…
Short Shorts
This month we have more mayhem and catastrophe, but not in the way you might think: a flat note and a bit of misplaced lotion. And just when things were looking up. A reminder about submission guidelines: stories of less than 500 words (this gives you a challenge and readers an opportunity to read more…
