Cheap, Good, and Good For You
Saigon Express gets back to basics
AGATHA CHRISTIE MEETS BRIGITTE BARDOT
Slather on the SPF 30: Ludivine Sagnier bronzes herself in François Ozon’s Swimming Pool. Sex, murder, and cross-generational envy in the French countryside San Antonio film lovers who troll online for reviews of foreign films as they make their slow journey from New York to Texas will undoubtedly already know one thing about François…
NEW REVIEWS
Martin Lawrence, Gabrielle Union, and Will Smith are a modern Mod Squad in Bad Boys II. Bad Boys II Dir. Michael Bay; writ. Ron Shelton, Jerry Stahl; feat. Martin Lawrence, Will Smith, Gabrielle Union, Joe Pantoliano (R) As synonymous as his name is with testosterone-heavy, none-too-bright cinema, it’s hard to believe that this is…
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Opening Night at the Bijou The angst-ridden James Dean fights the system in Rebel Without a Cause, one of the classic movies showing at the Bijou Theater’s grand opening. Santikos Theaters is opening the Bijou Theater at the Crossroads Mall, Fredericksburg Road and Loop 410, this week, and our favorite film historians at Texas…
Armchair Cinephile
Belle Epoque (Columbia Tristar) The Rules of Attraction (Lions Gate) When his film Belle Epoque (Columbia Tristar) won the Academy Award for best foreign film in 1993, director Fernando Trueba made a comment as sacrilegious, albeit more modest, than John Lennon’s “bigger than Jesus” remark: “I’d like to thank God, but I don’t believe…
STILL PLAYING
Bend It Like Beckham Dir. Gurinder Chadha; writ. Gurinder Chadha, Paul Mayeda Berges; feat. Parminder K. Nagra, Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (PG-13) Beckham is the endearing story of culture clash – between England and India, masculine and feminine, straight and gay, immigrants and their assimilating children. While Jess rejects the cultural role assigned her, Bend…
SOUND AND VISION
Artist Cruz Ortiz in a video still from “El Corrido de El Super Taco Gone Bad,” which was created with an approach used in corridos – flowing narratives on an extraordinary happening or ballads about unsung heroes. Local artists find creative inspiration in their favorite songs Cruz Ortiz’ love of music has always been…
THE ARMY’S BERLIN WALL
Local shopkeepers along New Braunfels Avenue at Grayson Street plea for help for their ailing businesses resulting from the closure of Fort Sam Houston’s east gate after the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Photo by Mark Greenberg Fort Sam Houston gate closing threatens businesses East Germany closed its border and built the Berlin Wall from concrete…
COVER GIRLS
Mya: Her cover of “Free Fallin'” is like … wo. New releases by Mya and Beyonce showcase the rise of the partial rewrite Remember the 1989 Tom Petty hit “Free Fallin'”? If so, you will recall that this insistently simple jangle-fest told the tale of a “bad boy” who breaks the heart of a…
CROONERS AND SWOONERS
Where do recovered boy band fans go when they still feel the need to drool over eye candy? While many of them are still screaming over Justin Timberlake, the shrieking on John Mayer’s live album, Any Given Thursday, suggests some have moved on to a more mature dreamboat. The Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter is not…
BETTER LIVING THROUGH ART
Artist Joey Fauerso, a partner and resident of the Bower, works at a desk in the kitchen of the Southtown home/gallery space. Photo by Mark Greenberg The Bower takes the living room gallery tradition to a new level of alternative professionalism For the Bower’s co-director Joey Fauerso, a studio MFA program is like being…
LONG DISTANCE DRUNKS
Modest Mouse “Everything that keeps me together is falling apart.” Issac Brock pops out one-liners like he pops pills: in a tangled jumble that reflects maybe a little too much of ourselves. Each is a little nugget of truth, a turn of phrase that turns your head inside out if you let it. Meant…
HEAD TO HEAD: CHUCK RAMIREZ AND JENNIFER JANKAUSKAS
Artists Chuck Ramirez and Jennifer Jankauskas sit on the porch of his home in King William. Photo by Mark Greenberg Chuck Ramirez is a photographer whose work finds poetry in the commonplace. He recently exhibited his new work at Sol y Sombra, where he will soon curate a FotoSeptiembre show. Jennifer Jankauskas serves as…
SOUND AND THE FURY
a week on the scene CHANGING SEASONS The Carver Community Cultural Center released its program for its 2003-2004 performance season, which includes the return of the Little Carver Intimate Series at the Little Carver Civic Center. The Intimate Series includes performances by the San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble, Ruthie Foster, and the Elision Saxophone Quartet,…
FOR THE WOMEN OF JUÁREZ
Tiles crafted by women of the MujerArtes collective form an ofrenda to the Juárez women who have lost their lives in the past 10 years. Someone has been killing the women of Juárez. Since 1993, more than 300 young women have been abducted, violated, mutilated, and murdered; a terrible price to pay for the…
THE ELUSIVE HILLS SNYDER
A precious piece of Hill Snyder’s “Son of Samson” exhibit at Cactus Bra. He whose work speaks in a forked tongue exhibits his ‘Son of Samson’ exhibit at the Cactus Bra Arts writers are often faced with the responsibility of introducing a complex character and contextualizing his or her work in 500 words or…
SHINE ON
Gary, right, with Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal. Gary MacEoin, 1909-2003 The communal garden in front of Gary MacEoin’s house shines in summer’s radiance: purple eggplants dangle from their stems, yellow cherry tomatoes dot the vines like Christmas bulbs, a ripe pumpkin squats in the dirt, ready to pick. Inside, the house and time stand…
ARTIFACTS
A tile crafted by women of the MujerArtes collective form an ofrenda to the Juárez women who have lost their lives in the past 10 years. As Contemporary Art Month wraps up, many remain unsure about the event’s future. A plan outlined by the City of San Antonio Office of Cultural Affairs proposes a…
ALL EARS
HILLBILLY MUSIC, THANK GOD! PBS’ Great Performances series will showcase three bluegrass giants – Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, and Ricky Skaggs – next Monday, July 28, in a program called The Three Pickers. (San Antonio’s KLRN, for some reason, doesn’t appear to have this episode on the schedule.) Rounder records just released that show’s soundtrack,…
MUSICIANS AT WORK
San Quilmas is an old slang term for the Alamo City commonly used by local musicians over the years. It’s fitting then, that photographer Monte Adams dubbed his collection of live-music shots “Sounds of San Quilmas,” because it unobtrusively and adeptly captures the unspoken vernacular of local musicians. MONTE ADAMS: SOUNDS OF SAN QUILMAS 11am-11pm…
