Pho from perfect
Release Date: 2002-07-25 If St. Paul, Minnesota, had a Little Vietnam, it would be where a guy named Tran owned a car repair shop, Asian supermarket, and video store all on the same block. It was in that neighborhood that I was introduced to phó. In a second-story diner the owner encouraged me (at the…
MOSHING THE PIT FANTASTIC
Self-proclaimed “100 percent Texas-bred white trash,” Red Reverse revives the cacophony of late ’80s hardcore punk rock with youthful screams and contagious chanting, leaving behind a wake of fans dizzy from circling the mosh pit one too many songs. Five members, 20 limbs, 50 fingers, four instruments, and three microphones groove together to create one…
ALL EARS
Arto Lindsay may have made his name in the downtown NYC scene (with bands such as DNA, the Lounge Lizards, and Golden Palominos), but the enormously compelling records he’s been making over the last few years would best be described as Brazilian. That’s “Brazilian” as in the late ’60s Tropicalia movement, which basically viewed everything…
HALF-TRUTHS AT WHOLE FOODS
Unsweetened carob almonds are available for $5.99 a pound at Whole Foods Market, but the natural and organic food purveyor is fresh out of love for unions. At one of the Austin-based chain’s farthest outposts, the employees have revolted; workers at Whole Foods in Madison, Wisconsin voted July 12 to be represented by the United…
ANKLE DEEP IN WATER DEBT
Oh, how the gods must be laughing: In late June, just as tremendous rainstorms started to sweep across south Texas, the United States and Mexico finally reached a modest compromise agreement on a longstanding water dispute between the two countries. Mexico currently owes the U.S. a staggering 1.5 million acre-feet of water from Rio Grande…
WEST MEETS EAST MEETS WEST
A woman is frantically pacing around a bare courtyard. She is drenched in sweat, shaking a talisman at the sky and at the earth — suddenly, she drops it and stands still. She races toward the camera, hesitates as if about to divulge a painful secret, and opens her mouth. But the voice we hear…
NAPOLEON MAKES HIS COMEBACK
Napoleon Bonaparte, once the mightiest ruler in the world, ended his days confined to Saint Helena, a bleak island in the south Atlantic 1,200 miles west of Africa. His compulsory residence, from 1815 to 1821, might even have been abridged by poison. It was a pitiful conclusion to a glamorous, spectacular, and violent life. “It…
NEW REVIEWS
EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS “Not worth the ink” Dir. Ellory Elkayem; writ. Jesse Alexander and Elkayem, based on story by Elkayem and Randy Kornfield; feat. David Arquette, Kari Wuhrer, Scott Terra, Doug E. Doug, and Scarlett Johansson. Do yourself a favor: Download the Eight Legged Freaks game from www.eightleggedfreaks.com instead of seeing the movie. The first-person…
SPECIAL SCREENS
DERSU UZALA “No samurai here” Dir. Akira Kurosawa; writ. Kurosawa, Yuri Nagibin, Vladimir Arseniev (journals); feat. Yuri Solomin, Maksim Munsuk, Suimenkul Chokmorov, Svetlana Danilchenko (G) After rejecting an unsatisfactory Hollywood deal to work on Tora! Tora! Tora!, Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa returned to his homeland and made his first ever commercially unsuccessful film. This discouragement,…
Armchair Cinephile
Max Allan Collins, who wrote the graphic novel on which Road to Perdition is based, is steeped in the hard-boiled crime fiction of the Forties. If his novels weren’t enough to demonstrate his obsession, we have two new DVDs with short “audio liner notes” by the author, Anthony Mann’s T-Men and Raw Deal (both from…
LONESOME JUBILEE
You know that creepy guy: He lives two doors down. There he is, taking out another bag of trash, and his kitchen light is always on. God only knows what’s buried in his yard. You know the girl: She works two cubicles away. Keeps her curling iron plugged in under her desk. Dates guys she…
