WAVE GOODBYE
Everybody’s screaming, just to get the last word The difference is what you said, and what I heard Why do all hearts break instead of bend? You gotta tell me straight — is this really the end? Last night I watched Alejandro Escovedo outlive another bar. Onstage at Austin’s beloved, appropriately named Hole in the…
LUDLUM’S SUPER HERO
In the summer of Spider-Man, it’s hard not to see Robert Ludlum’s famous Jason Bourne for what he is — a super hero for readers who have outgrown four-color Spandex chronicles. Bourne is as much a model of male perfection as Peter Parker — mind like a steel trap, reflexes measured in nanoseconds, full complement…
NEW REVIEWS
Lilo & Stitch “Iron Giant with training wheels” Dir. Dean Deblois and Chris Sanders; writ. Chris Sanders; feat. (voices) Daveigh Chase, Tia Carrere, Jason Scott Lee, Kevin McDonald, Ving Rhames, David Ogden Stiers (PG) It doesn’t seem fair to hold Lilo & Stitch up to the standard of the most swell, traditionally animated film in…
Special Screens
The Last Waltz “To quote Dr. John: ‘such a night'” Dir. Martin Scorsese; feat. the Band and friends (PG) A couple of months ago, when we noted the big restoration of this documentary for DVD and CD reissue, we had no idea SA residents would have a chance to see the restored print in the…
VIDEO/DVD
Barcelona (DVD, Warner Home Video) Whit Stillman’s first film, 1990’s Metropolitan, was a hilarious bit of anthropology about a world — the upper-crust realm of prep schools, trust funds, and debutante balls — completely foreign to most viewers. In this 1994 follow-up, just out on DVD, he puts a pair of preppies in an environment…
STILL PLAYING
About a Boy “Charming oasis in the blockbuster desert” Dir. Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz; writ. Nick Hornby (novel), Peter Hedges, Weitz & Weitz; feat. Hugh Grant, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Rachel Weisz (PG-13) Bad Company “They don’t mean ‘bad’ in a good way” Dir. Joel Schumacher; writ. Jason Richman and Michael Browning; feat. Anthony Hopkins,…
A GRAND OLE TIME
Traditional country fans, disappointed with the direction commercial country music has taken in the last several decades, have little interest in — and feel little connection to — modern pop/rock/country. They do, however, have affection for the music of Roy Acuff, Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, and Bob Wills — they love the old tunes. They…
CD REVIEWS
“Mr. Rain” From Try Again, by Mike Ireland & Holler (CD, Ashmont Records) Meteorological disturbances have long been tied to romantic upsets, often in a charming, less-than-devastated way. (The Cascades’ 1963 “Rhythm of the Rain” is a perfect example.) So Mike Ireland has an established genre to play with on his “Mr. Rain,” a sweetly…
REAL HIP-HOP
It’s a typical, syrupy night in central San Antonio. The sound of poetry echoes from within Sam’s Burger Joint as Dante Edwards, aka Donnie D, stoically recounts the loss of “The Middlemen,” a radio show he produced for Trinity University’s KRTU with fellow B-boys True, Sean Jumps, and DJ Nappy. Featuring inspired live mixes of…
BAD DEAL FOR BAD WATER
Opponents call grassroots activist Kenneth Schustereit a “radical conservative wacko” and even “trailer trash,” but to supporters, Schustereit is the gender-switch Erin Brockovich. Like the character played by Julia Roberts in the 2000 movie, Schustereit is a hard-working regular guy who stumbled onto an important “stealth” public issue; made himself the master of its mind-numbing…
