HELLO, BOLLY
While Mira Nair returned to New Delhi to shoot her most recent feature, Monsoon Wedding, the spirit of the film wound up defying the conventions of any specific national cinema. Written in three languages (Punjabi, Hindi, and English), shot by a predominantly American crew on Super 16mm, cast with actors from Indian television, film, and…
Still Playing
A Beautiful Mind “Pity, fear, and cognitive reverie” Dir. Ron Howard; writ. Akiva Goldsman, based on biography by Sylvia Nasar; feat. Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettany, Vivien Cardone, Adam Goldberg, Judd Hirsch, Christopher Plummer (PG-13) Black Hawk Down “Crash landing in confused territory” Dir. Ridley Scott; writ. Mark Bowden, Ken Nolan; feat.…
New Reviews
Showtime “Buddy-cop films get the Scream treatment” Dir. Tom Dey, writ. Keith Sharon, Alfred Gough, and Miles Millar, feat. Robert DeNiro, Eddie Murphy, Rene Russo, William Shatner, Kadeem Hardison, Julian Dulce Vida, Frankie Faison, Mos Def (PG-13) It’s Showtime! That’s right: Robert DeNiro and Eddie Murphy together for the first time in an action-comedy that…
PIANO CHAT
Bassist George Prado once told me, “Joe Piscatelle has probably forgotten more music than most people learn in a lifetime.” But when this accomplished jazz pianist plays, I get the distinct impression that he’s never forgotten anything he’s ever heard; every lick, melody, and rhythmic figure is neatly cataloged in his musical brain, ready to…
CD REVIEWS
Billy Bang Vietnam: The Aftermath (Justin Time) (available at www.justin-time.com) Lately, Hollywood can’t stop telling me what it’s like to be a soldier, and I can’t stop feeling lied to. My veteran friends don’t seem to think much of Bruce Willis’ war, or Mel Gibson’s, or (Heaven help us) Owen Wilson’s — do any of…
Video & DVD
The Thief DVD, Image Entertainment A few months back, this column extolled the virtues of Jules Dassin’s Rififi, praising the long heist sequence, in which dialogue and music come to a halt for 30 minutes or so while men go about their work in tense silence. While that film went about things in a very…
NEGLECT OR DEFECT?
There were no CNN cameras at Tina Rodriguez’ hearing last week, nor was the Bandera County Courtroom packed with onlookers and legal pundits like those who had lurked throughout the Andrea Yates trial. There was only a shackled Rodriguez — who in 1999 was convicted of intentionally starving her infant son to death — a…
READING BETWEEN THE LINES
The Pollyanna promises of open space, millions of dollars in economic development, additional roads, and environmental safeguards were not enough to persuade citizens to take the side of PGA Village developers as they unveiled their scaled-back draft proposal March 14. Read between the lines, and this proposal is rife with loosey-goosey language and questionable guarantees.…
STRAIGHT ON QUEERS
“Pinche palabra,” the boy onstage cries, cursing the constraints of a word that crosses cultures with the same vulgar connotation: homosexual. He is a depiction of someone’s son, someone’s struggle, of a young Jesús Alonzo, a local playwright who infuses his characters with a subtle sense of himself — a joto — one of many…
FILLING THE VOID
Over a hot cup of coffee in a local diner last January, three talented black actors — Latrelle Bright, Danielle Barnes, and Paul Riddle Jr. — held a passionate discussion. In the midst of the conversation, Bright posed the question, “Do you want to start a theater company?” It sounds a bit like the Little…
TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS
Journalist and broadcaster Studs Terkel is an American writer whose proletarian commitment evokes the work and ambition of Upton Sinclair (The Jungle, The Millennium). However, in spite of his journalistic fame, few know of Terkel’s relationship with Broadway. Culling more than 100 interviews with Chicago workers, in 1974, Terkel published what would prove to be…
