Present Tense
Yearning for the Crumpet’s of yesteryear
DORA IN THE FLESH
When we were little, we had Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. MC Hammer had a short-lived, animated career. As did Kid ‘n’ Play. This was about the extent of our Saturday Christina Bianco stars in Dora. morning exposure to the multicultural world outside of shirtless, unnaturally blue “men” and talking turtles (although their…
WHAT TO SEE THIS WEEK? EVERYTHING.
THE MATRIX RELOADED Dir. and writ. Andy & Larry Wachowski; feat. Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Jada Pinkett Smith, Monica Bellucci, Harold Perrineau Jr. (R) Hear that unusual silence around you at the office? That’s the sound of your fanboy co-workers, who skipped out of work today so they could be among…
NEW REVIEWS
DIVINE INTERVENTION Writ. & dir. Elia Suleiman; feat. Elia Suleiman, Manal Khader, Nayef Fahoum Daher, Amer Daher, Jamel Daher (NR) In Elia Suleiman’s cinematic Palestine, intervention – divine or human – is unwelcome. In the opening sequence of Divine Intervention, Santa Claus rushes up a wooded hillside pursued by rock-throwing boys. They toss away the…
Armchair Cinephile
THE 400 BLOWS IS NOT PORN The Adventures of Antoine Doinel (Criterion Collection) In good conscience, this column cannot recommend going to the video store this week. There’s just too much good stuff out there on big silver screens, truly something for everyone, and that hasn’t been the case for months. If, however, you’ve…
STILL PLAYING
AGENT CODY BANKS Dir. Harold Zwart; writ. Ashley Edward Miller; feat. Frankie Muniz, Hilary Duff, Angie Harmon (PG) Teenaged CIA operative Cody Banks has all the concerns common to adolescence, and some that aren’t so common – his mission is to woo a foxy girl so he can learn more about her scientist father, who…
SHOW TIMES
These show times are provided by the theaters and are subject to change. The Current includes show times submitted by press deadline, and is not responsible for the changes in the ever-morphing film industry. All times are p.m. unless otherwise indicated. DOWNTOWN AMC RIVERCENTER 9 Rivercenter Mall, third floor, 558-9988 Anger Management (PG-13) Fri-Sun: 1:20,…
LA NUEVA TORRE DE BABEL
Esencia y fundamento de toda lengua es darse a entender y entender al prójimo en el acuerdo de una común visión del mundo, de un nombrarlo en signos arbitrarios que lo conforman y definen de una manera peculiar: la propia. La ausencia de una palabra común genera entre las gentes la incomprensión, la duda, la…
IF YOU CAN’T BEAT ‘EM, JOIN ‘EM
The current top album on the Billboard 200, 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’, is priced at $13.99 on www.bestbuy.com – add $7 more for next-day delivery, or $3 for second-day. A consumer Instant Live launched in February at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston. Instant Live CDs of concerts featuring Machinery Hall,…
GOT BOOK?
San Antonio Library system gets set to celebrate its centennial Judge Roy Bean made a name for himself as the Law West of the Pecos River. But the man who once fined a corpse $40 for carrying a concealed weapon lived at 407 E. Glenn Ave. in San Antonio before he moved west in 1882.…
SAVE FERRIS … NO, MONIQUE. NO, FERRIS!
After two albums, radio hits including “The World is New,” “Goodbye,” “Come on Eileen,” and Monique Powell (second from left) looking for a way out in an old photo of her former band, Save Ferris. “Mistaken,” and a cameo in the teen flick, “10 Things I Hate About You,” the band who many critics…
MAYOR HUGS TREE ORDINANCE
Developer lobby stumped by ordinance amendments Fortunately, a wave of tree preservation advocates flooded the port side of the chamber to give our municipal ship of state some ballast. Many signed up to defend San Antonio’s trees. Scenic San Antonio President Kathleen Trenchard blamed the fall of the Roman Empire on the ancient Aaron…
SOUND AND THE FURY
a week on the scene B-I-N-G-O Ready for a rousing game of bingo? Wanna win some snazzy prizes? The El Orbits, a Houston-based lounge/cover band, will perform at Taco Land on Tuesday, May 20. The band has rocked for (or, if not exactly rocked, then at least “strolled”) audiences from stages as diverse as the…
A RAY OF INDIE LIGHT
Laughing off major-label complaints about file-sharing But as usual, the RIAA and the five major labels it represents aren’t telling the whole story. The problem is largely their own, because falling sales are hitting the majors much harder than independent labels. This isn’t surprising. Gold records (those selling 500,00-plus copies) accounted for more than 45…
I NEVER PROMISED YOU A SCULPTURE GARDEN
Carver’s new cultural center: Sculptors’ Dominion Invitational Concentrations of concrete poetry, sculpture gardens offer the spectacle of artificial objects in natural settings. They are sprouting up all over. To see a garden planted with bronze instead Herb Goldman’s aluminum resin sculpture, Mother and Child. Photo by Mark Greenberg of broccoli, one need travel only…
RAISING CHICANA CONSCIOUSNESS
The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center’s new visual arts director wants community art to reflect la gente It is another beautiful day in the heart of the West Side, home to the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, an institution of Chicano artistic and cultural expression. One door down from the Center’s office is a temporary annex. Once…
THE NEW TOWER OF BABEL
The essence and function of every language is to allow for communication among people by recognizing a common worldview as represented by the arbitrary signs that give reality a peculiar characteristic: our own. The lack of a common language among people produces misunderstandings, doubts, uncertainty, and suspicion. Thus, as soon as the ambitious builders of…
ARTIFACTS
news and notes from the san antonio art scene San Antonio-based art makers made a strong showing at this year’s Art Chicago, a prestigious, by-invitation-only art festival held last week in the Windy City. Through Vincent Valdez’ Yo Soy-ee Blaxican, 2003, 11.5 x 18 inches, lithograph, courtesy the artist and Finesilver/FYI. Finesilver/FYI Gallery, conceptual…
ALL EARS
Their recent The Murky World of Seats (Bella Union) may draw on many influences, but songs such as “Cour Gette,” with its slacker-repetitive melody, and the zig-zagging “Slave to the Summer, Son,” could be unreleased tunes from Wowee Zowee or Brighten the Corners, albeit ones with a Neil Young-y warbler standing in as lead singer.…
SHOWMAN SHAMAN
“I am a performance artist, therefore I am weird,” declares Jose Torres Tama. But those who write off performance artists Jose Torres Tama. as “weird for weird’s sake” should re-examine Tama. “I satirize the genre,” he explains of his absurdly hilarious performance piece, In Exile Close to the Equator. “There’s a lot of self-referential…
