All that and a side of fried avocados
Release Date: 2002-05-16 You can see Piedras Negras de Noche from the highway, where the exit from I-35 South leads to Cevallos and Laredo streets. It’s a big, two-story restaurant with its name painted at highway height. Given the easy accessibility, it’s a wonder that I didn’t visit years ago — it took a friend’s…
NERDY BY NATURE
Thursday night at Taco Land and Ram, the owner, is already calling everyone “pussy.” Want salt for your beer? Pussy. Put a bad song on the jukebox? Pussy. Want to know why the band’s late? That’s not pussy, just stupid. “What the fuck are you asking me for? I didn’t book ’em,” Ram shoots at…
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
It is impossible to ignore the recent shift in Blue Star Art Space’s programming. In the last few months, each exhibition has been a visibly resolute step in the evolution of the organization. Interim Director Lawrence Miller, former executive director of ArtPace, is the fulcrum of Blue Star’s redefinition. As part of his agenda, Miller…
FELICI’S FACES
‘Outsider” is the current label for self-taught artists, but it’s an odd fit for one as cosmopolitan as Paco Felici. Born in Brazil to Italian parents, the 32-year-old painter grew up in Mexico, Algeria, Canada, Egypt, and Texas. He brings this worldly point of view to the deceptively simple works now showing at W.D. Deli.…
GEORGE LUCAS IS A PUTZ
This is a “good news, bad news” situation, and for those who just want a verdict without any plot-spoiling information: Attack of the Clones is far better than Phantom Menace, far lamer than Empire Strikes Back. Judging by all the evidence after 1973’s warm, wonderful American Graffiti, George Lucas is like a not-too-bright kid who…
Video & DVD
Richard Linklater’s latest, Tape (Lions Gate Home Entertainment) never played here, and got only a short run in the director’s hometown of Austin. Given that it has stars (Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke, and Robert Sean Leonard), the easiest explanation for this is that exhibitors are still scared of movies shot on digital video. Too bad,…
Deuces Wild “Refried ‘West Side Story’ w/ extra grit w/o musical sequences” Dir. Scott Kalvert; writ. Paul Kimatian and Christopher Gambale; feat. Stephen Dorff, Brad Renfro, Fairuza Balk, Norman Reedus, Frankie Muniz, Balthazar Getty, Max Perlich, Debbie Harry (R) Deuces Wild, a late-1950s period piece directed by Scott Kalvert (The Basketball Diaries), was reportedly shot…
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) Blade II “Goes for the jugular” Dir. Guillermo del Toro; writ. David S. Goyer; feat. Wesley Snipes,…
THIS YEAR’S AIM IS CRUEL (AND TRUE)
Sometimes finding out you’re wrong is a real treat. In 1996, when Elvis Costello released All This Useless Beauty, a ballad-heavy disc showcasing songs he’d written for others to sing, my friends and I were convinced that certain sides of the Elvis we loved were vanishing for good: He had released lukewarm soundtrack collaborations and…
BIDDING THE BAND ADIEU
The Band — mostly a Canadian outfit that changed the way Americans thought about their musical heritage in the ’60s and ’70s — spent almost a decade of its existence supporting other artists, from Ronnie Hawkins to Bob Dylan. So it’s fitting that when, after achieving greatness in its own right, the Band decided to…
CD REVIEWS
Art in Heartache #3 “You Don’t Know What Love Is” From But Beautiful by Jimmy Scott (CD, Milestone) Three years or so ago, I spent a very late night listening to Billie Holiday sing this song: “You don’t know what love is … until you’ve faced each dawn with sleepless eyes,” she accused; I was…
LITTLE SPONGES
It’s naptime in Elisa Valle’s pre-kindergarten classroom. Muted sunlight peeks through the drawn blue shades, giving the room a dusky glow. The warm air smells of baby powder and clay. An overhead melody of crashing ocean waves and flutes lulls a room of 20 tiny children, all about 3 or 4 years old. Two children…
STOP MAKING NONSENSE
Cuba fascinates me. My first visit was in 1945. Its news value then was close to nil. It showed up once a year in the business section when we learned how many millions of tons of sugar the harvest promised us. Later, the country figured more prominently in scandal sheets as Las Vegas gangsters built…
