Special screenings
5-story Santa If you’re having a little trouble getting into the Christmas spirit (it’s early November, after all), let IMAX railroad you into Santaland. The Polar Express: An IMAX 3D Experience will premiere at the IMAX Theatre Rivercenter Wednesday, November 10. The first full-length feature digitally remastered specifically for the five-story screen, Polar Express IMAX…
Three milks and a banana
Top: Tres Leches topped with fresh strawberries. Above: Churrasco grilled skirt steak served with rice and beans. (Photos by Laura McKenzie) Hoorah for Ajuúa! Ajuúa! Pronounced ah-hoo-a! it is a happy expression, a kind of triumphant hoot – like yeehaw! Or, hoorah for fried plantain! It’s also a spacious Mexican restaurant that recently opened in…
News : Last-ditch measures
State contemplates closing facilities for mentally ill, retarded Charles Myers’ 45-year-old son, David, cannot read or write. He recognizes the colors red, yellow, and green, but, his father said, “if you placed him at a stoplight, he would not comprehend what it meant. “He is medically fragile,” Myers told a panel of mental health consultants…
Have no fear, herbs are here
‘fraid of the flu? Your body can fight it off without the vaccine Call it the Tickle Me Elmo Syndrome. The shortage of flu vaccines in America has prompted thousands of people to queue up for flu shots like hordes rushing the doors at a Wal-Mart grand opening. Yet standing in line can be worse…
Slashing Section 8
(Photo illustration by Julie Barnett) Reductions in a key housing program could hurt the city’s poor A change in the way the federal government calculates Section 8 payments could hurt San Antonio residents who participate in the federal housing program. The San Antonio Housing Authority, which is receiving fewer federal dollars under the new payment…
Love your oven, love your wine
Party feasts and worldwide herbs and vino A party feast “Love Me Tandoor: A Spicy Indian Feast” is the theme for David Rosengarten’s course at Central Market on creating superb dinner parties without the help of a party planner. Based on his book, Rosengarten will discuss 16 different themed parties, including beverages, table settings, entertainment,…
Graffiti bridges
From left: Roy Garza, Shek, Duo, Louie Dollars, Supher and Scuba Gooding Sr. The group, along with other participants in last year’s Clogged Caps III festival,are featured in a new documentary. (Photo by Mark Greenberg) Clogged Caps 3 puts SA hip-hop on the cinematic map When it comes to hip-hop cinema, the holy trinity usually…
So far right it’ll hurt your neck
The John Randolph Club comes to town and makes the right look left George Bush, Pat Robertson, Ku Klux Klan, kindly step to the left where you belong, the Paleoconservatives are coming to town to set things right. It’s the 15th annual meeting of the John Randolph Club, an elite sub-group of the ultra right-wing…
Burning rubber
Rubber O Cement employs a ski-like bass with circuit-bent pedal effects. (Photo by Bill T Miller) San Francisco underground duo finds better music through science fiction A duo that’s self-proclaimed to be tinkering on the “cusp of super science,” Rubber O Cement cauterizes the often misunderstood realm of experimental, electronic music to make it alluring…
Sound and the Fury
A week on the scene Blues challenge The San Antonio Blues Society celebrated Halloween by hosting the International Blues Challenge on Sunday, October 31 at Sam’s Burger Joint. Five area blues artists competed for a shot to represent San Antonio in 2005 at the Blues Foundation’s IBC in Memphis (the most highly respected blues talent…
Elliott’s elegy
The beautiful coda that Elliott Smith didn’t get Listening to Elliott Smith’s posthumous release, From a Basement On the Hill, can make you feel like a musical voyeur. Smith’s haunting, dark alt-pop always possessed the ring of veiled autobiography, but in light of his shocking stabbing death a year ago (presumed, but not officially determined,…
What fresh hell is this?
Actor and Playwright Draven Gonzalez stands outside the Woodlawn Theatre, where his new play The Afterlife runs through November 6. (Photo by Mark Greenberg) Dallas native Draven Gonzalez breathes new life into the horror genre Imagine taking a brief journey through hell with five of your closest friends because of a careless mistake. Imagine being…
Blood and guts
Blood Brothers My First Kiss At the Public Execution The Blood Brothers have a way of bringing out the ear, nose, and throat specialist hibernating within all of us. You don’t have to listen to this Seattle hardcore quintet for long to develop a concern for the laryngeal health of dueling singers Johnny Whitney and…
Teen magik
Magik Theatre begins programming for a transitional audience Magik Theatre’s daytime offerings and educational components are designed to appeal to young audiences and aspiring young theater artists, but they lose both groups in the teen years. “If our mission is to develop a better sense of literacy among young people, then we have no business…
Desperate misfits
New films explore the need for control that drove both Ray Charles and the Ramones. The Ramones and Ray Charles had little in common but isolation, a need for control, and musical genius Ray Charles and the Ramones are both inductees into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame who radically altered the direction of…
Young lions
The youth vote didn’t dent the election, but a few are waiting in the wings Gina Castañeda seemed relaxed as she visited several voting precincts on the South Side Tuesday afternoon. “It’s all been pretty exciting, but I don’t have any anxiety,” the manager of the South Side Democratic Headquarters said. Castañeda has been a…
The way we were
Staunton gives a moving performance as the 1950s English abortionist Vera Drake, who was arrested and prosecuted for “helping young girls out.” How ‘trouble’ was handled before abortion was legal By the time you read this, Oklahomans will have decided whether to send Republican Tom Coburn, who advocates capital punishment for abortionists, to the United…
Stranger than fiction
Who’s going to mow your grass when I’m gone Tucked between an auto parts store, an abandoned building filled with video games, and a semi-defunct Tejano club, Tortilleria La Popular is no longer a purveyor of our city’s favorite fatty carb, but the live/work space of Guy Hundere and Jennifer Davy. On Election Day, it…
The incredible Elizabeth Peña
Actress Elizabeth Peña gives voice to animated secret agent Mirage in Pixar’s new release, The Incredibles. From Beverly Hills and ‘La Bamba,’ a leading Latino lady leaps to Pixar When actress Elizabeth Peña told her 5-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter that she was going to voice a character in the new animated film The Incredibles,…
Peaks and valleys
The Dems’ long evening at Sunset Station The San Antonio Democrats’ victory celebration at Sunset Station officially kicks off at 8 p.m., but it takes a while to get rolling. By the time it does, euphoria is like oxygen on a mountain summit: in very short supply. At 8:05, with about 55 local Democrats watching…
When men were women and women were dressers
Claire Danes steps out of the shadow of her master, Billy Crudup, the last great female impersonator of the English stage, when the King decrees women must play women. ‘Stage Beauty’ wanly impersonates the gender revolution in English theater Religious fundamentalism brought down the curtain on the Golden Age of English drama. Less than 25…
Can the nation heel?
Selling Big Macs, in English Starbucks seemed the same this morning: no rush on the morning papers, although for local Democrats they report the spare good news from Take Back Texas that 10 of their 13 House candidates were successful. Most importantly this means that Democrats have gained seats in the Texas House for the…
Armchair Cinephile
That’s not all, folks! The wait must have been agonizing for die-hard lovers of classic animation, but finally the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume Two (Warner Bros.) is here – another four-disc collection of 60 brilliant cartoons, each eye-poppingly great, adorned with bonus features ranging from audio commentaries to reminiscences by giants like Tex Avery.…
