SOUND AND THE FURY
Bob Marley: an icon who has also become an industry. (Courtesy photo) RASTAMAN VIBRATION Not long ago, rock critic David Wild noted that his travels had convinced him that the most popular musical artist in the world is Bob Marley. Regardless of whether you’re in Europe, Africa, Asia, or the Caribbean, you’re likely to…
VOLUME ONE
Lucy Liu, Chiaki Kuriyama, and Julie Dreyfus join the cast of Tarantino’s film. (Courtesy photo) With the arrival of the fourth feature (well, the first half of it, anyway) by the most debated figure in contemporary filmmaking, some introductory notes seem warranted. Inappropriate expectations were a big handicap for Jackie Brown, a wonderful piece…
NEW POWER GENERATION
Big Boi (Courtesy photo) New releases by Outkast and Puffy pit post-hip-hop prophets vs. urban-American idols Outkast is all about evolution. Since Andre “Dre” Benjamin and Antwan “Big Boi” Patton emerged from Georgia in 1994 with their profound debut album Southernplayalisticadillacmuzic, hip-hop has never really been the same. Southernplayalisticadillacmuzic altered the perceptions of Southern…
NEW REVIEWS
Out of Time Dir. Carl Franklin; writ. David Collard; feat. Denzel Washington, Eva Mendes, John Billingsley, Sanaa Lathan, Dean Cain (PG-13) Eva Mendes and Denzel Washington in Out of Time (Courtesy photo) In the Florida-situated Out of Time, Denzel Washington plays a small-town cop who rarely sees much action – except, that is, for…
LEARNING TO KRALL
A fussy man heading north. (Courtesy photo) If there has been one consistent criticism leveled at Elvis Costello over his frequently brilliant 26-year recording career, it’s that he tends to be too fussy – hiding his true intentions behind cryptic code language, and substituting smart-ass cleverness for clarity. With that in mind, Costello’s new…
Armchair Cinephile
FLASHING SWORDS, SMOKING GUNS Zatoichi times 3 (Home Vision Entertainment) Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo, Lone Wolf, Cub (AnimEigo) Once Upon a Time in China (Columbia/TriStar) El Mariachi (Columbia/TriStar) La Femme Nikita (MGM) Fargo (MGM) This week we honor the arrival of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill with nods to the latest slice ’em, dice ’em fare…
ASHES TO ASH
Daniel Ash (Courtesy photo) Daniel Ash is not a musical genius, but he might be the next best thing: a journeyman with a keen sense of artistic inquisitiveness. Instead of letting his talent stagnate, Ash continues to not only stir his creative brew but add new elixirs to the mix. Ash’s career started with…
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
JONESING By Anjali Gupta On Thursday, October 9, ArtPace closes its 2003 film and video series with a presentation of The Emperor Jones, a Wooster Group production of the play by Eugene O’Neill. Since 1975, the NYC-based Wooster Group – under director Elizabeth LeCompte and principle actors Willem Dafoe, Spalding Gray, Peyton Smith, Kate Valk,…
PREFUSE 73
PREFUSE 73 with Beans and DJ Nobody 9pm October 14 & 15 $12 512-389-0315 or www.frontgatetickets.com The Parish (formerly Mercury) 214 E. Sixth, Austin 512-479-MERC It’s a glitch trip back to the pre-funk era when Scott Herren orchestrates his hip-hop and electronica mind meld as Prefuse 73, so named for the producer’s appreciation of pre-fusion…
RECENT REVIEWS
American Splendor Dir. Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini; writ. Berman, Pulcini, Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner; feat. Paul Giamatti, Hope Davis, James Urbaniak, Earl Billings, Judah Friedlander, Pekar, Brabner (R) Early on, the filmmakers capture the precise vibe of some of comic illustrator Harvey Pekar’s best-known scenes. But Berman and Pulcini aren’t only interested in dramatizing…
ALL EARS
REISSUE MANIA! Either there’s something in the air, or record companies are as disenchanted with new music as much of the public. What was looking like a regular fall lineup of reissues now looks like an avalanche, thanks largely to – Bob Dylan, who has just been the recipient of a monster wave of attention,…
REMEMBERING EDWARD SAID
Edward Said Prominent academic, literary critic, author, musicologist, and political activist Edward Said, 67, lost a decade-long battle with leukemia on September 25. Said was born in Jerusalem in 1935, raised in exile in Egypt, and relocated to the United States as an undergraduate student in the late ’50s. He settled into a teaching…
HI TIMES
An Arabic-language rag appeals to teenyboppers The way the scolds and naysayers are gloating over Hi magazine’s (www.himag.com) lousy newsstand sell-through, you would think every other new magazine launch was a smashing success. The State Department’s maiden effort in publishing an Arabic-language magazine for teenyboppers saw its circulation rise from “one to three copies”…
DYSTOPIAN DREAM
Margaret Atwood (Photo by Andrew MacNaughton) Realizing author Margaret Atwood’s speculative fiction is a scary thing indeed “You know what? I write novels rather than sociological tracts,” said an exasperated Margaret Atwood after the third question about the social implications of her latest novel, Oryx and Crake. Nonetheless, Atwood’s most famous novel to date…
BOOKS IN THE BARRIO
Rally slated to bring a bookstore to South Side Marissa Ramirez believes in the importance of bookstores – and their ability to empower a community. “When a community is literate, it can determine for itself what resources it needs and can fight for those resources. For a city that depends on people that will work…
GAZING OUTWARD
Center #84 gelatin silver print, 9 X 12 inches (Courtesy photo) Chicana and lesbian photographer Laura Aguilar exhibits recent works at the Esperanza Laura Aguilar’s reputation precedes her to the point that it’s almost impossible to confront her images without preconceptions about what they are supposed to mean to the viewer and to Western…
ARTIFACTS
News and notes from the San Antonio art scene Is a civilization really measured by the quality of its art? Scary thought, isn’t it? Who do we hold up as representative, Dale Chihuly or Christian Marclay? Warhol or Nagel? Weburn or Alice Cooper? The Love Boat or The Real World? You get the picture. The…
LITTLE REVIEWS FOR THE LITTLE ONES
There is more to learn from bilingual children’s books than just language San Vicente’s artwork is a collage of painted Posada and comic strip. The master printmaker’s iconic calacas – dancing, singing, horseback riding skeletons – come to life in this “little-bitty” book celebrating the Day of the Dead. Originally published in Mexico, The…
FINGERPICK HIT
Tommy Emmanuel: Guitar hero from Down Under. (Courtesy photo) Aussie virtuoso Tommy Emmanuel can’t get a day off Tommy Emmanuel recently moved to Nashville, but that doesn’t mean he will be doing session work in the recording mecca of country music. Emmanuel, a supreme guitar virtuoso once praised by Chet Atkins as “probably the…
BACK! IN BLACK!
Jack Black schools fifth graders as substitute teacher Dewey Finn. (Courtesy photo) ‘School of Rock,’ appropriately enough, rocks A decade ago, director Richard Linklater made a little movie about high school called Dazed and Confused. It was smart, tender, and funny, and refused to take the easy road with regard to nostalgia (it takes…
