Screens Small screen
The new HBO miniseries makes living history Larry Flynt could love. Hurrah. Well, it’s not exactly Sex in the Eternal City, but HBO’s new series, ROME (8 p.m. Sundays on HBO), certainly puts the flesh back into 52 B.C. A co-production between the BBC and America’s homegrown miniseries-producing juggernaut, HBO, ROME turns out to be…
Screens Armchair Cinephile
100 years of Garbo September 18 is the 100th anniversary of Greta Garbo’s birth. But Warner Home Video isn’t waiting until then to deliver the present: On September 6 they released The Greta Garbo Signature Collection, a gargantuan box that fans can enjoy from now until her centenary and still have leftovers for the party.…
News Kissing the hand that feeds
The telephone industry poured as much as $12 million into lobbyists and political action committees, and in return they got SB 5 In July, at the outset of the 79th Legislature’s special sessions, Governor Rick Perry swore to Texans that lawmakers’ priority would be education and property tax reform, and that not one bill would…
Screens Special screenings
The Quentin Tarantino Film Festival For the sixth year, Quentin Tarantino is coming to Austin for a nine-night festival of his favorite B-movies. The event has always been a crowd-pleaser, but daytrippers risk disappointment: Badges guaranteeing admission are sold out, and single-night passes will be available only for those willing to wait until 15 minutes…
News The best offense is a good defense
New program aims to provide better representation for the indigent Four years ago, when the state legislature passed the Texas Fair Defense Act (Senate Bill 7), Houston Senator Rodney Ellis made the observation that “poor defendants get a poor defense” in Texas. It was an assessment that even many tough-on-crime Republicans found difficult to dispute.…
Screens That’s a wrap
The low-down on this week’s premieres Considered by some to be the first courtroom horror film, The Exorcism of Emily Rose tells the true story of Anneliese Michel, a young German girl who died during an attempted exorcism. Erin Bruner (Laura Linney) is the lawyer defending Father Moore (Tom Wilkinson), the priest on trial for…
News Party lines
Agent Sculley, the truth is here Sometimes one can gauge how well an elected body works together by listening in on its conversation. For instance, the City Council held a lengthy discussion last week about hiring Phoenix Assistant City Manager Sheryl Sculley as the City Manager of Alamotown, a subject that has long been batted…
Food & Drink The season is the reason
The menu at Texas Farm to Table Café is based on the local harvest Texas Farm to Table Café is tucked away in the corner of the Aveda Institute on Grayson Street. There’s no sign, so if you travel in those parts, you have probably driven past it a dozen times, unaware of the extraordinarily…
News Briefs
Food, shelter, and meds for Katrina’s victims Numerous local organizations and businesses are partnering with state and national groups to assist recovery efforts for people displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Monetary donations are being accepted at the American Red Cross, 1-800-HELPNOW or redcross.org, the Salvation Army, 1-800-SALARMY or salvationarmyusa.org, and the San Antonio Food Bank, 337-3663…
Food & Drink A fistful of seaweed
Trade yer rotgut rye for Sapporo and belly up to the sushi bar, pardner There’s something just a little odd about Godai’s decor; you almost feel as though you’ve walked into a bar on the set of a noodle western. The floors are rustic clay tile, the walls are covered in wide, wood boards, and…
News Speed reads
Bio-weapons study at UTSA University of Texas at San Antonio biology professor Karl Klose and his team of researchers have been awarded a $6.4 million, five-year grant from the Department of Health and Human Services to study tularemia, a potential bio-weapon. Tularemia is caused primarily by bites or scratches from rabbits, rodents, and hares. Its…
Food & Drink Value vino
No matter where Malbec goes, there Malbec is Argentina is the world’s fifth-largest producer of wine. Surprised? Me, too. That may be because the Argentineans have traditionally consumed the lion’s share of their own wine – wine that one authority called “rough and ready, sweet and tannic, plentiful and cheap.” We wouldn’t have wanted it…
Arts Hitchin’ a ride
Travel journalism is taking vicarious adventure to new highs and lows Rob Riggs spent Labor Day weekend camped out in the Big Thicket region with members of the Texas Big Foot Research Center, searching for a creature known variously as the Wild Man of East Texas or the Southern Big Foot. Riggs had a camera…
Food & Drink All you can eat
Current Online news politics culture News and notes from the San Antonio food scene Hurricane relief The San Antonio Food Bank is collecting food and money for Hurricane Katrina relief. Donations will benefit the Louisiana refugees the city is hosting and the more than 370 emergency-aid organizations it partners with in the Gulf states. You…
Feature When the levee breaks
When the levee breaks Robert Danfield, a New Orleans native, tries to get a last glimpse of his devastated hometown as he and his family are airlifted in a C-130 cargo plane to Ellington Field in Houston. Danfield’s wife, Deborah Glenn, was in desperate need of dialysis for a kidney disease. The family was rescued…
Music Vonne with the wind
SA native Patricia Vonne adapts her cinematic visions to song form Early in his career, Jackson Browne developed such a reputation for writing tributes to deceased friends that when Warren Zevon experienced chest pains on a flight, his first thought was: “God, please don’t let me die and have Jackson Browne write a song about…
Arts Young and young at heart
From filthy-mouthed bears to fine art, the latest graphic novels meet every proclivity Its been a while since the Current took a look at that growing corner of the publishing industry where words and pictures combine for lack of a better term, the graphic novel. That certainly doesnt mean theres nothing going on. Before we…
Music Houston kid gloves
Rodney Crowell continues his career transformation with ‘The Outsider’ Rodney Crowell presents one of the most stark transformations in country music history: After an extremely successful career as a songwriter of mainstream commercial hits, he hit a dry spell, took some time off, and came back with 2001’s heartfelt and intentionally unpolished The Houston Kid.…
Arts The art capades
FotoSeptiembre – a chance to examine the medium through a myriad of interpretations It’s FotoSeptiembre, which means most of the city’s galleries are showing – you guessed it – photography `see “Feeling negative,” and “I hate it! I’ll take two,” August 25-31, 2005`. While it may seem like a gluttonous monopoly, it is also a…
Music CD Spotlight
The irony presented by the Greencards is that one of the best examples of American country music today is being made by two Australians and an Irishman. Blending bluegrass, Americana, and a bit of Irish soul via Eoman McLoughlin’s fiddle, the trio has created that almost-perfect album that usually precedes the perfect one artists spend…
Arts Dinner was da bomb
In the wake of 9-11, a zealous hostess chokes on big ideas It’s one of the ironies of the American entertainment biz that the events of 9-11, which have barely been touched by the major movie studios, are already the center of a considerable body of work churned out by the more impoverished legitimate theater.…
Music Current Choice
Tombstone blues Much has been made recently about how recording artists no longer wait until they have an actual body of work before milking the public with career-spanning best-ofs and compilations. To ponder merely the most egregious example, was there a great public outcry for a Hilary Duff compilation to whittle down her two-album career…
Arts Something old, something brand spankin’ new
Film composer Elmer Bernstein once said, “There are 24 hours in a day and sometimes you use all 24 hours.” Those words will ring true for a group of directors, playwrights, and actors as the San Antonio Theatre Coalition presents theatreASAP on Saturday, September 10 at Magik Theatre. `See In the Round, page 21, for…
Music Tornado’s child
When Shawn Sahm was a young metalhead, he took his father, Texas music legend Doug Sahm, to a Metallica concert. When Sir Douglas looked around and expressed concern that he was the oldest guy in the crowd, Shawn reassured him that he was also the hippest. Over the ensuing years, Shawn’s has expressed that admiration…
Arts In the round
News and notes from the San Antonio theater scene Our local theater-support organizations are planning a particularly supportive September. The San Antonio Theatre Coalition opens the month with its second-annual theatreASAP event, designed to showcase the diversity and talent of the local theater community by challenging them to come together to write, rehearse, and perform…
Music Sound and the fury
Battle sounds In the storied history of the DMC DJ competition, two Texans had never made it to the national finals in the same year. But on Friday, August 26, two sons of San Antonio, DJs Kico and Donnie D, not only competed in the finals, but finished in the top three. The world DMC…
Screens Informal education
Three young idealists learn about human nature the hard way in The Edukators Pinned to the bare wall of an empty room is a note that affirms the film’s parting words: “Some People Never Change.” The Edukators is a lesson in how difficult, and inevitable, change can be – for an individual, a relationship, or…
Screens End days
A grieving woman learns to let go of everything in November Sophie, Courteney Cox’s character in the low-budget indie November, is having trouble letting go – of what, the viewer must decide. Reviewers have posed various solutions to the film’s fractured, Memento-like puzzle: one suggests that the movie is just an experiment in cinematography and…
