The Lord of the Rings

Top Five Video-Game Concept Albums

Video games are art now. The president said it and everything, so you know it's legit. That makes me very happy, because I do believe that games represent a specific medium of artistic expression. Anyone that argues hasn't played BioShock Infinite yet. Art Attack: Reviews for the Lazy Gamer: BioSh ... More >>

7 Songs About Hobbits NOT By Leonard Nimoy

I'm keen to catch The Hobbit soon. If nothing else, the Seventh Doctor apparently goes full-on wizard battle against the Witch-King in it, and I would have paid just to see that scene alone. The rest of it looks cool too, though. In the meantime, I have to wait for an overnight babysitter to free u ... More >>

Slouching Toward Erebor

The Hobbit gets neither there nor back again.

Chef Chat, Part 2: Chris Williams of Lucille's, On Hustling His Way Back to the States, and Southern Cooking vs. Soul Food

Chris Williams Lucille's 5512 La Branch Tel: (713) 568-2505 www.lucilleshouston.com This is Part 2 of a three-part Chef Chat series. You can read Part 1 here and Part 3 will run in this same space on Friday. EOW: You were in Europe for about four years. What brought you back? CW: My brother. I ... More >>

Big Wins for Chris Shepherd and Bobby Heugel at the 2012 My Table Houston Culinary Awards

It wasn't quite a Lord of the Rings-style Oscars sweep for Underbelly last night at the 2012 Houston Culinary Awards -- the restaurant didn't win in every category in which it was nominated -- but chef Chris Shepherd and mixologist/bar owner/restaurateur Bobby Heugel took home four awards between th ... More >>

Free WiFi at Houston's Airports But Grab It Quick, Ends Soon

Both George Bush International and William P. Hobby airports will have free wi-fi thanks to Google Play (yay!) but only through the end of September (boo). As we reported in July, Houston airports don't have the extended free wi-fi amenities that many others in the country do. As part of a multim ... More >>

Explaining Classic Rock Bands to Kids

This past Sunday, The New York Times ran a piece by Paul Greenberg where the author explained how important the Beatles were to music and pop culture to his five-year old son. The child didn't know that the band had albums, but only knew the Fab Four from iTunes playlists. "When the Beatles record ... More >>

Main Street Theater's Richard III is punk-goth magnificence

4/20 Day: 14 Bongs Based on Movies That Should Not Have Bongs Based on Them

Hey, it's 4/20 day! Be glad you don't live in Boulder, where the University of Colorado is trying to end the annual massive on-campus celebration of the day by barring any visitors and spraying the quad where it's held with "a foul-smelling fish-based fertilizer on the grass." Bummer. Here in Hou ... More >>

iCan't: 4 Reasons Why Even the iPad 3 Won't Cause Me to Buy One

In April of last year, I wrote about whether I should buy an iPad. After a few musing paragraphs, I came to the begrudging conclusion that the iPad was likely part of my technological future. Well, it's nearly a year later and still no iPad for me. With the release of the iPad 3 tomorrow (and a prob ... More >>

15 Inferior Best Picture Oscar Winners (And the Enduring Classics They Beat)

Last Wednesday, Craiggers hit on some forgotten Best Picture Academy Award winners, films which have slipped through the cracks of society's consciousness for one reason or another; either for being too of-the-moment, not having enough quotable lines, or for simply not having held up very well -- hi ... More >>

John Paul Jones' Six Coolest Led Zeppelin Bass Lines on His 66th Birthday

Growing up listening to rock music and being a bass players wasn't always a super exciting proposition. Most of the great bassists of all time are jazz musicians. Being a rock bass player means holding down the low end and keeping the groove intact. While this can still be challenging -- I've seen s ... More >>

Pop Rocks: Anyone Else Underwhelmed By The Hobbit Trailer?

Can Peter Jackson top this? I doubt it.​The trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey dropped like Boromir after taking a few Uruk-hai arrows yesterday. The first of Peter Jackson's two-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy doesn't hit theaters until ... More >>

Buckethead

Barbarianism's Underrated

Conan reboot, bloody good.

Boobylicious: Music's 20 Most Memorable Breasts (Semi-NSFW)

ztams.comWendy O. Williams, seen here with Motorhead front man Lemmy Kilmister​It may sound silly, but boobs are powerful things. Men are fascinated and entranced by them, while women constantly obsess over their size and shape. In a way, they're not unlike the ring in Lord of the Rings: Capab ... More >>

Last Night: Emmylou Harris At Verizon Wireless Theater

Photos by Jason Wolter​Emmylou Harris & the Red Dirt Boys Verizon Wireless Theater June 22, 2011 The song about the Italian painter wasn't in the set, and at the end it seemed like it was the only song not in the set, but watching Emmylou Harris and her Red Dirt Boys paint the curtained-off V ... More >>

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Extended Edition

Game of Thrones: 7 Observations from a Newbie (and Pop Rocks Pinch-Hitter)

Yeah, he's my brother, so what?​Pete Vonder Haar couldn't file a Pop Rocks today, so it falls to me to do so. Since he is also our chronicler of all things Game of Thrones, I will pick up that mantle too. I'm not much of a fantasy person at all, but I find myself getting into this HBO minise ... More >>

Hide and Seek

Fourteen-year-old Andrew Mosier was abducted last August. It wasn't by aliens.

Idol Beat: Male Fraud

​Steve Tyler wore a shirt with lips all over it. I couldn't decide if he was being knowingly self-referential or it was the work of the same costume designer who put him in that leotard in the "Love in an Elevator" video.neither way, it fulfilled its purpose of distracting me from the show for ... More >>

Life on Narnia

An ailing franchise gets another chance.

Teflon Don

Rick Ross writes rhymes for gangsta lifestyle

"I'm On A Boat" Gets Steampunk Makeover, Boba Fett

​Rocks Off is quite keen on steampunk, which is basically when you take a bunch of clockwork technology and shoehorn it into Victorian times. It's a small subset of geekdom, but growing quite a bit in popular literature. So as long as we're transporting modern improvements into the past, why ... More >>

5 Things I Learned Photographing 100 Houston Restaurants

Photo by Jeff BalkeOne of my more successful shots at Olives Martini Bar & Grille in Sugar Land​George Carlin once described the phrase "fussy eater" as a euphemism for "big pain in the ass." When I was young, I was a big pain in the ass. Don't get me wrong, I have always loved food. I just di ... More >>

Saturday Night: The Houston Symphony Does Final Fantasy At Jones Hall

Photos courtesy of Houston SymphonySaturday's cast (from left): Alan Halverson as Kefka , Rachel Smith as Yuffie, Amanda Ayr as Tifa​The Houston Symphony Jones Hall July 24, 2010 While everyone else in Houston was going gaga for Gaga, Aftermath headed down to Jones Hall to hear the Houston Sy ... More >>

FAIL - Billy Corgan, Courtney Love, Justin Bieber, Celene Dion, Apple

If you're reading this, you're either on the Internet, or else you've mastered multi-dimensional thought-projection processes that would make Michio Kaku cry like a little girl. We'll assume the former, and just in case you don't already know, the Internet has decided that the word "failure" is too ... More >>

My Blue (Screen) Heaven

Thanks to the magic of 3-D CGI, Peter Jackson makes a one-dimensional Lovely Bones.

Dead Alive

Web exclusive!

The Houston Record Convention

Calling all collectors!

The Dark Crystal

Jim Henson’s fantasy film features a RUSH look-alike

Tunnel of Love

Houstonians go wild for the Art League's Inversion

Puffy Shirts, Turkey Legs and Thee

Dust off your chain mail and head out to the Texas Renaissance Festival

Rockin' the Cradle

DMX and Jet Li get down 2 Grave business