Eleventh Dream Day
This great, great band, whose name should be on every schoolgirl’s lips, has been around for 23 years and released its first record almost two decades ago, yet it seems to be legendary only among the better sort of rock writers. Eleventh Dream Day is the only band I’ve ever…
Thrills FOUND Here
Davy Rothbart has a secret. Actually, he has thousands of them, and he wants to share them with you. The creator of FOUND Magazine and, most recently, FOUND II takes great pride in publishing people’s most personal notes and photographs. “When you’re in real trouble in life, it’s easy to…
A Dip in the Ocean
One good bird finds another in the new IMAX movie Ocean Oasis. The film follows the lives and love lives of elegant terns (seabirds) and other fauna in two interdependent ecosystems: Mexico’s Sea of Cortez and the Baja California desert. Documenting the elaborate courting dance of the cute little terns…
Vince Charming
You know how in most romantic comedies, the best friends are nearly always more interesting than the actual leads we’re supposed to care about? The Break-Up doesn’t play that game. Vince Vaughn is the focus and the primary source of entertainment, which is all the more impressive when you consider…
Slanted for All
Melissa Hung works tirelessly to debunk the myth that Asian film is relegated to anime, Hong Kong shoot-´em-ups and Crouching Tiger-style martial arts films. “The film festival fan knows it’s more than that,” she says, “but not necessarily the cineplex crowd.” As curator for the annual Slant Asian-American film festival,…
We’ve Got a Floater
John Robert Benjamin is a talented teen who attends Second Baptist High School. He won first place in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Young Moviemakers Film Festival in 2004 and this year. So when the Houston Center for Photography solicited entries for the 24th annual Juried Membership Exhibition, what…
Kicking French Ass
Let’s trade, action fans. Give up all 126 minutes of Mission: Impossible III’s digitized bloat and torture games, along with Poseidon’s more modest — yet somehow more numbing — 99 minutes in a computer-generated rain barrel. In exchange, you get roughly 1.7 seconds of a movie you’ve never heard of…
Stormy and Buggin’
What would you write on a postcard about Houston? The Houston Symphony offers a few suggestions at today’s concert “Postcards from Houston.” The tribute to our fair city features classic music faves that pay homage to bugs, cowboys, the Astros and hurricanes. A preconcert live-bug exhibit by the Houston Museum…
He’d Better Be Rich
Pandora is about to open a whole new box with her Impossible Marriage. Theatre Southwest’s production of Beth Henley’s play follows Pandora Kingsley as she prepares to marry a man twice her age, much to the dismay of, well, everyone. Her mother deems the marriage “unsuitable,” and her older sister…
Deep-Sixed
There was a time when people moaned whenever Hollywood would remake — and thus suck the life out of — a classic movie. These days, Hollywood just sucks the life out of movies that weren’t that great in the first place. Ah, progress. Well, June 6, 2006, is upon us,…
Got Milk?
Just what makes Japanese prog-rock so…odd? Try to figure it out when taking in the mind-effing Japanese prog-rock sounds of Green Milk from the Planet Orange today at Walter’s. Formed in Tokyo five years ago, GMFTPO creates epic jams by melding the unique influences of the Boredoms, Acid Mother’s Temple…
Paper Chase
With some dedicated digging at the Houston Postcard & Paper Show, you could find a book from your childhood, a newspaper from the day you were born or a classy vintage print to replace that ‘N Sync poster (please). At the two-day event, local paperphiles can troll dozens of stands…
Thanks, Nick!
If I ever get a spot on American Idol, I’m set. Forget my breathy vocals — I’ve got my moves down. And it’s all thanks to Nick Lachey. I’m standing at the foot of the stage at Warehouse Live, where hundreds of ladies (and a few dudes) are screaming for…
Lowbrow Humor
Few things are more badass than acoustic punk/Roaring Twenties-style music performed by dudes in derbies, suspenders and barbershop shirts. The guys in local band Lowbrow perfected that odd sound a few years ago. The music: stand-on-the-piano, Primus-meets-acoustic punk. The lyrical subject matter: drunken midgets, monkeys — you know, pretty typical…
More Gore!
ManBearPig isn’t the only thing out there Al Gore wants to take down. The former vice president comes to town today to tackle global warming — not the mythical South Park creature — on this stop of his tour for his upcoming climate-change documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Long before anyone…
Holy Sh–!
You know, Houstonians used to be pretty nonchalant about hurricanes. A few would threaten us every so often, but they were more a reason for a ride-it-out party than a full-blown panic attack. Things began to change with Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. Not even a hurricane, it caused billions…
Fair Play
“Moby in Motion,” Houston Ballet’s three-work repertory program now on view at the Wortham, isn’t the spectacle that this season’s opulent new Swan Lake was, nor does it feature any pyrotechnic displays by the company’s stars. But it does showcase the talents of the corps de ballet, and it’s an…
Showing Their Range
The Big Range Dance Festival is like a six-course meal for contemporary dance lovers — each installment as delectable as the next. Thirty-five choreographers and more than 100 dancers from Houston, Washington, D.C. and New York will storm Barnevelder Movement/Arts Complex for the fourth annual event, serving all-new, cutting-edge works…
Poor Boys and Philanthropy
The sign on top of the newly painted red, blue and yellow building on 19th Street near Beall reads: “Jazzie Cafe, Famous Hot Wings and Po-Boys.” There are two tables and a walk-up counter inside the tiny establishment, and a few more tables outside on a wooden deck. But mostly…
Bungalow Power
The Fight for the Heights just got radicalized. Sheila Sovari and her husband, Mark Sterling, have given up working with the Houston Heights Association, which they say is doing nothing to stop the town-housing of the Heights. (Sadly, it could also be called the Montrosizing of the Heights, since that…
Capsule Reviews
Bombay Dreams Set inside Bombay’s thriving Hindu film industry (bigger than Hollywood and just as pervasive), this new hit musical has irrepressible charm, an exotic locale and a fresh and haunting score (by India’s celebrated A.R. Rahman, whose gargantuan Lord of the Rings is wending its international way toward Broadway)…
“Flight” School
Their plight has been well publicized. They’ve been denied the rights to attend school and to work. They’ve been forbidden to expose any part of their skin. Many have been stoned to death or shot in public stadiums (in front of cheering men) for alleged adultery. So what does the…
Presbyterian
Walk into Leon’s Lounge (1006 McGowen, 713-659-3052) on the right night, and it’s quite possible you’ll hear something along the lines of “Mom! When are you going to fucking yodel?” Sometimes the owner’s mom, a former lounge singer, does classic songs on request. Other times she just belts them out…
Letters to the Editor
R.I.P., Harley Dog gone: Thank you for your story on the HSPCA [“Lost Dog,” Hair Balls, by Richard Connelly, May 18]. As a follow-up to your report, I would suggest that you wade through the HSPCA Web site (www.spcahouston.org) to see if you can find anywhere on the site any…
Capsule Reviews
“Bringing Shadows to Light: Contemporary Argentine Photography” Addressing subjects as diverse as war, the tango and the country’s current economic crisis, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents a good small survey of contemporary Argentine photography. There are pictures of a man’s crude drawings recording the torture he witnessed during…
PM with AM
It’s been four months since DJ AM rocked Houston Hollywood-style at the Midtown club Hue during All-Star Weekend. Now, the celebrity spinster and ex-boyfriend of Nicole Richie is back at Hue for the DJ AM VIP Party. He’ll throw down requisite dance-floor hits (“Milkshake”) and unlikely mash-ups (“Sweet Caroline” backed…
Image of the Week
I (Don’t) Feel Good: The hardest-working man in show business looks a little weathered during a recent Houston visit. It appears that as the song almost says it’s hard out there for a sex machine, even one like James Brown. Click here to enlarge…
What Have You Got Against “Hispanic”?
Dear Mexican, Why don’t Mexicans like being called Hispanics? The Spaniards conquered our ancestors — that’s why we’re Spanish-speaking Catholics. Why deny this? Hispanic Doesn’t Make Me Panic Dear Spic, Because Mexicans aren’t Hispanic — Mexicans are Mexican. Besides, the history of “Hispanic” involves two attributes Mexicans despise: political correctness…
Hotties A-Bound
It’s a lesbian cult fave and perfect late-night soft-porn fodder for straight guys everywhere. Oh, and it has a plot, too. The 1996 flick Bound stars two of the sexiest actresses to grace celluloid: Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly. Dark-haired beauty Gershon plays Corky, a hot lesbian ex-con who works…
Nu Shooz
I am one of those annoying people who, for the most part, like a band’s earlier work more. Especially in this modern, accelerated era, where everything seems to have the half-life of a mutant atom, I find that many artists don’t have the staying power I wish they had. For…
Jesus Wept
Publisher: 2K Games
Platform: PC, PlayStation 2,
XBox
Price: $39.99
ESRB Rating: T for Teen
Score: .666 (out of 10)
Such a Pig
Don’t let Matt Besser’s slick L.A. address and impressive comedy credentials fool you: The man is from Arkansas. A founding member of the Chicago sketch troupe Upright Citizens Brigade and a producer of its Comedy Central show, Besser returns to the South for the jokes in his latest show “Woo…
The Examined Life
Something happens to the human brain as it ages — perhaps more so to that of an artist who’s spent a life observing. Time becomes less linear, chronology fades away, and events morph together, rendering the realm of experience more as an impressionist painting than a crisp photograph. A brush…
Dreams of Syndication
Will & Grace: Series Finale (Lions Gate) The way this got hustled to shelves, mere days after Will Truman and Grace Adler said their mushy farewells, you’d think this were some classic adios — another M*A*S*H or Cheers wrap-up. Alas, it was just another Very Special Episode of a show…
“Sex” on Sunday
What do a groceries-carrying bear and a jazz-playing blow-up doll have in common? Well, nothing really, but that’s the point of musician Seth Paynter’s “Sex and the Absurd,” a performance art piece that’s part of DiverseWorks’s Sunday Sonorities. “Sex” consists of avant-garde improvisational jazz and short skits featuring “light acting…
Rebel with a Cause
Sitting in a hotel bar, Vinnie Paul Abbott is stunned that not a single TV is tuned to the hockey game. His boys, the Dallas Stars, are taking an ass-whuppin’ at the hands of the Avalanche — or so Big Vin tells me — and he’d like to see it…
Our top DVD picks for the week of May 30
The Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 2 (Warner Bros.) A Fine Romance (Tango) Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster (Dark Sky) Freedomland (Sony) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Fox) Hercules/Mole Men Against the Son of Hercules (Image) John Wayne: An American Icon Movie Collection (Universal) The Kids in the Hall: Complete Season 4 (A&E)…
Ain’t No Pity Party
When describing the performers of Dionysus Theatre, Deborah Nowinski can’t use the words “love” and “acceptance” enough. “So many people think we’re a pity party,” she says. “And we’re not.” The company, which Nowinski founded and directs, features disabled, chronically ill, disadvantaged and able-bodied performers, each of whom has a…
Bauhaus
Goths of the netherworld, rejoice! Bauhaus, the legendary founding fathers of goth rock, have dug themselves out of their shallow graves and reunited yet again. Formed in 1978, the UK band broke ground with a gloomy mix of cathartic post-punk, groove-based glam rock and dub before breaking up five years…
Various Artists
Say what you will about despots, but at least they inspire flippin’ great music — think the blues, pre-Pol Pot Cambodian garage rock and especially Tropicália, the late-’60s Brazilian stew of psychedelia and native beats. Even four decades later, Tropicália buzzes in your brain like Red Bull: bubbly, organ-drenched F-yous…
Will Dance for Cash
The belly-dancing discipline originated in the Middle East, so it’s safe to assume that that’s where you’d go to see it done right, yes? Well, hold on to your finger cymbals — there’s a group of Houston dancers who’re headed to Egypt to show them how it’s done. H-town’s Urban…
C.J. Chenier
Don’t look now, but C.J. Chenier just might be shaping up into zydeco’s answer to late-period Johnny Cash. The title track of his sophisticated, mournful new CD, The Desperate Kingdom of Love, is an amazingly fleshed out cover of what was once a nearly hidden song from P.J. Harvey’s underappreciated…
Strange Name, Fine Dish
Bobotie, which came to the Cape of Good Hope via the Malay slaves, is the closest thing to a South African national dish. And Leibman’s Wine & Fine Foods (14529 Memorial, 281-493-3663) is the only place in Houston that offers it ($7.99 per pound). Sort of like shepherd’s pie with…
Ripe for Eatin’ or Throwin’
“There’s only two things that money can’t buy,” Guy Clark has sung. “That’s true love and homegrown tomatoes.” But with respect to the Texas legend, money can buy homegrown tomatoes at Urban Harvest’s second annual Tomato Fest. The two-weekend event features every variety, from heirlooms to grape and cherry, for…
Starlight Mints
Like fellow Oklahomans Garth Brooks and Color Me Badd, the Starlight Mints do not sound like the Flaming Lips. But the Mints still have to weather the comparison, even though their cartoonish take on psychedelia has them more closely resembling an Elephant 6 fringe band. Sure, both of these Okie…
Screw October
For the past five years, I’ve resisted ragging on Blue October. They were our only local rock success story, and I was glad for the HSPVA grads when they signed with Universal, sad when they were subsequently dropped and happy again when they were picked up again. And since every…
Galán Gala
Texican blues rockers Los Lonely Boys are blowing up all over, and rightfully so. Today you can get a unique view of San Angelo’s favorite sons at a screening of Los Lonely Boys Cottonfields and Crossroads. The doc screening is a part of An Evening with Hector Galán, a showcase…
The High Score
Gotta love a band with song titles like “Ringing in Our Ears” and “Roky Erickson.” Knoxville’s High Score recalls those innocent days when Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe and Wreckless Eric churned out anthem after anthem in the gulch between punk and new wave. Every track seems to have its British…
Aw, Hell, Yeah!
Today is just another day to most people. But to metalheads, June 6, 2006, is sacred. It marks the 45th birthday of Slayer’s lead singer Tom Araya. And, numerically, it’s the mark that evangelical Christians love to hate (666, anyone?). Today, Houston metalheads can celebrate this hellish day at Route…
One-Piece? Two-Piece?
June marks the beginning of a torturous time for American women: swimsuit season. Fortunately, Ann Taylor LOFT and Glamour magazine will help ease the pain with “Get Sunkissed in Style,” a fashion show featuring a new bathing suit and accessories collection. It’s time to confront the swimsuit, ladies, not slam…