Engaging Postures
Don’t be put off by the fact that this is a movie about over-educated, alienated young men trying to make it big in Los Angeles. The Low Life isn’t the sort of self-indulgent, self-absorbed tripe that a slew of Gen X poster children have passed of as ironic and insightful…
Heavenly Fire
“It feels like a minor miracle.” That’s how Jason Ringenberg, the Jason of Jason and the Scorchers, describes his band’s reunion. Houston fans of high energy, country-tinged rock and roll should thank heaven that the age of minor miracles isn’t over; no one’s due to be canonized, but the Scorchers…
Good and Rotten
One of the most welcome surprises of WorldFest is the premiere of Joe’s Rotten World, a terrific comedy from Los Angeles-based writer/director Richard LaBrie, which comes on like A Confederacy of Dunces as directed by Albert Brooks and scripted by Tom Robbins. The premise is too complicated and bizarre to…
Rotations
Juliana Hatfield Only Everything Atlantic It’s appropriate that performances by Juliana Hatfield appear on the soundtracks for the movie Reality Bites and the TV series My So-Called Life. After all, the core of Hatfield’s music is her angst-ridden lyrics, filled with more anguish and anxiety than even Prozac can handle…
Price and Time
This year, all the WorldFest films save three — Someone Special, Self Portrait and Manhattan by Numbers — will be seen in a pair of side-by-side auditoriums at General Cinema’s Meyerland Plaza location. WorldFest begins Friday, April 21 and runs through Sunday, April 30; a day-by-day schedule of the films…
The Why of WorldFest
It’s baaaaack! WorldFest/Houston International Film Festival, which has zapped through so many incarnations it probably should be known as the Mighty Morphin Power Festival, has once again confounded its critics by returning for another engagement in the Bayou City. No matter what the gripes of film mavens with the fest…
Red Summer
There’s a big difference between films about Russians, and Russian films. It’s the difference between David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago and Nikita Mikhalkov’s Burnt by the Sun. Both deal with the same basic notion: individuals struggling with the totalitarian legacy of the 1917 Russian Revolution. But where Lean’s 1965 epic story…
Generations
Gregory Nava’s My Family (Mi Familia), a multigenerational epic about a Chicano family in east Los Angeles, is one of the most satisfying dramas I’ve ever seen. The narrative follows the changing fortunes of the Sanchez family from the early part of the century through the late 1970s. It begins…
It began in the Panhandle with the promise of great riches, only to crash and burn in a Houston courtroom. The wreckage is still smoldering, and the truth is nowhere to be found.
A few months later, even before some of his clients concluded that he had sold them out, it would be suggested that Tom Upchurch had faked a heart attack in open court. Upchurch also would be called mentally unstable and accused of being a flat-out lousy lawyer. And that’s just…
The Toxic Tort Case
A few months later, even before some of his clients concluded that he had sold them out, it would be suggested that Tom Upchurch had faked a heart attack in open court. Upchurch also would be called mentally unstable and accused of being a flat-out lousy lawyer. And that’s just…
Matter of Convenience
Watching Warner Cable’s recent rush to cloak itself in the First Amendment was to be reminded of a time, not so long ago, when the people who operate one of Houston’s two cable television franchises weren’t such free speech absolutists. That was two years ago, when Warner Cable, after fielding…
Have Your Money Ready
In the 24 years since its inception, the Houston International Festival has grown from a cozy, two-block-long arts and crafts show to a 22-square-block blowout that stretches over ten days, replete with heavyweight corporate sponsors like Enron and AeroMexico and a president who pulls down a six-figure salary. And this…
Death in the Morning
After 110 years of publishing, the Houston Post didn’t even bother to say goodbye. To almost no one’s surprise — except apparently some Post employees — the Post was put out of its financial misery this week when the Hearst Corporation, owner of the Houston Chronicle, announced it had purchased…
Suing Her Pants Off
When Brenda Flores read the line on the subpoena that said, “You Have Been Sued,” she was reminded of the old expression Ya la quiere mi calciones. Roughly translated, that means “he wants my underwear.” And to Flores, a Spring Branch housing activist and advocate for the immigrant community, it…
Letters
Inequality Under the Law Thank you for Steve McVicker’s piece on the contract deputy scandal [“Trickle Down Protection,” March 30]. This program is an affront to the basic principle of equality under the law. The most amazing thing about this program is that it has continued for so long in…
Border Songs
A brazen songwriter with an angelic voice, Tish Hinojosa heads the Border Tour, a roundup of various Texas performers who seem to be on a cultural collision course. Hinojosa’s heartfelt folk music and Spanish corridos mix with Don Walser’s honky-tonk swing, while Santiago Jimenez Jr. adds an authentic version of…
Picks
thursday april 20 NOW 25th anniversary celebration The oldest and biggest NOW chapter in Texas, the Houston Area NOW chapter, is having a party with coffee and cake and entertainment. The entertainment will be a video, One Fine Day, and possibly state Representative Debra Danburg and state Senator Rodney Ellis…
Getting Past the Goo
Utter the name Goo Goo Dolls to most people, and the response you get in return is automatic. “Who?” the person asks, suppressing fits of laughter. To the uninitiated, the Goo Goo Dolls sounds like the punch line to a bad joke. But to longtime fans and college radio listeners,…
The One That Got Away
I’ve always been sorry that Bruce Auden, the whippet-thin Englishman who was once the chef at Charley’s 517, escaped Houston and put down roots in San Antonio. Recently I had cause to be even sorrier: a dinner at his Restaurant Biga there was exciting enough to justify a three-hour car…
Defining de Kooning
It’s been the year of Willem de Kooning. In celebration of his 90th birthday last April, two major exhibitions have paid homage to the Dutch-born artist whom many regard as America’s greatest living painter. But while the most ambitious tribute may be the traveling retrospective that opened last May at…
Plus Ca Change
I don’t get it. Finally, after many, many months of hoopla about their recently imported high status chef and their freshly glammy look, the historically unexciting Birraporetti’s has unveiled its new ’90s-style menu — which turns out to be remarkable for its lack of excitement. What, I wonder, is the…