Okie Glamour
You’re just going to have to accept that Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd are far too glamorous for the roles they inhabit in Where the Heart Is. It’s an issue that probably won’t hurt the film’s reception: Remember Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias? Your average moviegoer loves movie stars, and…
Letters From the Inside
There’s a city in Texas more foreign to us than any in New Guinea or Malaysia. In the last ten years, the size of this city has tripled to 150,000 people. The rest of us pay $2.4 billion a year to support it. The city is the Texas Department of…
New Frequency
Go get a few grains of salt to accompany these observations of tenable consistency: The movie industry is run by big kids; nifty sci-fi trickery may distract an audience from emotional shoals; cops and criminals are divided by a fine line; nostalgia and evil are cheaper by the pound; good…
Computer Math, UH-Style
They’ve been seething for a long, long time at the University of Houston’s computer science department. Now they seethe no longer. They take action. This being academia, the “action” consists of a resolution calling for the resignation of a dean, but still, you take your revolutions as you find them…
Seek Bomb Shelter
Rod Lurie’s Deterrence is a bush-league foreign policy debate disguised as a movie. There may come a day when Paramount Classics ships every print of this inert and tedious piece of business off to selected political science and social philosophy classes and tries to forget about the whole episode. But…
Buck Off
Early this month Robert Longoria headed toward his Bay City home on a semirural stretch of Texas 35 through Brazoria County. In the area of the Bar X Ranch subdivision west of Angleton, a deer darted from the brush into the roadway. Longoria, 27, slammed into the animal, injuring his…
Empire’s End
Unless you’re iron-willed Margaret Thatcher or some other sort of imperialist nostalgiaphile, it’s hard to get choked up these days about the demise of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. For one thing, it’s now 80 years after the fact; for another, joint government in Ireland remains a dicey proposition, and the Troubles…
Courting Disaster?
During the lengthy planning process for the Harris County Criminal Justice Center, one senior judge winced when he heard designers tell about how visitors would rely entirely on elevators for getting around in the building. The judge noted the heavy volume of traffic expected, especially in the 15 courts handling…
Geek love
The voice-mail message begins with the caller identifying himself in a clear, sharp tone: “Hey, this is Chris Thompson, executive producer of Action and Ladies Man, and I hear you’re trying to get a hold of me…” Long pause. “For some ungodly reason.” Then, in a split second, the voice…
Soul Machine
Todd Mikosh and the other Apple II diehards clump stubbornly in the hallway, rocks in a stream of Macintosh users. The Mac people — lots of them, dozens, maybe a hundred — flow past toward the big conference room and the Houston Area Apple Users Group’s main presentation, something about…
Boys Camp
James Valcq’s Zombies from the Beyond is a campy little musical filled with sex-starved characters who tell penis jokes while saving the world from certain destruction. The goofy premise is amusing, in the sort of sixth-grade-boy mentality that Hollywood has already exploited so well, even if it is entirely too…
Please Pass the Dance Salad
Modern dance, much like 20th-century classical music, is frequently a tough sell. Sometimes the performances click, but just as often they can be irritating, particularly to those arts supporters who may prefer to satiate their dance appetites with a yearly dose of The Nutcracker or Swan Lake. “Sometimes people who…
Letters
Salute from Saudi Wonderful story of courage and initiative [“Cambodian Queen,” by Melissa Hung, April 13]. I wish that all who came to the United States seeking opportunity would demonstrate the same qualities. Last month, while on a visit to Cambodia, I met many young people who were not waiting…
Elvis Is Dead!
There was a time when the King could be found in every casino lounge and wedding chapel in Vegas, inspiring countless conspiracy theories involving faked deaths and flights to Caribbean hideaways. But hard times have fallen upon Graceland, and impersonators have had to find creative ways to keep afloat. “[Audiences]…
Geezer Alert!
Just in case you thought there’s no method to talk radio’s madness, here’s the sermon straight from a high priest of the airwaves. Cater to a testosterone-heavy crowd under 54, ask unfair and biased questions, adopt the concerns of cornpone radio commentator Paul Harvey as your worldview, and never let…
Young Lion
When Tony Williams joined the Miles Davis Quintet in 1963, the 17-year-old drummer caused a bit of a stir — on the bandstand and with nightclub owners. From behind the kit, the innovative wunderkind quickly redefined modern jazz drumming. At the bar, though, he attracted the attention of only nightclub…
Skid Row Scholars
Neil Hurta admits he was mediocre at everything he did in his life, except getting drunk or high. At that, he was the best. Hurta took his first shot of Wild Turkey with his father at the age of seven. By the time he was ready to hit the doors…
Long Haul
It might as well have been the Mesozoic era for all the trace that’s left on the local psyche, but the 1960s and early-1970s music scene in Houston was as fertile as the Mississippi Delta of an earlier day. The Moving Sidewalks imported psychedelic rock to the Texas hinterlands with…
Joining the Battle
Everyone needs a crusade, something they fight valiantly for, or against. For some people it’s the fight against the Confederate flag. For others it’s the battle to keep Touched by an Angel on the air. For us, it’s been journalism contests. We have long railed thunderously against the seemingly unquenchable…
Listen In
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Compaq Center Tuesday, April 18 During an extended version of his classic “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” Bruce Springsteen dropped to his knees in front of a bouquet-bearing female fan and, smirking, looked across the stage toward his wife, E Street Band backup vocalist and…
Methadone Meltdown
There’s not much seedier than the sight of the sun rising on a methadone clinic’s early-morning trade. Everything about the scene screams shame, from the darkened predawn opening hours to the shaded, lifeless windows to the absence of identifying signage on the dingy, partly vacant brick building that anchors Houston…
Kick the Horns, G!
Forty-wide across the mixing board, bright orange equalizer lights rose and fell in sync with a blaring melody. It blasted through the studio speakers and out into the salmon-colored halls of Digital Recording Services, where legendary blues conductor and trumpeter Calvin Owens slowly paced — as much as a 74-year-old…
School Scam?
This spring Houston Independent School District officials continued a tradition established last year: a pat-yourself-on-the-back press conference. It featured videos of unnamed district employees on disability leave caught on candid camera in feats of unsuspected physical prowess. After the show-and-tell, which carried the subliminal message that “we got there before…
Rotation
Cat Power The Covers Record Matador Cat Power (a.k.a. Chan Marshall) has made one of the best albums of the millennium. Perhaps a far-fetched thing to say so soon, particularly since the new millennium hasn’t even officially started yet, but it’s too late to throw this CD in with last…
An Ideal Place?
In a city blessed with a vast horizontal expanse of excellent Vietnamese restaurants, I suppose there’s only one way for a Saigon-style newcomer to go, and that’s vertical. The market is growing up, as in “upscale” and “uptown,” I mean, or even “upstairs,” as evidenced by the two-story room trend…
Local Rotation
MC Breed Rare Breed Albatross Records MC Breed: The name is familiar, and for good reason. In 1991, with former partner DFC, the Flint, Michigan, native created one of the first bump-and-bounce anthems of the new decade, “Ain’t No Future in Yo’ Frontin’.” With its flustering beats and Breed’s prowling…
Flesh Pot
It would be difficult for even the most refined carnivore to refrain from licking his chops when first laying eyes on the spacious dining room at Fogo de Chão. Scurrying from table to table in the recently opened South Brazilian restaurant are seemingly dozens of waiters with flashing knives and…
Big Country
Like Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, and Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, Buddy and Julie Miller are one of the great duos of country. Their work is truly white American soul music of the best kind. Soul, in this sense, doesn’t necessarily mean music with…
Hogg Leftovers
Several weeks ago we reported on the closing of the Hogg Grill [“Hogg’s Head on a Stick,” April 6] and stated, with head high in righteous journalistic triumph, that a Mason Jar would assume the space of Cinda Ward and Armando Palacios’s failed operation. Seems we were only 33.3 percent…
Prehistoric Rock
When the previews for The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas debuted, one imagines that the same thought entered everyone’s mind: A Flintstones prequel? Did we really need this? Yes, the original made a lot of money, but that was five years ago, and let’s be honest: It stretched the premise…
Hot Plate
Goat Ropers’ Special: The friend who introduced me to the Chicken Bryan Texas ($14) at Carrabba’s [3115 Kirby, (713)522-3131; and assorted suburban locations] couldn’t explain why this bird soars, but I can: It’s the goat cheese. The popular dish, named in honor of an Aggie customer, starts with a simple…