Have a Bowl
The endless restroom lines, the parking nightmares, the air horns and screams from beer-doused crowds — and plane tickets, too? You couldn’t pay us to travel to a college bowl game. Not when most fall on New Year’s Day, quite possibly the biggest hangover day of the year. And not…
Focking Wonderful
Directed by . With .
Trend-Spotting
Britney got married. Ashlee was caught lip-synching. ODB died. Congress continued to wring its hands about the legality of downloads, which flourished anyway. Conservative groups condemned sex in popular culture, while Usher’s sultry Confessions shot to No. 1. A major label signed a guy who can’t sing, can’t dance and…
Deck the Halls
You’ve endured a week’s worth of office holiday parties and family get-togethers, and you’ve consumed more fruitcake than one ever thought imaginable. What better way to shake off those year-end pounds than paying a visit to the ladies of Danseparc? Their blend of indie, ’80s and electro-pop has been the…
Leaning Sideways
Our best movies of the year actually may have been anything but the best to a few of our critics — such is the dilemma of offering employment to writers of dissenting opinion. In other words, the No. 1 film of 2004 wasn’t universally heralded by our team of Bill…
Smells Like Indie Spirit
Ever find yourself missing the word “alternative” as a concept, a signifier, a lifestyle? Nowadays, any dudes-with-guitars collective either has to do the Creed butt-rock thing, the whine-incessantly-about-your-ex-girlfriends emo thing, or the get-beat-up-incessantly-by-your-ex-girlfriends indie-rock thing. It’s harder and harder to find the best aspects of each combined: the fist-pumping intensity…
The Fat Man Cometh
There are worse things than spending the holidays with a fat, profanity-hurling tough guy — especially one who just happens to love your hometown. “I come to Houston three times a year at least. I love it,” says Joey Diaz in a thick New York accent. Chances are you’ve seen…
Second Run
While Michael Moore and Mel garnered most of this year’s critical attention, plenty of fine films opened to little or no fanfare. Following are our reviewers’ favorite movies that didn’t draw the adulation they deserved. Consider yourself armed for the next trip to Blockbuster. Control Room In a year of…
God Save the Scene
It’s difficult to survey the hip-hop of 2004, more bloated and self-referential than ever, and not imagine the mythical AOR wasteland of the mid-’70s. Like rock before it, hip-hop has easily won a cultural acceptance once unthinkable, and our reward is a parade of Jadakisses and G-Unit solo projects, preaching…
Sunday Chaat
The host at Annapurna South Indian Cuisine on NASA Road 1 brings some puffy pooris to our table. Served hot out of the oven, the paper-thin flatbreads look like inflated pancakes. I tear one apart and use some of the flimsy skin to wrap up a bite of buttery lamb…
From Major to Minor
To understand this most tumultuous year in film, over which loomed the ghost of a blessed messiah and the shadow of an accursed pariah, turn your eyes from the movie screen and look to the bookshelf. There you will find a copy of Peter Biskind’s Down and Dirty Pictures, which…
Marrying the Mainstream
In 2004, the line between indie and mainstream rock disintegrated even faster than Britney Spears’s quickie Vegas marriage. Vinyl obsessives mingled with white-hat-wearing fratheads at Modest Mouse shows, Taking Back Sunday debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard charts, and Death Cab for Cutie earned O.C.-sanctioned buzz and a major-label…
Marrying the Mainstream
In 2004, the line between indie and mainstream rock disintegrated even faster than Britney Spears’s quickie Vegas marriage. Vinyl obsessives mingled with white-hat-wearing fratheads at Modest Mouse shows; Taking Back Sunday debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard charts; and Death Cab for Cutie earned O.C.-sanctioned buzz and a major-label…
Phantom Menace
Directed by Joel Schumacher. With Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, Patrick Wilson and Minnie Driver. Rated PG-13.
Dance, Dance Revolution
For hipsters, the coolest things are to be found twenty years ago, the most dreadful things ten years ago. So starting a few years back, we were deluged with ’80s electro and synth-pop, and we pretended to forget jungle ever existed. Electroclash, the first naive sortie by dance music into…
Rogue Bosoms, Bouncing Booties and Pac-Man Raps
So that auld acquaintances won’t be forgot, let’s go into auld lang syne mode, whatever that means… For rock and roll, at least, 2004 was another big year for Karen Berg. And who is Karen Berg, you might ask? Good question. I just found out about her myself. As it…
Bomb-alie
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. With .
On the Down-Low
Everyone knows all of Usher’s Confessions by now; everyone went to see Prince play “1999” for the very last time. Everyone knows all about Lil Jon and his penchant for hollering “Yayy-uuhhh!” With everyone paying attention to these superstars, a lot of other talented folks got drowned out, and not…
Americana Pie
aleswise, at least, 2004 was the year Nashville got its groove back. Heavy hitters such as Tim McGraw, George Strait, Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban and Shania Twain all dropped platinum records, but what has the city more excited than it’s been in years is the fact that it finally managed…
Fahrenheit 2004
The Moore the Merrier One film looms over all others in 2004: Fahrenheit 9/11, released in the heat of summer and the heat of an election-year battle, cast all comers in its estimable shadow and rendered them moot. Combined, the dozen or so political docs that received theatrical distribution this…
Up from the Underworld
The sight of six makeup-clad Norwegian satanists on the Ozzfest main stage this summer was a great sign for metal, if not the makers of Max Factor. During recent outings, metal’s biggest event of the year has been plagued by rote rap-rockers like Crazy Town, Papa Roach and Linkin Park,…
Dance, Dance Revolution
or hipsters, the coolest things are to be found 20 years ago, the most dreadful things ten years ago. So starting a few years back, we were deluged with ’80s electro and synth-pop, and we pretended to forget jungle ever existed. Electroclash, the first naive sortie by dance music into…
Small-Town Letdown
Through January 9 at Stages Repertory Theatre, 3201 Allen Parkway, 713-527-0123. $25-$35.
Americana Pie
Sales-wise, at least, 2004 was the year Nashville got its groove back. Heavy hitters such as Tim McGraw, George Strait, Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban and Shania Twain all dropped platinum records, but what has the city more excited than it’s been in years is the fact that it finally managed…
Smells Like Indie Spirit
ver find yourself missing the word “alternative” as a concept, a signifier, a lifestyle? Nowadays, any dudes-with-guitars collective either has to do the Creed butt-rock thing, the whine-incessantly-about-your-ex-girlfriends emo thing, or the get-beat-up-incessantly-by-your-ex-girlfriends indie-rock thing. It’s harder and harder to find the best aspects of each combined: the fist-pumping intensity…
Capsule Reviews
A Christmas Carol At the Alley Theatre, Charles Dickens is busy shaking his perennial chains with yet another revival of A Christmas Carol. The production, adapted and directed by Stephen Rayne for the Alley several years ago, tells the traditional story of the miser who won’t share a shilling with…
Letters
Shredded Wheat Bomb the artists: Congratulations on writing one of the most subtle pieces of satire yet seen in the Houston Press [“Bombs Away,” by Keith Plocek, December 9]. At first I thought your writer was actually trying not to pass judgment on street artists like CRÜZ. It took a…
On the Down-Low
veryone knows all of Usher’s Confessions by now; everyone went to see Prince play “1999” for the very last time. Everyone knows all about Lil Jon and his penchant for hollering “Yayy-uuhhh!” With everyone paying attention to these superstars, a lot of other talented folks got drowned out, and not…
Dome of Doom
It’s a nondescript weekday afternoon, and there is something highly unusual going on in the Reliant Astrodome. Actually, what’s highly unusual is the fact that there’s something going on at all. The activity isn’t too awe-inspiring: The high school football team from the tiny East Texas town of Newton is…
God Save the Scene
t’s difficult to survey the hip-hop of 2004, more bloated and self-referential than ever, and not imagine the mythical AOR wasteland of the mid-’70s. Like rock before it, hip-hop has easily won a cultural acceptance once unthinkable, and our reward is a parade of Jadakisses and G-Unit solo projects, preaching…
Capsule Reviews
“Arielle Masson” and “Gloria Kisch” Arielle Masson’s paintings at New Gallery have a decidedly astral bent to them; their imagery references galaxies, satellites and otherworldly architecture. Masson works large-scale with acrylic and ink on ten-foot-long scroll-like rolls of paper, and the works that are the most organic fare the best…
Hard Time
Ray Hill is one of Houston’s most colorful gadflies, always ready to man the barricades for an unpopular privacy-rights cause. If he were Tom Joad, he’d be saying, “Ma, wherever there’s a cop hassling a man trying to masturbate in an adult video store, I’ll be there.” He’s also parlayed…
Trend-Spotting
ritney got married. Ashlee was caught lip-synching. ODB died. Congress continued to wring its hands about the legality of downloads, which flourished anyway. Conservative groups condemned sex in popular culture, while Usher’s sultry Confessions shot to No. 1. A major label signed a guy who can’t sing, can’t dance and…
Rapping on Heaven’s Door
In the beginning, Juan James is just a kid. A seven-year-old latchkey kid in his hometown of Philadelphia with a couple of hours to kill after school one day. Instead of watching cartoons, he wanders into his parents’ bedroom. It’s a yellow crate, maybe orange, that he finds in the…
Christmas Break
Shake your tushes at
Up from the Underworld
he sight of six makeup-clad Norwegian satanists on the Ozzfest main stage this summer was a great sign for metal, if not for Max Factor. During recent outings, metal’s biggest event of the year has been plagued by rote rap-rockers like Crazy Town, Papa Roach and Linkin Park, but in…
Luscious Liquid lunch
Otilia’s Mexican Restaurant’s (7710 Long Point, 713-681-7203) cream of poblano soup ($5.50) with a michelada ($3.75) may well be the perfect lunch combination. The soup, which is the color of a good guacamole, is velvety-smooth and a little tangy, with bits of tortilla strips adding texture. The michelada is a…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, December 23 We at Night & Day know that our readers are a charitable bunch, even if they don’t have pockets deep enough to afford most benefits. But tonight there’s a free one: the “Mistletoe and Martinis” Houston Holiday Happy Hour at Red Star. The Russian-themed club will go…
Fire, Steel, Leather and Blood
he first thing I notice when walking into the dim, black-lit Meridian (1503 Chartres) is a topless woman on stage. She’s strapped to what looks like a ladder. A man stands behind her with two thick fluorescent whips that he uses to dust her body oh-so-lightly, practically tickling her. Despite…
Signs of Struggle
This is the time of year where we cling — to a fault — to positive, uplifting stories. So it’s refreshing that the Galveston Art Center is forgoing holiday schmaltz and instead offering two brutally frank exhibitions: “Teen” and “Welcome Homes.” One explores the sexual, whimsical, desperate thoughts that roil…
Crash and Yearn
The parade of real-life figures strolling into the googolplex has been endless this year: Look, there’s Jamie Foxx as musical Mount Rushmore Ray Charles, Johnny Depp as Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie, Kevin Spacey as forgotten teeny-popper Bobby Darin, Liam Neeson as sexologist Alfred Kinsey, Kevin Kline as standards composer…
Couple’s Pad
It’s amazing the things some women can get their men to do. Recently, artist Frank Rose allowed almost 400 scribbled-on Post-It notes to be stuck to his nude body, and then he let his girlfriend, Kara Duval, photograph him. Duval’s point? “We have this obsessive desire to label people with…
Sea of Loathe
Directed by . With . .