Venice Film Festival: Michael Almereyda Makes Magic With Cymbeline
Cymbeline is the misunderstood schoolchild of Shakespeare’s plays, the misfit who speaks up at odd times and sometimes says the wrong thing, awkward in all kinds of obvious ways. It’s a special-needs play, but the beauty of it is right there in its bones, not least because in it we…
Conservative PAC Calls Out Whitmire on Khator Texts (But Not Really)
In a tongue-in-cheek letter to Travis County’s Public Integrity Unit, a Houston lawyer for a conservative PAC has called for an investigation into Senator John Whitmire’s “coercive” texts to UH President Renu Khator. Jerad Wayne Najvar told the Press that the August 29 letter to Travis County DA Rosemary Lehmberg…
Reviews for the Lazy Gamer: Shadowgate
Game: Shadowgate Platform: PC, Mac, iOS, Android Publisher/Developer: Zojoi Genre: Point and Click Describe This Game in Three Words: It is Beuatiful Score: 7 out of 10 Synopsis: You are a young warrior charged by the wizard Lakmir to enter the living castle Shadowgate in order to stop an evil…
Jason Alexander: “Good-bye George Costanza, Hello Billy Joel”
“What a lot of people don’t know,” actor Jason Alexander tells us, “is that I’m an old song-and-dance man.” (And if we believe his biography, he’s also a director, producer, teacher, poker player, magician and author.) Set for a three-day run with the Houston Symphony in Jason Alexander: An Evening…
Hurricane Season 2014: Is Hurricane Season for Texas Over? Maybe.
This week, Tropical Storm Dolly, the Atlantic’s fourth named storm of the year, collided with Mexico in the southern Gulf. It was the first storm of any significance to form in the Gulf of Mexico this year, not surprising considering only four storms have managed to reach name status in…
Pet a Shark at the Houston Museum of Natural Science
The Texas State Aquarium is one of the top aquariums in the country, but the tank that holds the small sharks people are allowed to touch could use some work. So they’ve partnered with the Houston Museum of Natural Science in order to beta test a new set-up for the…
The 5 Best Happy Hours in Downtown Houston
If you love happy hour as much as we do, you’ll love this new series. We’re taking a look at the best happy hours in town, ‘hood by ‘hood. To narrow it down, we’re focusing on the spots with the best deals on not only drinks, but eats, too. From…
YouTube Channel Spotlights Houston’s Dumbest Drivers
We see them every day, especially if we have to spend any time at all in traffic. They are inconsiderate. They are dangerous. They are inattentive. They are Houston’s dumbest drivers and one man started a YouTube channel recently to highlight people behind the wheel in our car-obsessed city. “I…
The Rocks Off 200: Tim Ruiz, La Mafia’s Master of Technics
Who? Member of Grammy-winning Tejano band La Mafia, bassist Tim Ruiz has been creating music in this city for the better part of two decades. A top advocate for the local live-music scene with an emphasis on live jazz, Ruiz is the the creative mind behind the new Jazz Scene…
Why Are Male Fandoms So Hostile to Women?
Lately, I’ve become aware of sexism and misogyny in the most unexpected of place – geek fandom culture. I was a comic book nerd when I was a kid, but haven’t touched a super hero comic in decades, so I was unaware of the dramatic ways things had changed in…
365 Days (or So) of Cupcakes at Black Hole Coffee House
Black Hole Coffee House isn’t just a relaxing cafe to sit for a while over a book and smooth creamy latte. It’s also a place to get cupcakes. Yeah, cupcakes. You wouldn’t know it unless you followed the coffee shop on Facebook, or visited every single day. At the start…
HISD Officers Pin Student to the Ground Because She Was on Her Cell Phone
A brief cell phone video of Houston school district cops pinning down a screaming high school student caught fire on social media Wednesday. Students and parents alike have taken to Twitter and Facebook, airing concerns of overhanded policing in schools. The eight-second video, reportedly taken at Sam Houston High School…
Fashionably Late: Thoughts on Project Runway Season 13
We’re about halfway through the thirteenth season of Lifetime’s Project Runway, and the formula seems to hold up, though it’s certainly showing signs of wear and tear. Anchored by the overwhelming popularity of host Heidi Klum and host/mentor Tim Gunn, it’s entirely probable that we’ll be tuning in for as…
Eat This: Parrilla Mixta at Sal y Pimienta
Tucked away in a quiet corner of CityCentre next to The Tasting Room and across from the much more grandiose Texas de Brazil is Sal y Pimienta. A new project by Gianfranco Percovich (one of the original founders of Tango and Malbec) the restaurant opened this past May, offering South…
Breaking Down the Numbers of J.J. Watt’s New Deal
“Part of the negotiation piece is to ensure that we structure the deal in such a way that we protect ourselves as best we can with respect to (cap).” — Rick Smith on J.J. Watt’s contract extension With the Texans having spent the better part of the last four years…
Joe Ely + Apple: A Love Story
Improbably, Joe Ely is learning to ease up on the gas pedal a little. The Lubbock-bred performer has long been known for live sets and a work ethic both so intense he’s often seen as a Lone Star counterpart to his friend Bruce Springsteen. But Ely, a force in Texas…
10 Best Finishing Moves From Houston Wrestlers
Houston has been the home, however temporary, of some of the greatest performers to ever walk the squared circle. Every great wrestler needs a great finisher, so today we look at the ones that had been used to propel these men and women to victory! Undertaker – Tombstone Pildriver The…
Trudy Lynn Has America’s No. 1 Blues Album This Week
Trudy Lynn’s Royal Oak Blues Cafe is entering its second week in the No 1 spot on Billboard’s Top Blues Albums chart this week. She’s pretty happy about it. “Oh my God. Isn’t that wonderful?”, Lynn said by phone Wednesday morning. “I’m just floored. I don’t know how I feel…
I Took a Good Woman for Granted. Help!
Welcome to Ask Willie D, Rocks Off’s advice column where the Geto Boys MC answers reader questions about matters, in his own words, “funny, serious or unpredictable.” Something on your mind? Ask Willie D! SHOULD BREASTFEEDING IN PUBLIC BE LEGAL? Dear Willie D: I walked inside of a McDonald’s today…
Casting Martin Scorsese’s New Ramones Movie
Last weekend, word got out that an upcoming Ramones biopic would be helmed by one of America’s greatest living filmmakers, Martin Scorsese. The movie would be one of several band-related projects slated for 2016, the 40th anniversary of the bruddas’ debut album, Ramones. Scorsese isn’t that odd a choice to…
