Costly Advances
This is a sidebar to this week’s feature, “Eaten Alive” In 1999, Amanda Vail, a Houstonian attending college in Alabama, took in a recently divorced friend and her daughter. She bought them a bed and consequently ended up short on rent at the end of the month. A $400 loan…
A Little Finesse
Comedian Finesse Mitchell is trying to be a good person, but the Almighty ain’t having it. “I just gave my life to Jesus Christ, I did,” he says. “But then he gave it right back. Said something about a background check. I’m like, ‘Everybody got a background check. I can’t…
Project Fabulous
If you like your fashion hot and cutting-edge — and local — today’s Project Marvack see-and-be-seen soiree is the place to be. Marvack is a showcase of seven local designers (whose first initials make up the show’s title): Miguel Rodriguez, Alex Chapman, Ruby Marquez, Vivi Nguyen, Ayumu Sugawara, Cynthia Sheridan…
Heavenly Hag
There is evidently no limit to the sacrifices actors will make for their art. If you thought beautiful Charlize Theron went the distance by transforming herself into a bloated, scowling murderess for Monster, just wait till you and the kids get a load of Emma Thompson in the darkly amusing…
Porn to Be Wild
Paul Donnelly, the former head of Harris County’s probation department, is now known for three things: always keeping an open Bible on his desk, being a super-hard-assed boss, and using his county computer to surf for pornography. Donnelly received four months in jail earlier this month after prosecutors proved they…
Mo’s Art
It may seem hard to relate to a guy who was born 250 years ago (today, to be exact) in Austria. Especially if that guy is a preeminent musical genius who wrote his first full-length opera before most people learned how to ride a bike. But never mind that. The…
What’s Up, Dog?
Looking to mix it up for Chinese New Year? Try your local eatery. Spots like Fu’s Garden (2539 University, 713-520-7422) will celebrate the Year of the Dog with food, festivities and dragon dances. Look for a similar shindig at Shanghai River Restaurant (2407 Westheimer, 713-528-5528), where there’ll be a weekend-long…
Rocky Waters
No one has ever mistaken Rocky Balboa for an officer and a gentleman, but that’s just about what we get in the numbingly predictable and none-too-stirring Annapolis, an underdog-makes-good boxing movie stuffed inside what amounts to a U.S. Navy recruiting pitch, with a dash of Good Will Hunting tossed in…
Letters to the Editor
How They Roll Grrrl power: I just wanted to say the article was great [“Roller Grrrls,” by Keith Plocek, January 12]. It helps the public see and understand what we’re all about: women power. I also wanted to add that my grandfather is a great guy, and a good father…
What Dreams May Come
At some level, Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman, the Broadway smash hit that’s making its regional theater debut tonight at the Alley, is a fairy tale. But don’t expect a big bad wolf to pop up and hand-feed you a moral. “It’s unsettling, it’s disturbing, and it’s very wickedly funny,” explains…
Rock-Hard Abs
All right, fattie, this is your last chance. It’s almost February, and there you are holding a Crown and Coke and slurping Häagen-Dazs, paying no heed to those resolutions that have already been broken. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Start today off with a free beginner’s yoga…
The Hunt for Blood
The blood is gushing down Jacob’s face from a wound just above his eyelid. It’s mingling with the shampoo and water, pouring down his jaw, down his mostly naked body and onto the bathroom floor. Alex, who just punched Jacob, is panicking. So is Shane, who let us into his…
Eight-Bit Symphonies
Bach. Beethoven. Brahms. Mozart. Mario. The five pillars of classical music. And while those first four dudes had a good run, it’s that last guy who enraptures us now: a Japanese-born yet ostensibly Italian plumber in a bright red jumpsuit who, in the mid-’80s, warp-zoned his way into 60 million…
Dark and Lovely
The 80th Black History Month approaches, and with it, celebrations of all that has changed for the better since the first one in 1926. But some things, like the healing power of love and family, don’t change, and that’s the central theme of Jerome Hairston’s stage adaptation of the novel…
Dancing on “Clouds”
Forget tequila shots and string bikinis: On their recent trip to Mexico, the members of CORE Performance Company created a dance inspired by contemporary and ancient Mayan culture. This weekend they will perform “Woven Clouds,” an excerpt from the dance Corazón Abierto: Heart Open as part of the Jewish Community…
Dr. No
Tommy Tune’s world-premiere musical redo of Dr. Dolittle plays without intermission. Unfortunately, that means audiences will have to sit through all of it. A great many respected and talented Broadway professionals labored long and hard — but ultimately in vain — to fix this unfixable train wreck. But what’s jaw-droppingly…
I Scream, You Scream
“Rooooowwwwwwrrrraaaarrrrrrrrrooowwwwrrrrrrrr!” A guttural growl straight from the deepest pits of hell has just emanated from the throat of Melissa Cross, who follows it up with a giggle. “See, that didn’t hurt at all. But you should see the looks I just got!” That’s because the chipper, red-tressed, late-fortysomething voice instructor…
Don and Dirty
In Houston Grand Opera’s comic Don Pasquale, the bumbling Don Pasquale dumps his nephew and heir, Ernesto, because he won’t dump his strumpet girlfriend, Norina. Pasquale decides to get himself a new heir, in the form of a wife, and cut Ernesto out of the equation. Too bad he unwittingly…
Freaky Weekend
Warning: The film Live Freaky! Die Freaky! depicts graphic sex, rampant drug use and horrific, grisly murder. But hey, it’s done via clay puppets, so it’s really not so bad. It’s the year 3069, and humans are pig-eating nomads. A solemn figure finds a dusty version of the book Healter…
Capsule Reviews
Culture Clash in AmeriCCa Back in September 2004, Culture Clash in AmeriCCa sneaked in from California under the radar and landed in Houston for an eye-blink of a stay at the Alley. If you were lucky enough to stumble into the show, you were treated to an hour and a…
Gutbucket Blues, Chopped and Screwed
Few American cities are as musically intertwined as Houston and Memphis. Think back to Duke-Peacock Records — a label founded in Memphis and moved to Houston that featured Memphis singers Junior Parker and Bobby “Blue” Bland singing the songs of Houston guys like Joe Medwick, Johnny Copeland and Texas Johnny…
Vroom with a View
You may not get hot and bothered about horsepower, tiptronic transmissions or cornering ability. But stroll through the mammoth Houston Auto Show, and you’re likely to become an expert. This year’s event features a slew of rides, including the 2007 Ford Shelby GT500 (and its ridiculous 475 horses) and the…
Eat Your Smut
It’s hard to imagine what the brave soul was thinking who first tried huitlacoche, the black fungus that grows on sweet corn, also known as corn smut. But that pioneer was onto something. You can try huitlacoche, whose name comes from the Aztecan language Nahuatl, in the beautifully presented arroz…
Grave Matters
You walk down a long hall and make a U-turn into a stark, brightly lit, empty white room. Inside, a man crouches in a corner. It’s disconcerting, until you realize it’s a mannequin…but then it starts to move. The work, TO MAKE A BLIND MAN MURDER FOR THE THINGS HE’S…
Gay-Unit
If male rappers aren’t boasting about their diamonds, clothes, cars or shoes, they’re talking about the bitches and hos they’re touching, teasing, fucking and squeezing. This has proved a successful formula for everyone from 2 Live Crew to the Ying Yang Twins, but maybe that’s because the bitches they’re talking…
Be Sharp
Sarah Sharp is one part Tina Fey, one part Aimee Mann. Both Sharp and Fey thrive in a male-dominated world, write brilliantly and would be dead ringers for each other with a quick dye job. And both Sharp and Mann create soaring, piano-infused, jazz-tinged pop melodies that come crashing down…
Capsule Reviews
“Beth Secor: atavistically speaking” Beth Secor loves to tell stories, writing and delivering funny, poignant and autobiographical monologues. In her visual art, she makes portraits inspired by people’s stories. Her current show at Inman Gallery presents a range of people young and old, modern and historic. The paintings are small…
Morningwood
Once you get past the sophomoric band name (huh-huh, they said “wood”) and the junior high-level double entendres — e.g., the single “Take Off Your Clothes” references both tits and hits “rocking hard” — Morningwood is pretty darn irresistible. The NYC group’s repeatedly delayed full-length debut whirls in a hormone-charged…
Solar Powered
The works of Xul Solar — the late Argentine painter, sculptor, architect and poet — display a sporadic and sublime use of color and light. Beginning today, 90 of Solar’s works will be on display for his first American retrospective: “Xul Solar: Visions and Revelations” at the Museum of Fine…
Exit the Matrix
Pop-culture pundits generally fall into two camps: those who think entertainment encourages a nation of knuckle-draggers, and those who say it’s actually making us smarter. In the case of Atari’s The Matrix: Path of Neo, both sides have a point. Like the movie trilogy that inspired it, Path of Neo…
Prince Paul
Prince Paul might be the least commercially minded beatsmith in hip-hop to be afforded superproducer status. An old-school devotee still young enough to have helped widen hip-hop’s sonic palette during the now-mythologized late-’80s/early-’90s era, he’s often given credit for being the godfather of alt-rap for his work on De La…
Saved by the Bell
We could go on and on about why life was better in elementary school. That pizza — no more than flat dough and ground beef — was glorious. The Elmer’s glue never made us sick, and don’t even get us started on recess. So it’s no surprise that when filmmaker…
Now Dirtier than Ever
The Aristocrats (Lions Gate) The single joke around which Paul Provenza’s documentary revolves has a standard beginning and ending, like pieces of bread that make a sandwich stuffed with excrement, incest, and whatever other foulness the teller can come up with. Provenza and Penn Jillette recorded more than 100 comedians…
Beck
Beck’s 2005 Guero album, hailed as the folk-rock-rap-whatever successor to his ’96 landmark Odelay, reveled in the artist’s usual ironic self-awareness. The title, for one, translates to “white boy,” belying a record drizzled in country twang, Mexican slang, grungy hip-hop, orchestral bossa nova and funky electronica. Now out of that…
Dirty Girls
San Diego’s Some Girls copped their name from the Rolling Stones’ classic 1978 album. But the similarities between the two acts pretty much end there. Touring in support of their latest release, Heaven’s Pregnant Teens, the all-male hardcore band will rip through Walter’s on Washington today with their hard-hitting, aggressive…
Our top DVD picks for the week of January 24
Address Unknown (Tartan) Anyone Can Dance: Nightclub Freestyle (Delta) National Lampoon’s Barely Legal (MGM) Dallas: The Complete Fourth Season (Warner Bros.) Educating Rita (Sony) Flightplan (Touchstone) The Fog (2005) (Sony) God Save the Queen: A Punk Rock Anthology (Music Video Dist.) Hooked (Eclectic) Ludacris: Southern Smoke (Music Video Dist.) My…
Mary J. Blige
In December’s Vibe, Mary J. Blige said that even though she’s comfortable revealing her abs in photographs, “I ain’t giving you titty, nipple, pubic hair or damn near clitoris.” While that’s certainly among the most colorful quotes uttered by a public figure this year, Blige’s comment actually runs counter to…
Drawn Together
For her quirky drawings, the late American artist Eva Hesse utilized everything from paint and plaster to string and wire. “Eva Hesse: Drawings” at the Menil Gallery features more than 100 of the German immigrant’s works. Interestingly, the artist insisted on calling her drawings “paintings.” In one untitled piece, two…
Rich Hopkins and Luminarios
Just shows how mucked up the music scene is that a guy with Rich Hopkins’s pedigree is passing through town almost anonymously. It wouldn’t be unfair to call Hopkins the Tom Petty of the desert; Hopkins has been a key figure and driving artistic force in not one but two…
The Strokes
The Strokes were labeled the saviors of NYC’s rock and roll scene when they oozed out of hipster enclaves (and, er, prep school) in 2001. But in the ensuing years, all of the tricks that made the fab five so exciting — snappy hooks, half-drunken confessions of love/lust and off-balance,…
Kinda Blue
Despite their modest upbringing in small-town Odell, Illinois, the members of the Living Blue have done well for themselves in their eight-year career. The fuzzed-out garage band — once known as the Bloody Knuckles and later as the Blackouts — recently played at Little Stevie Van Zandt’s Underground Garage Festival…
Zilla
“Critical Bigotry in Action: A Brief Yet Telling Interlude”: Right from the start I’m suspicious that Zilla’s Egg CD looks like a “jam band” disc based on the “art” festooning the “cover.” And lo and behold, one of the guys is credited with both congas and bongos, and the God…
It’s “Anarchy” at the Meridian
Lately, as it seems rock music has reached its creative zenith and is now whizzing endlessly in a postmodern spin cycle, revolutionary bands are reuniting to teach the young copycats what’s what. Wire, Gang of Four, X and Mission of Burma are just a handful of influential punk/postpunk outfits that…
Explosions in the Sky, with the Octopus Project and A Hawk and a Hacksaw
Listening to Explosions in the Sky’s music evokes several moods. Each subtle drone builds to a raw, almost deafening crescendo and winds up back in another valley of mellow, guitar-based melodies. A single song can leave listeners amped up or tranquil, depending on what they’re looking for in the music…
Eaten Alive
If you’d know the value of money, go and borrow some. — Benjamin Franklin Halloween was coming up, and 17-year-old Tinita Samuels wanted to go trick-or-treating with her cheerleading squad, the Acres Homes Bears. She had recently graduated from high school and sold her pom-poms and cheer skirt. Renting a…
Puppets and Prophecy
Decades of sci-fi films have proved it: Very few people can beat an ominous prophecy — unless The Force is strong with them or they’re the Chosen One. But hey, they’ve gotta try. In Touching Ed Sullivan: A Televisceral Puppet Show, the latest from local puppetry artists Jenny Campbell and…
Valley of the Dolls
The big news about Bubble, the new film by director Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich, Traffic), is the way it’s being released. Rather than opening first in theaters, then later on DVD and cable, Soderbergh and his producers have decided to do it all at once. Or so they thought. Turns…
I Am the Walrus, Part 2
“I weep for you,” the Walrus said: “I deeply sympathize.” With sobs and tears he sorted out Those of the largest size, Holding his pocket-handkerchief Before his streaming eyes. “O Oysters,” said the Carpenter, “You’ve had a pleasant run! Shall we be trotting home again?” But answer came there none…
Best of the Last
It’s not often you get a chance to check out a reality TV star. Okay, fine, it’s like every other damn day — those people just won’t go away. But this one’s funny, and he proved it by taking home the crown on NBC’s Last Comic Standing 2 back in…
La Mordita
This is a sidebar to this week’s feature, “Eaten Alive” In October, Hurricane Katrina evacuees Shanita Johnson and Lionel Bara received a $2,300 check from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They couldn’t find a branch of their bank near their apartment in Houston, so they went to ACE Cash Express,…
Shine On!
Pink Floyd has long been associated with an epic live performance and a totally killer light show. So you know you’re in for a trip when LaserSpectacular presents a light show set to the music of Pink Floyd’s epic, heroin-laced album, Dark Side of the Moon. Spectators will take in…
Oh, the Gaul!
Anyone who thinks traditional opera is a yawner needs to check out the plot of Opera in the Heights’ latest production, Norma. The show finds supposedly celibate priestesses getting freaky, dudes getting frisky with virgins, and even some attempted suicide. The story takes place in Roman-occupied Gaul circa 50 BC,…