Mighty Mouse
It took the creative giants behind Men in Black II five years to come up with a disappointingly uninspired sequel that not only treads familiar ground but does so with far less pizzazz than the original. It took the forces behind Stuart Little 2 a mere two years to unveil…
Showdown at the Shore
North and South Korea have their DMZ, the demilitarized zone where itchy soldiers stare tensely at each other across a patch of deserted border. East and West Berlin had their famous wall, with barbed wire, spotlights, motion detectors and guard towers all designed to keep two populations apart. And two…
The Pride of Broadway
Julie Taymor was an unusual choice to turn Disney’s animated Lion King into a flesh-and-blood musical. The award-winning director’s past productions ran the gamut from Asian folk tales to Shakespeare, and she used puppets and masks in surprising ways to tell her narratives. This was not a woman who would…
New World Order
Tony Vallone, who made his name with Italian and French restaurants, has always relied on Mexican cooks to prepare European dishes, but now he’s asking his chefs from south of the border to re-create the cuisine of their homeland. Vallone’s oddly named Mexican venture, Los Tonyos Cantina, is scheduled to…
The Biggest and the Baddest
“The Big Show” at Lawndale Art Center looks like an art garage sale. It’s as if every sometime artist living within 100 miles of this city unearthed a 20-year-old craft project from behind the gas cans in his garage, stumbled across a flyer for the free juried exhibition and said,…
Hot Tunes, Summer in the City
It’s time for another round of Houston Press Music Awards jinxes. Considering that last year’s big winners were Japanic (who broke up six months later) and South Park Mexican (who’s now looking at 45 years in the pen), some acts might be a little leery about taking home a trophy…
After M*A*S*H
At this very moment, members of the Television Critics Association are gathered at the Ritz-Carlton in Pasadena, California, to preview this fall’s new series, interview those responsible for them and, finally, gorge themselves silly and drink themselves stupid on the networks’ dwindling dime. This event, the so-called “press tour,” takes…
Cowpunk Deluxe
The phone call catches Jason Ringenberg on the cordless hanging out with his daughters on his farm. It’s an appropriate setting for the founding father of cowpunk, a movement that helped birth today’s alt-country scene — except Ringenberg, who was born and raised on an Illinois hog farm, now raises…
Curses, Foiled Again!
The reprimand issued to an embattled Houston police captain has been overturned by a judge, who noted that the department’s vague rules about profanity and conduct could have been applied against the police chief himself. Captain Mark Aguirre received the written reprimand from Chief C.O. Bradford in November after some…
The Real Motor City Madman
By its very nature, rock and roll is all about youth. Writing, performing and producing mostly for those to whom the terms “mortgage” and “cholesterol level” might as well be Martian concepts, the industry guarantees itself an entirely new audience every few years. And that pisses Wayne Kramer off to…
Midsummer Night’s Political Dreams
Political consultant and lobbyist George Strong went fishing for laughs last week when he rose to lecture a meeting of the Harris County Democrats on upcoming elections. “I’m going to start my little speech tonight with a joke,” Strong told the audience, which waited expectantly. The anecdote was brief, only…
Grimm and Bare It
It’s a little-known pop culture fact, but Houston has a tenuous claim as “the birthplace of psychedelic rock” and also the use of the word “psychedelic” as we know it. The 13th Floor Elevators’ Tommy Hall lifted the word from LSD pioneer Humphrey Osmond (who coined it in a couplet…
Three Stooges?
Three Stooges? Less politics, more police: Captain Mark Aguirre of the Houston Police Department is right [“The War Within,” by Richard Connelly, June 27]. In Houston there are too many political stooges, too many lazy cops, too many whiners and too many cowardly cops. Houston deserves better than the administration…
DJ Shadow
Perhaps DJ Shadow thought his last album, 1996’s Endtroducing…, was so ultramodern that he could just wait until people caught up with it before he came out with another disc. He was right — it was. And more than five years later, the long winter is over. It’s time once…
Screechin’ Halt
After ten seasons of playing Screech on Saved by the Bell, Dustin Diamond decided to reinvent himself by trying his hand at comedy. To do that, the most unavoidable star of the TV show that no one likes, yet everybody seems to watch, wisely switched back to the moniker of…
Moodafaruka
In terms of expressiveness, the Spanish-style guitar has always been an underrated instrument. Most people’s only exposure to flamenco and other Spanish guitar music is probably limited to old westerns and the occasional music piped into a culturally inaccurate Casa Olé during happy hour. With its second release, the fine…
Storyboard Treatment
Books, music, Web sites, video games, they all fall under the big umbrella known as media. If you want to sell an idea through any one of these outlets, it has to have crossover potential, the ability to be marketed in a number of different ways, namely to that center…
Kittie
Heavy metal has a long and ignoble tradition of female-led bands that just begs for a juicy Behind the Music-type documentary. In light of Lita Ford’s T&A power-ballad videos, Betsy Bitch’s “heavy” aluminum and Tori Amos’s deliciously awful first album (the apropos-of-nothing Why Kan’t Tori Read?), it quickly becomes clear…
Currying Favor
Fast food is always synonymous with inexpensive, but it doesn’t have to mean mediocre, too. If you can face the lunchtime traffic, a remarkable bargain awaits at Raja Quality Restaurant & Sweets (5667 Hillcroft, 713-782-5667). Shield your eyes momentarily from the kaleidoscopic glare of the pastry case, and ask for…
Detroit Cobras
The Detroit Cobras may play other people’s music, but the band isn’t just reheating musical leftovers. Like the Dirtbombs, the Motor City quintet injects soul, rockabilly and R&B oldies with quick tempos and gritty playing, re-energizing gems from the days when your grammy could shake a leg without breaking a…
Dog Days
As I bite into the Chicago-style dog at James Coney Island, the natural casing on the all-beef frank squeaks and pops, the sport pepper bursts, releasing a dose of spicy vinegar, and the briny dill spear crunches. Three separate flavor explosions — and that’s just the first bite. This is…
Squint
Squint is closing in on greatness. And that’s pretty wonderful indeed if your musical style of choice is guitar pop that turns tales of the heart into three-and-a-half-minute bursts of overdriven rock. Vocalist/guitarist/lyricist Dane Adrian doesn’t flinch when rummaging through his closet full of emotional skeletons. Instead, he polishes them…
Tang with Bang
The hot breath of a bitter July afternoon chases us into the semi-dark coolness of Solero (910 Prairie, 713-227-2665). Chef Arturo Boada immediately senses our mission: to rid this burden of a Houston summer from our weary souls. Hard liquor, even the golden blend of good beer, can’t begin to…
Our Lady Peace, with Ash and greenwheel
Though it has nothing much to do with appealing to fans and everything to do with smart marketing, the summer of 2002 will go down in history as the time when a slew of big-venue acts played the Verizon. The latest is Canada’s Our Lady Peace, hot on the concert…
Todd Snider
When a Billboard reporter asked him what was the most memorable part of recording his latest album, New Connection, Todd Snider replied, “Going out for wine.” Knowing the devil-may-care Snider, that hucksterish response probably isn’t far from the truth. Like a hayseed version of Chris Isaak, Snider’s appeal goes beyond…
Sub: Par
Of all the A-list men playing dedicated authority figures, Star Wars alums Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson remain among the most amusing and pleasing, which is why K-19: The Widowmaker glides along engagingly rather than sinking. In many ways it’s just another cramped, dank submarine movie — bells, whistles, leaks,…
Nemesisters
Think of it as Todd Solondz light — loads of dysfunction but, thankfully, none of the perversion. In fact, despite deep-seated neuroses, occasionally inappropriate behavior and a propensity for unhealthy relationships, the four females who are the Marks family are a fairly benevolent lot. As observed by writer-director Nicole Holofcener,…