It’s a Mystery
The artistic directors of some of Houston’s theaters believe that the cure for the summertime blues is a little light, spine-tingling entertainment. And they may be right. Following in the footsteps of the Alley and its successful Summer Chills series, the Ensemble Theatre and Main Street Theater have selected mysteries…
Galactic Mediocrity
One speech and one prop from Men in Black combine to sum up the movie. An alien in four-legged Earthly form delivers the speech: “You humans, when’re you gonna learn that size doesn’t matter? Just ’cause something’s important doesn’t mean it’s not very, very small.” The most refreshing thing about…
Hit and Myth
Slapstick decadence is the dominant style at the Disney studios this summer, reaching all the way from Touchstone Pictures’ action hit Con Air to the 35th Walt Disney animated feature, Hercules. It’s a moviemaking mode that weds anything-for-a-laugh to anything-for-a-jolt, leaving imagination and authenticity in the lurch. Instead of creating…
A Gay Question
Dallas screenwriter Gretchen Dyer fully expected that some heterosexuals would resist the plot of her debut feature Late Bloomers. The film, which was directed and co-produced by her sister Julia Dyer, concerns two middle-aged women who unexpectedly fall in love while working at the same suburban high school. But Gretchen…
Fast Eddie’s Getaway
According to the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, it was all just a matter of timing. Last week, when the GHCVB announced the departure of its president, Eddie Webster, it noted that he had fulfilled a five-year commitment to the bureau. In the press release, GHCVB board chairman Lupe…
The Insider
No Diving, No Swimming No Pool The Bob and Elyse Lanier Aquatic Center at Moody Park was opened amid great fanfare last week, with the two namesakes of the new facility joining board members and high-ranking bureaucrats from the Parks and Recreation Department for the festivities. The $1.2 million swimming…
Dad, I Wrote Me a Book!
Over the years, Bob Lanier has occasionally dismissed some criticism or other from George Greanias by noting that Greanias is a “playwright.” That’s true: The ex-controller has two plays to his credit, Wilson and Hello, Hamlet, in addition to authoring or co-authoring several public policy books. By pointing out Greanias’s…
Letters
Sleepwalkin’ with Lee P. Gosh! A cross between Nelson Mandela and Tiger Woods, eh? [ The Insider, “Caution: He’s Got a Volcano in His Belly,” by Tim Fleck, June 5]. That would engender a vision of a prescient champion. I’m afraid all I can summon up with regard to Lee…
Press Picks
thursday july 3 Foot care on wheels Corns? Calluses? Athlete’s foot? Whatever your podiatric woe, the footcare evangelists of Dr. Scholl’s are eager to heal it. After the “Do Right By Your Feet Van Tour” arrives in Houston this morning, the mobile unit’s band of roving experts will ask footcare…
The Boys from Rio
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Michael Cordua must be feeling downright eulogized these days. His Nicaraguan home-style cuisine, recently dubbed “nuevo Latino” by food flacks, nourishes a reported 40,000 diners every month at his Churrasco’s and Americas eateries, while his signature chimichurri sauce now threatens to…
On the Right Track
It’s not unusual for the term “next big thing” to enter into discussion of the Derailers, an Austin-based collective of sharp-dressed men with perhaps just the right croon and twang to bridge the gap between alternative country’s rocker, radical and traditional camps. But at the moment, despite early words of…
Classic Touch
A connoisseur of classic rock might argue that, in his prime, Steve Miller was about as innovative an artist as, oh, the Guess Who or Peter Frampton. A quick rundown of his contributions to the classic rock catalog — “The Joker,” “Jet Airliner,” “Swingtown” and “Take the Money and Run”…
The Playa
The good news just keeps on coming for Suga Free and DJ Quik. Every ten minutes or so, another bit of it filters into a conference room at the Island Records offices on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard, where the rapper and his veteran producer are answering an interviewer’s questions. Somebody knocks:…
Static
Tape head… You could easily argue that Houmidity: Bad Weather, Bad Attitudes isn’t much of a documentary on the Houston music scene. And it’s likely that the video’s creator, Jamie Sralla (a.k.a. Butch Montenegro), would agree with you. Still, that hasn’t stopped Sralla from slapping a photocopied label on his…
Rotation
World Party Egyptology The Enclave World Party’s Karl Wallinger has his drawbacks. First off, he’s not much of a singer. True, Wallinger can carry a tune — but he carries it with only a scant measure of character. And lyrically speaking, he’s less a true poet than a collector of…