The Mild, Mild West
If awards were given on the basis of inoffensiveness, Maverick’s would fill a trophy case. Who could get mad at the sight of Mel Gibson mugging his way through another comic role? He’s been a mere movie star ever since he left Australia and began acting for Hollywood. It would…
Widows’ Wonderland
With exceptions that I can count on one hand, the movies I’ve seen since the end of last year’s strong summer have been numbingly bad. Even former heroes, from Wim Wenders to Gus Van Sant, have made me want to take up reading. The drip drip drip of my cinematic…
Flowering Environments
Not far from Third World is the house of Sylvester Williams, which is a playful shrine to various elements of Americana, and specifically to important figures in black history. No more than two miles to the south is the Orange Show, which postal worker Jeff McKissack spent 25 years constructing…
Welcome to the Third World
On a piercingly beautiful April day, a day on which even the inner-city sky kept its rich shade of blue all the way down to the horizon, two men walked along Sampson Street, just off Scott in the Third Ward. Though they came from opposite directions, both were headed for…
Aftermath of an Arrest
“The worst part,” Wanda Miller is saying, “was the way they pulled him up off the floor by his hair. I could see there was blood all over him.” Miller is sitting in the living room of her house in Humble, a small clapboard-and-trailer town on the border of Harris…
Letters
A Sober Judgment In your review of Meg Ryan’s new film, When a Man Loves a Woman [“Drunk, But Not Disorderly,” by Peter Szatmary, May 12], the last two sentences were, “And after shamelessly pulling its few punches, it even ends sentimentally. That’s not a word that goes well with…
Press Picks
thursday june 2 Gay Pride Week: Pumped Up on Art Gay Pride Week begins today, and the thing to do is buy shoes. Pumped Up on Art is a preview party to show off shoes that will be auctioned June 9. Celebs, local and otherwise, have donated pairs of pumps…
Thai One On
Sawadee snared me the moment I slipped into its pale-aqua universe, washed in a cool undersea light that gave its midnight-blue aquarium a surreal glow. “Please let the food be good,” I silently entreated the restaurant gods, charmed by the prim and slightly daffy sweetness of the place, with its…
Andre’s in Amber
Change creeps slowly at Andre’s, the timeless Swiss tea room that has puttered along for decades at the gateway to River Oaks Boulevard. Behind its blank, windowless facade lurks a cozy, Alpine cottage-esque world of blond paneling, snug booths and ditsy chairs with hearts carved into their backs. Sensible waitresses…
Young, Gifted and Dead
Well, the Viper Room came and went last Thursday night, and as more or less expected, it turned out to be a one-shot tribute to/mockery of young dead famous white people. Xeroxed photographs and news clippings regarding the deaths of Kurt Cobain and River Phoenix plastered the walls of what’s…
Unbroken Chunk
So whaddaya do if the twin poles of your life are your band and your lover (who happens to be in your band), until one day you discover that your lover ain’t your lover anymore? If you’re like most people, an average wuss, you spread nasty rumors about the whole…
Cover Boys
The songs of the famous sung to the faceless masses… Pearl Jam… Beatles… Stones… resounding up and down the Richmond Strip. Out here it’s cover band heaven or hell — depending on how you hear the music. The collective noise on the party corridor is definitely too loud to ignore…
The Laugh Goodbye
When comedian Bill Hicks died this February, there was a heap of media attention in most major cities across the country. But here, in his hometown, the coverage was noticeably slim. Almost before Hicks was cold, dozens of clubs nationwide were sponsoring “tributes” filled with Hicks wannabes who aped his…
Cordelia Tells All
“An actor is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t she?” Lynn Redgrave remarked last March while on a publicity visit for her autobiographical one-woman show, Shakespeare for My Father, which starts June 2 at the Alley Theatre. Best known for her Oscar-nominated title role in the 1966 film Georgy…
Yee-haw City
What’s with all these summertime Westerns? The cheesy Maverick and the stilted Even Cowgirls Get the Blues have already tumbled into town, while City Slickers: The Legend of Curly’s Gold and Wyatt Earp a la Kevin Costner aren’t far behind. Add even the late John Candy, who wrangled himself a…