Big Bad Bugs
In Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers, based on the late Robert Heinlein’s 1959 sci-fi opus, the killer arachnids upstage the humans. Not that it’s much of a contest, since the humans are all raging dullards. We’ve seen these young men and women with their square jaws and pert noses emoting their…
Hit and Run
The thunderclap of metal striking metal slowly gave way to the screams of three children — two boys, ages five and six, and a nine-year-old girl. When their mother’s pickup struck a Taurus, the kids were thrown against the dash, then onto the floorboard. They were scared, but not seriously…
Mall Rat
When Ann Richards first ran for governor in 1990, she told Texas voters that she had “always worked to protect our environment.” But these days, as a high-profile corporate lobbyist, Richards has a decidedly different agenda: pushing a shopping mall projectfor the Mills Corporation that would destroy 206 acres of…
The Mall That Ate Katy
She hasn’t seen it yet, of course, but Jinny Baker knows it’ll be big. How could something that’s being promoted as a super-regional value- and entertainment-oriented megamall not be huge? Megamalls are a creation of the Mills Corporation, a Virginia-based developer that wants to plop one of its products down…
Sorry, Not an Instant Winner
Elyse Lanier’s Houston Image Group had promised that the city’s image in the eyes of the nation would be “changed forever” when the Group unveiled its “Great UnExpectations Game” on September 29. That was the day the taxpayer-funded organization made the momentous announcement that it was staging a promotional sweepstakes…
The Insider
Blood on the Presses The referendum on abolishing the city’s affirmative action program may not have strained relations between blacks and whites as severely as some observers predicted. But it sure did put the city’s most prominent African-American newspapers at each other’s throats. In the weeks leading up to the…
Letters
Home of the Brave I commend your paper and staff for what I call absolute bravery. You tackle our corrupt city and state politicians who use hidden agendas to line their pockets. Keep it up! E.L. Bryant Houston In-Kind Contribution Normally I find your articles very interesting, fairly presented, and,…
Press Picks
thursday November 6 Bordello Choreographer Richard Hubscher (also the artistic director of Zocalo Theater) has been busy creating a new and original dance theater piece inspired by Queen Laura’s Bordello, a Galveston whorehouse that operated from the ’20s through the ’50s. This mishmash of dance, fanciful storytelling and original music…
Dish
Icing on the Cake The tea room at Main Memories treats cake the way Marble Slab does ice cream: as a platform for heaping on creamy, crunchy goodies that would make a nutritionist’s head spin. When you top inches of whipped cream with pulverized candy bars, considerations of quality in…
To Eat, Perchance to Dream
Forget the address for Mo Mong. It’s easier to find a red pepper flake in a bowl of pho than to track down this two-month-old Vietnamese eatery by its street and number alone. Besides being in a tucked-away location, Mo Mong has a small, dimly lit sign, hung on the…
Static
Deth warmed over… When you first listen to Dethkultur BBQ, they don’t seem like the sort of friends you’d invite to a family picnic. But if the world were to suffer annihilation any time soon, rest assured this uncompromisingly dire industrial/hip-hop outfit would be a shoo-in to headline the funeral…
Rotation
Steve Earle El Corazon Warner Bros. When the country music establishment turned its back on Steve Earle, a reformed junkie and unrehabilitated loudmouth, Earle turned his back on the country music establishment. For that reason and many others, you will in all likelihood never hear selections from El Corazon on…
Going Public
You can learn a lot about Tanya Donelly in a ten-minute conversation. With only the slightest effort, you’ll discover that she’s married to her bassist and sometime-collaborator Dean Fisher, best known for his work with Juliana Hatfield. And you’ll find that she’s still happily ensconced in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she’s…
Tortured Silence
Stages’ latest offering is a production of Doug Wright’s Quills, a polemic play clearly meant to argue in favor of one of the most rudimentary of American rights — freedom of speech. In order to explore this seemingly simple argument — for in principle, at least, most Americans believe in…
Same Old Crue
On the surface, it would be hard to say that Motley Crue gained anything from breaking ties with lead singer Vince Neil five years ago. At the time, hair metal’s baddest bad boys were one of rock’s most popular acts. Their then-current CD, Dr. Feelgood, had sold 5.5 million copies,…
Film at 11
Mad City, a descendant of Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole, may irritate orthodox movie buffs. In the coruscating Wilder classic, Kirk Douglas’s supremely cynical newspaper reporter turns the rescue of a cave-in victim into “the big carnival” (the film’s alternate title). The protagonist of Mad City, a TV reporter…
What’s in a Name?
In a business where self-promotion is a necessity, the four individuals who comprise the Houston groove-rock outfit Moses Guest have a special method of getting their name out to the public. “We have stickers strategically placed in many urinals throughout the city,” says drummer James Edwards, with a mock-serious, Spinal…
Sex in the Suburbs
Taiwanese-American director Ang Lee has carved out a place for himself as our leading director of comedies of manners. His first three films — Pushing Hands (1991), The Wedding Banquet (1993) and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) — combined humor with touches of pathos while shedding light on modern Chinese…