Sony's approach with its handheld, the PlayStation Portable, is to carbon-copy its most popular titles for on-the-go gaming. "Enjoy Grand Theft Auto on PlayStation 2?" Sony seems to ask. "Well, here's a version for the PSP. Oh, you're a SOCOM fan? Super, we've got that on PSP too." With the...
Orlando's DJ Baby Anne delivers the breaks end of Assault & Battery, and her fixation on deep, winding Miami bass results in a slightly harder product than Jen Lasher's electro half. The squealing laser-tag bursts of Product 01's "I Like It Now" are sandwiched between Anne's own "Freaks Groove" and...
If you ever see a high school chemistry teacher kidnapped by a burly, drug-crazed sociopath and a conflicted seductress, and then you recognize the haunting guitars and echoing keyboards that complement the action, don't panic. You're not flipping out, though watching the movie Good Chemistry wouldn't be considered "normal" behavior,...
If you're craving an antidote to the sanctity of repressed gay cowboys, you could do worse than Adam & Steve. This good-natured comedy from writer-director Craig Chester uses gently sly wit to poke fun at neurotic gay singles, coming of age in the 1980s and dating in the era of...
Every time writers gush about Neko Case, they pull out a list of classic country singers like Lynn, Parton and Cline, all of whom were always more famous for their voices than their words. In that respect, such comparisons miss the point--they nail her towering voice and country influences, but...
Stephen McPherson, the high-tech massage parlor owner who humiliated Dallas vice officers after he caught them on tape disrobing and receiving X-rated massages from his employees, has been charged with first-degree murder after he allegedly shot and killed a man following a domestic dispute outside his Frisco home. Frisco police...
"I can hear a collective rumbling in America." This line on "Be Good to Them Always," one of the best cuts on the Books' third and most approachable album, is a sample hidden amongst so many other samples--percussion, cello, banjo, guitar--and struggles to have its say. It's an old recording,...
Think of it as Garland's version of the Alexander Hamilton-Aaron Burr duel, only this suburban showdown didn't hinge on honor or ambition, and no one got shot. At least not yet. In 2003, City Council member Harry Hickey wanted to pass an ordinance restricting citizens from parking recreational vehicles in...
It can't be easy making films about war. It's so inherently dramatic that, as a setting for art, it's overdetermined; it drips with meaning even before the first scenes are set. And so much has been said already: War is hell. War is noble. War is surreal. War is absurd,...
The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has ruled in favor of prison inmate Emily Dowdy ("Oklahoma Railroad," by Glenna Whitley, July 21, 2005), granting her an evidentiary hearing. Her family hopes the ruling could lead to a new trial. But the hearing, which must be held by mid-April, will take...
How can an Elliott Smith tribute album go wrong? The guy was practically deified before his apparent suicide in 2003, and the exaltation has only continued since. But such homage presents a dilemma: Adding too much of a new twist to Smith's songs (say, a death metal "Pitseleh") might seem...
Defiling the Star T.O. means B.S.: Magnificent article ("Eyes Wide Shut," by Richie Whitt, March 23). A friend asked me how I felt about the T.O. signing. I simply said, "Winning has become more important than honor." Yes, I am still a Cowboys fan, but I will NEVER be a...
Just got this press release about the opening next week of a new club called Metro 5, which occupies the old Starck Club spot on McKinney Avenue in the West End, and three things stick out: "M5 brings a twist to the nightlife scene with weekly promotional offerings such as...
What's the price of fame? For Sheryl Crow, it was a body count in the wake of her debut, Tuesday Night Music Club. When her record label was reluctant to release her first stab at an album that she cut with producer-to-the-stars Hugh Padgham, the one-time back-up singer was brought...
John Fante's novel Ask the Dust, published in 1939 and all but forgotten till its 1980 reissue with a Charles Bukowski foreword, is very much a work of thinly veiled autobiography; only the names have been changed to protect the guilty. Its protagonist, a struggling writer named Arturo Bandini, shared...
Love is a four-letter word. Probably the most used subject in all of the arts, people just can't get enough of it. There's even a holiday for those people who just love everything there is about love. For those of us who would rather poke love in the eye with...
If life hands you lemons, and we mean really big ones with rinds the size of a grapefruit, make limoncello. For anyone unfamiliar with this old Italian proverb, residents of the area around Sorrento began steeping castoff peels in alcohol centuries ago, while more modest cultures settled for lemonade. The...
"If I could make enough with this band to buy a house, some beer and a dog, I'd be happy," says Jake Webster, drummer of the Cut*Off, Cowtown's fascinatingly languid conglomeration of '60s garage/psychedelia and '90s grunge leftovers. The quartet, together since 2002, got their name from the fact that,...
The posters for V for Vendetta read "An uncompromising vision of the future from the creators of The Matrix trilogy." Uncompromising? It simply isn't possible to translate Alan Moore's multilayered comic-book masterpiece into a two-hour movie without making cuts that oversimplify, and it's certainly not feasible to expect producer Joel...
My dream version of spring break--less shirtlessness, more music and just as much drinking--is officially underway in Austin. I'll talk about our city's presence at the South by Southwest Music Festival in next week's full review (and the impatient can find daily fest updates this week at Unfair Park, the...
WHEN IT COMES to crafting conspiracy theories, Oliver Stone has nothing on Judge Sally Montgomery. Facing a relentless, flat-out obsessive challenger in the Democratic primary for her county judge seat, Montgomery has several explanations for why so many people think that the only time she should sit on the bench...
The mayor oughta play Deep Ellum more often. At 10:30 a.m. yesterday, there was quite the line snaking out of the front door of the Gypsy Tea Room, as some 200 folks waited for Mayor Laura Miller and her backup band--Dallas police Chief David Kunkle and council members Pauline Medrano...
