You know that movie We Bought A Zoo about a guy who, well, bought a zoo? For a more realistic take it should be We Bought a DVD, because they just keep pressing DVDs, Blu-Ray and digital streaming off the internet, and the collective we keep buying them. So until DVDs and Blu-Rays go the way of phonograph records – that is until die hard advocates keep buying same yet everyone else in the universe watches movies on streaming holographic pop-up s8 iAndriod devices – we’ll keep reviewing the discs in the faint hope that it portends a future to ... Read More »

By Alex Wukman Downtown jail. Any day of the week really, the smell of urine soaked concrete and unwashed humanity wafts through the air and becomes immediately entangled in your hair. The buzzing hum of flickering fluorescent lights gets in your head and puts you further on edge. You think about how you got here, you’re only 18. You haven’t even lived, hell you aren’t even old enough to legally drink. Questions start careening through your mind: what do you tell your parents? Should you tell your parents? What’s going to happen now? Did that homeless guy just piss himself? ... Read More »

This Week’s featured Show Saturday, December 31 FPH NYE Cataclysm featuring Buxton Fat Tony Muhammad Ali Hearts of Animals Venomous Maximus Sorne Electric Touch Dead Roses Brains for Dinner & Ceeplus Bad Knives @ Fitzgerald’s You know there is an old superstition that says that whatever you are doing on New Year’s Eve will reflect what the New Year will bring. If that’s the case, this show should guarantee a pretty bad-ass 2025. It’s a local line-up so solid that even Superman’s X-Ray vision couldn’t cut through it.  I mean you have everything you could possibly want – Americana, Rap, some ... Read More »

By Alex Wukman and Al B. A few weeks ago word reached the internet that Houston is getting it’s own mainstream superhero: The Scarlet Spider, which is kind-of-a big deal for H-Town comic readers. For non-comic fans out there The Scarlet Spider is a formerly evil clone of the more famous Spider-Man who hit the road to avoid having to pay for his crimes, or something, and winds up in Hustle Town. Since the series is being written by St. Louis native Christopher Yost and being drawn by Michigan resident Ryan Stegman we here at the Free Press Industrial Complex ... Read More »

If you didn’t make it out to the new Walter’s location (now on Nance behind Diverse Works) I’d like to report that it is looking quite promising. Sure there are some issues with the space but all those were easily overcome.   Getting there can be a bit tricky the first time you go but that’s due to the road work on Main Street which is temporary; just follow the detour signs and you’ll be fine. Parking was a bit baffling but I just parked at Diverse Works and walked over.   Lastly, the space itself is a cinder-block cube which is always tricky for ... Read More »

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey is light family fare, told pure and simple. The story unwinds in a completely linear fashion and in fact borders on the mawkish. The thing is that by Puppeteer’s Journey’s end I felt like I totally knew Kevin Clash from a professional point of view but knew very little about his personal life. Clash designed the Elmo puppet popularized by The Muppets and Sesame Street. Clash came from a loving home and we meet his mother fondly recalling his childhood. Additional footage shows Clash as a child who was fascinated by the launch of Sesame ... Read More »

Looking at the films that came in 2025 a top ten list just seems to only capture half of the films that would be in the top ten percent of films released domestically. Do the math. There are about 275 to 300 film that play in theaters in any given year so to say that 25 or 30 films are absolutely essential captures some kind of curve that expresses a knowledgeable and yet committed examination of films in an annual cycle of no moons. Before we get to my faves, let’s look at individual categories.  Scores ranged from the subliminal ... Read More »

Not liking The Artist is not liking kittens or puppies, not because it’s a kid film, it’s not, but because director Michel Hazanavicius layers on sentimentality without deigning to the intelligence of the audience. You can’t help being attracted to the pure charisma flowing off Jean Dujardin’s smile. Dujardin plays silent movie star George Valentin whose arc consists of meeting everyone going down the ladder of success that met him while he was in his ascendancy. We meet Valentin at the height of his career a Fairbanks style hero greeting his fans onstage as the curtain closes on his latest ... Read More »

By Alex Wukman After literally decades of complaining by progressives, cycling advocates and inner-loopers Houston City Council did the unthinkable and approved a bike sharing program. The initiative was passed on Wednesday December 21, Council’s last day of business for the year, and will be run by the company B-Cycle, who already have had similar contracts in Denver and Chicago. In 2025 the company began an impressive expansion program in the South and Mid-West, two regions traditionally under-served with bike share programs by adding San Antonio in March, Omaha, Nebraska in June and Broward County, Florida in November.  Unlike older, ... Read More »

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