Do you wonder how the Academy Awards are chosen? Obviously if just under 6000 people voted for President of the United States this country would have a leader who was a box office champ as well as aesthetically pleasing. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences inducted 176 people this year into the Academy. This means, yes they get to vote for various categories, and yes the majority of members are actors, which goes a long way in explaining why so many end of the year acting accolades tend to be the same. As you peruse the list below ... Read More »

By: Erin Dyer Houston’s city council approved a law this past Wednesday that will require each local strip club visitor to pay a $5 fee upon entry in addition to any mandatory cover charges required by the club itself. Not only is the new fee enforced at all strip clubs, but also any other bar or club that occasionally hosts adult entertainment events such as wet T-shirt contests, etc. It is estimated that 30 clubs are subject to the tax. This new local tax, similar to the Sin Taxes set on alcohol, gambling, junk food and tobacco, has been dubbed ... Read More »

Ted will warp your mind, in a good way. Ted doesn’t have a dick but he fucks. Ted doesn’t have a soul but he’s evidently immortal. Ted is a two-foot tall teddy bear come to life as a real life friend to friendless 80s-era Boston lad John (Mark Wahlberg). Fast forward to the present and Ted and John are dope smoking roommates whose friendship is about to be tested by John’s commitment to his girlfriend (Mila Kunis). Under the direction of Seth MacFarlane (who also co-wrote as well as voices Ted) Ted lampoons aspects of society that other films take ... Read More »

By: Erin Dyer On Thursday, June 14, more than 450 people congregated in Downtown Houston for a peaceful protest. Most of these protestors that gathered are the men and women who mop the floors, take out the trash, sanitize restrooms, and do the dirty clean-up work at corporations such as JP Morgan Chase, Marathon Oil, KBR, Shell, Continental, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, El Paso, and CenterPoint Energy. Forbes Magazine ranks Houston as America’s fastest growing Millionaire city– this means its millionaire growth rate is higher than that of the New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. There are currently 96,700 millionaires in ... Read More »

This Week’s Featured Show(s) A hell of a lot of music release shows!!! Thursday, June 28 Weird Party (7″ release) Ty Mahany @ Sound Exchange (8PM) Friday, June 29 The Wheel Workers (LP release) Sunward Boy + Kite Alkari @ Fitzgerald’s Saturday, June 30 Guilt Party (7″ release, last show!) Weird Party Media Blitz Abduktion @ Mango’s Saturday, June 30 Jody Seabody & The Whirls (album release) Art Institute Jon Black Kyle Hubbard @ Fitzgerald’s OK folks this is my final week of abbreviated weekly previews as I got back into town earlier this week with a nasty ass cold ... Read More »

Drafthouse Films (the distribution arm of Alamo Drafthouse) releases its inaugural home video (DVD/Blu-ray) through Image Entertainment, starting with The FP (6/19) and Bullhead (6/26), the latter from Belgium and also rightfully nommed for a best foreign film Oscar. The FP stands for Frazier Park a small community north of Los Angeles. In a dystopian future (is there any other?) youth gangs in FP battle for supremacy by dancing off with an interactive video game, just like you see in arcades with the foot moves wired to the game. Everybody looks like they’re attired for a cut rate Road Warrior ... Read More »

Mark Andrews tells a round table of interviewers “I was born and raised in California, I’m as Californian as you get. I just don’t surf or have blond hair.” Andrews is in town promoting the new Pixar film Brave (distributed by Disney). Typical of Pixar productions there’s a duality to the story that’s not apparent in other animated movies. Issues of matricide are raised and traditional male female roles become reversed. The hero’s journey becomes internal. Look for the wink-wink nod to Miyazaki’s Spirited Away in the portrayal of the witch. Andrews was candid and animated as he related his own ... Read More »

Lola Versus (Fox Searchlight) and Your Sister’s Sister (IFC) both open today and instead of these two neo-indie films being in competition they actually compliment each other. Both films star the respective It Boy and It Girl of contemporary domestic cinema: Greta Gerwig and Mark Duplass. In fact Gerwig starred in one of the Duplass Brothers’s early films, Baghead. And both Duplass and Gerwig have appeared in more mainstream efforts with Gerwig playing the romantic lead in Arthur and Duplass working alongside established pros like Kevin Kline and Diane Keaton in Darling Companion and also playing second banana type roles ... Read More »

Seeking a Friend For The End of the World is a cool film with a really long title. The length of said title automatically suggests a film at odds with its trailer. The previews hint at a wacky comedy that includes a Bacchanal party where anything (drugs, sex) goes as well as a restaurant (Friendsies) that serves 24-hour, ah, friendliness. Aside from those two scenes SAFFTEOTW unwinds with less than a serene mood, and often times touches on sadness and regret. With a sense of saving grace the movie ends on a note of supreme romanticism that lifts the spirits ... Read More »

This Week’s Featured Show Monday, June 25 Lower Dens With No Joy Alan Resnick @ Fitzgerald’s OK folks, as you know, I’m in California right now so I am kind of kicking-in this week’s preview here and there where I have a few minutes.  The good news is that most of you guys already know about Lower Dens so not much introduction is necessary. Me, I’m stoked that I’ll be back in town for this show as the sound was such a mess at their last show in Houston that it simply became a distraction.  This time at Fitz, I ... Read More »