Austin TX entertainment, events, food, movies, music

J.C.V.D. being J.C.V.D.

Your A-List: Best Bookstore

Your A-List: Best Breakfast

‘Arrested Development’ movie is a go (?)

Your A-List: Best Place to Buy Fresh Fruits and Veggies

Your A-List: Best Place to Buy Jeans

Santana’s latest hit: Suizas Pa Ti

The Onion launches new site

Interview: Being Charlie Kaufman

Your A-List: Best Shopping Center

November 2008

Home > The M.O. > Archives > 2008 > November

By Matthew Odam | Thursday, November 20, 2008, 01:31 PM

I told you about the film “J.C.V.D.” a while back. It’s the meta-drama (apparently fictional) about Jean-Claude Van Damme that played at Fantastic Fest and tells the story of the washed-up action hero and the trials and tribulations of his life and career. Check out what I had to say about it here.

Well, the film comes out this week, and in preparation for said, it appears the engimatic J.C.V.D. is doing the interview circuit. (Jean-Claude, you can email me here.)

It seems ol’ Van Damme hasn’t lost much of his punch, or ability to reference himself in the third person, as evidenced by his interview with Sarah Ball of Newsweek. Matthew thinks it’s hilarious.

In the words of my friend D-Rox, it appears, much like Joe Namath, J.C.V.D. is strug-a-ling.

Most of the interview from Newsweek here:

Why did you want to make a film that comments on your own life?

I made this just to show some of the internal side of J.C.V.D., in a way. He’s a guy, a normal guy from Belgium with dreams, and I did well in that type of path. At the age of 47, to take chances and go back to Europe and be talking to some studios there, I’m showing them that I believe I’m good quality.

There ’ s a monologue in the film about being a washed-up action star. Did you improvise that?

I like structure—like driving: go past the school on the street, stay on the right side, no hitting the car, go in right, you’ll see a big church, stop and take a left, and you’ll have it. By doing this I’m giving a structure of life, a path of light, and showing what happens between me and me, which is something very beautiful.

Beautiful? Why?

I really opened myself up in “JCVD.” I peeled back the skin of the fruit, cut the pulp and then took that very hard seed. In this film I cut that hard seed, and inside that seed was a kind of liquid cream substance of the man I am, or the woman you are.

OK —

It was like being naked—I would love to be naked in front of you.

Well, I —

Not being naked being naked. I say such things in Hong Kong and they thought I was being a crazy Frenchman. Being naked of protection.

So you ’ ve no regrets at all?

Believe me—I’ve done very good stuff and very crazy stuff, and I don’t regret the crazy stuff. So are you in New York?

Yes, I am.

And are you 27, or 32?

I ’ m 22.

Oh, f—-. That is very young. Will you come to the premiere?

I don ’ t know. When is it?

I don’t know. You will wear all black, a black dress and high heels?

Uh —

You can come find me, I will be the one with the very broad shoulders, dark hair and a simple suit. We can have some champagne, you and me.

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By Matthew Odam | Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 01:41 PM

Indpendent book titan BookPeople is located in the heart of the city, both literally and figuratively. And, with 44 percent of the vote, is the Your A-List winner for Best Bookstore.

In addition to being the home of hundreds of magazines and thousands of books, the store, which is regularly ranked as one of the best independent book stores in the country, boasts a knowledgable and friendly staff (whose literary picks assist in sorting through the maze of books), a quiet cafe that allows you to peruse before you purchase and a calendar chock full of visiting literary talent.

BookPeople
603 N. Lamar Blvd.
472.5050

Others receiving votes

Half-Price Books, 28 percent

Barnes & Noble, 14 percent

Borders, 7 percent

Monkeywrench, 2 percent

12th Street Books, 1 percent

Domy, 1 percent

Resistencia, < 1 percent

Austin Books and Comics, < 1 percent

Intellectual Property, < 1 percent

Write-in: Brave New Books

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By Matthew Odam | Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 01:39 PM

Sure, you can have pancakes or a bran muffin for breakfast, but this is Austin, and the breakfast taco and migas reign supreme. Juan in a Million has been cranking out the delicious Tex-Mex staples for over 25 years, and, with 30 percent of the vote, is the winner of the Your A-List poll for Best Breakfast. With over a dozen breakfast tacos to choose from, along with a half dozen specialty breakfast plates, you could hit up the restaurant on East Cesar Chavez for a couple of weeks without eating everything on the menu.

Juan in a Million
2300 Cesar Chavez Street
472.3872

Others receiving votes

Kerbey Lane, 27 percent

Magnolia Cafe, 19 percent

Omelettry, 6 percent

Galaxy Cafe, 5 percent

Austin Java, 4 percent

El Sol y La Luna, 4 percent

Curra’s, 2 percent

The Frisco, 2 percent

Counter Cafe, < 1 percent

Write-ins: Austin Cafe, Bouldin Creek Coffee House, Cisco’s, Dan’s Hamburgers, Dart Bowl Cafe, El Flaco, Elsi’s, Maudie’s, Original Pancake House, South Congress Cafe, Taco Shack, Tamale House, Trudy’s, Waterloo Ice House

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By Matthew Odam | Thursday, November 13, 2008, 03:58 PM

It seems like people have been speculating about an “Arrested Development” movie for years. The Fox sit-com, which was a critical smash and cult darling, had been held up due to the lack of all principles being on board, with the last one rumored to be Michael Cera. I guess the hilarious Cera (“Superbad”) had received too many scripts from his agent that had him playing the same character for the next five years.

Well, it seems the time has finally come, and fans can rejoice, as the “Arrested Development” movie looks to finally be a go.

The good news comes from comedic genius Jeffrey Tambor (“Soap,” “The Larry Sanders Show”), who plays the Bluth family patriarch on the show and broke the news at a DVD release party for “Hellboy II.”

“We are doing it. We are going. It’s a go. I just this week talked to (series creator) Mitch Hurwitz,” Tambor said. While there doesn’t seem to be a date set for shooting, Tambor added, “When the writer and the director and the executive producer calls you, that’s a pretty good sign.”

Frozen Bananas and Never Nudes for everyone!

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By Matthew Odam | Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 05:25 PM

Ah, the 21st … Internets, is there anything you can’t do? While we are fortunate to have great markets from which to buy fresh produce, the very busy of us are even more fortunate to have a place to buy excellent produce online. The winner of the Your A-List poll for Best Place to Buy Fresh Fruits and Veggies is the relatively new Greenling.com.

The local online purveyor, which took home 41 percent, offers (mostly) organic produce, along with a selection from all the food groups, delivered straight to your door for no extra fee. Simply ‘fill up your cart,’ select your preferred delivery date and then sit back and await your bounty. You have to make sure your list is updated three days prior to delivery, and can schedule recurring delivery on the same day each week or simply do a one-off delivery to see if you like the process and enjoy the food.

Costs for produce are slightly higher than other organic grocers, but I have heard nothing but rave reviews from friends and co-workers who have used the site. I still prefer to browse aisles and see what I’m getting before I buy it, but if I could be disciplined enough to stick to a list or didn’t have the time to make it to the grocery, I imagine that the growing Greenling would be a welcome switch to old-fashioned grocery shopping.

For more information on Greenling, head to the FAQ section on their Web site.

Others receiving votes

Austin Farmers’ Market, 20 percent
Manor Farmers’ Market, 12 percent
Central Market, 10 percent
Whole Foods Market, 6 percent
Sunset Valley Farmers’ Market, 5 percent
Boggy Creek Farm, 3 percent
Sun Harvest, 2 percent
Wheatsville Co-op, 2 percent
South Austin Farmers’ Market, 1 percent

Write-in: HEB

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By Matthew Odam | Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 05:04 PM

Why spend on new when you can buy used? That is likely the logic behind voters who made Buffalo Exchange the winner of this week’s Your A-List poll for Best Place to Buy Jeans.

The resale store located on the drag, which received 27 percent of the vote, has become a landmark in Austin, offering discount prices on used jeans (and a few pairs of new), along with a wide range of apparel for men and women, but the store actually originated in Arizona. Austin is one of four Texas locations for the chain, which now boasts more than two dozen storefronts.

And, during tough economic times, who doesn’t like saving money. In fact, Buffalo Exchange has become so well known that they recently received mentions from Forbes.com and CNN as being a good place to get designer goods on the (somewhat) cheap.

What follows is a brief history of Buffalo Exchange taken from their site.

The first Buffalo Exchange opened in 1974 in Tucson, Arizona by Kerstin and Spencer Block. To our knowledge, this was the very first store that bought, sold, traded, and took clothing items and accessories on consignment. Kerstin, being Swedish, thought the word “Buffalo” was very American. And since the store was going to be an “Exchange,” the store’s name was born. The store was in a 450 square foot space that had been an old union office on a side street near the University of Arizona. Kerstin’s love of fashion and thrill in finding a bargain combined to create the company that now has 34 stores and 2 franchises in 13 states, with $55.8 million a year in sales (as of Oct 2008). The Blocks still own and run Buffalo Exchange out of Tucson, along with their daughter Rebecca.

Others receiving votes

Hem, 22 percent
Lucky, 11 percent
Urban Outfitters, 9 percent
Luxe Apothetique, 8 percent
Diesel, 6 percent
By George, 5 percent
Cowboy Cool, 4 percent
Blue Elephant, 3 percent
Physical Fit, 2 percent
Service Menswear, 2 percent
Therapy, < 1 percent

Write-ins: Goodwill, Thriftland, Sam’s Club, Shepler’s

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By Matthew Odam | Tuesday, November 11, 2008, 12:43 PM

Guitar legend, spiritualist, and lover of life and himself (in the documentary “Before the Music Dies,” he said that guitar gods like himself were, simply, born), Carlos Santana has opened a new restaurant in Austin. Statesman food writer Addie Broyles dishes the goods on her blog here.

Let’s get the easy jokes out of the way … you can probably expect the dishes at this restaurant to be derviative, tired and full of noodles. Jokes aside, the menu was developed by former Fonda San Miguel chef Roberto Santibañez, which portents good things.

Now for a joke of another stripe, the restaurant name … Maria, Maria, as in the title of the song for which he is probably most famous among the majority of the restaurant’s clientele. Oy(e como) vey.

According to Broyles’ blog, “At a media event at Maria Maria on Monday night, Santana, clad in brown and his trademark stocking cap, said he sees the restaurants — there are four total — and even his line of shoes as a way to return the blessings he’s received, to invest in people to give them an opportunity to financially, psychologically and spirituality grow.”

I can’t wait to hit up John McLaughlin’s new sno-cone stand next summer.

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By Matthew Odam | Monday, November 10, 2008, 03:04 PM

Following in the footsteps of the giant Gothamist network (among others), which has seen amazing success, most significantly for us Austinites with the Web site Austinist, of which I used to be an editor, The Onion and its A.V. Club have entered the city-specific entertainment site network with Decider.com.

The new site offers a host of information in the to-be-expected categories of any entertainment site (events, music, movies, food, etc.) along with offering standard comment sections and the ability for its readers to get in on the snarky action by submitting reviews of their own.

As with other sites, Decider.com also features “most popular” and “most discussed” categories, so you can make sure you’re hep to what all the kids are talking about. Also of note is the unique Debaser feature, in which an artist gets a chance to promote his work in exchange for telling a humiliating story about himself.

The site is already live in Madison, Wis.; Milwaukee and Chicago, cities that have been longtime distributors of The Onion, so it appears the nod to Austin is somewhat significant.

From yesterday’s press release: “It features great writing that doesn’t talk down to its readers and it’s both discerning and comprehensive.”

Not sure if that is meant as a zinger to other sites or not. Certainly this town is big enough for multiple sites that offer similar content. If not, should we expect a Red River Street smackdown during SXSW? If anything, it should lead to some interesting one-upsmanship with regard to parties and events. And that’s something from which we can all benefit.

According to A.V. Club managing editor Josh Modell, “We’ve developed a curatorial, approachable voice in The A.V. Club that people have come to both enjoy and respect. Decider brings that voice to the local level.”

The Austin version of Decider is edited by Sean O’Neal, who has been the city editor of the Austin A.V. edition since the free weekly began circulation here last year.

“We’ve long had trouble cramming everything that Austin has to offer into a weekly print edition, which barely covers all the stuff that helps the city maintain its smug cultural superiority over the rest of this godforsaken state: the once-in-a-lifetime screenings at the Alamo Drafthouse, the amazing art happenings, and, of course, the plethora of great shows happening every night on every street corner. But now whenever Bob Schneider blows his nose, everybody will know,” O’Neal said.

Additional cities to be added to the Decider brand include Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Denver and the Twin Cities.

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By Matthew Odam | Friday, November 7, 2008, 12:02 PM

Legendary film critic Pauline Kael once said of Marlon Brando that “his greatness is in a range that is too disturbing to be encompassed by regular movies.”

The same could almost be said of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. Hollywood has allowed him to write his own movies, and they are anything but regular.

Kaufman has cemented himself as a writer of immense talent, unwilling to abide the conventions of modern American cinema. Three of his five previous screenplays — “Being John Malkovich,” “Adaptation” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” — were nominated for Oscars, and “Eternal Sunshine” ended up winning. His manipulation of time, space and narrative have made for challenging films that often confuse as they unfold, though they always seem to resonate with audiences both emotionally and intellectually.

In “Synecdoche, New York,” his directorial debut that opens Friday , Kaufman plumbs new depths of the collective unconscious, mining a beautiful and gut-wrenching story centered on the complex fears of death, love, loss and the attempt to achieve authenticity in life. Heady stuff to be certain.

Ostensibly, “Synecdoche” is the story of Caden Cotard, a distraught playwright living in Schenectady, N.Y., battling a plethora of sometimes real, but more often imagined, illnesses, mourning the pending dissolution of his marriage and struggling to find meaning in his life and art, which increasingly become simulacrums of each other as the film progresses.

Considering the pain inflicted by Cotard’s neuroses, the film could be seen as a harsh indictment on the pettiness of our egos and a stark reminder of the unequivocal loneliness life forces us to endure. But Kaufman’s tender screenplay and metaphoric portrayal of these universal fears bring the film alive and heighten it to the level of cinematic poetry. The viewing is not easy, but the reward is great.

I sat down with Kaufman at the Alamo Drafthouse downtown during the Austin Film Festival last month. Loathe to ever discuss the meaning of his films or their themes, we talked around the movie, eventually striking at its emotional core.

American-Statesman: You’ve said that you get your ideas for screenplays from character ideas, themes, or conceits such as entering the head of John Malkovich. Where did you get the idea for the screenplay to ‘Synecdoche’?

Kaufman: Originally, the motive for thinking about it was that (director) Spike Jonze and I were approached by Sony Pictures to do a horror movie. We talked about things that were scary in the real world. So the idea of writing about moving toward death, and time passing, and aging, and illness and relationship issues, and problems, and being left and having regrets was the impetus for what the story became. And then I just sat with it for two years and tried to think about these issues and let it expand into what it became.

Over the years of working on a screenplay, how do you stay engaged with the material?

I don’t have an outline and say, ‘OK, this is where it starts and this is where it ends,’ which seems a ridiculous way to work because writing as I like to think of it, is a process of exploration, and you can’t possibly know what you’re going to know at the end of a process when you’re starting it. What excites me is the idea that in six months after thinking about this, I am going to come up with a new direction, and I am going to allow myself the freedom to go in that direction with the material.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article recently about how we relate precocity to genius and talked about the idea that people who come to their creative greatness later in life come to it through a form of open-ended exploration, versus the conceptual thinking of young geniuses like Picasso. I wonder how you relate to both of those ideas — that of precocity and genius and the different ways of finding your voice as an artist, and if you ever felt you might not reach your potential.

I really, really wanted to be a wunderkind. I had that word in my head and wanted it to happen.

At what age?

Oh, God, 9? [Laughter] Seriously. The idea of that was something in my head that just thrilled me. As it didn’t happen, and then I moved farther and farther away from it, it started to seem less important to me, and I kinda gave it away… . If I had become successful or well-known when I was in my early 20s, I probably would be a really different person doing really different stuff and it might have been lesser. I don’t know. I had a lot of life experiences that put me in the world of people who were struggling. When I worked in TV, I worked with people who were very successful at an early age. And you don’t know which came first, the chicken or the egg, but there’s a difference in the way they treat the people they work with. Not with all of them, but there’s sometimes a quality of being very, very spoiled and being very, very sort of out of touch with people.

The conceptual thing confuses me because I feel like my work is conceptual. But I do also want to use that as a framework for being expansive and exploring emotions and ideas and moving closer to some sort of realization of a truth. I read this thing where Isadora Duncan said, ‘I’ve strived my whole life to make one authentic gesture.’ And I love that idea and I love the idea of how hard that is.

I feel like there’s a sense if you put that [something authentic] in the world and you get closer to something that other people recognize, it does feed other people, it makes them feel less alone. And it’s not alienating in the way that I think a lot of popular entertainment is because it doesn’t in any way reflect people’s lives and they feel somehow it should and it doesn’t and you end up feeling really lonely with it.

Unlike ‘realistic’ films, there’s a way in which your writing and filmmaking is an active and accessible poetry, with the metaphor allowing for open-ended interpretation of the film.

I don’t think that what we say is realism is really realism. I think it’s another convention played out, and we all understand it as a common language of moviegoing. But I think in a way it’s its own form of stylized storytelling. Because you know, the truth is that we don’t live in an objective world. We live in a completely subjective world, all of us do. To treat the world metaphorically in that way is maybe closer somehow to reality. Even if it’s stylized or surreal or dreamlike… . I mean, why do we do dream the way we dream? Why do we tell ourselves stories symbolically in dreams? Everybody does that every night, and they’re gorgeous. And they’re very real, they’re visceral, you’re really talking to yourself. I guess what I’m getting at is that I’m not trying to obscure the truth or obfuscate.

Do you ever try and get out of your own head? And if so, how?

I do. I don’t know if I can get out of my head, but I try and find a different place in my head, might be more accurate. I read. On and off, I’ve tried to meditate for years. I’ve started to do yoga, which I find enormously helpful. I’m in love with the idea of yoga now. You can’t think about anything else when you’re in one of those poses. Everything is in the present tense, which is a very hard place for me to be. If I sit down and just try and breathe, I realize that my brain is not here … and how hard it is to just be here.

Because we can only know ourselves to a limited degree, how well can we really ever know somebody else? Don’t then relationships become a leap of faith made in hopes that the part of the other person that we know is a synecdoche representing well enough the whole of that person that we can actually trust it?

[Long pause] My feeling is, if you can, and when you are able to be present and open to the world, then you’re going to invite that in from other people and it will be apparent. I think that we’re so afraid of it not happening because we feel very vulnerable and we’re afraid of being hurt and humiliated and wrong that we stop the interaction. I think maybe it’s a leap of faith that is required, or a certain kind of courage and a certain kind of acceptance that there’s gonna be crappy people and crappy interactions. But that maybe that’s OK.

Do you feel a comfort in the idea that we’re all sharing this human experience equal to the anxiety you get from your own ego or neuroses?

I do when I can. And it’s very hard for me to get there, and I do feel very isolated and alienated a lot of the time. But when I can get to that point in my thinking, through whatever experience, I do. And I think that’s a large part of what I feel I was working on expressing in this movie.

“Synecdoche, New York,” starring Philip Seymour Hofffman, Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton and many more, opens Friday, November 14 in Austin.

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By Matthew Odam | Wednesday, November 5, 2008, 05:37 PM

The relative new kid on the block in Austin’s shopping scene, The Domain, has been named the Best Shopping Center in the latest Your A-List poll.

While the mecca to shopping located just off of Mopac received some political attention in the form of Proposition 2 in the latest election, it is more well-known for its high-end stores (Burberry, Cole Hann, Lacoste, Neiman Marcus, Tiffany & Co., et al) a host of mid and upscale restaurants (Cru, Daily Grill, Flemming’s, Jaspers, et al) and its drive-thru mall feel.

Others receiving votes