Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > 2006 > January > 24 > Entry
Palace of art
Art: Get ready for some superlatives. Just toured the Blanton Museum of Art with director Jessie Otto Hite and a small group. The University of Texas museum has been on the drawing boards for almost 30 years. The first building is completed and art is already lining the walls for an April 29-30 grand opening. I had previously experienced the high, light-filled atrium and the L-shaped downstairs galleries at a topping-out party, but nothing prepared me for the seeming acres of galleries and support rooms upstairs and tucked in corners down. This will be Austin’s Louvre, Metropolitan Museum and National Gallery all wrapped into one. You can bet we are going to blow coverage of this new/old Austin institution out of the water. It’s the No. 1 local arts and entertainment story of the year.
Movies: The adults in “The Squid and the Whale” seem completely oblivious to the ordinary pain of their children, traumatized by divorce in this comic drama. The writing, direction and acting are all very subtle, very carefully calibrated. That the couple (Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels) are overeducated New Yorkers who make ridiculous pronouncements, recalls middle-period — and prime — Woody Allen (“Manhattan,” “Annie Hall,” “Hannah and Her Sisters”). The kids (Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline) are terrific, wise beyond their years. The Dobie Theater auditorium was virtually empty, so I might have bothered the few spectators with my guffaws. There are no villains in this movie, but everyone is something of a monster. B+
CDs: San Marcos jangle pop band Robbie and the Robots’s “Todaysterday” contains some muscular melodies and arrangements, but sometimes juvenile lyrics. Still want to see them in action. … The most lavishly produced CD of the month: Mary J. Blige’s “The Breakthrough,” hip-hop soul at its thrilling best and most satisfying on an emotional plane. Nobody does MJB like MJB. … The original cast album of “The Color Purple” offers some big songs and words that closely match Alice Walker’s depressing novel. I’ll defer judgment until I see it on Broadway. … A historical oddity, “Hugh Sings Martin” is part of the Library of Congress series on songwriters singing their own material. Martin wrote songs for “Meet Me in St. Louis,” “Look Ma, I’m Dancin’!” and “Best Foot Forward,” but his soft, sensitive voice is not always matched to the material.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: By Michael Barnes
Comments
By Sterling Price-McKinney
January 26, 2006 3:59 PM | Link to this
You got into the Palace of Art but didn't take your hidden camera with you? Shame on you. I guess I can search Google images yet again, hoping for another visual crumb of the collection and/or the building. Glad to know you are going all out on the coverage when doors open. It is indeed the most important thing to come down the pike in a long time. Can't wait to read and see more about it.