Latest Flick touted as Horror Really Mystery
Jason Kimbro | Staff Reporter

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking:  “Didn’t he review a horror movie last week?”  So maybe I did watch “The Grudge” last week, and yes, “Saw” has been advertised as a horror flick.
But it is the opinion of this review, as freaky as “Saw” may be, it is not a horror flick.  This is an extremely gory murder mystery that really isn’t as much about murder as it is about suicide and life-affirming lessons.  Yes, life–affirming lessons done in the most sadistic manner.
In his directorial debut, James Wan brings us a 100–minute  Marilyn Manson video minus the long-faced drag queen from hell.
Cringe, cringe, and cringe some more because here’s the gist:
It is dark.  Adam (played fairly well by Leigh Whannell, who penned the script as well) is a young photographer who finds himself in a sticky situation that is about to get a whole lot stickier.
He awakens to find himself chained to a pipe in an extremely grody bathroom smeared with the excrement of a million demons from below!  Well, the demonic excrement part was a bit of an embellishment, but it is quite repugnant.
Sharing this domicile of sewage, and chained to another pipe across the room is Dr. Gordon (Cary Elwes), a somewhat successful surgeon.  In between the two men lies the carcass of another man covered in blood, gun resting alongside.  It is obvious the man has committed suicide.
It isn’t too long before we find out that they are part of a crazed madman’s game of survival, and yes, affirmation.  Dr. Gordon explains how he was once a suspect and how this insane monster of a man has never killed a man himself but has placed people in situations where they have killed others or themselves.
Next thing we know, we are zapped into the past so that we can all see how each one was put in that situation, plus come into contact with some of the Jigsaw killer’s (which is what he has been dubbed by some idiot within the realms of this movie world) earlier victims.
Yes, zapped back into the past again.  Dejà vu!  Now I need cute, female, Asian ghosts to appear and scare the poop out of the Dread Pirate Roberts!  We’ll see how many understand that one.
This turns into a somewhat taut murder mystery theater 2004 thing that then has us guessing both what the hell is going on and who the hell this jigsaw dude really is. 
Is it Dr Gordon playing a trick the whole time?  Is it his wife (Monica Potter) letting the blonde hair dye get to her brain? 
Or maybe the deranged police detective (Danny Glover, how the hell did he get in this movie?) desperate to find the madman on the loose? 
I don’t know, well actually I do, but you don’t know and you won’t know until you go out and watch this moronic excuse for a horror flick!
Oh, and not meaning to spoil anything, but what is the deal with all of these unending endings to movies lately?  Are they really that hard up for a franchise?  Oh yeah, America is going to love this one!  HA!
The degree to which this film is entertaining depends upon how much one can stomach, and I am not just talking about gore here, folks.  I am talking about watching people hack at themselves with a saw and admire crackheads with bear traps on their heads, or maybe a fat man caught in a mesh of razor wire. 
Yes, this movie made my ears hurt.  So as for a grade in entertainment value, well, it passes, but not very satisfactorily.
Performances were substandard and shoddy, with the exception of Leigh Whannell.  He did a great job as the punk photo boy.  He should work on his penmanship as a movie scripter, though.
This brings us to story and plot. 
This was a simple flick that is far too convoluted and mixed up in its dealings with what’s going on, how certain characters got to where they were, and who the bad guy in the film actually is. 
You even begin to wonder if the motivational–speaker–gone–crackers is malevolent or not.  I mean, he just wants people to appreciate life.
The only thing this film really has going for it is the atmosphere.  It is quite creepy, reminding us of some of the more popular Nine Inch Nails videos mixed with some Tool and Marilyn Manson.  That alone was enough to make the audience cringe.
By the time you’re done watching this film, you feel like you have sawed your own foot off and yet you still aren’t satisfied with whatever reasoning for sawing off the aforementioned appendage. 
Life is full of scary things.  Right now we have tests and non-platonic relations to make us recoil.  In the future, we will have in-laws to take care of that. Though films are supposed to bring about emotions, cringing I suppose being one of them, this film does it far too much.
Yes, I would save this flick for a Saturday night on TBS, or perhaps the USA Network.  Watch a nice episode of “Saved by the Bell” instead. 
By the way, Mr. Belding says hello.


Schneider to bring Austin sound to Iron Horse Pub
Richard Carter | Guest Writer

Singer-songwriter Bob Schneider has been Austin’s next big thing for a little over a decade.
But rather than wilt under the pressure, and call the Matrix up to help him make a singles CD tailored for the radio, Schneider releases his own brand of CDs, and plays loads of shows the way he wants to play them
 “I gave up on being Austin’s next big thing in the early ‘90s,” Schneider said. “I gave that up in ’93. I love to play and I’ve had some success in Texas and it’s allowed me to be able to make a living doing this.”
Schneider and his band are bringing their Austin-ized party to Iron Horse on Thursday night. A musician of diverse talents and musical interests, Schneider has a reputation for putting on some wicked fun shows.
   “My favorite thing about playing is the adoration from the crowd, which I really enjoy more than anything and I’m kind of addicted to,” he said.
“I try to give the crowd what they want, so I can get what I want which is the love.”
Schneider may love the love but he never panders to the idols of commerce: the opposite of many of his contemporaries. He’s all about making music that is interesting, as opposed to being commercially viable. 
 “ I don’t know how that whole radio business works, “ he admitted. Schneider has taken the slower, if surer, and more lasting route to becoming popular which is to play live, a lot.
His band will be playing from their new album and from “Lonely Land,” an earlier release. “The other half of the set will be just a mix of whatever,” he said. “Probably some new stuff and some crowd favorites that haven’t been necessarily recorded.”
Some of the music audiences will be able to dance to, and some of it will be slower. “We try and have a good time and be entertaining,” he said.
Schneider’s music and his influences are all over the map, just like his sets. It all started when his musician father taught him to play guitar at the age of three.
His familial musical education didn’t end there. His father, in addition to teaching guitar and singing opera, also happened to moonlight as a lounge act in country clubs.
 “He’s probably my biggest influence, because I heard all of these songs from the ’40s, ‘50s and ‘60s and ‘70s,” Schneider said. “He would mix it up playing country and rock and pop and just a bunch of good songs that I would have never heard probably, if I hadn’t heard him play them.”
In addition to country, rock and pop, Schneider mixes in funk, maybe a little punk and a dab of lounge, along with bit of soul into his music.
 “You always think there’s only 12 notes and it’s all been done to death, “ he said, “but I’m constantly hearing new ways to play music that sounds different to me.”
“Of course, maybe they’re similar to things I haven’t heard,” he said with a laugh.