Lots of people are pissed off about the state of affairs in Dallas lately. There’s the whole Trinity River toll road debacle, the depressing condition of Deep Ellum…I could go on. But for most of us, there’s something appealing about Dallas, something that keeps us here despite all the political…
If we told you that Yacov Moshe Maza was coming to Dallas for the first time in more than 20 years, you’d likely race to Wikipedia to figure out who the hell we’re talking about. If you don’t need to enlist the help of everyone’s favorite fact-checker, then congrats. Oh,…
Everyone has a few random memories from childhood that are vivid and persistent for no good reason. Some folks have flashes of birthday parties or beloved relatives. I see Arlo Guthrie. The soundtrack for Alice’s Restaurant was in constant rotation during my childhood, and the cover—with Arlo posed at a…
Many of us take our birthday as an opportunity to see how many Tuaca shots we can force down and still be able to walk. And while trying to prove alcoholic wherewithal is a legitimate birthday practice, perhaps it’s not the most worthy endeavor we can undertake. The most we’ll…
Mark Mothersbaugh is a true Renaissance man. Aside from being the man who we’ll forever know as the voice behind seminal new wave weirdos Devo, his IMDB list for film soundtracks goes on for days. He’s responsible for some of the best compositions in modern cinema, including the unforgettable tunes…
This year, if nothing else, there have been a lot of film festivals. Obviously, there have been quality film festivals in the DFW area for years, but this year–well, we’ve been extremely lucky to have so many opportunities to view the offbeat, the undistributed and the directed-by-Fred-Durst. The Lone Star…
Julie Delpy is one of those women you can’t help but have a mad girl-crush on. After I saw her in Richard Linklater’s Ethan Hawke-fest Before Sunrise, I wanted to stalk her and make her my best friend. We could drink coffee and be self-aware for hours! And while Ethan…
Eraserhead was the holy grail of David Lynch films for me and my friends in high school. We’d all seen Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, were obsessed with Twin Peaks, and had even managed to find a copy of The Elephant Man hiding in the stacks at Hastings. But Eraserhead…
There’s really not much I have to say about Goya’s Ghosts to sell it, frankly. Javier Bardem. Natalie Portman. Milos Forman. Two of today’s most beautiful and talented actors paired with the man who directed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—it rarely gets more quality than that. We’re going to…
It’s fall, for certain, when you can go to Target and buy candy corn. Even if it’s 95 degrees outside, once the sugary confection is in-hand, it’s time to start thinking pumpkins and candy apples. You know the drill. Fall is also (in theory, anyway) the one time you can…
AIDS Arms serves 2,700 clients a month. A month. That’s about 90 people a day. It boggles the mind that a nonprofit organization provides medical care, testing and counseling, and medication assistance to that many people a day. Clearly, it’s a major operation, and one that needs all the help…
The fascination with death that exists in some Latino cultures intrigues people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. For most of us, death is a morbid affair, met with extreme fear and a nearly maudlin ceremonial aspect involving trussing up dead loved ones as if to pretend that, if only…
The Modern ’til Midnight rarely disappoints, and this week is no exception. In fact, glancing at the old calendar, there’s hardly a better lineup in town than this one. The final weekend of the Ron Mueck exhibit coincides with the evening, and if you haven’t yet checked that out, it’s…
If you’re not on the Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl bandwagon yet, that’s OK. It’s good to be cynical. Besides, by the time this goes to press, the ‘Boys could have gone to hell in a handbasket. I doubt it, but it could happen. Either way, the Cowboys/Patriots game is one…
If you’d asked me to talk about bluegrass 10 or 12 years ago, chances are I’d have told you a story about my Aunt Velma, sittin’ on the porch of her house trailer in Marianna, Arkansas, slapping her substantial knees in tune to Uncle Bobby’s banjo stylings. But I’d like…
If Perez Hilton had been around in the 1940s, Citizen Kane’s very existence would have been daily blog fodder, in amongst posts about Bette Davis’ drinking habits and Errol Flynn’s sexuality. I can just see the blue-haired blogger foaming at the mouth to write about William Randolph Hearst’s efforts to…
If you’d asked me to talk about bluegrass 10 or 12 years ago, chances are I’d have told you a story about my Aunt Velma, sittin’ on the porch of her house trailer in Marianna, Arkansas, slapping her substantial knees in tune to Uncle Bobby’s banjo stylings. But I’d like…
If you haven’t seen episode 107 of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, it’s hard to explain. You see, Sunnydale is under an enchantment that turns everyday life into a musical, courtesy of a dancing demon. And Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her friends are afflicted too. Even Spike, the vampire in…
“Space” is one of those words that doesn’t really mean anything. It’s a concept that can’t really be put into a concise term. You can’t define space as boundary-less, because my half-empty Dr Pepper can has space in it. But then you have outer space, which is theoretically limitless. It’s…
Just because it’s September doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate October. That’s the way they do it in Addison, where the concrete is all shiny, the chain restaurants are king and calendars don’t mean a damn thing. Save the date—in Addison, April Fool’s will be in May. Oh, wait…a cursory check…
Documentaries that make us, as humans, feel better about ourselves are few and far between, particularly in the last few years. For every heart-warmer like Mad Hot Ballroom, it seems like there are three or four films that just devastate us. An Inconvenient Truth was such a film, using graphic…
Of the eight films featured in the 11th Annual Jewish Film Festival of Dallas, not one of them involves Woody Allen, and thank God for that. No two-hour examinations of middle-aged male neuroses here. Instead, the series, which runs through September 25, features some of the best Jewish-themed comedies, documentaries…
