What Do Matt Pulle and Antonin Scalia Have in Common?

Illustration by Brian Stauffer Pardon us, Friend, while we indulge in some self-congratulatory navel-gazing. The story “Split Decision,” Matt Pulle’s incisive feature for the paper version of Unfair Park about Dallas’ embarrassing scrape with the feds over Preston Hollow Elementary School’s deliberate segregation, has been nationally recognized in the lofty…

Angela Hunt is Pissed

Might as well look at a picture of the McKinney Avenue Baptist Church, which stood on McKinney Avenue for 97 years. Because it ain’t there no more. For a solid year, city council member Angela Hunt worked with the city’s Landmark Commission, Preservation Dallas and neighborhood activists to protect the…

King for a Day, And Then Some

Oh, man, I think I may have bone cancer. Not, wait, I must be choking on food. Got the sweats bad. Is my hair on fire? I seem to be convulsing. Oh, I know what it is! I’m trying to spit out a positive remark about The Dallas Morning News…

How Mark Cuban Would Fix SMU (No, Not Like That)

Speaking of local sports team owners, in the February issue of GQ, Mark Cuban sits down for a Q&A inside his Dallas office — “a room filled with pictures: Cuban playing rugby; Cuban in front of his private plane; Cuban presenting an award to Don Nelson, the former Mavericks coach…

Man, They Really Hate You in Liverpool, Tom Hicks

Until Friday, Richie’s June 27 item about a Fox Sports Network TV special on Tom Hicks hadn’t received a single comment; now, there are eight nine 10 a bunch, and they keep rolling in. And most of them are written as open letters to the owner of the Dallas Stars…

And One More Piece of Dallas’ History Turns to Rubble

The McKinney Avenue Baptist Church stood on McKinney Avenue for 97 years. Then Saturday happened. So, I leave town for three days, and this is what happens: The Hard Rock Cafe — otherwise known as the former McKinney Avenue Baptist Church, built in 1910 — is no more. Just one…

Morgan Spurlock’s Beard

Perhaps no film at Sundance is more anxiously awaited than Morgan Spurlock’s Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?, in the hands of Weinstein Co. For whatever reason, folks have been speculating for months that perhaps the Super Size Me director found bin Laden; Spurlock has brilliantly dodged the…

All You Ever Needed to Know About Sundance — Like, Ever

Walter Mosley, author of Devil in a Blue Dress and Black Betty, hanging out in the Sundance HQ Friday afternoon As the sender and recipients of this particular e-mail are fine folks well-regarded in the movie bidness (I know, right?), we’ll leave their names off this missive. But for those…

Public, Private — What’s the Dif? It’s Eye Candy, Baby!

In my e-mail in-box this morning was this message that makes a very good point about The Dallas Morning News and its coverage of the Calatrava bridges — you remember them, right? Writes our new pal Kyle: I grow increasingly frustrated with Bruce Tomaso’s continuing inaccuracies in The Dallas Morning…

Dallas Destroyed By Duststorm in an Imaginary Future

Here’s one more WTF video for your Friday viewing pleasure: a decimated-Dallas what-if just posted to the YouTubes courtesy something called CNCNewsTV. Actually, says the NYC-based publicist who shot us the link, it’s for a new series called Six Degrees Could Change the World, which will air at 7 p.m…

A Talk on “Religion and Violence” — Timely

Over the past week, there’s been much discussion in this space and elsewhere about the killings of Sarah and Amina Said and whether their father’s Muslim faith had anything to do with him allegedly murdering them for adopting Western ways. Coincidentally, Saint Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church is hosting…

Hello, My Concubine

Farewell My Concubine is a familiar love story in China. It’s been a poem, a novel and an Oscar-nominated 1993 film. Now it’s also a 90-minute Western-style opera (sung in Mandarin with English subtitles), and it’s coming from China to Richardson’s Eisemann Center with its original 130-member cast and orchestra…

Need a Job? AFI Dallas Hangs Out the “Help Wanted” Sign.

While I’m at one film festival, seems like a good time to tell you about job openings at a cinema-lovers’ shindig a little closer to home: Melina McKinnon of the AFI Dallas International Film Festival sends word that the festival, now in its second year after an impressive bow last…

Not Banking on a Reponse from Lynn Flint Shaw or Her People

DART board of directors chairperson Lynn Flint Shaw, who’s yet to respond to Unfair Park I did try hard to get a response from Dallas Area Rapid Transit board of director chair Lynn Flint Shaw for my item yesterday about the $17,000 discrepancy in her city council campaign finance report…

Hollywood on Ice

Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell are stuck In Bruges, which kicked off Sundance last night. PARK CITY, Utah — The Sundance Film Festival hadn’t even officially begun Thursday when word circulated through the 4-below Park City climes that the Directors Guild of America had reached a tentative, three-year deal with…

Say This For Farmers Branch: They Do Stick to Their Guns

By now, no doubt, you’ve read The Dallas Morning News’ piece about Farmers Branch’s tenacity: Despite the fact the federal courts have all but killed Ordinance 2903, which called for punishing landlords who knowingly rented to illegal immigrants, the city council next week will once more consider a revised ordinance…

He Was Just Big-Boned

Dinosaurs and humans once roamed the earth together — ain’t that right, Chaka? Also: “The fossil record speaks of catastrophic events happening several thousand years ago rather than slow processes taking place over millions or billions of years as is held by the popular establishment.” In other words, the Mt…

Spree to Be You and Me

Apparently, few years back there was some contest going on involving the Polyphonic Spree and fan-made videos. Which explains this just-posted video. –Robert Wilonsky…