There are hypnotists who say they can make people do anything. Like punch someone in the face. I’ve never seen it happen, though. I have, however, seen hypnotists who can make people dance like Michael Jackson, which is sort of funny if you know the person but also sort of…
Steamed about the magical foul-acquiring powers of NBA Finals MVP Dwyane Wade? Rattled by lackadaisical refs in this summer’s World Cup? Wish that technology would usher in an era where sporting events are no longer altered by bad calls? Then the World Series of Video Games is for you, control…
Dallas’ lit scene is a tiny one; there’s Will Clarke (Lord Vishnu’s Love Handles), Harry Hunsicker and…oh, you could probably name one or two comers, but be honest. HH’s second Lee Henry Oswald mystery, The Next Time You Die, is forthcoming next month, and it’s a hun-dinger (heh). But speaking…
I used to think photography was a cop-out kind of art. Where was the actual creation? Heck, I could snap a picture and have me some art! But my Mesquite mentality (hey, I used to live there) was soon changed after seeing Richard Avedon’s In The American West, a collection…
If the Angelika in Mockingbird Station, with its unusually unblemished facade and persnickety taste in film, is the Jake Gyllenhaal of movie theatres in Dallas, then the Inwood Theatre is Mickey Rourke. It’s curiously and oddly attractive, picks some of the most raucous films and displays its age well. But…
When I heard Journey was coming to an art gallery in Plano, I couldn’t wait to get all “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin'” north of 635. With “Open Arms,” I would welcome the band into the suburban fold. Then, somebody told me Journey at the 14th Street Gallery was not, in fact,…
Spelling bees are for kids, and Scrabble is for family fun time. Crossword puzzles are where it’s really at if you truly love words. As a person who attacks every puzzle I see with a pen, I have to admit that Will Shortz, puzzle editor of The New York Times…
Alas, the detestable bird-faced harpies of CBS’s Tuesday Night Book Club will no longer grace the airwaves. Not to worry. Local book clubs are popping up all over the country and now that television and popular culture have deemed reading fashionable, otherwise functionally illiterate, self-obsessed shrews have yet another public…
After all that, just… this? After all the anticipation, all the hype, all the product available on toy-store shelves and kiddie sections at bookstores, after all the promise that this would be the most super of Superman movies, all we get is just this…this… remake? Because let’s first call Superman…
For an industry in decline, print journalism has done a fashion publicist’s job of staying in vogue, particularly among the more stylish of career-seeking college grads. Never mind telling these BlackBerry-toting eager beavers that even an unpaid gig in the field is as rare as a winning lottery ticket: The…
By now, for masses of believers in mad Korean pulp as it has been epitomized by Park Chan-wook’s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy, the blood-on-alabaster-skin montage behind the credits of Park’s new Lady Vengeance portends a familiar dynamic. Exercises in Asian horror like we haven’t seen before, Park’s films…
What fools these mortals be. And what fun the revival of Randy Tallman and Steven Mackenroth’s rock comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream: The Musical, now alternating through the summer with a more conventional Tempest at Shakespeare Dallas’ outdoor East Dallas venue. It’s been some 30 years since this version of…
If there ever were a time for art that is political, now is the moment. The art of Patriot Acts, a group show at Barry Whistler Gallery, gives body to an alternative–I say much-needed–type of jingoism. The work of Darryl Lauster, Greg Metz, Michael Miller, Robert Terry and Leslie Wilkes…
The Devil’s Sword (Mondo Macabro) Few trash movies live up to their reputation, but here’s a balls-out wonder that surpasses it. Grab a 12-pack of Bintang and cue up this jaw-unhinging slab of Indonesian sword-and-sorcery circa 1983–a start-to-finish feast of martial arts, mullets, flying heads, vestal virgins, dry-ice fog and…
For comic geeks, an X-Men game that promises to fill in the backstory between movies sounds hotter than a date with Jean Grey. Finally, we get to discover what Wolverine has been up to between films — besides winning Tony Awards as alter ego Hugh Jackman, of course. That’s the…
Commander in Chief: 2-Disc Inaugural Edition Part 1 (Disney) The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection (MPI) Cow Belles (Disney) Danger After Dark (TLA) Evil (Magnolia) Is It Really So Strange? (Frameline) Failure to Launch (Paramount) Family Affair: Season One (MPI) Fear Factor: The First Season (Universal) Imagine Me & You (Fox)…
San Antonio may be bigger than Dallas, but do they have Frisco? Hell, no. Alamo, Schmalamo, we’ve got IKEA. Had William B. Travis, Davy Crockett and Co. holed up in our Swedish home furnishings superstore instead, I seriously doubt any battle would have ever been fought. General Santa Ana and…
Following the traumatic Mavericks meltdown, it may seem cruel to transfer any passion to the Texas Rangers, who are to late season swoons what Pat Conroy is to selling out your family. But at the risk of sounding like a Lifetime TV wife—”really, this time he’s really going to change”—I…
The idea of an ABBA musical at first sounded like a campy joke, but the Dallas Summer Musicals return engagement of Mamma Mia! is no laughing matter as audiences clamor “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” and shovel out the money, money, money to see it again. The story, about a young bride…
Anyone with a Dallas County Community College education probably knows that Picasso, Van Gogh and Michelangelo were some of the greatest artists of all time. You might even know that crazy bastard Van Gogh cut off his own ear. But what do you know about Ramos Prida, Manuel Reyna and…
Once a year, we’re allowed to celebrate our country’s history by eating hot dogs and exploding things. On July Fourth, get the lakeside view, watching the fireworks display at Lake Grapevine, (grapevinetexasusa.com). Or choose the Lakewood view; the Lakewood Theater (1825 Abrams Parkway) claims to have the best seat in…
Once a year, we’re allowed to celebrate our country’s history by eating hot dogs and exploding things. On July Fourth, get the lakeside view, watching the fireworks display at Lake Grapevine, (grapevinetexasusa.com). Or choose the Lakewood view; the Lakewood Theater (1825 Abrams Parkway) claims to have the best seat in…
