In the closest that the state of Texas will ever come to enthusiastically proclaiming the name of its northern bordering state, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! will gallivant its pastel-clad cowboys and boisterously Western tunes to Bass Performance Hall Tuesday through July 2. A love story at heart, Oklahoma! follows a…
Anything called Confessions of a Couch Potato sounds like it might be a Steve Blow column about the decline of our society due to that “new-fangled contraption” called a “television.” Or, it could be a play about a broken home. The family members no longer know how to communicate, sitting…
Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story is not a musical about a heart-pounding relationship between Dallas songstress Lisa Loeb and Leopold Alexis Elijah Walker Gareth Thomas Mountbatten, the time-traveling character played by Hugh Jackman in the 2001 romantic comedy Kate and Leopold. It’s actually a musical recounting the true…
From the knock-offs of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s style found in shopping malls, you may think that the stained-glass artist unleashed the inspiration for stained-glass turtle lamps into the world and nothing more. You would be wrong. His exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art showcases his famous stained-glass mosaics but…
There is no movie more overrated in recent history than Napoleon Dynamite; it’s to cinema what the Doors are to rock and roll, a thing blindly and inexplicably championed as though it were a religion above being blasphemed by nonbelievers. And every time someone tries to explain its appeal–the deadpan…
Remember what a fun couple Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves were in Speed? Well, forget that. In The Lake House, Warner Bros.’ slow and heavy kickoff to the summer romance season, Bullock and Reeves play the mopiest lovers to hit the big screen since Tony and Maria channeled Romeo and…
There’s a fine line between artistic genius and pretentious wankery, and most cineastes will tell you that the films of Matthew Barney exist right around that line. Those who like his work usually admit that it’s almost too insufferably pretentious to bear; those with no patience for it generally acknowledge…
The day after seeing Stanton’s Garage at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas, I visited an aunt and uncle who are up in years. They’d just been out in 100-degree heat to have their 1994 Toyota Camry inspected, and it had been an ordeal. The car has only 38,000 miles on it…
Valley of the Dolls Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (Fox) Behold The Godfather and Godfather Part II of drag-queen cinema — two movies that provide the gateway to a lifetime of wig addiction. The films couldn’t be more different in temperament — the 1967 original is mile-high Hollywood kitsch,…
Gamers are so used to Mario that the fundamental weirdness of his exploits no longer raises an eyebrow: A dumpy Italian plumber journeys through a fairy-tale land, where turtles throw hammers, mushrooms bestow magic powers, and a kingly turtlebeast holds a princess captive. Where other videogame plots might have been…
All Aboard! Rosie’s Family Cruise (HBO) Aquamarine (Fox) Beavis and Butt-head: The Mike Judge Collection, Volume 2 (Paramount) Before the Fall (Picture This) The Betty Grable Collection: Volume 1 (Fox) Cemetery Man (Anchor Bay) End of the Spear (Fox) Fatwa (Ventura) A Good Woman (Lions Gate) Green Street Hooligans (Warner…
Juneteenth celebrations have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, but apparently unless you’re African-American and from Texas, there’s a good chance you may not know exactly what Juneteenth is, in spite of it being an official state holiday. OK, here’s your quick Texas…
Sometimes, great ideas for children’s entertainment don’t just go bad—they get awkward. Remember Xuxa, the Brazilian children’s show host who delighted kids with flying spaceships and fun songs? Probably not—the show tanked in the States once parents found out Xuxa was a former nightclub dancer and erotic movie actress. And…
Many people may not be pleased with the current administration, but that doesn’t make them any less “American.” In fact, the desire to speak out and speak up is just about as American as it gets. And speaking up doesn’t necessarily require vocalization. Take it from artists like Michael Miller,…
You know your next assignment will probably take anywhere from one to four weeks to complete. What you don’t know is what country it will be in, what immunizations you’ll need to survive and whether to pack the SPF 50 or snowshoes. Calling in sick with malaria or dengue fever…
While the idea of luxuriating in a relaxing wave pool and watching a family film does sound pretty damn cool, it just seems obvious that there would be an elevated opportunity for aquatic mayhem with parents and kids staring up at a movie screen instead of paying attention to the…
This shouldn’t be surprising, but we can’t help but feel a little bothered by it: The Gambler has a MySpace page. It wasn’t bad enough that Kenny Rogers had to make a recent appearance on American Idol, looking not at all like the bushy-haired, full-faced figure we remember from our…
Here’s one more reason to eschew the cineplex down the street: The Magnolia Bar Gallery (located inside the Magnolia Theatre in the West Village) is putting the art back into the art house theater. In an attempt to bring more attention to the regional art scene, the Magnolia Bar Gallery…
George Jones may not have written most of his greatest songs, but he certainly sang the living hell out of them. “He Stopped Loving Her Today” isn’t really that great when anybody else sings it—even Johnny Cash’s Unearthed version is unimpressive—but Jones took the song and turned it into something…
I’m pretty sure every single white chick in my freshman class had heard the soundtrack to Les Misérables at least 50 times by the time they got to high school choir class. I, on the other hand, mostly listened to Weezer. And while my teenage hormones made it abundantly clear…
Since this blurb is about a play titled Polish Joke, it only seems appropriate to offer a guffaw originating in humor of the Polish persuasion. The Canonical List of Polish Jokes online didn’t help much since their server was down—unless that was the joke. So next on the list was,…
This is serious stuff, folks. I don’t want to alarm anyone or cause unjust anxiety, but according to press materials, ELLE DÉCOR’s Dining by Design is “the pinnacle of tabletop celebrations.” The pinnacle, people. This is as good as it gets. I know we’ve all experienced what we thought were…
