About 10 minutes into Michael Cuesta’s 12 and Holding, the following thought came to mind: Not afraid to put children in harm’s way. Twenty minutes later, not afraid was replaced with compelled. As he did in L.I.E. , which introduced child molestation into a fetid tale of adolescent obliteration, Cuesta…
Take Me Out, Richard Greenberg’s Tony-winning drama now playing at Addison’s WaterTower Theatre, tells a “What if?” story. Several, in fact. What if a major league baseball player–not just any player but a superstar–announces in the middle of a winning season that he’s gay? And what if the team needs…
The dripped bumpy surfaces of Charlotte Smith’s paintings and the bulbous pneumatic contours of William Cannings’ sculpture convey explosions. You’ll find no destruction or apocalypse in the exhibition Pop Up at Pan American Art Gallery. Rather, theirs is an artful blast that, in the case of Smith, makes for patterns…
If the creepy, self-flagellating albino monk in The Da Vinci Code really wanted to suffer, he’d drop his flesh-shredding cat-o’-nine-tails, pick up a controller, and play The Da Vinci Code videogame. It’s that bad. Now it can be told: The Da Vinci Code game is one of the crappiest, crap-lousy…
The Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 2 (Warner Bros.) A Fine Romance (Tango) Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster (Dark Sky) Freedomland (Sony) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Fox) Hercules/Mole Men Against the Son of Hercules (Image) John Wayne: An American Icon Movie Collection (Universal) The Kids in the Hall: Complete Season 4 (A&E)…
Will & Grace: Series Finale (Lions Gate) The way this got hustled to shelves, mere days after Will Truman and Grace Adler said their mushy farewells, you’d think this were some classic adios — another M*A*S*H or Cheers wrap-up. Alas, it was just another Very Special Episode of a show…
If you attend a baseball game this week, you’re much better off seeing the Frisco Roughriders than the Texas Rangers. That’s not much of a hot sports opinion—the Rangers are currently on a road trip through Chicago and Kansas City, so any visits to the Ballpark in AmeriQuest this week…
Goodfellas has everything you need in a flawless movie—memorable, career-making performances; dramatic, heartbreaking moments; memorable lines and scenes; and Robert DeNiro in what was probably the last grand slam performance of his career. (If you make a good enough case, I might give you Bronx Tale or Heat. If you…
Parents, take a moment to venture back to the days when you were but a child or perhaps an adventurous teen. Now go ahead and tell me there wasn’t some crazy shit you would’ve paid money to keep your parents from finding out about—and probably still keep secret to this…
Do you dream in black and white or color? If the dreams in question are, in fact, Bombay Dreams, the answer isn’t just color but color, sequins and everything Bollywood (India’s version of Hollywood). The musical is typical of producer Andrew Lloyd Webber, who also brought forth musicals such as…
Snow and the gentle plink of a balalaika reminds me of my childhood, bundled in a sleigh crossing the Latvian plains…wait. That wasn’t me. Sergey Vashchenko and Vladimir Kaliazine wore those fur hats and muffs and later mastered the three-stringed balalaika and buttoned accordion that Russians call the bayan. In…
Scholars have pondered it, scientists have dissected it, and still no one can explain why celestial imagery and three-minute guitar solos fuse so naturally. Laser Floyd would be mesmerizing enough, but the Planetarium at UT Arlington has upped the light show ante with their Rock Hall of Fame full-dome projection…
Scholars have pondered it, scientists have dissected it, and still no one can explain why celestial imagery and three-minute guitar solos fuse so naturally. Laser Floyd would be mesmerizing enough, but the Planetarium at UT Arlington has upped the light show ante with their Rock Hall of Fame full-dome projection…
Here in America, we’ve got lots of different kinds of gypsies wandering around. Let’s see, there’s the Rom, the Ludar, the Romnichels, the Black Dutch. I don’t know what kind of gypsy Esmerelda is, but she’s participating in Mayor Miller’s Summer Reading Program. At 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Audelia Road…
Take a deep breath and release it. In your core, in your powerhouse, just below your heart, above your diaphragm and to the left of the Texas pride is where, if you’ve lived life to the fullest, you can find your Latin energy. OK, seriously though, living here in Dallas,…
When I think of folk art, two distinctly different things come to mind: A) the dream-catchers, John Wayne portraits and assorted kitsch sold at Cracker Barrels nationwide and B) the strange but wonderful paintings of the David Wark character in the movie Junebug (prepared for the film by Brooklyn artist…
Despite being critically called out for appealing to baser tastes and merely bludgeoning their audiences with volume, orchestration has always been a part of Led Zeppelin’s music. The layered guitar parts of Jimmy Page and the lush colorizations from bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones, along with an incredibly diverse…
As an awkward kid with thick glasses, I always instinctively sided with underdogs, which explained my affinity for milkweed. Its ugly, thick stalks grow in ditches and along fencerows with the other weeds. But this secret agent doesn’t run on water like ordinary plants; it bleeds thick, white liquid like…
If you’ve ever been to Benihana and marveled at those giant, ugly goldfish swimming around in the pond out front, then you have a lot to learn from the Dallas Koi Kichi Group as it presents its Fourth Annual Koi Show as part of Colleyville’s 50th Anniversary Celebration. The show…
It’s always tough for us to make sense of athletic fund-raisers for debilitating diseases; in the case of Saturday’s Positive Spin for ALS Bike Tour, the difference between a two-day bicycle ride through the metroplex and the cause it raises money for, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, is pretty dramatic. But the…
As another creative and cultural outlet leaves Denton for greener pastures, it’s hard to herald the coming of the “new Fry Street,” poised to effectively gentrify any lingering ounce of counterculture the town once provided. Art Prostitute is only the most recent in a long line of artists and musicians…
As a writer, I have this ego thing going where I can’t wait to see my finished product each week. Even with my little blurbs here and the profound effect I’m sure they have on readers (ahem), I rush to see my legacy in print. So, when I read about…
