11/22 We’d love to wax jubilant about the upcoming Trains at NorthPark exhibit, as we treasure nothing more than smothering ourselves in Abercrombie flannel, Sunglass Hut eyewear and Neiman Marcus idiocy while pretending we’re giants in an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine. Besides, the exhibit’s 400-plus miniature cars and…
11/22 You don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy the vibrant steel, copper, brass and fused glass sculptures of Gary Rosenthal, but it helps. His blending of the ancient and the contemporary in such Judaic artifacts as menorahs, dreidels and kiddush cups makes for the perfect holiday gift (Hanukkah, that…
11/22 It was in the tragic aftermath of her first husband’s death that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis commissioned the famed Leonard Bernstein to write MASS: A Theater Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers to celebrate the 1971 opening of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C…
In the annals of fraud and fakery, a discredited ex-magazine reporter named Stephen Glass likely will wind up a mere footnote. The people who forge Van Goghs and the con artists who bilk naïve grandmothers out of their life savings (not to mention certain fast-dancing corporate executives) even more richly…
When we first see Fanda, the craggy, octogenarian hero of a sublime Czech tragicomedy called Autumn Spring, he alights from a sleek black limousine under a rich canopy of trees and begins looking at a luxurious country mansion with obvious distaste. “Quite shabby,” he says to the obsequious sales agent…
The only man who knows the answers to the story below is dead–has been for six years, though even before that, he may not have been able to provide any cogent response to the questions raised and accusations made by those who now fight over the corpse. He was a…
Disturbing, daring, exceedingly funny, The Danube takes dark, unexpected turns. This fascinating one-act, now onstage in a sharply directed and well-acted production at Kitchen Dog Theater, begins with a deceptively conventional theatrical setup: Two men at a cafe table in 1938 Budapest chat amiably about weather, clean streets and movies…
For 10 years, I’ve been a photographer. Photography is a passion, for sure, and the camera has become a part of me. It may be a cliché, but that’s only because it’s so true. With a camera in front of my face, it is somehow easier to see things. I…
Thursday, November 13 Some people quote The Simpsons; other people do Reality Bites. We’ve got Morrissey. But this time we promise it’s fitting. We swear on our plastic sleeve-covered vinyl copy of Hatful of Hollow. When Morrissey croons, “In our lifetime those who kill, the newsworld hands them stardom,” we…
In 1999, when the annual Out Takes gay and lesbian film festival made its first appearance in Dallas, the fest screened a handful of films over four days, including two episodes of a controversial British TV series called Queer as Folk. This was before the Fab Five taught everyone how…
11/15 War, death and pestilence are the noteworthy headlines, yet we grasp on to our tangible items, such as the newest Lexus, the widest flat screen, this year’s most sought-after name-brand fashions. Some people thrive on bringing false judgments upon others every day for what they do not have. These…
11/14 Oh, how we hate Rocky. Not the story, the acting or even ol’ Sly. No, our beef is with those fight scenes. If ever a young Texan needed inspiration for his fresh, sponge-like brain, the last place such education should come from is an underdog Italian who beats the…
11/16 Writer and illustrator Eric Carle once said, “I believe the passage from home to school is the second-biggest trauma of childhood; the first, of course, being birth.” So it’s no surprise that he has devoted his life’s work to creating soothing, colorful children’s books with positive messages to counteract…
11/17 Ever start holiday shopping and end up buying more for yourself than for others? Of course you have because the holidays are never close enough. So if being a shopaholic makes you feel guilty, then the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society has an event to help clear your conscience. Shop…
11/14 Bill Bellamy shouldn’t be coming to Addison this weekend, performing six sets of stand-up at the Improv. It’s not that he isn’t funny. He is–somewhere between Jerry Seinfeld and Martin Lawrence if he’s on, and he often is. But it’s the TV-sweeps season, and if there were any justice…
Russell Crowe to his agent: “More Oscar-bait. Now.” Agent, considering his cut of Crowe’s $20 million payday: “Yes, sir.” A possible scenario, anyway. Thus, Crowe is back in another iconic, self-serious performance, and his beefy mug will stare down upon us from this season’s heroic movie posters until Tom Cruise…
11/11 Every week as we craft these scintillating blurbs for your amusement, we professional writers let our minds wander (does it show?) to a dark, secret place where we imagine that we will soon write the next Great American Novel. Ultra-confident, we picture ourselves chatting with Oprah about our first…
11/7 Take some fresh dirt, tight Wranglers, cowboy boots marked with wear, brawny steeds and some mighty holding-on power, and you’ve got a good old-fashioned rodeo. Mix it with Billboard chart-topping musicians and charitable intentions, and you’ve got the Texas Stampede. Now in its third year, the event continues to…
11/8 You want to talk about some truly influential women–ask Adam about Eve, Paris about Helen of Troy, Samson about Delilah. Or ask Ichabod Crane about Katrina Van Tassel–because when it comes right down to it, you know The Legend of Sleepy Hollow isn’t really about Dutch folklore. No, as…
11/7 Brad Oldham–soft-spoken sculptor, metallurgical production god, demure man of mystery–is holding his first gallery show, On Track, on Friday at DEBRIS (1205 Slocum St.; receptions held Friday evenings 6:30 to 8:30 through December 6; call 214-752-8855 for more info). You should go see it for many reasons, not the…
11/6 We try to live by the great credos of hip-hop. Though Nelly’s “She only want me for my pimp juice” and 50 Cent’s “We gon’ party like it’s your birthday” are helpful in many situations, even more so we prefer Public Enemy’s “Don’t believe the hype.” So when Circus…
With its soundtrack stockpiled with songs of romance and Christmas and a screenplay by the man who wrote Bridget Jones’s Diary, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, it’s appropriate Love Actually feels less like a brand-new movie than a greatest-hits compendium. It offers nothing new and instead makes…
