On Sunday, HBO will air the final episode of what has been the most consistently entertaining–and aggravating–show of the summer television season. Project Greenlight will fade to black, and the people who populated the series–the first-time screenwriter who’s had the optimism beaten out of her, the rookie directors who’ve had…
Twin beds or no, Rob and Laura Petrie danced a lot of bedroom bossa nova out there in New Rochelle. In those tight capri pants and pointy little slippers, darling Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) embodied the Hefneresque vision of the suburban ’60s sex kitten. The Dick Van Dyke Show somehow…
Of late the cast of Animal House has been making the film-fest and talk-show rounds promoting a movie celebrating its 25th birthday; what else does poor John Landis have to do save celebrate a career highlight that fades a little bit more each time one of his movies gets released…
Thursday, August 21 It’s ironic that Cantoni–the “design store” known for its sleek-lined, vividly colored furniture that we, as almost graceful, very considerate adults, would be terrified to sit on–is hosting a benefit for the Dallas Children’s Museum, which lets rugrats run around, hands covered in finger paint with hats…
This is when all struggling artists wish they were on the staff at Monica Greene’s Ciudad. Of all the population who has ever been a waiter, a bartender, a busboy or a cook, chances are it’s a rarity that any one has ever had the restaurant he works for showcase…
8/23 When I was 20, I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The book affected me profoundly. At least I think it did. Like a lot of things from my 20s, I recall only the highlights. I remember that the main dude had a philosophizing nutjob alter ego–wasn’t…
8/25 Maybe you’ve watched them–wafer-thin, 4-foot-tall munchkins scrambling effortlessly up the climbing walls at Galyan’s sporting-goods store or REI. You look down wistfully at your own doughy midriff, feel your spindly upper arms and think, “Fall, you little snots, fall!” No, wait. Did we just type that? Heh-heh. What we…
8/21 Let the sociologists bemoan the tot-culture franchise machine. Sure, very young kids are hooked early by arguably benign tube-born icons. They watch and then wail for shoes, cereal, juice and backpacks with the beloved images. Parents realize quickly if they buy ’em, the kids will wear ’em, eat ’em,…
8/21 Hollywood wasn’t the first to be fascinated with the American West. Decades before moviemakers began cranking out westerns in the 1930s, artists ventured beyond the Mississippi River to document the landscape and native peoples of the frontier’s prairies. Swiss artist Karl Bodmer made some of the first paintings of…
8/22 Call us crazy, but we’re not big fans of BET’s Comic View. Sure, we’re glad that for once there’s something on television besides rap-music-video-booty-athon Flava on late Friday nights, and we’re suckers for some good ol’ stand-up. But it’s not just the editing of 20 different comedians’ routines into…
Kevin Costner appeared in his first western when he was 30 and looked to be in his early 20s. He was a slender, restless actor in Lawrence Kasdan’s Silverado, the 1985 film in which Costner played the blithe brother of a somber Scott Glenn–all giggles and gunshots, a noisemaker always…
The praising of Hollywood summertime cinema is the pastime of pale critics who, come late July, start to wonder what the strange yellow orb is hanging in the sky. Hence the gallons of kind ink spilled over some of the season’s sequels, which shipped spoiled but were guzzled nonetheless by…
The last thing the Roman Catholic Church needs at this point is another exposé of its misdeeds. The shock of the pedophilia scandals and of the official cover-ups isn’t going away anytime soon, and when last we looked, the former bishop of the Phoenix Diocese was out on $45,000 bail…
Probably best known in this country for Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring, French writer-director Claude Berri has also made numerous comedies in his career, many of them concerning the male species’ desire for companionship and often comical attempts to obtain it. His latest film, The Housekeeper (Une…
Freddy vs. Jason Directed by Ronny Yu. Written by Damian Shannon & Mark Swift, based on characters created by Wes Craven and Victor Miller. Starring Robert Englund, Ken Kirzinger, Monica Keena and Kelly Rowland. Opens Friday. Anyone not already a fan of A Nightmare on Elm Street dream-stalker Freddy Krueger…
He knows there are people, too many, who do not like him. He has to know. They’ve told him to his face–the studio executives who slice and snip the scenes he loves the most and suffer his outbursts for it, the directors he’s pushed out of the way so he…
In one boffo two-hour show, Pico de Gallo, now playing at the Ice House Cultural Center in Oak Cliff, the tiny Martice Enterprises acting troupe delivers more sassy, funny, provocative entertainment than many local theaters do with big budgets and huge productions in a whole season. Without even a stage…
Comedian Jeff Dunham is trying to revive the art of ventriloquism. But instead of CPR, he has three puppets. There’s a grumpy old man named Walter, who has “written” a book and hawked rental cars for Hertz; a wacky purple Woozle named Peanut, who’s described as “cool, hip, irreverent”; and…
Thursday, August 14 Mmmmm, boy. Beau Nash is bringing a little bit of Cajun flavor to Big D, and in more ways than one. Tonight the N’awlins Gumbo Kings will be busting out their brand of serious New Orleans jazz in the bar while patrons can work on busting out…
It’s hard to believe that animation and clay–the same media that brought us Mickey Mouse and Gumby–could also spawn the likes of entries from The Spike & Mike Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation. They’re hard-core cartoons with blood and boobs and plenty of unmentionables, ones with animation so vulgar,…
8/15 Imagine: In a bold, albeit necessary backlash against one-too-many mind-numbing “blockbuster” summer cinema seasons, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and the Magnolia Theatre join forces to present a series of films that don’t receive widespread release otherwise…and a revolution of substance over style is sparked. It’s a…
8/15 It’s a tragically different world post-9/8. Used to be that Dallas fans could count on kicking Houston’s butt in football. But that all changed with the Houston Texans’ horrific 19-10 nationally televised victory over the Cowboys last September, the first time an NFL expansion team won its inaugural game…
