8/19 I admit to growing up in front of the television. Everything I needed to know I learned from Sesame Street. Of course, that was before CD players and Dr. Phil. But now in the age of self-help, child psychologist Dr. Don MacMannis (also known as Dr. Mac) offers A…
8/15 David Bates could’ve retired young, in the 1960s, living off residuals after his family’s roadside establishment was featured in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. David Bates could’ve retired in the 1970s, living off royalties from his successful stint as the lead singer for the rock band Bread, which later became David…
8/16 This year marks the 50th anniversary of commercial polyester fiber production, according to its maker, DuPont. “From 1995 to 2005, consumption of polyester around the world is expected to more than double–from 17.7 million metric tons to almost 40 million metric tons,” the company says in a news release…
Not to worry. Whenever summer machismo levels threaten to fall below mad-dog range, Hollywood invariably steps in to restore the status quo. Witness S.W.A.T. , a thoroughly unremarkable police action movie starring the magnetic Samuel L. Jackson as L.A.P.D. Sergeant Dan “Hondo” Harrelson, known affectionately to his men as “the…
“Simon must propose to me now,” exclaims pretty, simpleminded Rose (Rose Byrne), “before he meets somebody else or gets to know me better!” Welcome to the none-too-subtly-named Mortmain family, wherein foundering patriarch James (Bill Nighy)–for all symbolic definitions a dead writer–has been allowing his prolonged delusions of literary grandeur to…
Ah, Paris–City of Light, of Love, of Liver Damage and Lung Cancer. C’est formidable, non? Who in need of a posh vacation would turn down the opportunity to luxuriate in its finest hotels, to stuff oneself with sumptuous snails and to work on a terribly flat romantic drama called Le…
Military clerk Ray Elwood (Joaquin Phoenix) is something of a modern-day Sergeant Bilko. Anything you need, he can get. Any scam that’s possible, he’ll run. Never mind the bumbling Colonel Berman (Ed Harris) who ostensibly runs the unit–Elwood has him wrapped around his finger. There’s just one major difference between…
If the comedy High School Hellcats in Heels were ice cream, it would be cherry bubble gum with licorice chips. If it were a sweater, it would be fuzzy pink angora over a pointy D-cup. And if it really were a B-movie from the 1950s, it would star Mamie Van…
We once dated a guy who told us his favorite movie was Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. We thought that was cute, admiring how sensitive and vulnerable he seemed because of this, and it made us very happy. That is until, of course, he spouted that obligatory phrase used by all…
Thursday, August 7 Comedian Daniel Tosh has accomplished many of the same things as others in his craft: Comedy Central specials, late-night TV show appearances, tours of college campuses and comedy clubs and competing on Funny Money on the Game Show Network. But he has done something few others have.Tosh…
We are adamant in our loathing of washed-up celebs supplementing their poorly invested past earnings with new-fangled careers or self-deprecating ventures. Take, for instance, “celebrity” one-on-ones like Willis vs. Vanilla Ice or Vince Neill’s stint on The Surreal Life. We don’t really care who’d win in a fight, nor do…
8/9 Listen up, freebie addicts. The Viva Dallas! Hispanic Expo is this weekend, and it has great potential to be a pack rat and knickknack-junky heaven. A variety of more than 250 local employers, health professionals, university representatives and other education-related organizations, not to mention tons of vendors vying for…
8/9 What’s a hard-core local sports fan to do at a dire time like this? The Hatcher-less Stars are still “on ice.” (I kill me.) For a while, Cowboys training camp is about as exciting as training camp can realistically get, the Rangers are the Rangers and Dirk Nowitski has…
8/7 Since we eat oatmeal every morning, we understand the nuances of breakfast porridge preparation. Too little water, you end up with dry clods and flakes throughout your meal; too much water renders a sticky mush. We likewise have issues with the flock of ill-natured office chairs that litter our…
8/10 Attention, foodies. All you devotees of culinary arts, all you weekend chef-poseurs, all you béarnaise-making, haughty wine-tasting, snail-snacking, Food Network-watching bon vivants, listen up. Raise your Williams-Sonoma whisks in your right hands and salute the matriarch of your penchant for all things gourmet. Hail, Julia Child! See, without old…
8/12 Kids do some really weird stuff. They run amok, doing all those things that drive their parents insane. Girls get into their mothers’ makeup kits, put lipstick on their cheeks, blush in their hair and draw intricate pictures on the wall with eyebrow pencils. Boys steal Twinkies and marshmallows…
It’s a great pleasure to behold a chunk of art that’s both dank and fresh at the same time, and this appraisal perfectly fits the superb Dirty Pretty Things. The latest from veteran director Stephen Frears (Gumshoe, Prick Up Your Ears, High Fidelity) immediately transports the viewer to a subjective…
For a few minutes, at least, things don’t look so bad. Watching Ben Affleck swagger around as the thuggish title character of Gigli (“Rhymes with really,” he tells us, twice) is amusing for a bit. Affleck’s eminently qualified for the role, actually–that of a low-level hood pretending to be more…
David Wolstencroft moved from London to Los Angeles in November, and not only so he could rise each morning for a game of tennis–though there is that, and that might have been good enough. He made the trip, which is thus far temporary but may well prove permanent, for the…
Lest you doubt that the 3-year-old recession lives on, consider the latest evidence for life after death: the Kimbell Art Museum’s new show, The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt. Coming some 18 months after our government declared the recession of ’01 deceased, the Kimbell’s exhibition is the gloomiest…
Squeezing Wagner’s four-opera, 17-hour Der Ring des Nibelungen down to two hours and 20 minutes leaves no room for the fire-breathing dragon. For Das Barbecü, a two-act spoof of the operas now onstage at Addison’s WaterTower Theatre, composer Scott Warrender and writer-lyricist Jim Luigs do that, no problem. But instead…
8/2 One would think that a piece about the topic at hand would all but write itself. After all, how difficult can it be to come off equally coy and informative about a local AMPRO boxing event featuring Tonya Harding? Still, we’ve got nothing. Perhaps the sheer simplicity of targeting…
