Emerging from Till Human Voices Wake Us, it was easy to overhear some male viewers striving to put the film’s metaphysical themes in their place, to explain them away, as it were. This is a shame. The source of the story’s mystique is fairly simple and may be obvious to…
This is a story with a happy ending, because, so far, nothing bad has happened to indicate otherwise. There are no ratings to sweat over, no network executives to fight with, no cancellations to suffer through. The rough territories lie ahead, over the horizon of 8:30 p.m. this Sunday, when…
Some actors really throw themselves into their roles. Throughout the 90-minute drama Big Love, now playing at Dallas Theater Center’s Arts District Theater, the six leading actors physically throw themselves hither and thither across a half-acre of open stage. They sprint, leap, twirl, waltz, cartwheel, windmill, swoon and slam themselves…
You have never seen such a sight. And we stand firmly behind that statement. But we wouldn’t want to be standing anywhere behind eXtreme Elvis. The King has left San Francisco with The Extra Action Marching Band and is touring select cities–cities that apparently really need exposure to a 300-pound…
“Hey goombah, I love a how you dance a rumba/But take a some advice paisano, learn how to mambo.” –Rosemary Clooney, on her No. 1 1954 hit “Mambo Italiano” Very few American kids have their MP3 players loaded with classical music. They prefer to spend their scrilla on hip-hop because…
We wonder if whoever is using billboards along Interstate 30 to point out that graffiti is “Temporary Art” and asking taggers to use their talents wisely has ever heard of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The protégé of Andy Warhol began his art career as a New York City tagger using the handle…
Apart from “I Am Fascinating” and/or “My Parents Are Horrid,” the reigning theme of film students’ movies is “Lovers Are Bonkers.” Thus, it comes as no surprise when a director’s first feature contains many elements that’ll be instantly familiar to anyone who’s ever hung around a film school. So it…
This should really piss you off: What follows is a story about a very funny movie you will have absolutely no chance of seeing any time soon. The powers that be who distribute movies–who copy prints, print up posters, deliver them to theaters, collect receipts, split profits (well…)–do not want…
Collectively, giant squid now outweigh the entire human population. Got that from a report in Weekly World News, the most reliable of sources about all such phenomena, particularly breaking stories regarding squid, octopi, nautiluses and the misunderstood cuttlefish. According to the “world-renowned” scientists quoted by Weekly World News, global warming…
It’s not with a little pleasure that I begin this piece with a toldyaso. See, already you’re getting sick to death of the stumbling-mumbling-fumblings of the Osbourne clan, currently shilling for Pepsi after torpedoing the American Music Awards (not hard work sinking Dick Clark’s leaky ship, but still). Turns out…
Having recently recovered from a post-Valentine’s Day hangover–induced by a mixture of bitter feelings toward the opposite sex and a sale at the discount liquor store–we decided this year will be different. Call it a Valentine’s Day resolution: Come February 2004, we will rejoice at the sight of foil-wrapped chocolates,…
Thursday, February 27 We don’t get why so many movie stars spend their time off being comedians. They have to leave their Cribs-worthy houses, live out of suitcases and try to sound fresh and original telling the same jokes night after night in smoky clubs to a bunch of people…
Uh…yo. The word on the street is that the ‘Drzej is back at the helm. “Who?” you rightfully ask. Why, cinematographer-turned-director Andrzej Bartkowiak, of course. He’s the…er…”dog” who, under the auspices of producer Joel Silver (Richie Rich, The Matrix), created the hip-hop bang-bang chop-socky flicks Romeo Must Die and Exit…
Dark Blue, it says in the credits, is based on a story by Los Angeles-born author James Ellroy, who pens grisly and guilt-ridden pulp-noir haiku that spread across hundreds of pages. Its screenplay was written by copper caper fetishist David Ayer, a native Angelino with an affinity for Hollywood-dark stories…
Right-wing pundits will be coming out of the woodwork to holler about this one. Bad enough, they’ll say, that The Life of David Gale attacks the death penalty; it also features a caricature governor of Texas with big ears and a familiar, scripture-quoting smirk. There’s a character who notes that…
Someone’s got to say it, so let’s start here: We’ve underestimated Will Ferrell. Honestly, it wasn’t that hard to do. His Saturday Night Live stint was never impressive, as he’d often fall back on the same shtick of yelling his lines with detailed enunciation in a passive-aggressive tone that made…
People engaged in warfare always believe that God endorses their cause and not their opponent’s. The Civil War drama Gods and Generals is filled with so much religious righteousness–endless Bible-readings, urgent recitation of prayer and ardent supplications to the Lord, to say nothing of the heavenly choir that intermittently bursts…
Tony Grisoni can always tell when his old friend Terry Gilliam, the visionary who sees too far for his own good, is in pain: He laughs. The worse the pain, the harder the laughter. If that is the case, then the Terry Gilliam seen throughout Lost in La Mancha, Keith…
Two plays, one question: What does it mean when members of an ethnic group practice intolerance toward their own? In Alfred Uhry’s The Last Night of Ballyhoo, now onstage at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas, the Freitags and Levys, a noisy family of non-observant Jews in 1939 Atlanta, don’t take kindly…
Here’s a confession: I’ve never understood all the folderol over Texas sculptor James Surls. Yeah, I know, I know, he’s a Texas icon, a down-home artist who made good. And I have no doubt he’s a mensch, or whatever the Texas equivalent would be. He’s a teacher (of art, who…
For Louise Connolly, everything about the Celtic dance and folklore revue Lord of the Dance falls within the range of “amazing” and “absolutely amazing.” She thinks the show is amazing. Everyone everywhere also think it’s amazing. Creator and former “Lord” Michael Flatley is amazing. But, perhaps most important, the fact…
MADI is one art form even Sister Wendy can’t wax on about. No one knows what it is, or really why it is what it is. According to artist Volf Roitman, it’s a large, black wood circle mounted on a wall with a square mounted inside that opens up then…
