David Gordon Green’s Our Brand Is Crisis is a horror film wrapped in fast-talking political comedy. Watching Sandra Bullock, as ruthless campaign manager Jane, flog her uncharismatic candidate for Bolivia’s next president, I snickered at her knowing quips. Asked by an offscreen TV interviewer (the film’s awkward framing device) to…
Before Anthony Bourdain published Kitchen Confidential in 2000, mere mortals who simply eat in restaurants had little idea about the drinking, debauchery and drug use rampant among the folks responsible for getting their fettuccine Alfredo to the table. The book was eye-opening if true, and a rambunctious, vicarious pleasure even…
Lily Hanson’s new exhibit is inspired by punk rock. It is not something you would guess about a work that seems playful and whimsical at first glance. “The Once Over Twice” takes its name from the title of a song by X, the Los Angeles punk band formed nearly four…
The Teen Scene Players at Dallas Children’s Theater are winding up a short run of The Ghosts of Sleepy Hollow, a new one-hour adaptation by Philip Schaeffer of 19th century stories by Washington Irving. It’s a beautiful looking production, directed by Artie Olaisen, but the skills of the storytellers are…
Out of the shadows and into the pale golden glow of dozens of candles, the Grim Reaper, in various guises, takes his (or her) star turn in Theatre of Death, a collection of seven short plays on a single theme, produced and performed by Mark-Brian Sonna’s MBS Productions in the…
You’ve been to Super H Mart probably a million times, right? The allure of an exotic Asian market with interesting produce and strange things made out of fish is impossible for the adventurous to pass up. Maybe you’ve also gotten into going to the Korean spa, which inevitably leads one…
It’s Halloween week, which means doing a lot of drinking in a skimpy costume. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that – Halloween is a sacred American tradition – but that doesn’t mean that you have to rot your brain along with your teeth. You can watch plenty of scary…
Favorite Five is a new series where we’ll go into the homes of some of Dallas’ coolest kids and document their five favorite things. Know someone worthy of a nom? Type it in the comments below. Rob Bradford is a costume designer and vintage collector with just the right amount…
Sure, you can blame the aliens, the gophers, the monkeys and the fridge. But even without all those, 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Harrumphing of the Whatsit likely wouldn’t have worked. Its director, you see, no longer finds it edifying to dream up new ways to kill America’s historical enemies…
Dennis Gonzalez is better known for being a free jazz trumpet player and educator, but he is also an artist. Saturday night he will have his first exhibit in a decade, a one night only pop show that will also feature music from his longtime band, Yells At Eels. The…
Terry Mayo’s tattoo gun slings only large-scale art pieces these days — bio-organic, blackwork, black and gray, or color tattoos. The 25-year ink veteran specializes in illustrative images but prefers to tattoo traditional Japanese art. He has tattooed masterpieces using both styles at Cat Tattoo in Addison. Mayo says he…
When Richard Garcia was a kid constantly drawing his favorite comic book characters, he knew he someday wanted to make a living as an artist. But even in art school, where he spent four years working on photo-realistic drawing with graphite and charcoal, he never considered tattooing a viable option…
Thursday, Oct. 22 Weatherproof If you’ve been hoping to check out the McKinney Avenue Contemporary’s new digs, here’s your chance. See some incredible works of art by Letitia Huckaby, Jeremy McKane and Gregory Ruppe and Jeff Gibbons inside the large warehouse space, as well as some great works of art…
Dallas is terrifying for many reasons — traffic, SMU students, Uptown — and October really allows our city to shine with a nacreous glow from a plethora of haunted houses and scary attractions. Who doesn’t want to get chased through a field by a person screaming and waving a chainsaw? We…
Ah, Halloween. That time of the year when grown-ass adults lose their natural minds and engage in activities that they would normally eschew, like eating disgusting confections (looking at you, candy corn) and drink fruity, Everclear-spiked punch until they forget their names. Worst of all, though, are the legions of…
In his 2014 book Difficult Men, journalist Brett Martin identifies bad-boy antiheroes as the defining feature of our current “Golden Age” of television. Tony Soprano, Don Draper and The Wire’s Omar Little dazzle with their multifaceted complexity: How deep the furrow in Tony’s troubled brow! How pensive the trail of…
Every Halloween, adrenaline nuts seek out hauntings. They go on ghost tours or visit haunted houses. But to create a convincing haunt takes a lot of work and a lot of makeup. This is what we learned from a behind-the-scenes tour of Screams in Waxahachie. The make-up artists spend hours…
Shiki: Landscape and Beyond There is a pine tree that has seen more of the world than most humans. Well, it’s mostly a pine tree; the trunk is real, the leaves are handmade from resin by floral sculptor Azuma Makoto. In an exhibition, titled Shiki:Landscape and Beyond, this tree suspended…
Dear Movie Theater Patrons on Their Phones (re: Crimson Peak), A few months ago, I got new contact lenses. The doctor strengthened my prescription, and now I can pretty much count the stars on the American flag on the moon. It’s pretty intense. There’s a raisin on the floor over…
Here’s a hair-raising assignment: Imagine you’re tasked with capturing the social and psychological complexities of a nation’s crackup within the framework of popular moviemaking. What if Gone With the Wind tried, in its swooning romance, to explicate Scarlett O’Hara’s slow-to-dawn realization of the hopeless immorality of the world she has…
In The Shawshank Redemption, Tim Robbins plays Mozart over the prison’s public address system and locks himself in the control room. All the prisoners stop what they are doing and listen. They were shocked that it was actually happening, but inspired. And they understood the music. When Seth Knopp brought…
Quick! Name the movie where Bill Murray plays a proudly shabby dude who acts like a prick for an hour and then, for reasons of narrative convention rather than character-based truth, shambles toward either heroism or some vague be-nicer enlightenment. Maybe a tougher challenge would be to name the Bill…
