Draftsmen of the Apocalypse CentralTrak opens a group exhibition that explores violence and “mankind’s eventual doom.” All the artists in this exhibition use their work to pinpoint or illuminate aspects of violence in either history or the present day. While seemingly apropos for Halloween weekend, it seems the thread that…
Jake Gyllenhaal, not a particularly bulky guy to begin with, dropped 20 pounds or so to play a Los Angeles misfit who finds his calling as a freelance crime videographer in Dan Gilroy’s nervy thriller Nightcrawler. Even when Robert De Niro does it, weight change isn’t acting — it’s the…
First-Rate Force Majeure Exposes the Act of Manliness
Ruben Östlund makes films the way sociologists devise thought experiments: by posing a hypothesis and thinking fully through its consequences. The Swedish director’s previous feature, 2011’s Play, follows a group of black teenagers in Gothenburg as they blithely coerce a trio of affluent white children to hand over their valuables…
This essay contains a spoiler or two for John Wick. There’s too much violence in movies today — too much of the wrong kind, though if you asked me what the “right” kind is, I would only be able to tell you that I know it when I see it…
A Hit and a Myth
for Golden AppleLyric Stage has polished up another forgotten gem of American musical theater. And what a gleaming beauty it is. The Golden Apple retells The Iliad and The Odyssey in grand comic operatic style, its characters plunked down in 1910 in a small town on Mt. Olympus in Washington. Lyric’s sparkling…
Ochre House’s latest oddity is a new light sci-fi drama written and directed by company member Kevin Grammer. Flower in the Machine takes its time — about an hour too much, frankly — to show what happens when romance withers in a world overrun by technology. Elizabeth Evans plays Girl,…
When we first meet the title character in Olive Kitteridge, she considers the revolver in her hands and looks up at the cloudless sky above the woods one last time. The 25-year journey (and the accumulation of mistakes and bad luck therein) that leads the elderly Olive to that moment…
Alexandre Aja’s Horns is the rare YA-ish romance that doesn’t make like a guidance counselor and force the characters to shake hands and forgive. It’s a biblically tinged, eye-for-an-eye vengeance thriller about an emo boyfriend named Ig (Daniel Radcliffe) whose childhood sweetheart Merrin (Juno Temple) has been murdered underneath the…
Adam Sandler’s movie career may have brought the world many horrible things that have been burned into our eyes with a branding iron but it did bring us something worthy of our attention like comedian Nick Swardson. He’s a born storyteller with some seriously weird and strange experiences that are…
Cold weather is for drawing near a fire and listening to stories. Dallas may not quite be there on the weather front, but there’s an even better alternative. Gather around the stage at Bass Performance Hall (525 Commerce St. Fort Worth) Thursday evening, when award-winning host and creator of A…
In the two person exhibit, Hugs & Kisses, at the Cliff Gallery, the work of artists Erin Stafford and Heyd Fontenot is not so much in juxtaposition as in union. Fontenot’s quirky nudes and Stafford’s glammed out sculptural installations are kismet. Hear the artists discuss their individual work and hear…
Sometimes it feels like all of the horror has been sucked out of Halloween. Unending gore and violent things you can’t un-see has replaced good old-fashioned fear and thoughts that the supernatural just might be real. Cirque du Horror attempts to bring back those frightful feelings by bringing back some…
Halloween doesn’t enjoy the classiest reputation. Go to a party on the 31st, and before you know it you’re often three Jello shots deep, watching some guy in a Duck Dynasty costume make out with Little Bo Peep. If you’re looking to party this Friday, but aiming for something a…
The restorative power of making art is well documented; just think back to the good old days when a pair of blunt scissors and construction paper were all it took to center you. The little strokes of watercolors and the smell of Elmer’s glue are their own special kind of…
Long before Val Kilmer found himself interested in the person, Mark Twain, there was Hal Holbrook. Like a long time before. Holbrook’s show, Mark Twain Tonight, has been touring the country since 1954. That’s sixty years for anyone who’s worse at math than I am. Talk about dedication. Of course,…
Haul out those marigolds, prep your sugar skulls, and don your best face paint—it’s time to honor the dead with some charitable festivities. Los Muertos Bishop celebrates Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, in the naturally walkable fashion of the Bishop Arts District. From 6 to 10…
In its tenth year, Muscle Memory Dance Theatre is ready to try something new. With this show, director Lesley Snelson is turning the reins over to two unknown artists to the Dallas dance scene and letting them run wild with her company. “Wrapped and Uncovered: An Evening of Dance Unraveling…
When the director chooses at Dallas Black Dance Theatre, it seems they tend to stack the deck. The official season opener for the company will be a new series titled, Director’s Choice, which will include works from contemporary choreographers like Alvin Ailey, Gene Hill Sagan, and a new piece from…
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s dazzling symphonic suite Scheherazade. Inspired by the imagery of The Arabian Night’s stories, Scheherazade is a work alive with fantasy and a raw sense of curiosity, brilliantly capturing the allure and wonder of the mythical East. For this performance, the DSO welcomes back…
Everyone’s got a story to tell, even if they don’t think their life is all that exciting. The story of the Thanksgiving where you left dinner early to bail your boyfriend out of jail is actually a potential legend in the making—something your kids will confide to their kids on…
Look, there’s a lot of sex in the Bible. Chances are, you didn’t talk about any of it in Sunday school. Salome, for example, the seductress who set her sights on the unattainable John the Baptist. When he denied her advances she had her daddy, Herod II behead him. OK…
The SMU Meadows Dance Ensemble’s 2014 Dance Concert includes the premier of “Dancin’ Man,” an homage to Bob Fosse created by Alex Sanchez, as well as works by Visiting Artist-in-Residence Adam Hougland. See the concert at the Owens Art Center (6101 Bishop Blvd) at 8 p.m. Wednesday- Saturday or 2…
