Mixmaster presents “100 Creatives,” in which we feature cultural entrepreneurs of Dallas in random order. Know an artistic mind who deserves a little bit of blog love? Email lauren.smart@dallasobserver.com with the whos and whys. Dallas isn’t exactly known as a haven for grassroots movements. Farmer’s markets face constant obstacles despite…
Christopher Blay’s work functions on borderlines. If life is a Venn diagram, he’s creating art in the overlaps. He wants to ask questions, start conversations, and challenge the viewer to see things “outside of their bubble.” As it happens, earlier this year he built himself into a bubble for Deep…
When OKCupid announced they’d been tricking users into believing they were compatible, thousands of angry couples reexamined their relationships from the dirty socks lining the bottom of the sheets to the “beard” on their boyfriend’s chin that looks more like overgrown pubic hairs. Probably. Probably that’s what happened. I’m just…
Tongue, meet cheek. It’s not that the story of Back on Badstreet won’t be true. The documentary from Fort Worth native Keith Alcorn (Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius) really will chronicle the story of the first theme song of professional wrestling. It’s just that it won’t take it too seriously. The…
It’s a sunny day in May, and I see Michael Urie’s toothy smile before I’ve even opened the glass door to the City Performance Hall. He’s home from New York City for the weekend, quietly hosting press conferences before heading to Austin for a wedding. The tour of his hit…
It’s the end of our night. I’ve had about as much performance art as I could stomach and now I’m in a little tiny room with a very large man, attempting to wrestle him for a chance at a handful of what I am promised is $500. Dollar bills are…
Nearly every art critic in Dallas has weighed in on the subject of performance art in the past 72 hours thanks to inside)(outside, a performance art project curated by Dallas-based PerformanceSW. inside)(outside is an online exhibition exploring gender roles through performance but Saturday night the online project manifested itself in…
Mixmaster presents “100 Creatives,” in which we feature cultural entrepreneurs of Dallas in random order. Know an artistic mind who deserves a little bit of blog love? Email lauren.smart@dallasobserver.com with the whos and whys. As Paige Chenault opens the door to the Birthday Party Project’s new office in Addison, she…
Savvy shoppers are always on the hunt for a good deal. Trust fund babies and lottery winners aside, stylish thrifters know to head to vintage shops when they’re looking for champagne flutes on a beer glass budget. Still, as the “vintage” trend continues to explode, there are a number of…
If you could jump in your “comedy time machine” (a time machine that can only be used for the purposes of viewing important moments in comedy groups’ histories and therefore can’t be used to go back and…I don’t know… stop Hitler) to view the history of Locked Out Comedy and…
Mixmaster presents “100 Creatives,” in which we feature cultural entrepreneurs of Dallas in random order. Know an artistic mind who deserves a little bit of blog love? Email lauren.smart@dallasobserver.com with the whos and whys. One doesn’t quickly forget their first visit to WAAS Gallery – or the first time meeting…
The Dallas Theater Center’s version of Les Miserables has turned quite a few heads for its contemporary take on the classic tale of the French Revolution. Director Liesl Tommy’s politically charged update has earned comparisons to Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring. The musical when placed in a modern…
Traffic is lighter on the roads, the sun is hotter, and the words “back to school” are popping up on advertisements throughout the city. It must be August. An easier way to learn this might’ve been looking at a calendar, which would also point out that the weekend is arriving…
Williams in Moscow on the HudsonOn this week’s Voice Film Club podcast, Alan Scherstuhl and Stephanie Zacharek of The Village Voice and Amy Nicholson of L.A. Weekly remember Robin Williams, who died on Monday. He was 63. They also recommend We Are Mari Pepa, a slight movie about growing up…
Land Ho! is a How Grandpa Got His Groove Back for the geezer set, a buddy road trip through Iceland, starring two divorced men with a combined age of 150 years. The writer-directors, Martha Stephens and Aaron Katz, are 30 and 34, respectively, young enough to be their leading men’s…
“Picture it, Dallas, Texas.” The wind-ups in Candy Barr’s Last Dance at Theatre Three are something worthy of Sophia Petrillo. And perhaps The Golden Girls is the best foundation for understanding a comedy about aging women, sitting around a kitchen table, laughing over scandalous memories. Despite the popularity of that…
When musicals make the trek from the Great White Way to the silver screen, it’s likely they’ll find a way back to the stage. There is no better publicity than a two-and-a-half-hour blockbuster film. Currently in the Arts District, the Dallas Theater Center mounts a reinterpretation of Les Misérables —…
When you put a pair of losers in uniforms, at the end of the day they’re still losers. Best friends and roommates Justin (Damon Wayans Jr.) and Ryan (Jake Johnson) learn that the hard way but not without finding some joy in the fantasy that you can become the success…
Titles don’t get more ironic than The Expendables 3. The franchise claims to be about death-seeking mercenaries yet stars ’80s action heroes, who refuse to die. Three films in, everyone in the sprawling team is still alive and ass kicking, save for Bruce Willis, whose million-dollar-a-day asking salary has caused…
Maybe you think you know what Woody Allen did or didn’t do in that summerhouse all those years ago. Maybe you look at his history — shacking up with a Stuyvesant high school girl in the late ’70s; marrying his longtime partner’s adopted daughter in the ’90s — and simply…
Plenty of art doesn’t belong inside the halls of a museum. There are sculptures too large for the ceilings; paintings better suited for the outdoors; and performances for the streets. (Wo)manorial’s latest exhibition breaks the tradition of white-walled encasement in more ways than one. Inside)(Outside started online earlier this month,…
There is something eerie and beautiful about the song “Pure Imagination.” Of course, the story of Willy Wonka’s disciplinary chocolate factory bears its own creepy portrayal of strangers with candy. And the song, with lyrics about viewing paradise in “the world of my creation” has inspired quite a few remakes…
