Arts & Culture

Let’s be very clear here: the last Queen show was performed 28 years ago at Knebworth House in England. It was the last show because that was the last time bad leader, vocalist and rock icon Freddie Mercury shared a stage with band mates Roger Taylor and Brian May. Since…

For the next full week, the 2014 Asian Film Festival of Dallas presents over 50 eclectic movies back to back. From thrillers to comedies, horror films to dramas, animated sci-fi flicks to documentaries, this festival covers the gamut of contemporary and classic Asian film. You can stretch your imagination with…

Find a theater company without a theater to call its own is sort of like searching for a bathroom close to your departing gate in an airport terminal. You’re going to have to go out of your way to find it, but you’ll be so happy you did. Luckily, the…

Of the works by the three founding members of 1962’s Panic Movement, those of author/illustrator Roland Topor have generally been eclipsed by that of his co-conspirators Alejandro Jodorowsky and Fernando Arrabal. Cinephiles may be vaguely familiar with Topor via Roman Polanski, who based The Tenant on Topor’s novel Le Locataire…

If you’ve ever been in a band, you know how difficult it is to manage all the disparate talents involved and make them sound like one cohesive voice. It’s a feat that can drive damn near anyone to drink, pitting bass players against drummers and resulting in dreams as crushed…

Comics who make it as premiere funny men or women usually have humdrum backgrounds and stumble into comedy as a way to escape the drudgery of their day lives. We know the drudgery of which comedian Steve McGrew sprung from the way that Papillion sprang himself from that Devil’s Island…

There’s nothing sexy about comedy, right? Carrot Top is a total boner shrinker and don’t get us started on Louie Anderson… But there’s an exception to every rule, or maybe just an ironic title. Starting at 7 p.m. Thursday and running through the weekend, The Alternative Comedy Theater at Margo…

If you have stepped foot in a bar, turned on the television or used the Internet in the last three weeks, you know that the 2014 FIFA World Cup is taking place. Yep, it’s that one time every four years where Americans obsess over one of their top 100 pastimes…

Every year tens of thousands of people show up to learn what Dallas tastes like. At least, that’s what the name of the event would seem to imply. In many ways, the Taste of Dallas encapsulates Dallas’ true flavor. These aren’t the trendy restaurants that have found 20 new takes…

North Texas is home to a major animation and voiceover studio, FUNimation studios, which not only creates beloved anime shows like Cartoon Network’s Toonami block and Dragon Ball Z, but also translates many popular Japanese manga shows into English. Just imagine all of the bloody sword fighting and incredibly complex,…

Looking at the fast food habits of Dallas, you’ll easily figure two of the city’s major international influences: Mexico and France. OK, fine, so french fries originated in Belgium, but “French” is in the dang name and this landlocked joint hasn’t come far enough to have mussels and crepes in…

Pink Floyd: gods of the concept album, the conceptual rock tour and, arguably, the conceptual music video. Thanks to the Internet you can now watch Pink Floyd’s The Wall anytime you want, but thanks to Alamo Drafthouse, at 8 p.m. Tuesday you can see the full-length film exactly the way…

The term “outsider artist,” comes with some interesting connotations. Refer to yourself as an outsider in the wrong context and you’ll be sure to hear the sound of monocles shattering and frightful gasps. Luckily, most outsider artists are too busy looking for cans to care. But in Dylan Hunt’s case,…

“Caligrafitizm.” That’s the first word you see when you look up graffiti artist Soner’s website. What does it mean? Well, it’s an amalgamation of his largest influences: calligraphy, typography, graffiti and graphic design, and it truly describes his work. His large-scale murals are fantastical explorations of the interplay between text…

For Ricardo Paniagua, the canvas is sculpture and his sculpture is a canvas. He uses vivid colors to reconfigure recognizable shapes, suggesting interests in geometry and psychedelia, and to talk to Paniagua is to talk to someone inspired. His self-taught artistry and varied creative outputs are what he considers “assignments”…

For Mind’s Eye: Masterworks on Paper from David to Cezanne, co-curators Olivier Meslay and William B. Jordan delved into the Dallas Museum of Art’s holdings and private collections to piece together a stunning exhibition of drawings from some of the 19th and 20th century’s most important artists. The works range…

It’s a Friday afternoon in June and Frank Mosley is walking into Arlington High School, more than a decade after walking out with a diploma. He’s reserved the auditorium for a short film he’s working on, which opens with a stage set being torn down after the run of a…

In its 13th year, the Asian Film Festival of Dallas (AFFD) is one of the biggest celebrations of Asian filmmaking in the South. And with more than 60 films being shown from nine different countries, this year’s festival is shaping up to be the most diverse in the event’s history…