If you’ve never seen a Muay Thai demonstration, you’ll need to put the Thai Culture & Food Festival on your calendar. The world champion of the sport known as the “art of eight limbs” takes the stage of the two-day culture showcase Saturday and Sunday at The Buddhist Center of…
When Booth opens at Second Thought Theatre this Friday, it will be the product of many years of friendship and work by co-creators Steven Walters and Erik Archilla. The pair met as freshman at Baylor University and have sporadically worked on the political thriller about John Wilkes Booth since they…
Your summer wardrobe just got a little cooler thanks to up-and-coming line, NeoBantu. Blending together classic feminine shapes with vibrant African prints, designer Tendai Tawonezvi is producing pieces that reflect and celebrate your individuality. She sources handmade African fabrics to inspire and fabricate her designs, all of which are done…
America’s sweetheart Jennifer Lawrence truly can do anything. In the course of three months, she’s managed to graciously lose an Oscar (her third nomination in four years), swan above the mansplaining condescension of a male pundit who tsk-tsked her for getting drunk in public, and burst into the summer blockbuster…
Remarkable as it seems, there’s still poetry to be found in the idea of kids tooling around with nothing much to do. Whether you grew up in a small town or a midsize-to-large city, in 1962, 1982 or 2002, you probably remember getting into a car, unwisely, with the first…
Let’s rewind 20 years, to the summer of 1994. O.J. Simpson has been arrested for murder, the World Cup is in America and being ignored, and the biggest hits at the multiplex are Forrest Gump, The Lion King, True Lies and Speed. Notice anything odd about those movies? There’s not…
The phrase “summer movies” will never not mean broad, action-driven crowd-pleasers to me: I counted the days until Batman (June 23, 1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (July 3, 1991), and Jurassic Park (June 11, 1993) were released. For every Dark Knight there are 10 Prometheuses — and that’s just among…
In 2014, any filmmaker who has a feel, and a flair, for romantic melodrama is doomed, and just one recent example from the world of blockbusters suggests why: In the final moments of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the hero tragically fails to save a major character, but the moment, coming…
It was Jason Tugman’s first day of work. Almost a decade later, he still remembers the screams. A former circus fire-eater, he’d taken a job as a lighting technician for The Oprah Winfrey Show after burning off a chunk of his tongue. The pay was $32 an hour and he…
It’s been a few days since I saw David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars, screening here in competition, and I’m still not completely sure what I think of this sometimes-smart, sometimes-arch ultra-black comedy about shallow Hollywood types. But one thing’s for sure: Julianne Moore is a knockout in it. Moore…
#492425863 / gettyimages.com Marion Cotillard, the star of the Dardenne Brothers’ competition film Two Days, One Night, showed up for the photo call on Tuesday in a mini-dress encrusted with a riot of buttons, a whimsical and rather adorable choice for an actress who, on-screen just a few minutes earlier,…
James McAvoy knows not to trust the British tabloids. While flogging his grotty drama Filth, based on the Irvine Welsh novel about a coke-addicted, double-crossing cop, they breathlessly reported that the Scottish actor had dived so deep into method acting that he’d convinced a German hooker to punch him in…
I haven’t looked forward to a new Godard movie since…never. The first Godard movie I saw upon its release in a movie theater was First Name: Carmen, in 1983, which overwhelmed me: I didn’t yet understand that it’s OK not to completely comprehend everything a filmmaker puts in front of…
Even a turtle has its day. That was the lesson from the footrace that the speedy, but lazy hare lost to the tortoise. If we’re being technical, a turtle would actually race a fish. Clearly, I failed biology, but I’m going to make an uneducated guess that no self-respecting tortoise…
Stand-up comedians usually don’t make great cultural ambassadors because their job is to offend the sensibilities of everyone in the room for a laugh. Comedian Maz Jobrani, however, can do both with a daft cleverness that’s rare in comedy circles. His well honed material doesn’t attack cultural and political biases…
Emerging from the grungy 90’s, the 21st century saw young men pulling their pants up, styling their hair and pressing suit jackets to wear with designer jeans. From Pharrell’s infamous hat to Justin Timberlake’s suit and tie, today’s rockstars pay homage to Hollywood’s golden age of gentlemanly sex appeal. For…
The polka has a lot to answer for, namely the terrible damage polka-ing did to the reputation of the innocent accordion in this country. In the right hands — the late Clifton Chenier’s, or Flaco Jimenez’s for example — the accordion is a perfectly fine folk instrument that can boogie…
If you really just can’t bear to wait until July Fourth to feel really American, and if Memorial Day is still 24 hours too far away, Sunday is just as USA. Why? Because it’s National Tap Dance Day, of course. And while you may see some clog, step, and stomp…
If your main exposure to Thai culture involves spicy fried rice at a place with vases of plastic orchids at every table, then you’re doing it wrong. The colorful, mostly-Buddhist and cheerful customs of the people of Thailand are downright heartwarming for us jaded Americans—and the food is just the…
Cartoons aren’t just for kids anymore thanks in part to rise of Adult Swim and primetime fare like The Simpsons, South Park and the endless supply of shows that FOX instinctively keeps giving to Seth MacFarlane. Just about every major animator and cartoon artist working today got their start as…
This is a Composer’s Brain on Drugs Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique twists together strange percussive effects and a recurring, meandering melody to depict the story of a young artist’s opiate d ream. The music waltzes, marches and dances maniacally as the young man obsesses over the woman he loves, murders…
For a lot of Dallas kids, their first introduction to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra was the Memorial Day Concert at Flag Pole Hill. It’s a decades-old tradition that combines classical music, picnics and fireworks. And this is not the year to stray from traditions. Grab that apple pie out of…
