Have you ever noticed how funny drunk people are? Danny O’Connor has. In fact, he’s turned it into an entire solo show. Bouncing Ugly chronicles his time as a bouncer at New York City’s infamous club Coyote Ugly. His stories about the bar patron’s revelry and drunkenness elicited ews, aws,…
In Chef, Jon Favreau’s newest movie opening in Dallas theaters today, the title character (played by Favreau) walks through the streets of Santa Monica and stops to stare at a street performer’s puppet. It’s a rock ‘n’ roll skeleton marionette named Mr. Bonetangles, and as the chef pauses to watch…
This week, the Office of Cultural Affairs put out a call for artists to participate in its latest idea for public art. If you’re keeping track, the City of Dallas hasn’t been earning much in the way of positive press concerning its treatment of public art. But its latest commissions…
What-could-have-been has to be a tough subject for the town of Waxahachie. Its biggest claim to fame these days is being the birthplace of Thomas Everett Blasingame, who when he died in 1989 at age 91 was the oldest working cowboy American West. That’s not much to hang a town’s…
No, not the Dallas Observer (we wish!). Dallas’ lovely Perot Museum of Nature and Science launches a partnership this summer with The National Geographic Society. The official announcement of exactly how cool this partnership is going to be arrives next week, but for now they’ve released a few details and…
This is what happens when you — or me, at least — find out that you’re getting a chance to chat one-on-one with William Shatner: You tell your parents that you’re talking to the guy they used to see on TV all the time. You start conversations with friends just…
Usually when you see a celebrity, I’m going to tell you to “be cool.” Act like it’s whatever. Pretend your life is filled with celebrities. But this weekend, things are different. In fact, total geeking out is mandatory. It’s Dallas Comic Con weekend and it’s bigger than ever. For the…
It’s spring and art is in the air! To celebrate, some artists who call Oak Cliff their home, will be opening their front doors and letting you all into their private lives and studios for the 2014 Oak Cliff Visual SpeedBump Tour, this Saturday, May 17, from noon-6:00pm…
Remember how the election of Barack Obama was supposed to define the era of “post-racial” America? That lasted about a minute. Then out they came, the ravening racists. Liberated at last, they no longer felt constrained about expressing their abhorrent views in public. That includes those in public office. Remember…
Godzilla is the movie monster with the mostest. King Kong may be just one gorilla-chest-hair behind, but not even the greatest of apes can quite match the half-dragon, half-dinosaur who first stomped and chomped his way through Tokyo in Ishiro Honda’s 1954 extravaganza Godzilla. In that picture — even more…
Chef, the back-to-his-roots indie flick from Jon Favreau (Iron Man), is to modern foodie culture as his own Swingers is to ’90s swing revival. Favreau plays Carl Casper, a culinary bad boy, barreling egotist and divorced father with a chef’s knife tattoo stretching down his right forearm and “El Jefe”…
Looking for a chance to shout “Only in America”? Only in America — or an American movie — could the story of the first two Indian players to be signed to a Major League Baseball team get spun as an L.A. sports agent’s journey toward realizing the importance of family…
“This is the first generation that is expected to live shorter lives than their parents,” says Katie Couric, the narrator of Fed Up. It’s an infuriating statement given both the preventability of that outcome and the institutional opposition to the solutions, the primary conflict that drives the film. For the…
It’s day two of SXSW, and Mother Nature, tired of people staring at her badge, is revolting. She has painted Austin a morose gray, and a light drizzle is growing into an angry downpour. By the time a herd of black SUVs stampedes the Hotel St. Cecilia around dusk, a…
If you’ve ever loved a terrible person, Mike Leigh’s quietly sensational Cannes competition entry Mr. Turner — a biopic, of sorts, covering the last 25 years of the life of the great 19th century British painter J.M.W. Turner – is the movie for you. In his seascapes and landscapes, Turner…
Greetings from Cannes! It’s an unwritten rule — maybe it should even be a written one -– that no one who is lucky enough to come to Cannes for the film festival, now in its 67th year, should, in any way, shape, or form, complain about being here. But may…
The Nasher Sculpture Center’s new music series, Soundings, closes its 2013/2014 season on Thursday, May 15th with a compelling tribute to the late pianist Van Cliburn. The 7:30pm concert will feature six pianists – all former participants in Cliburn’s namesake piano competition – playing a game of musical chairs as…
Cannes, on festival weekends, is wild: Every night is busy on the Croisette, the long boulevard that winds along the shore and past the Palais des Festivals, the large complex where most of the festival action — including screenings, premieres and red-carpet walking — take place. But the crowds swell…
If all of Cannes isn’t it love with Channing Tatum right now, it should be. During the photo-call for Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher on Monday afternoon, Tatum — relaxed, affable, light on his feet despite being seriously built — turned toward the press and took a few photographs of the corps…
Steven Michael Quezada can do a lot more than slyly take down the pawns of drug kingpins with a crooked smile that immediately weakens the knees of his enemies. He’s also pretty damn funny. Quezada may be best known for play Hank Schrader’s partner-in-crime-fighting Steven “Gomey” Gomez on the critically…
Tumbleweed sweeps past and Jimbob steps out of the saloon. You can almost hear the whistle from the main theme of The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. You’ve stepped out of the cosmopolitan 21st century Dallas and back into a time when men solved their quarrels with bullets. Witness…
In 1976 when Ann Williams founded Dallas Black Dance Theatre, she hoped to inspire minority boys and girls to experience the power and the beauty of dance. Decades later, the effect of her arts education, dance training and outreach has been paramount in the local dance community. As Williams begins…
