An average episode of the 1989-1999 cable show Mystery Science Theater 3000, in which a man and his robot buddies heckle bad movies, runs about 90 minutes. The 1955 film This Island Earth is 87 minutes. The 1996 feature Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, in which the man and…
As another summer movie season characterized by cynicism and excess draws to a close, there are few activities less valuable or interesting than complaining about it. The blockbusters arrived, flattened cities, vomited effects, deafened with explosions, made money, didn’t make enough money, pleased populist critics, displeased elitist critics, and finally…
The late, great Elmore Leonard advised writers never to open a book with weather. Does a lightning storm count? Last evening I was welcomed to Venice, where I’m just settling in for the 2013 edition of the city’s film festival, with a spectacular lightning storm over the Grand Canal. This…
Our favorite artist with an inscrutable last name is one of the hardest-working guys in the Texas art world. Stephen Lapthisophon is a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington and University of Texas at Dallas, had multiple shows this summer, including one in Los Angeles, and he showed…
One notch above Jell-O wrestling you’ll find The Ticket’s Fight Night. It’s a night when a bunch of regular jackoffs (and jackoff-ettes) step in the ring, stop fighting with their words and use their fists … the way it was intended. After the fights, country singer William Clark Green will…
The Altercation Punk Comedy Tour is coming to the constant-joke-set-up venue Someplace Else, 1900 West Arbrook Blvd. in Arlington, at 10 p.m. If you’re curious what distinguishes punk comedy from regular comedy, the first thing you should know is it’s strictly 21 and up. Founder JT Habersaat put out a…
International Bacon Day is more important than Valentine’s, Groundhog and Arbor days combined. It’s a magical celebration when we unite in the shared love of salted, slow-cooked swine and sing anthems in the name of ribbon meat. Or we just order double bacon at brunch, whatevs. Dallas Bites! Food Tours…
As loath as we are to agree with R. Kelly, we don’t really see anything wrong with a little bump and grind. Also, nothing wrong with a hip rock or sashay accentuated by some well-placed fringe. Don’t have a problem with fishnets, either, now that we’re thinking about it. In…
When Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess premiered at the Oak Cliff Film Festival, Texas Theatre (231 W. Jefferson Blvd.) paired it with a lobby chess battle: a tiny war waged and fought by humans. For its theatrical release weekend, the theater will hit the return key with “Texas Theatre Speed Chess…
There are only a few career options with a name like Buster Cooper. You could be the star of screwball comedies. Maybe a very low-end private eye. Or you could be one of the world’s most beloved jazz and tap dancers. Dallas’ own Buster Cooper, a nationally known teacher and…
Chess tournaments have lost intensity on the national level since, say, the Cold War ended. True, chess is the game of kings, an ultimate test of strategy and has been used by brooding, Scandinavian directors to represent man’s attempts to cheat death. But without the reputation of capitalism at stake,…
Ah, Labor Day: the best excuse September offers to get completely wasted on a Sunday. You probably already know how you’re going to get your holiday weekend Sunday Funday started (Mimosas? A pool? Both?), so here is how you’re going to cap it off: by letting your inhibitions and your…
No ifs, ands or buts about it: cancer blows. We don’t know whether it’s because we’re getting older or the world’s just getting suckier, but it seems more prevalent than ever. And while it’s easy to stress, worry and fear the blight that is taking our loved ones, sometimes what…
Sundays are typically ho-hum, but this Sunday will be anything but. Especially if the Texas Association of Magicians has anything to say about it — and they do. They just say it with smoke poofs and sleight of hand. They’ll be holding their annual convention at Intercontinental Hotel Dallas in…
Many moons ago, my friends and I — having long since burned through all of the Studio Ghibli offerings—found an ad on the back of a newspaper for a place that promised a large selection of anime titles. When we arrived at the windowless building just outside the city limits,…
Life isn’t going as predicted for Scotty Mankin (Kevin Grammer) in the Ochre House’s newest original play Best Seat in Town. The down-and-out car salesman really messed up when he sold lemons to the puppet mafia. As we meet him, Mankin’s on a desperate mission to track down the mafia’s…
If your mother died in jail, imprisoned for murdering your father, and your fancy new fiancé fears you harbor similar murderous tendencies, what would you do? While most of us would either kick the dude to the curb or run and hide from the everlasting familial tragedy, Carla Le Merchant…
The circus left town a few weeks ago and you’re still whistling “Entrance of the Gladiators.” Maybe you’re thinking about chucking it all and heading for clown college: Elephant training seems preferable to cubicle dwelling, and flying trapezes sound way less treacherous than the office gossip mill. It’s tempting. Then…
If you’ve ever driven that stretch of Interstate 35 just south of Dallas and been floored that the miles of green pastures and wooded areas that lined the highway just a decade ago are now a perpetual tract of retail and restaurant and storage units, you’ll appreciate Debora Hunter’s exhibition…
Testing equally well with sample groups “Families” and “The Impossibly Stoned,” Super Buddies is Disney’s latest direct-to-video release. From what we gather, it mashes up Eastern philosophy, dogs dressed as humans and mohawed miniature horses to create some kind of lesson. We think it might be about string theory, so…
On Thursday, August 29, Sportsradio 1310 The Ticket takes over the Village Country Club with a ring, a copy of the Marquess of Queensbury Rules, and a slew of ever loyal P1s. That’s right folks, it’s time for Fight Night ’13, an event members of the Hardline call “The best…
I walk through a somewhat ordinary office — some desks, chairs, white boards — to a storage area in the back. It’s dark in here. Stacks of shipping boxes line the walls and litter the floor. Someone hits the lights, my eyes focus, and I see them. Round, beige heads…
