The Five Best Comedy Shows in Dallas This Weekend, March 14-17

Every Thursday we highlight the best comedy of the coming weekend. Find more comedy events at dallasobserver.com/calendar. Jon Reep at Hyena’s in Fort Worth Born and raised in rural Hickory, N.C., Jon Reep has made his way across the nation, performing in comedy clubs and on TV. He’s been on…

The Ugly One‘s a Beaut at the Out of the Loop Fest

The 12th annual Out of the Loop Fringe Festival continues at WaterTower Theatre in Addison for one more weekend. Eighteen shows, most under an hour, are on this year’s schedule, which covers three acting spaces. (The Observer is a sponsor.) If you’re there, don’t miss The Ugly One, directed by…

In Stoker, Girlhood Blooms into Violence

Puberty is sex and sex is murder in Stoker, a Hitchcockian stew of hothouse familial jealousy, sadism and psychosis all tied together by one teenage girl’s homicidal coming of age. Psychosexual imagery permeates every inch of renowned South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook’s stateside debut. A blood-tipped pencil, or water dripping…

In No, It’s the Ad Man vs. the Dictator

In 1988 the fate of Chile and its dictator came down to a ballot as simple as a middle-schooler’s do-you-like-me? note. A referendum offered citizens a simple choice: a “yes” for allowing President Augusto Pinochet to return to office for another eight years, having clung to power since his 1973…

In Top of the Lake, Peggy Olson Goes to Hell

Elisabeth Moss’s face is far from the only reason to savor Top of the Lake, Jane Campion’s smart, bracing, hugely enjoyable mystery rural noir Top of the Lake, which premieres on the Sundance Channel on Monday, March 18. But that pale-to-radiant instrument of hers—a mouth that suggests her characters might…

Bronx Bombers

For a movie as much in love with New York’s outer-borough street life as Adam Leon’s Gimme the Loot, it will not do just to talk about the film. That’s what Leon insists, and so I find myself heading north with Leon on FDR Drive on an overcast Friday afternoon,…

Harmony Korine Explains the “Beauty in Horror” of Spring Break

To most of the world, spring break seems like a lot of fun, but people who live in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, or South Padre Island understand the dark side. Damn college kids pass through for a week to drink liquor, trash the streets, and wear T-shirts announcing, “I survived spring…

It’s Opera, Light

The Fort Worth Opera just got more dramatic. It’s joining the eclectic ranks of talent at this year’s Out of the Loop Fringe Fest. On Thursday, the company’s Young Artists will present a showcase at WaterTower Theatre, 15650 Addison Road in Addison. Whether you’re an opera fan or an opera…

Life Happens After Dark

Spring break is here, but that doesn’t mean you need to let your brain rot. Nope. In fact, what if we were to tell you that you could embrace fair weather, the city’s best culture and even see a wonderful movie outdoors, for next to nothing? (I’m asking because that’s…

Sugar, Gliding

Step off, Deb, it looks like Sugar is now doing Dallas, albeit in a completely non-sexual way. Sugar Does America 2 is a Mad Girl Production that crisscrosses the country putting on shows featuring local yet-to-be-discovered female talent. Head out to support your local boob-havers at 8 p.m. Friday at…