Sunday night, Hollywood’s Dolby Theater will see its seats fill with a bevy of A-listers as this year’s Oscars ceremony gets underway. Leading the field this year is Steven Spielberg’s historical drama, Lincoln, which has 12 nominations. Ang Lee’s Life of Pi has just one fewer, while the others all…
When I interviewed John Lydon last fall, in preview of Public Image Ltd.’s Dallas reunion show, he did not feign interest in talking about his old band, the Sex Pistols. Their history had been written, and he was done revisiting or revising it. Fair enough. Still, their January 1978 show…
Yes, that’s a Monster Truck school bus named Higher Education. Yes, I think that you should mute it, and play this song instead. What do you want, Dallas? Samurai silent films with live experimental music? Done. Amazing fashion shows with booze served from fire trucks? Alright. How about sword swallowing,…
Every Thursday we highlight the best comedy of the coming weekend. Find more comedy events at dallasobserver.com/calendar. Frank Caliendo at the Addison Improv You might think you’re watching FOX NFL Sunday or MAD TV, but it’s all Frank Caliendo, one of the best celebrity voice impersonators working. He’ll create an…
In Death by Microphone, local Brit and barbecue blogger Gavin Cleaver attends stand-up comedy classes at the Dallas Comedy House and reports back for our amusement and education. Check back next week to revel further in his failure. The showcase thing, in which I’m actually appearing in front of an…
This weekend, SMU plays host to something called the North East Texas Humor Research Conference, pithily titled “Humor in the Professions, Psychology, Philology: Intercultural perspectives.” The conference is co-hosted by SMU and Texas A&M-Commerce, and features sessions like “Crowdsourcing Cartooning,” “Neuroscience of Humor” and “Evaluative Formulas Behind Psychology Jokes.” Sounds…
Some shows never change. Like Wicked, A Chorus Line, Chicago. Some do, however, and two that have changed for the better are big comedies with music on Dallas stages for one more weekend. The splashy Broadway tour of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes is at the Winspear. Set on a transatlantic…
What’s it all about, Aphra? Echo Theatre continues its season of plays by 17th century wit Aphra Behn with the Restoration farce The Lucky Chance, or The Alderman’s Bargain, directed by René Moreno, running one more weekend at the Bath House Cultural Center. Behn (rhymes with “rain”) is regarded as…
If Sundance signals the annual launch of American indie cinema’s new product line, the 63-year-old Berlin Film Festival, in mid-February, offers the year’s first major look at what the rest of the world has to offer. In addition to the 19-film official competition — this year presided over by jury…
There’s scant dialogue but plenty of eloquent storytelling in the five animated short films up for a 2013 Oscar, all of which — along with their live-action and documentary counterparts — will get a pre-award show release at Cinemark 17 on Friday. Save for a five-minute Simpsons segment (“Maggie Simpson…
Depending on your perspective, Zooey Deschanel is either the cutest, funniest, most adorable little retro-kookster on earth, or she’s an irritating try-hard with zero comedy chops. The only thing the world seems able to universally agree on is that Deschanel has nice bangs. As such, her sitcom — New Girl,…
When River Phoenix died in October, 1993, he was three weeks away from completing his performance in Dark Blood, an $8 million indie film that had already done five weeks of shooting on location in southern Utah. In this lurid modern film noir, Phoenix was cast as “Boy,” a mysterious,…
Booth babes better up their game, because the ladies of Nerdlesque are heating things up enough to turn Hoth tropical. From the goddesses of classic comics and sci-fi to the badasses of anime and video games, at Nerdlesque your dorktastic fantasies take center stage — and likely, control of your…
When you think of filmmaking, New York and Los Angeles spring immediately to mind, but for the eighth year in a row, the Dallas Producer’s Association will show audiences that Texas can hold its own compared to those production heavyweights. It Came from Dallas — Behind the 8 Ball brings…
It’s Dallas’ biggest fashion show, and for 2013 The Pin Show’s organizers decided to whip a stitch in reverse and stage the event in a West Dallas warehouse. So while last year’s Pin brought dripping chandeliers and luxe lobbies, this installment becomes even more interesting with a stripped-down, deconstructed focus…
Once upon a time, silent films were scored in front of live audiences, whether it was a pianist in a small American movie house or benshi in Japanese theaters. Today we can watch an old silent film with a remastered recording, so rarely are we given the chance to see…
We’re fortunate to live in a community saturated with art. From visual to dance, symphony to stage, there are a few groups we always keep in our sights, despite the heavy competition, and one of those companies is Kitchen Dog Theatre. Never afraid to push an unconventional production into the…
I imagine a photo shoot with iconic pin-up photographer Bunny Yeager being a bit like a slumber party, where pretty girls trade beauty tips and adjust each other’s updos as they lazily begin to slump. By all accounts, that’s a fairly accurate depiction, and that camaraderie formed gave Yeager a…
Sword swallowing is one of those talents that I’ve never understood. Namely, how does one suspect that they’ve got the calling? Moreover, if you’re a youth with no sword-swallowing role models, how do you enter the field? Are there internships available? If so, what exactly is involved, administratively? How many…
Sometimes traffic is overwhelming. It can cause us to grip our steering wheels with white knuckles, and let slip the most unbecoming of expletives in front of the most infant of audiences. It can make a nun fantasize about bolting on a large set of tires and driving over the…
For most of us, the ability to nail impressions of famous people would be a wasted gift. We’d use our best Bill Clinton voice to call in an order of Buffalo Wild Wings or spend our mornings on the phone sharing our hot sports opinions with Norm Hitzges in full…
Dallas Summer Musicals is known for bringing the best of Broadway to Big D. Tony- and Grammy-award winners march through town, and the current run of Catch Me if You Can is keeping in step. With a book by Terrence McNally, a score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, and…
