On Saturday, the Fine Arts Chamber Players performed a free-to-the-public concert in the Dallas Museum of Art’s Horchow auditorium. The concert, presented as part of the Bancroft Family Concerts series, was billed as a collaborative experience with the museum’s current exhibition, Posters of Paris. Offering a free chamber-music concert alongside…
Discussions over preserving the Thomas Building in downtown Dallas were laid to rest Sunday morning, during the vestige cotton building’s implosion. Its bones were weak and the interior had flooded repeatedly, causing erosion to occur at an accelerated rate. Sad about its pending absence but totally stoked about all of…
If a spaceship were to visit Earth, Waxahachie, Texas would make for a solid touchdown location. Its distance from the major, more reactive cities allows for an unassuming arrival. And once landed, I imagine that local art space curators, Julie and Bruce Lee Webb, would be there waiting, ready to…
It was a night that would make the lurkers of a Tatooine night club proud. An intergalactic hoedown hosted locally at Louie Louie’s Dueling Piano Bar. Stormtroopers mingled alongside Starfleet cadets and the two groups cast glances of reserved respect for one another. They are two collections of collectors and…
Did you know that the Mall of America in Minnesota is where the government Operation-Dumbo-Drops all of the obese people you’ve lost contact with? Jim Norton does. They’re totally fine, he said. No need to worry. I checked out Norton’s show at the Addison Improv over the weekend, and it…
The Oak Cliff Film Fest leaked a little news this morning about its plans for a second installment in 2013, and it worked. We’re excited. Just a few months back, the group proved that there was, in fact, room for another cinematic celebration here in Dallas. And it did it…
In this week’s Dallas Observer, we have a long look at the goofiness of the U.S. patent system, which lots of smart people agree is suffocating innovation in this country. One of those smart people is local billionaire Mark Cuban, who’s been on a jihad against patent laws for a…
In honor of Oscar season, and our annual quest to see all of the Best Picture noms, here’s our list from earlier this fall of Dallas’ best movie theaters. Verisimilitude. It’s the suspension of disbelief you feel when you’re watching a film and the line blurs between reality and the…
What you see above is Aaron Sorkin, writer of all of the things people like, talking about his plans for the forthcoming Steve Jobs biopic, based on the biography by Walter Isaacson. It includes this rather detailed reveal, which was transcribed by Grantland:…
Picking up where the original film left off, Leatherface returns to sling his gas-powered weapon in 3D this January. The crew just released a new, extra Texas-y clip from the upcoming release, and it’s piled high with curse words and night terror potential. Man, too bad barns are made of…
He shaved his head onstage at Fun Fun Fun Fest, so Kilmer should look extra aerodynamic while snatching up his Dallas Star Award this evening at The Art of Film, the Dallas Film Society’s annual Fall fundraiser. The night goes all out, with red carpet arrivals leading into the Hall…
The building’s construction continues for a few more months, but our new Alamo Drafthouse can’t wait that long to meet you. It wants to party NOW. What’s an unfinished theater to do? For the Alamo Richardson, the answer is simple: Take that bash outdoors. Tonight, November 16, our much anticipated…
It took the folks at the Perot Museum three years, almost to the day, to build the 180,000 square feet of architecture, green initiative, science, nature, families, technology and awesome that were unveiled to the media this week. But there’s just so much more than that. So I’m going to…
There’s a rock ‘n’ roll puppet party with spaceship art at Webb Gallery on Sunday! Brace yourselves, Dallas. This weekend is loaded up with visits from famouses, homegrown art, and oodles of oddball things falling somewhere in between. There’s a sci-fi costume party celebrating the military at an Arlington piano…
Every Thursday we highlight the best comedy of the coming weekend. Find more comedy events at dallasobserver.com/calendar. Jim Norton at the Addison Improv Heard every weekday morning on the Opie & Anthony radio show and seen everywhere from bookshelves to Louie, Jim Norton is an angry force to be reckoned…
With his comedy special Please Be Offended out on Netflix, Jim Norton has taken to the road again with all new material. He called in from New York before leaving for his weekend of shows at the Addison Improv, and he actually sounded rested. He’d had a nap, apparently. See…
It’s getting easier and easier to find movie screenings with live musical accompaniment these days. It’s harder to find it done well. On Tuesday night, the Dallas Chamber Symphony proved they know exactly how to create a well executed, interactive and entertaining live music/film screening experience. Artistic director and conductor…
The first few minutes of Lincoln play out like a parody of the expectations of Steven Spielberg’s detractors. The Great Emancipator rests like a humble Solomon upon a hard wooden chair, surrounded by freely mixing black and white soldiers of that great war of his. One black soldier dares to…
Unclassifiable, expansive and breathtaking, Holy Motors, the first feature-length film from Leos Carax since Pola X (1999) — and only his fifth in 28 years — received a log line of sorts from its writer-director at the press conference following the movie’s world premiere at Cannes. “This is a film…
“Better 50 enemies outside the house than one within,” says an old Irish proverb. In the tiny, moldy Connemara cottage that’s the setting for Martin McDonagh’s tense 1996 drama The Beauty Queen of Leenane, both residents have one sworn enemy — each other. Now running at Kitchen Dog Theater in…
If Burying Our Father, the biblical whatchamacallit at Undermain Theatre, is supposed to be comedy, it needs to be funnier. If it’s supposed to be performance art, it needs more original moves. If it’s supposed to be a slightly too-long, goofy Sunday school pageant performed by a likable older couple,…
So we all survived another election year. Whew. Need cheering up? Go check out The Jokers Wild Comedy Show this Thursday at the House of Blues (2200 N. Lamar St.). It’s the inaugural night for the House of Blues’ newest DFW comedy event, and it’s 100 percent free. Hosted by…
