The Dallas Museum of Art has just come into some big bucks, an $85,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for their Access to Artistic Excellence program. It’s not the first time NEA has honored the DMA with a grant. In fact, it’s the fourth they’ve received…
In Jesse Peretz’s Our Idiot Brother, Paul Rudd plays Ned, a kind of Upstate New York version of “The Dude” Lebowski — a man out of time, blinkered enough to be living the hippie dream. In the film’s first scene, Ned is “entrapped” into selling pot at a farmers’ market…
Are sunspots making shows go haywire in local theaters? Is Mercury in retrograde? Two productions at neighborhood playhouses opened last week, or tried to, and they proved that old adage true again: Dying is easy; comedy is hard. Theatre Three has started its 51st season with Wild Oats, a play…
In a hundred years, some scholar will look at young adult fiction for the current generation and think that these kids have a problem. I mean, everybody is dead. A quick read-through of the American Literary Association’s Best Fiction for Young Adults list shows a serious preponderance of dead parents,…
Quadrophenia (1979) is more than just a movie. It’s a glimpse into a young man’s complicated life. It is 1965 in London and working-class Jimmy (Phil Daniels) hates his job and is misunderstood by his parents, but he loves his all-nighters, his pills and his scooter-riding fellow Mods. Then there’s…
I keep thinking this comic is Rich Little and any minute he’s going to try to sell me Little Debbie Snack Cakes, but he’s not. He is Rob Little who is “the biggest thing to happen to comedy in a long, long time,” according to his bio. And you might…
They say that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but I’m going to have to disagree. Chocolate is the only way to go when it comes to something that brings delight in spite of your everyday woes. This decadent treat packs the perfect combination of seduction and tastiness. Fortunately, dallaschocolate.org…
Despite being an actual pain-in-the-ass dietary requirement for some, gluten-free is all the rage right now. Like the Atkins diet back in 2003, it seems every other person on the block is starting to adhere to the hip new diet. And why shouldn’t they? I mean, it’s not like bread…
Your dog isn’t just a pet; it’s a family member that probably gets more attention than your spouse or kids. Instead of spoiling it with trips to the dog park, why not take your furry friend to Project Pugway? This fashion show caters to your pooches. The event includes a…
Inevitable in every Fast and Furious flick is the tension-filled moment when pimped-out cars gather before an oh-so important street race. Gauntlets are thrown. Vin Diesel’s bald head shines threateningly in the headlights. Scantily clad girls with 10 percent body fat inexplicably dance around the cars. Does this happen in…
Even the choosiest of the Chosen People will be pleased with this year’s eclectic lineup at the Jewish Arts Festival. The Jewish Community Center of Dallas revives the event for its 13th year following a two-year hiatus. It brings together arts and crafts exhibitions, kosher catering and an array of…
With school having just started, we need to reinforce the importance of the written (and spoken) word to the little ones, and Tulisoma 2011 South Dallas Book Fair and Art Festival is just the event needed to spur them on. The word tulisoma is Swahili for “we read,” so it’s…
Behind the weepy, feel-good movie The Horse Whisperer is the true story of a man who overcame his difficult past and forged a future for himself with the help of a therapeutic relationship with horses. Buck, winner of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival U.S. Documentary Competition Audience Award, tells the…
Everyone knows about the opium poppy, which gives us such exciting things as heroin and poppy-seed muffins. Although you probably don’t even know as much about the well-publicized opium poppy as you think you do. Learn more about the poppy and opium at the Monday screening of Raw Opium (2010)…
The Barnes & Noble folks have always been steadfast in not only stocking their shelves with countless books and movies, but also bringing in fresh literary faces for readings, signings and other interactive events. Barnes & Noble (7700 W. Northwest Highway) now brings New York Times bestselling author Patti Callahan…
Who better to kick off the new Comedy at The Kessler series than the first stand-up comic signed to indie label Secretly Canadian, the side-splittingly entertaining comedian Tig Notaro? Since reopening as a venue in 2010, The Kessler, 1230 West Davis St., has played host to lots of concerts, movies,…
Considering this year’s McKinney Avenue Contemporary Membership Exhibition is called Meltdown, expect local catchy creatives and out-of-the-box thinkers to show off their hotter-than-Hades paintings, mixed-media pieces, literary readings and performance pieces. All works are contributed by current MAC members. It’s time for some major artistic merging and melting, y’all. Nothing…
Remember how much fun your first plane flight was? Do you remember the excitement and tension mounting as you were about to take off? And after you left the ground, as the plane accelerated, did you feel a strange sense of calm as you saw buildings become smaller and smaller?…
The figures in the paintings and drawings of Rubén Miranda are distorted, sometimes stripped down to bone or muscle, other times seeming to have flowers sprout from their skin. Yet rather than appear grotesque, these embellishments suggest something deeper about the subject than a realistic depiction could, or conjure some…
Two houses, both alike in dignity, in fair Garland where we lay our scene. That’s my clever attempt at informing you that Romeo and Juliet, assuredly the greatest love story ever told, will make its way to the Garland Civic Theatre 7:30 p.m. Thursday to kick off the theater’s 2011-2012…
Whether you’re whining about the current state of the stock market or your teacup poodle that refuses to do back flips, art is there to convey your feelings. Texas Christian University can fill your need for artistic expression with the 29th Annual Art in the Metroplex Exhibition, and features local…
If we were to write a fantasy novel about winning the chance to inherit a magical food manufacturing facility, it would probably be called Charlie and the Smoked Brisket Factory, or better yet, Charlie and the Beer Factory. So it’s probably best that Roald Dahl had the idea first with…
