There are as many versions of the story of Little Red Riding Hood as there are matador pants in Prince’s closet. There have been multitudinous attempts to put a fresh spin on this fairy tale. The most famous is by the Brothers Grimm in the 1800s. It has the wolf…
Not since the days of the Equal Rights Amendment has there been so much to say about gender. The political bids by Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin brought to light a maelstrom of gender politics, made feminist blogs bookmark material and really brought forth a dialogue about how gender defines…
Nuns are scary. They appear in movies, always looming over some child’s desk, ruler in hand, ready and willing to wreak havoc right out of a Catholic school nightmare. Thus nuns tend to make more appearances as scary costumes on Halloween rather than at Christmas (well, OK, I guess there…
London-based artist Dan Perfect’s paintings are collages of sorts. Not of their media, but their aura. Ambiguous forms and referential icons are scattered across his canvases, and the result is not disjointed or trivial, but rich and striking. With imagery that echoes Miro and Picasso as much as it does…
With his blazing white coat and pig-pink ears, to say nothing of the zigzag of lightning cut into his flank, the eponymous canine lead of Disney’s lively new animated movie Bolt looks a little bit real and a whole lot not. That’s not a failure of craft: Goofy and sweet…
Just in time for the holiday season comes a play about a man having sex with a goat. Leave it to Kitchen Dog Theater, never ones for plum-pudding entertainment, to plop Edward Albee’s unnerving The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? in our midst while everyone else is going with tinsel…
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Well, who wouldn’t in this economy, even if the currency in question is rupees and winning the loot means being pegged as a fraud, getting a firsthand education in “enhanced” interrogation methods and having to relive some of the most painful moments of your…
Arnaud Desplechin is a cinema maximalist: A Christmas Tale feels like all 12 days of seasonal merriment, and then some. This comic, ultimately touching family melodrama is a heady plum pudding of a movie—studded with outsized performances and drenched in cinematic brio. The concoction is over-rich, yet irresistible. It should…
Shown in the market last May at Cannes, Jean-Claude Van Damme’s JCVD garnered a surprise critical cult. Audiences, midnight or otherwise, may never warm to this low-budget whatzit, but Van Damme’s self-reflexive turn gave movie journalists plenty to mull over. Had Belgium’s contribution to international kick-sock-pow cinema been hanging out…
Nothing says “holiday season” like a bustling train stop. Fortunately, Dallas being the way it is, our train stops come complete with retail, dining and film opportunities. Mockingbird Station does, at least, and much like retailers everywhere, the station is getting in the holiday spirit. With a slew of activities…
A long overdue trip to IKEA can act as a reminder that there’s a designer in everyone–if they can make a 200-square-foot space livable, just imagine what you could do if you were given a shot. Now you get your chance to show your flair for interior design as the…
Landscape or cityscape art frequently falls into the trap of being a little too postcard friendly. I can admit to seeing more than one gallery show where renderings that are supposed to be “haunting depictions of the ravages of industry on our landscapes” are little more than benign reproductions of…
Jeff Kaplan, a Denton-based actor and dancer will perform his one-man show, Beowulf is min nama, on 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Imagine, a Texan spouting verse in Old English while supertitles float above the stage to aid the baffled audience. Add to this the beauty of post-modern dance as…
The story goes that when America’s Got Talent judge David Hasselhoff laid eyes upon comic impersonator and puppet master of sorts Terry Fator he said, “Oh, no, a ventriloquist.” But c’mon, we only trust the Hoff’s expertise when it comes to cheeseburgers and home video. Fator proved Sir Baywatch wrong…
I’ve never liked slapstick humor, and I realize this puts me in a category with about only 1 percent of the rest of the world. Even still, I feel little after watching people clothesline themselves with 2-by-4 a la Jackass and, I really can’t handle witnessing beer being funneled up…
Other than having free reign to eat copious amounts cornbread stuffing and pumpkin pie with family and friends, my favorite thing about Thanksgiving Day is popping open a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau. Yes, wine snobs, I know that it’s a young wine that hasn’t had time to fully mature and…
Howie Mandel has had several careers in the entertainment biz. After a few years as a stand-up comic, he became world famous with his role as Dr. Fiscus on the groundbreaking, underrated medical drama, St. Elsewhere. It spawned the careers of a shitload of actors–Mark Harmon, Ed Begley Jr., Denzel…
I was always told those little white bumps you get on your tongue that hurt really bad were from telling a lie. That thought used to scare the crap out of me, and even though now I know they are inflamed taste buds or something like that, I still don’t…
Sometimes you’re too old to get it…the joke, that is. Sometimes you’re too young. In the case of The Smothers Brothers, I’m both. I’m just the right age to vaguely remember brothers Tom and Dick’s late ’60s variety show, canceled on CBS in 1969 because it was just too edgy…
Star-y garland halo’s that had 15 different colors of curling ribbon draping off of them to create the most perfect princess/angel head gear, that’s what I always bought at the craft shows mom dragged me to as a child. Sure the ribbons would uncurl and the garland was itchy across…
Dan Rather is a cultural icon–a man whose voice takes us back to the golden age of television news when it took more than a good head of hair and expensive dental work to be a network reporter. Most of us know Rather as a stately figure, a man whose…
Afternoon tea encompasses the only things that are right with British cuisine: hot tea and scones. Forget bangers, faggots with gravy or spotted dick (were middle-schoolers allowed to name English food?); give us a creamy, flaky scone with preserves. Experience the range of edible British food at afternoon tea with…
