The Wedding Singer is not a guilty pleasure for me. I don’t feel the least bit bad about counting it among my all-time favorite films. Sure, I know there are better acted films out there, and I’m fully aware that Adam Sandler is not really a subtle, nuanced performer, but…
Whenever you come across those people that don’t quite “get art” or how it can be a statement of something, refer them to Alisa Banks. Her works should be able to get it through their thick skulls—especially her books, in which she touches on inner identity based on ideas of…
Moms with picky eaters snapped up her first Sneaky Chef cookbook and learned how to hide zucchini in muffins. But how to get meat-loaf-lovin’ husbands to eat healthy? Missy Lapine came up with Sneaky Chef: How to Cheat on Your Man (in the Kitchen): Hiding Healthy Foods in Hearty Meals…
Steven Walters’ latest new work for Second Thought Theatre combines high school football, violence, sexual abuse and the death penalty for two hours of tense drama. Call it “Friday Night Plights” as Coach Weldon Brown (Clay Yocum) brutally beats to death two of his star players in full view of…
Trust Kitchen Dog Theater not to do anything ordinary with Shakespeare’s second-longest play. For starters, director Ian Leson (who’s usually a lead actor for this company) spent more than a year cutting the five-act script to watchable length (just over two hours). He’s done that by keeping all the murders…
Developers seem to believe that their first-person games are required to include online modes. Blame it on the few narrow-minded gamers (and critics) who constantly hammer away with that boneheaded message. At best, it’s a strange logic of inheritance: Since the earliest first-person shooters were playable online, every first-person game…
Ben Mezrich’s 2002 best-seller Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas For Millions was a smart narrative about…well, you did see the subtitle, right? Mezrich more or less recounted a fantastic tale spun by an old acquaintance from Boston, an M.I.T. grad named…
Considering that the war in Iraq has proven to be Washington’s shot-by-shot remake of Vietnam, it’s only natural that Hollywood has followed suit, giving us a series of Iraq-themed films that can be set neatly alongside their Vietnam-era counterparts. Just as the initial wave of angry anti-Vietnam documentaries (In the…
When it was revealed in September 2006 that the Deep Ellum Film Festival would be shuttered to make way for the AFI Dallas International Film Festival, and its attendant big-money corporate sponsors, local cineastes fretted that DEFF founder Michael Cain had sold out to the highest bidder. Which proved absolutely…
All 103-year-olds should look as good as Major Barbara. There are lots of lines but few wrinkles in George Bernard Shaw’s three-act comedy, now running in a production full of smart young actors, and a few wise elders, at Fort Worth’s Stage West. Timely and timeless, the play asks still-relevant…
I envision jazz the way Elmer Bernstein musically painted the 1955 film The Man With the Golden Arm—gritty, dark and blaring. Music that is beautiful but treacherous and can score both the delicacy of romance and the seediness of drug addiction. Now, whether I find that up in Addison is…
Neil Young has never been a meticulous sort when it comes to his appearance (God love him), and people often think he is at his best with the band Crazy Horse—a infamously ramshackle, slop-o-riffic affair. As slapped together as he can appear and sound, sometimes he can be a notoriously…
How does someone go from living in a housing project in New Orleans to becoming the NBA’s head coach of the year? Dallas Mavericks Coach Avery Johnson tells us in his new book, Aspire Higher: Winning On and Off the Court with Determination, Discipline, and Decisions. Johnson’s success as a…
Contemporary art dealer Craighead-Green Gallery celebrates its third year in its current home on Dragon Street with a group show, and everyone’s invited. Invited to attend, that is. Curators couldn’t open up showcase space to the masses. But the show tries to appeal to the masses, offering something for every…
Last year we accompanied some tykes to the Day Out With Thomas festivities at Grapevine’s Cotton Belt Depot. Unfortunately we didn’t have tickets for the train ride on Thomas, which is the coolest part, so we just made bubbles in pits of soapy water and hung out with Bob the…
Grand Prairie native Laura Ainsworth has a little something to say about aging. In Dallas, it might seem that the singer and comedienne’s viewpoints on diets, plastic surgery and especially Botox might seem a bit unwelcome, but I’m going to go out on a thick-thighed limb here and say there…
When I was a kid I had a Sesame Street playhouse, and it was badass. It was so badass, in fact, that one night two car thieves used it as a hideout from the cops. Didn’t work for them, but it did work for me, at least until a giant…
Americans love meat—to the tune of 200 pounds per person in 2005, according to the USDA. You know you’re eating meat when you’re served a juicy steak, a side of bacon or a plate of Thanksgiving turkey. But how much sneaky meat do you eat? Note the disclaimer on the…
More than two years later, it still stuns. The gravity of the situation in New Orleans can be revealed to us, brought back to the forefront of our thoughts, in any number of ways: an Anthony Bourdain special, a Spike Lee documentary, a newspaper series, an art exhibit. Yet, it…
By high school, I was certain I knew everything—and certainly everything there was to know about the two squares who were always bossing me around. But my parents still managed to surprise me occasionally. One of those moments was when my dad recommended Southern Culture on the Skids. I thought…
Country singer Sara Evans was well on her way to being the next Faith Hill. Starting out as a fairly modest act, a string of hits and crossover appeal transformed her into a glammed-out artist. That was before 2006. Someone must not have told her that Dancing With the Stars…
Putting the performance in performance art and blowing it up to 11, BLAST! was the toast of 2001 Tony Awards. The touring show has been making the rounds for a few years now, but fans who can’t get enough of its kinetic energy thrill to witness it in new venues,…
