Let’s just say that you’re the President of the United States. It’s a stressful job and your limited experience as a project manager for a software company has ill prepared you for managing a nation’s budget and hobnobbing with foreign diplomats. You’re facing a record budget shortfall and something’s gotta…
In the early 1970s, there was no bigger U.S. rock group than Grand Funk Railroad. Their combination of sly publicity, smokin’ hot licks and a dreamy, shirtless, horseback-riding singer made them more popular than a bong at a tailgate party. Classic rock radio has ensured that their brand of good-time…
Freudians disheartened by the Bearded One’s fall from psychotherapeutic grace may be cheered to learn that ol’ Sigmund lives and prospers at the movies, at least in child-friendly cinema. The Spiderwick Chronicles, an extravagantly oedipal fantasy adventure based on the popular children’s novels by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, comes…
The fourth wall springs a leak in two shows now playing Dallas stages. At Risk Theater Initiative’s Slaughterhouse Five, a character resembling Kurt Vonnegut Jr., (played by T. A. Taylor) sits facing the audience to narrate his time-hopping memoir of World War II. In Tony ‘n’ Tina’s Wedding, a Dallas…
The Amateurs (First Look) The Beatrix Potter Collection (BBC Warner) Becoming Jane (Miramax) Blade: The Series — The Complete Series (New Line) Blue State (MGM) Charlie Chan: Volume 4 (Fox) Dallas: The Complete Eighth Season (Warner Bros.)Dedication (Weinstein) The Equalizer: Season One (Universal) Family Ties: The Third Season (Paramount) General…
When it comes to giving a game a vibe, “awesome” is an easy mark to hit. Explosions, hot chicks, macho one-liners, and salivating mutants are all awesome. And it’s just about impossible to overdo the awesome: More explosions, more hot chicks, more machismo, and more mutants are only more awesome…
No Reservations (Warner Bros.) From its cheap, mid-’90s-looking package to its woefully scant extras (one pre-chewed Food Network behind-the-scenes, blech) to its wide-screen/full-screen option, this feels like something dropped right into the discount bins; it probably debuts at half off this week. And this soufflé of a romantic comedy deserves…
Sandwiched somewhere between the American Spirit commercials and the Clinton campaigning that make up Definitely, Maybe is a surprisingly rewarding romantic comedy—one worth the effort, because some effort’s actually been put into it. Imagine really old-school Woody Allen starring that shit-eating smirker from Van Wilder, Ryan Reynolds, who’s always been…
We know what the inside of Swedish houses look like. We got the Ikea a few years ago and have made enough trips—actual and through that fabulous catalog—to know the perfectly organized reality of Scandinavian nesting. Clean lines, children’s creative areas, inviting color and tasty, lingonberry-sauced meatballs. Right? Right. But…
I don’t know exactly when it happened, but at some point Sprint Nextel became a big player in the art game. Don’t believe me? Then check out Cardinal Points/Puntos Cardinales: A Survey of Contemporary Latino and Latin America Art from the Sprint Nextel Art Collection. The exhibit features 56 works…
There’s a scene in any good documentary of Janis Joplin where she returns with a camera crew to her home town of Port Arthur, Texas, to attend her high school reunion. She’s decked out in full Janis regalia: feather boas, beads, frizzy hair…the whole nine yards. Janis does a few…
We should probably give Valley House Gallery a standing ovation for bringing Mark Messersmith’s work to the locals. Landscapes in art are a yawn for the most part: They teach them to death in school, and generic vistas dominate the “art” section at many a Target and Wal-Mart. Messersmith’s landscapes…
On performer Jill Scott’s Web site, she asks fans, “Are you the real thing?” They respond with video posts confirming that they are and explaining why. The fans all want to be like Jill Scott, who is, in a word, real. Committed to authenticity and integrity in her music, and…
I suppose having one’s musical product imported to American audiences by the likes of Paul Simon is kinda awesome. Come to think of it, import assists from Eddie Murphy, Disney and Life Savers aren’t too shabby either. Since the 1960s, Joseph Shambalala has been at the helm of African folk…
You know what I’ve never understood? Why when people are being all cutesy and disgusting, they turn the “o” in the word “love” into a heart instead of the “v.” An “o” looks nothing like a heart. The “v,” on the other hand, already has the whole bottom part done…
Some people like zoos. They enjoy seeing the lions and tigers and zebras. Others don’t. They see the cages and feel sad for the proud animals taken far from their native wild and humbled. This really has nothing to do with the O’Reilly Auto Parts Autorama at Dallas Market Hall,…
Frank Campagna knows how to save Deep Ellum. Get busy. That’s how he keeps patrons walking through the doors of his Kettle Art Gallery, an incubator of North Texas talent. At least once a month, Campagna hosts some kind of event at Kettle, whether it’s an opening of an artist’s…
Americans love horror movies. A surprising number of otherwise sane citizens will gladly pay good money to sit in a dark theater and watch hours of unspeakable acts perpetrated by murderers and madmen. And while commercially successful, it is the rare foray into the genre that gets the privilege of…
I love it when hot female scenesters (scenesterettes? scenestresses?) are hip to retro trends that make them look even hotter. Burlesque dancing, pin-up girl styling and corsets have all made comebacks among the fashionable rocker chick set in recent years. I think some of these trendy young lasses try to…
“That’s a good dog. Yes he is! Who’s a good puppy? Who’s a good puppy?!! Yes he is! OK, sit. Good boy! Down. No, down. Good boy! Roll over. Good boy! Aww, he likes having his tummy rubbed. Yes he does! Good boy. OK, fetch. Go get it! Wow, look…
For Valentine’s Day, Little Katana is not only stretching the holiday two whole days past the prescribed date of February 14, but they’re also playing a little game of “One of these things is not like the other.” Yup, romance is in the air and on the plate with these…
I must admit, seeing Days of the New singer-songwriter Travis Meeks on an episode of Intervention a couple years back was a bit of a shocker. Not because he was on the show, necessarily. And not because he was addicted to meth instead of rock star mainstays such as cocaine…
