The Boxer is brilliant. The locally grown one-act play that charmed audiences at last summer’s Festival of Independent Theatres is now at Dallas Children’s Theater, with the same cast and an even more polished staging by Dallas writer-director Matt Lyle. What a gem. In a lively 60 minutes, Lyle’s darling…
As one of what novelist Stephen King calls his Constant Readers, I was as jazzed as every other monster-lovin’ geek when word came that filmmaker Frank Darabont was making a movie of King’s classic novella, The Mist. Cynics suggested that after tanking big time with his Frank Capra homage, The…
I’m Not There is the movie of the year — but to whom does Todd Haynes’s Bob Dylan biopic actually belong, and when was it really made? The great attention-grabber of last month’s New York Film Festival, I’m Not There is as notable for its stunt casting as its elusive…
When is it OK to spend $250 on a concert ticket? As someone who’ll admittedly do anything to save a buck, I’d have to say never. (I prefer the term “thrifty” to “cheap,” in case you were wondering.) But if you’ve got a little money to spare and wanna feel…
For their second exhibition, the new Light & Sie gallery presents Grit and Vigor, a group show compiling sculptures, paintings and photographs curated by Rowley Kennerk and inspired by artistic movements of the ’60s and ’70s that promises to affect gallery-goers “viscerally rather than intellectually.” Possible translation: lots of pointy…
In the parallel orbits of daytime television, Maury Povich is the Bizarro universe equivalent of Oprah Winfrey. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. We’ll take “Who’s My Morbidly Obese Baby’s Daddy?” over “Darfur Extreme Beauty Makeovers” any day. Hypnotist Flip Orley’s numerous appearances on Maury make him the…
It is hard to believe that Deborah Harry, new wave’s original diva, turned 62 this summer. Yet her advanced years do little to diminish her charisma and onstage prowess, as Harry is nearly as feisty and fashionable as she was when she started Blondie in the mid ’70s. The former…
I didn’t take to Robert Hawkins the first time I saw his stand-up on Premium Blend. Sure, there were a few funny bits: “If you just act natural, you can swim in any hotel pool for half an hour.” “You know who I hate the most? Others.” But for the…
I’ll be straight with you—I’m a sucker for the holiday jams, whether it’s “White Christmas,” “Carol of the Bells” or the classic Darlene Love/Phil Spector joint “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).” I know I’m not alone on this (I’m also pretty sure I’m not the only person around that will…
As we head into the giving season with its charity balls, donation requests and soup kitchen holiday events, the needs seem pretty dire. Between the homeless, battered women, abandoned animals and countless refugees around the world, you could donate your entire paycheck for a few months straight. So instead of…
It’s quite possible that, aside from turducken, my favorite thing about the holiday season is the wonderfulness that is the Salvation Army Angel Tree. Every year I select a couple of Angels and go on a shopping spree on their behalf, getting everything from sweaters and shoes to roller skates…
Black Friday. It’s an inevitable, necessary evil we have to deal with every year—the crowds are insane, but the sales are enough to bring people out in droves. Circling in the car for hours to find parking spaces and waiting in mile-long lines for $10 sweaters is what we do…
Here’s a note to a very special set of regular Dallas Observer readers: The Salvation Army will offer traditional Thanksgiving dinners with all the trimmings to more than 4,000 poor and homeless folk from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday at its local shelters: 5302 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas; 1855…
This weekend, Santa’s showing up early. Like everyone else, he thinks we should skip Thanksgiving and start calling the day after Halloween “Christmas Eve.” He has nothing against the food binge that Thanksgiving provides, but he doesn’t count it as a holiday because it only makes shitty movies. To Santa,…
I’ve seen a lot of interesting religious bumper stickers while driving around. Of course you have your run-of-the-mill “God is my co-pilot” ones or “God bless America.” Then you have the inevitable battles between the Jesus fish and the Darwin fish. Sometimes, however, you get some rather entertaining fare such…
Lots of people are pissed off about the state of affairs in Dallas lately. There’s the whole Trinity River toll road debacle, the depressing condition of Deep Ellum…I could go on. But for most of us, there’s something appealing about Dallas, something that keeps us here despite all the political…
Our Lady of 121st Street premiered off Broadway in 2003, telling the story of a gang of old friends who reunite to mourn a nun from their school days. Somewhere in the typical funeral chatter, they find themselves confronted with (surprise!) a murder mystery. If I had to ballpark it,…
Wes Anderson tends to be a polarizing figure in film…like Roman Polanski without the felony. I’ve seen folks walk out of his films in frustration, while others sit through the credits all misty-eyed. Many people find his films lush and easy to connect to, while some feel his work is…
Kelly Clarkson’s the “fallen Idol” now; “idle when ready,” so they say. So claim the copious concert reviews following Clarkson along the tour trail, at last under way after a summer stall-out caused by low, low ticket sales and the giddy gossip-mongering following her fall out with Old Man Music,…
Maybe Christmas doesn’t come in a box. Maybe it doesn’t come from a store. Perhaps Christmas means a little bit more. Hah. Yeah, right. It’s all about the retail baby! It’s about singing fish and hip-shaking Santa robots and bling. Why wait for the Thanksgiving turkey to be digested when…
In Dallas, we’re lucky that our Turkey Trot is one of the biggest and best road races in the country. Featuring tens of thousands of runners winding their way through downtown, Deep Ellum and Oak Cliff, the Trot is a brutal eight mile run made a tad easier by the…
Home movies are considered very personal, but for 11 people who lived in Dallas in the 1960s, those personal movies also memorialize a profound moment in history. Surely everyone of a certain age remembers what they were doing on November 22, 1963. Until President John F. Kennedy was shot, it…
