Late in Rendition, in case you’ve been blind and deaf enough not to have cottoned to the drift, a tense Washington exchange on the legitimacy of bundling dark-skinned Americans off to secret prisons abroad takes place. On one side is a driven young senatorial aide (Peter Sarsgaard); on the other,…
“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid,” Raymond Chandler wrote in 1950’s “The Simple Art of Murder,” smacking the ascot off the drawing-room mystery and all its crime-solving dilettante dandies. “He must be…a man of honor, by instinct,…
Sundance signals, for better or worse, the state of American independent filmmaking. Cannes keeps faith, for those who still believe, with the cinema d’auteur. And Toronto? The largest and most important film festival in North America seems to do nearly as many things as there are movies to see349 in…
Love him or despise him, head Jackass Johnny Knoxville has made millions from getting kicked in the yambag. Had YouTube arrived before Jackass, Knoxville, Steve-O, and the show’s other gutterpunk masochists might still be slinging French fries, getting burned by hot grease in a strictly nonrecreational way. But with a…
David Mamet wastes no time getting down to business in Glengarry Glen Ross, onstage in a ferocious production right now at Dallas Theater Center. He goes to the dark side of the real estate business. Selling worthless tracts of land in Florida—parceled into “units” with made-up Scottish names that end…
AC/DC: Plug Me In (Sony) Bob the Builder: Ultimate Adventure Collection (Hit Entertainment) Bully 911: Stop Being a Victim (Bayview) Believers (Warner Bros.) Best Picture Collection (MGM)The Hoax (Miramax) Hollow Man: Director’s Cut (Sony) The Invisible (Disney) Ironside: Season 2 (Shout) The Jazz Singer: Three-Disc Deluxe Edition (Warner Bros.) The…
To call a Shaolin Warriors performance a martial arts demonstration is like describing a symphony as a bunch of musical notes played together. These Buddhist monks offer a peek at ancient death-defying, death-dispensing moves with a show divided into seasons, representing the cyclical philosophy of their religion. Hopefully audience members…
At the risk of sounding like an old stick in the mud, I’ve gotta say that all these kids today with their MTV and iPod-whatsits have absolutely no attention span. People love movies by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, but put the two together into a double feature, and it’ll…
Who says Arlington isn’t scary? With the Boneyard touting over a half-mile of creeps, ghouls and screams, there’s no reason not to stop on the way to Fort Worth. The haunt is open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, plus every day through Halloween starting October 25. Grab a sturdy companion and…
The king of shock rock isn’t as shocking any more. But no worries, Dallas. As long as he sings that 1990s classic “Poison” we can all relive days in acid-wash without the brain damaging hairspray. And those first two words: “School’s out!” are enough to put a nostalgic smile on…
Art these days is so ambiguous. Paintings look like a 5-year-old’s scribbles and films lack narrative structure (David Lynch and Matthew Barney, go on a permanent vacation to Antarctica together…without cameras.) What a relief, then, to hear of Edward Albee’s The Play About The Baby at the Bath House Cultural…
Of course England’s Alan Ayckbourn knows a thing or two about suspense and drama. He’s directed plays by greats Anton Chekov, Noel Coward, Neil Simon…and himself. Yeah, he’s written a thing or two or 100. And he certainly knows how to take a seemingly unthreatening thing like a sunlight garden…
You Kill Me (Genius) Funny thing seeing Philip Baker Hall in You Kill Me, as he’s already played the role of a drunken hit man’s boss in The Matador, to which this feels like a slapshtick-noir sequel. It’s also the photo-negative of Sexy Beast: Once more Ben Kingsley plays a…
The estranged brothers Whitman have reunited for a journey onboard The Darjeeling Limited, a colorful old locomotive traversing the Rajasthan region of India. Along the way, they will stop to visit temples (“Probably one of the most spiritual places on earth!”) and shop for souvenirs (slippers, cobras, pepper spray), with…
“Will you leave your kingdom to a heretic?” That was the question posed to a dying Queen Mary in 1998’s Elizabeth, director Shekhar Kapur’s grim and dingy film now viewed in retrospect as the origin story of a superhero: The Armored Virgin Queen, faster than a speeding lead pellet, more…
What’s left to say about Halo 3? How about this: All the pomp and circumstance surrounding its launch sure have been distracting. Commercials that look like clips from a Hollywood movie, extravagant collectors’ sets that sell for $130, limited-edition Xbox 360s with a green-and-gold Halo-inspired color scheme, and a midnight…
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season Three (Universal)Black Sheep Unrated (Genius)Bob Mould: Circle of Friends (Granary)Bruce Springsteen: Under Review-1978-82: Tales of the Working Man (Sexy Intellectual)Concert for Diana (Universal)CSI New York: The Third Season (Paramount)Man Push Cart (Koch Lorber)The Marx Brothers Collection (Passport)Meerkat Manor: Season One (Animal Planet)Michael Palin: Pole to Pole…
So, if you want to score big with the women in Dallas these days, what’s the secret? Easy, you pretend to be impotent. Sounds a little counterintuitive, doesn’t it? Every day, roughly 87.5 percent of the Internet’s transmission capability (we made that number up, but we stand by it) is…
We’ve probably seen Steel Magnolias 30 or 40 times by now. After all, we grew up in a family with a great affinity for Dolly Parton. But we’ve never seen it on the stage, and while the version of Steel Magnolias currently playing at the Granville Arts Center is probably…
Ricki Derek is the stuff local legends might be made of. We’ve yet to really look into what makes this guy tick, but somehow he keeps popping up with something new yet never surprising. Surprising would be if he did drag at the Rose Room or fronted a metal band…
This is no time to turn your back on what you think is a stuffy dance recital. No, sir. Elledanceworks has concocted a Texas fall outdoor event that envokes the mischievious and quirky spirit of dusk and teams it up with, not only modern dance, but various live musical works…including…
Texas Singer-Songwriters: An Americana Portrait is a new exhibit of images by photographer Gary Goldberg, who was so taken with Texas country and folk music that he dedicated himself to getting shots of musicians from all across the state. The names read just like the ones on the records we…
