There’s an old saying that one can never be too rich or too thin. It’s an old saying for a reason; these days we know all too well the dangers of being too thin. But according to some tabloids, Hollywood has yet to get the memo. Filmmaker Lauren Greenfield is…
I’m going to steer away from the obvious jokes that could be made about the gay rodeo. No Brokeback jokes here. That’s so 2005. Besides, the rumbling and tumbling these guys and gals do prove they are no joke. And they’ve been roping cows, riding horses and even two-stepping at…
Mike Judge is a freakin’ genius; that goes without saying. Everything he does is brilliant and adored by millions. OK, so Idiocracy wasn’t exactly a box office smash, but neither was Office Space when it was first released. Mark my words, once we get over this global warming scare and…
Are you a red state suburban housewife sick and tired of sitting idly while your bubba red state husband watches Larry the Cable Guy and Fox News? Do you long for an evening of interpretive dance? Then drag that bubba to the Orchestra Hall at 4401 Trail Lake Dr. in…
All those who toil in an office have come up against it: the afternoon slump. You know, when you eat one of those monstrous burritos at Chipotle and then return to your desk a walking vegetable? So what better to pull you out of it than an afternoon quickie—not that…
Like Warhol, English graffiti artist Banksy has redefined what is considered art—paving the way for grassroots stencil artists to make their way out of the streets and into galleries. These artists combine traditional graffiti with a unique stenciling technique made from cutout poster board. Unfortunately, Dallas City Hall is waging…
I don’t get it. When I’m out of the loop, I try to hide it as best I can. But those freaks over at WaterTower Theatre want to shout it from the rooftops…or from the stage, at least. They’re all about it. They even have a festival: the Out of…
Even during the worst of the Cold War, Americans never lost respect for the arts we received from Russia. Unfortunately they lived up to the “evil empire” tag given to them by Ronald Reagan when they played dirty pool by sending us Yakov Smirnoff. Thankfully, the classics endured through those…
I wasn’t alive in the 1800s, but I’ve seen re-enactments on PBS where people dress funny and aren’t allowed Internet access, and it doesn’t look like fun to me. And yet, the folks at Dallas Heritage Village found a way to make kids love that magical time before videogames. How,…
Dots. Raised or flat, they have a multitude of uses. They keep us driving in the correct lane; they end sentences. On old printers, they formed characters. They represent letters and numbers to the blind by way of Braille. In that form, they also inspire artist Christopher French to create…
Viva St. Patrick! Like Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day is a completely self-serving holiday that requires you to do absolutely nothing. There are no presents to buy. No family to visit. Just booze and fun. And what better way to celebrate a self-serving holiday than by learning to serve yourself some…
American Idol, it seems, has opened its mammoth, dried-saliva-encrusted jaws and finally swallowed the last bit of our national culture that had heretofore escaped its cruel mastications. The theatah, people, is sliding down the gullet, Jabba the Hutt-style, of the gorging, TiVo-ed beast. Hmm…perhaps that’s overstating it; but there’s no…
You would think a movie called The Italian would be set in the Bronx, where three generations of veteran character actors would fight for control of a fictional crime family while battling a horde of corrupt NYPD cops and G-men. You would also think such a film might be directed…
We could ruminate about Office Space, Mike Judge’s ode to the weary cubicle worker. We could ponder it as biting social commentary, realist absurdism or as simply an enjoyable, above-average 90-minute comedy. Or we could be completely obnoxious and just belch up a bunch of references and lines of dialogue…
When the editorial cartoonist turned amateur sleuth Robert Graysmith published Zodiac, his sprawling, meticulously researched account of the eponymous San Francisco serial killer, he wrote that the tale was “the most frightening story I know,” and it was easy to understand why. Graysmith was writing in 1985, some 16 years…
In 2003, Mark and Michael Polish made Northfork, though just barely; the brothers, also responsible for art-house fave Twin Falls Idaho about conjoined twins who fall for the same woman, lost funding just before shooting began and had to beg for money to finish their reverie about lost souls wandering…
The Number 23 grips hold of one stupid idea and runs so far with it, in so many directions, to such little purpose, that it nearly won me over from sheer berserkoid effort. In a nutshell, this nutso movie observes what happens to a man (Jim Carrey) under the impression…
Morally irreproachable and flat as a pancake, Michael Apted’s Amazing Grace is set among bickering House of Commoners in late 18th-century London, but the movie belongs squarely in the currently blooming subgenre of Whites Saving Dark-Skinned Victims of Empire. Or at least it would be were Apted able to bring…
When Hair and its hirsute cast of young hippies hit off-Broadway 40 years ago, the American theater establishment reacted with finger-in-light-socket shrieks. Boston banned it. Major critics dismissed it. Patrons paying a top ticket price of $2.50 complained of its “deafening” pop-rock score and deplored its profanity and sexual content…
Shut Up & Sing (Genius) It’s a shame that one of 2006’s best documentaries is being released without extras; it would have been nice, for instance, to hear feisty Natalie Maines talk with directors Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck about her reaction to the film, in which the Dixie Chicks…
So you’ve beaten Zelda and can hurl a 90 mph fastball in Wii Sports without shattering your 50-inch plasma. Now what? It’s time to explore the rest of the “channels” — some of them included with your Wii, and most free to download. Like cable TV, Nintendo’s offerings range from…
Apartment Zero (Anchor Bay) Babel (Paramount) The Bros. (Lions Gate) Crooked (Lions Gate) Crossover (Sony) Curious George: Zoo Night and Other Animal Stories (Universal) Dark Castle Horror Collection (Warner Bros.) Flushed Away (Paramount) For Your Consideration (Warner Bros.) Gandhi: 25th Anniversary Collector’s Edition (Sony) A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints…
