Rocky: 2-Disc Collector’s Edition (MGM) An old TV commercial for Rocky included here compares Sylvester Stallone to Pacino, De Niro, and Brando — and though we now know this to be pure madness, it’s easy to see what inspired it. Sure, Stallone (who also wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay) slowly destroyed…
I did not have to fend off a horde of bloodthirsty geeks for my PS3. And nobody shot me either, as one hapless Connecticut gamer was. Actually, I just preordered my console weeks ago, and on the day it came out, I walked into the store, paid for it, and…
The Architect (Magnolia) Beerfest: Unrated (Warner Bros.) Charlie Chan Collection, Volume 2 (Fox) Coma Girl (Cinequest) The Conformist: Special Collector’s Edition (Paramount) Dinosaur Valley Girls: Mammoth Edition (Cinema Epoch) Dungeons & Dragons: The Complete Animated Series (Brentwood) Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton: The Film Collection (Warner Bros.) Gwen Stefani: Harajuku…
Because the audience is so—ahem—tired at a midnight showing, the louder and more easily followed a movie is, the better…if it’s going to be followed at all. The Fifth Element is on the marquee for Midnight Madness at the Inwood Theatre this weekend, and it fits the bill nicely. The…
What’s the perfect present to give someone you hate? Um, how about tickets to both nights of KDGE’s Christmas craptacular, How The EDGE Stole Christmas? The radio station presents two nights of uninspiring rock and roll blands (no typo) just in time for the holidays. You know, there was a…
Not only can ladies sing the blues, but sometimes one lady can hold within her many types of them. The Black Academy of Arts and Letters proves this as Sandra Reaves Phillips channels the lives and music of blues and jazz greats such as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday…
Peptoboonsmal. At first it sounds like a child’s nonsense word. But the multi-syllable proper noun means the world to author Elaine Hall. Peptoboonsmal is the name of a cutting horse, one specifically chosen by her husband, Larry Hall, to be the future of their horses’ stock. Larry singled Pepto out…
I’ve never crossed the Caribbean via raft, but I can’t imagine a painting that captures the mood of those fleeing Cuba as well as Rolando Diaz’s “Ahora Que? (What now?).” In it, a man sits in a wooden boat with his head in his hands, and the full moon shines…
To paraphrase the old Saturday Night Live skit, if it’s not A Scottish Christmas, it’s crap. Which is all the more reason why you want to catch A Scottish Christmas, a veritable holiday extravaganza coming to the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth. The event will include traditional Scottish carols,…
Good news. It’s officially no longer lame to find your main squeeze through an online dating service, through personal matching services or even on MySpace. Even the most socially inept of us has a shot at love these days. And if you’re looking for love in a hurry, you might…
Aren’t Pentecostal churches the only place in the world where a man can get away with wearing a bright purple sportcoat? And did I not see with my very own eyes a Pentecostal preacher step behind the pulpit in a pastel yellow suit with matching shoes? Oh, I forgot. The…
The first time I saw Rachael Ray on the Food Network, she was teaching her viewers how to prepare a frozen bag of mixed veggies for dinner. I would rather put my hand in a KitchenAid mixer set on “HI” than watch this lady’s TV show. I would rather lick…
Many artists have found inspiration in the world of animals; we humans are a part of it, after all, descended from the ape so that we might learn to paint them in oils and pastels. However, finding “stimulation in the Kingdom Animalia” sounds like something different altogether (was Catherine the…
Got a loved one with a green thumb, or have any kids on your Christmas list whom you really hate? Texas Discovery Gardens is selling plants, shrubs and flowering plants that they say are “great gift ideas for all occasions and ages.” Um…right. “Sorry, Junior, but those Playstation 3s were…
Michael Martin Murphy doesn’t call himself a country artist, and with good reason. He’s a “singing cowboy poet,” and his are the sorts of songs one rarely, if ever, hears on country radio anymore. Of his six gold records, the most notable may be Cowboy Songs, the first collection of…
I protested for oh so long. For approximately two years I refused to see the movie Elf. It’s not the Will Ferrell thing—I quite like him actually. It’s not that it’s a holiday flick—I got the spirit in me. No, all of those things really should sell me on the…
Look, lemme be straight with you: Hanukkah’s a very, very minor holiday. It’s so minor there are, like, 24 spellings of the thing. It’s so minor the 3-year-old who lives in my house thinks the menorah’s for Christmas and Santa’s bringing him a dreidel. It’s so minor that to celebrate…
Olivia Newton-John is magic. I’m not talking about the David Copperfield/Doug Henning type of magic, but more of a general feeling of indescribable power that emanates from her like the glow from a wizard’s talisman. Her career has spanned decades. Starting off in the early ’70s with a soft rock…
One design student’s much-blogged-about tattoo sleeve, by artist Nick Baxter, features not pinup girls, but chairs. That’s right—photorealistic skin artworks such as Charles and Ray Eames’ Lounge Chair and Ottoman. But the Eameses were more than furniture-makers (and tattoo inspiration): They also made 100-plus short films addressing their theories of…
Some days it seems like all the good ideas have been taken. That great movie idea? Done, with both remakes and sequels. That amazing invention that no one will be able to live without? Tied up in patent and trademark limbo. But if you’re one of those optimistic types who…
The true crime buff on your gift list doesn’t have to take a holiday from her gruesome hobby when she unwraps The Christmas Day Murders, by Smith County Sheriff J.B. Smith and Dr. Dana Adams. Sheriff Smith signs copies of his book—about a Tyler teenager who killed her parents on…
The true crime buff on your gift list doesn’t have to take a holiday from her gruesome hobby when she unwraps The Christmas Day Murders, by Smith County Sheriff J.B. Smith and Dr. Dana Adams. Sheriff Smith signs copies of his book—about a Tyler teenager who killed her parents on…
