Everything I know about NASCAR I learned from Days of Thunder and my mother. Despite repeated viewings of the trials and tribulations of Cole Trickle (as portrayed by Tom Cruise), the sport just never caught my interest once I grew too old to play with toy cars (although I still…
If Monty Python had been around in William Shakespeare’s day, Will’s play The Comedy of Errors would have gotten him a gig on Saturday Night Live at the Avon. The shortest of Shakespeare’s plays, the comedy was first performed in 1594 and is a hilarious, fast-paced tale of coincidence, sharp…
I couldn’t make this stuff up. Scissors that talk across the room, feathers that cough, colors that teeter…But some people have better imaginations than I do. The difference between writers and other artists is the latter’s ability to turn boring three-dimensional media (or otherwise useful kitchen objects) into an experiential…
William Inge’s classic play Bus Stop was a hit even before Marilyn Monroe starred as Cherieâ€â€a world-weary “chanteuse”â€â€in the 1956 movie version. Even without Monroe’s glamour, it’s still easy to see why audiences found Bus Stop so charming. Four passengers and the bus driver are stranded at a remote diner…
Are you already nostalgic for the “wine me, dine me” days of the Green Room? The next best thing has emerged in the form of the fourth annual WineFest 2006. More than just an excuse to get drunk, this is a chance to experience a huge selection of fine wines…
If you are intrigued by the concept of a one-night stand but aren’t brave enough to engage in one, Chelsea Handler is your go-to girl. She’s done enough horizontal living for a hundred of you, and she has a book to prove it. In My Horizontal Life, Handler waxes comedic…
I have to disclose something here in the interest of complete and total honesty…and on the off chance that someone in the near future would like to buy me a drink. Keep the mixers simple; I abhor Red Bull. My nostrils recoil at the sharp, sweet smell of the thick,…
Thanks to Stephen King (with subsequent onscreen, if less graphic, help from Kathy Bates and James Caan), everyone ignorant to the ways of maiming learned what hobbling was all about. Neat, huh?! Grapevine’s Runway Theatre, 215 N. Dooley St., is staging a production of the classic psychological tale about an…
We first met Savion Glover when he was just a wee oneâ€â€tap, tap, tappin’ his way onto Broadway (as well as screens big and small) and into our hearts. He was only 10 when he first appeared on the scene, but now he’s 33â€â€with stage, film, directing and dance credits…
Vessels in the Night, or a Practical Guide for Unimaginative Husbands sounds like something Dr. Phil would hawk. But while it would probably be a best seller, in this case, it’s the catalyst of Every Trick in the Book, a play presented by the Classical Acting Company. Here, a woman…
Comedian Patton Oswalt recently made a plea for Americans of porn-buying age to stop relying on the Internet to educate today’s youth. He argued that kids should be exposed to pornography the way his generation was, via used dirty magazines found in the woods. If you share Oswalt’s nostalgia for…
You’ve visited the Book Depository, the Grassy Knoll and the X in the street at least a hundred times. You’ve listened to all the facts, bought the memorabilia and stood in the window. But the conspiracy still lingers: Did the government dye John F. Kennedy black to hide him from…
“I guess it doesn’t matter where I begin,” reasons the adult narrator of Running With Scissors, the inevitable Oscar contender adapted from Augusten Burroughs’ wacky memoir of coming out as a gay teen in his adoptive guru’s carnivalesque commune. “No one is gonna believe me anyway.” No one? In fact,…
there’s a scene about halfway through Catch a Fire during which freedom fighters—men and women, each boasting such nicknames as “Pete My Baby” and “Hot Stuff”—are being trained at an African National Congress safe house in Mozambique. Their ranks consist of South Africans who’ve been politicized by cruel life under…
Of all the hundreds of pedophile priests to be flushed out of the woodwork in recent Catholic Church history, Father Oliver O’Grady has to be one of the most harmless-looking and the most sinister. Wispy, unremarkable and accommodating, with an ingratiating half-smile playing permanently about his thin lips, Father Ollie,…
Leave it to Tennessee Williams to pick the perfect name for a character in the throes of an emotional breakdown: Brick. Failed pro football player, miserable husband to the sexually pent-up Maggie, Brick Pollitt is a crumbling hulk of a man, one of three central figures afraid to face hard…
Reservoir Dogs: 15th Anniversary (Lions Gate) Quentin Tarantino’s first film shows its age these days, mostly because we’ve seen all its tricks done far better by now. From the nonlinear storytelling to the pop-culture gabfests to the shameless cribbing from obscure films, everything that once seemed so shockingly fresh has…
Viewed from an airplane high over the islands of San Esperito, the land seems to stretch out endlessly. The sun slowly rises over the ocean, bathing the clouds in ochre and throwing stark shadows on the lush jungle below. If only there were something worth doing down there. Welcome to…
An American Haunting (Lions Gate) Astaire and Rogers: The Complete Film Collection (Warner Bros.) Freak-Out (Anchor Bay) Greg the Bunny: Best of the Film Parodies (Shout!) Justice League Unlimited: Season One (Warner Bros.) La Commune (Paris, 1871) (First Run) Looking for Kitty (Velocity/ThinkFilm) The L-Word: The Complete Third Season (Showtime)…
Perhaps stung that a certain other DFW sports postseason meltdown grabbed all the headlines, the Dallas Stars have been playing like men possessed early in this young hockey season. Oh, sure, they aren’t the Stars of old—an aging Mike Modano has been stripped of his captain’s title, for instance—but let…
While Frank Campagna may be a pretty special guy, there’s not a whole lot that’s very special about knowing him. Is that a typical, backhanded Dallas Observer compliment? Hardly. The artist and gallery owner is just about one of the friendliest guys in town, and even if you’ve never shaken…
I hope I haven’t missed the yearly presentation of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Even as a thirtysomething, there’s a certain nostalgia that I gladly suffer watching it. And each time, my heart always goes out to poor Linus. Whether it’s suffering at the hand of his verbally abusive…
