These days, Desperate Housewives star Teri Hatcher is looking more and more like Dr. Frank-N-Furter. I’m crossing my fingers that this season she performs “The Time Warp.” It’s not her fault, though. She’s getting older, and trying to fight the crinkles means you gotta grab that trowel and slop on…
Illegal drag racing is about the dumbest thing ever. Why anyone would want to hang out in a parking lot on Northwest Highway with a bunch of morons in pimped-out Honda Civics is beyond me. The fact that your hobby is the basis of two films starring Paul Walker (and…
As a young baby-sitter, the Frog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel was an instrumental tool in our sitting supply case. No matter which ankle-biter I had to preside over for the evening and no matter how totally irritating they were spraying bathwater or how disgusting they were during dinnertime,…
Filmmaker and journalist Quin Mathews turned his camera on an unusual artist for his latest film. The one-hour documentary Beyond the Plane looks at the innovative three-dimensional constructions of Rusty Scruby, a Dallas contemporary artist who has studied aerospace engineering and music composition. (One of those overachievers who couldn’t pick…
The Magnolia at the Modern is an ongoing series featuring recently released, critically acclaimed films, and this time around they present the Charles Bukowski boozefest Factotum. Adapted from a 1975 novel of the same name, the story centers on Hank Chinaski, the author’s alter-ego author who engages in dead-end part-time…
I think we can all agree that Gigli was the No. 1 horror movie of all time. Thanks to Ben Affleck’s participation in the film, it became the gruesomely terrifying feature that it was written to be. During early screenings of the movie, viewers were so moved by his performance…
Directed by Brian De Palma from the novel by neo-noirist James Ellroy, The Black Dahlia is a true-crime policier unfolding in late-’40s Los Angeles somewhere between the neighborhoods of Chinatown and Mulholland Drive. The premise involves one of L.A.’s most notorious unsolved homicides. In early 1947, the naked corpse of…
The Rock”–formerly known as “Flex Kavana” and, a bit later, as “Rocky Maivia”–was a practicing actor long before he turned to movies and started taking down $12 million paychecks. The happily deluded throngs who used to watch him lay signature moves such as the People’s Elbow or the ominously named…
Those twentysomethings, poor dears, can never catch a break in the movies. First this maligned generation is told, in countless gritty indies and perky studio comedies, that they’re rowing through life without oars. Now, director Tony Goldwyn’s admirably understated handling of dispiritingly slender material suggests that if you’re pushing 30,…
A great many angels may comfortably waltz on the head of a pin, but putting 20 actors and four musicians on the pint-sized stage at the Flower Mound Performing Arts Theatre for the musical City of Angels spells claustrophobia. How small is this place? Just 60 seats are jammed into…
I Am a Sex Addict (IFC) Caveh Zahedi has made a movie of our times — a strange mix of self-absorption, shamelessness in the pursuit of fame, and sex. Most shocking of all is that it works. Part fiction and documentary, confessional and comedy, the film traces the history of…
What could be more fun than monkeys trapped in plastic hamster balls? That’s the strange philosophy of Super Monkey Ball, a puzzle series that debuted in 2001. Much as with Marble Madness, the goal here is to cross the finish line without falling off a floating platform. Except that this…
Ballets Russes (Zeitgeist) The Batman: The Complete Second Season (Warner Bros.) Beavis and Butt-head Do America: Special Collector’s Edition (Paramount) Bottoms Up (Sony) Disney Princess Stories, Volume 1: A Gift From the Heart (Disney) The Girls (New Yorker) Goal! The Dream Begins (Disney) Grey’s Anatomy: Season 2 Uncut (Buena Vista)…
My favorite building in the metroplex is, hands down, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. I’ll use any excuse under the sun for a visit, and here’s one more for the books: the upcoming Hiroshi Sugimoto exhibit. End of Time, the Japanese-born photographer’s exhibit organized by the Mori Art…
The Union and the Confederacy. Rocky Balboa and Clubber Lang. Jay-Z and Nas. He-Man and Skeletor. These legendary beefs are but cordial misunderstandings when compared to the fierce rivalry between our Dallas Cowboys and the Redskins of Washington, D.C. The bad blood between the two teams actually predates the Cowboys…
I’m not sure what it means to be a “real fan” of the Cowboys. Does this mean painting your face while attending a game? Knowing the stats of every player for the last two decades? That all seems like a lot of unnecessary memory space I could be using for,…
Retired Bishop John Shelby Spong is one of the most controversial figures in all of Christianity, a liberal theologian who believes Christianity must evolve to survive, which means letting go of many beliefs contradicted by the findings of modern science. He’s also one of the foremost proponents of gay rights…
As I write this, so-called press and industry folks are being turned away from a screening of Todd Field’s Little Children at the Toronto International Film Festival; me, I’ve chosen to spend an afternoon in Canada gladly sorting through the entries in the 8th Annual Vistas Film Festival, a worthy…
If it weren’t for photographers Eliot Porter and Robert Glenn Ketchum, the environmental movement wouldn’t be where it is today. Porter (1901-1990) was revolutionary in bringing color photography to a fine arts audience. He began using color in 1939, long before his contemporaries accepted the medium, as a way to…
If I ever invite you over for dinner, politely decline, because my cooking abilities are nil, and cereal isn’t the best meal for a dinner party. I’m hoping Neiman Marcus can change that for me. Classes from their culinary studio kick off with a Soups, Salads and Starters lesson taught…
Seriously, I knew that JT was super-talented what with the singing, the hip-hop, the poppin’ ‘n’ lockin’ and what-not, but hell, I had no idea he was also into architecture. The Dallas Architecture Forum is opening its 11th season with some serious whistle-worthy styles as James Timberlake…oh, damn. I’m a…
To see a movie at the theater, you pay at least five bucks—and that’s assuming they take that old, busted student I.D. of yours that says “SRS 99!” on it. Then, after the movie, you’re like, “Damn. I can’t believe I just paid five bucks to see Magic Ed Norton…
