Inspired by a hit of Ecstasy, a 32-year-old white supremacist shows up at a Manhattan human rights foundation and declares himself an ex-pièce de Aryan résistance. Vincent Nolan, the eponymous “changed man” of Francine Prose’s new novel, could go about his transformation in any number of ways but decides instead…
4/9 For musicians, no humor magazine beats the laughs found in a Guitar Center catalog. That’s because the ads promote “lowest price ever” sales every week that, well, really don’t matter. Tags for “40 percent off the retail price” are meaningless, as that “discount” is the same as every week…
4/11 The last time the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim came to Ameriquest Field, they had a much simpler moniker (Anaheim Angels) and were a week away from acquiring another one: American League West champions. But then, during that last home stand of the season, our own Texas Rangers (or,…
4/12 Let’s look at this logically–a bunch of single men, a bunch of single women. You’re all there for the express purpose of meeting new people. In fact, you’re paying for the opportunity. So, statistically, you have dozens of brilliant chances to dazzle someone into giving you his or her…
Last year, the Simmons family of Needham, Massachusetts, just outside Boston, sent Christmas cards for the first time in more than 20 years. “We send out Xmas cards about as often as the Red Sox win the World Series,” the card very cleverly proclaimed. This movie is for them. In…
When was the last time you walked out of a theater feeling shell-shocked, saying to anyone who would listen, in language more profane, “Dude, that was some seriously messed-up stuff”? Not your garden-variety messed-up stuff, mind you, like in Saw. Not the messed-up revelations of political docs. We’re talking the…
4/7 People have paid a tragic price over the decades–hell, over the millennia–for being different. Martyrs, murderers, geniuses, people of religious fervor and scientists; all have suffered the slings and arrows of social climates that refuse to bend…let alone break. We certainly have our share of deviations on the current…
Sahara is a stunning piece of work–stunningly inept, stunningly incoherent, stunningly awful in every single way imaginable. How this didn’t go direct to video or cable or airplane or bootleg is unfathomable. Actually, that’s not entirely true. It gets a proper blockbuster theatrical release through Paramount Pictures because its director,…
If nothing else, Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City, co-directed with Frank Miller (and Quentin Tarantino, for a few seconds), will be remembered as the most faithful comic-book adaptation ever put on film (or high-def video anyway). Rodriguez uses Miller’s hyper-noir serial, published over a 10-year period, as storyboards for the movie–his…
Does the world really need a new film from Woody Allen every single year? Yes, he is one of America’s great auteurs. Yes, he’s responsible for some very fine movies, many of them comedies (Annie Hall), several of them tragedies (Crimes and Misdemeanors, Another Woman) and some hovering in that…
Something hideous hangs nailed to the door of the farmhouse in Kitchen Dog Theater’s sublimely terrifying production of Sam Shepard’s Buried Child. Old sock? Clump of moss? Hair? Oh, no… it couldn’t be what I think it is. They wouldn’t use that. Oh, yes, they would. Brrrrr. There are nasty…
Frank Stella: Painting in Three Dimensions For what Frank Stella’s large and raucous sculpture from the 1980s lacks in formal triumph, it makes up for in revealing the complexity of the artist’s rocky road of development. Having made seminal paintings in the late ’50s and an array of more successfully…
Buried Child Kitchen Dog Theater stages Sam Shepard’s gothic Pulitzer Prize winner with an exquisite eye for detail and a perfectly pitched cast of actors who understand every word of this difficult drama. Or is it really a comedy? Shepard certainly gives us plenty to laugh at early on, as…
Most people realize that tabloid photos aren’t real. There is no Bat Boy, and World’s Largest Cat is not riding shotgun in an RV with Elvis Presley. They’re familiar with the wonders that Adobe Photoshop can create, even if they don’t know what the program is called. But there was…
Thursday, March 31 Our first thought was that Extreme Dance! would involve pirouettes on a skateboard or some sort of kamikaze-like performance with a half-pipe and rolling stilts. But since we don’t like blood or vitreous humor with our ballet, it’s a relief that the show is actually an explosion…
If you attend Margaret Cho’s Friday show at the Majestic Theatre, don’t be surprised to hear the comedian talk about how much she loves George W. Bush–after all, it’ll be April Fools’ Day. After honing her political chops on last year’s State of Emergency tour of comedy clubs, Cho has…
4/1 After a year of much media wrangling over the state of affairs in Deep Ellum, the little urban ‘hood that could blows off some steam this weekend and proves it’s still a safe, hip venue to party like a rock star, baby! The 11th Annual Deep Ellum Arts Festival…
Roar with Gatsby’s greatest 4/2 Never been much for muscle cars. They’re too cramped and compact; there’s no automobile in those automobiles. Give me a classic 1930s Cabriolet, with its long, graceful hood, that glittering grill, those voluptuous rims. Now that’s a car. That car is all romance and crushing…
Edible Book Festival provides nourishment 4/1 We’ve devoured a few trashy novels in our day and even had to eat our words a time or two, but we can’t say we’ve ever chowed down on an actual book. Not since preschool, anyway. Now we have our chance to let our…
Comedy by the seat of their khaki pants 4/3 As usual, the Oscars broadcast was a parade of hot men: Clive Owen, Johnny Depp, Don Cheadle, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx. But one stood out from the pack. His fashion sense more daring than even Depp’s most Mr. Blackwell-worthy number; his…
“Better than I thought it’d be” was the refrain repeated by those exiting the preview screening of Guess Who, which doesn’t mean much–freebie audiences expect nothing and usually receive it. But in this case, it neatly summed up the experience of catching Ashton Kutcher in a part once played by…
Damian Cunningham has the face of an angel–calm and cool blue eyes perched above freckled cheeks and a benevolent grin–which is only appropriate for a 7-year-old boy who speaks with the late, great saints, among them Peter, Joseph, Claire and, of course, Francis of Assisi. Damian sees dead people, all…
