“We must keep the atmosphere electrified!” announces creepy Igor in reference to an abominable experiment in Van Helsing, but he could be appraising the entirety of this enormous event movie. Breathless cutting, nonstop special effects and a pummeling soundtrack camouflage very silly plotting and mediocre-to-sappy dialogue–and yet the thrash-and-burn technique…
If you’ve seen a movie at a Landmark theater in the past year or so, you’ve probably enjoyed the trailer for Shaolin Soccer. Over a lilting Asian flute that morphs into pounding percussion, airborne soccer players execute kung fu moves that send the ball blazing across the field (or, in…
That sound you hear is the stampeding feet of millions of pubescent and prepubescent girls racing to movie theaters this weekend to catch sisters Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen in their first feature film since 1995’s It Takes Two. The Olsen twins began their acting careers at the age of 9…
Truth is, from the female perspective, all men are fixer-uppers. There’s always at least one thing he does wrong that, were he to fix it according to our instructions, he’d be just about perfect. Like that guy who wears tasseled loafers with shorts. A simple repair. Or the otherwise lovely…
The poet Ezra Pound once said, “Good art can not be immoral.” But can art be amoral–can it exist without any moral claims whatsoever? Is art lacking when it doesn’t teach us a lesson, when it doesn’t give us ballast and orientation in the proverbial sea of abandon in which…
Alex de Leon The question begs: What to do with art that makes avid if not heavy-handed political statements in an era so eager to wrest itself from the rant, screed and morality inherently connected with political art? Is it the responsibility of art to engender social revolution, much less…
Generally, we think Houston is yucky. Not that this stems from any Texas metropolitan area rivalry, but Houston has always seemed overcrowded and dirty with an unconscionable level of humidity. Like stumbling home after a long night at a dive bar, a sojourn in Houston leaves us feeling coated with…
Thursday, May 6 Spanish television, especially the telenovela, has always held a certain magic for us, from the zany, over-the-top, stick-on-moustaches of late-night love follies to the dazzlingly tragic Te Amare En Silencio, starring the multitalented former Miss Brazil USA Ana Carolina. American soaps just aren’t for us. We desire…
Our introduction to la lotería, the Latin American game of chance, was a very American one. We purchased a set from the toy section of a dollar store and took it home to try to decipher the rules using our high school Spanish lessons. Eventually we had to ask for…
5/8 “La Bamba” was the last thing we thought we’d hear on a London subway. “Mind the gap,” yes. “La Bamba,” no. But there it was: the oh-so-familiar melody and the oh-so-indecipherable words. We’ve lived in Texas our entire life, so Mexican culture is not foreign to us. The sound…
5/12 How many chances will you get to drive a hot new BMW and do some good? Four, if you’re in the Dallas-Fort Worth area during the 2004 Ultimate Drive for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, the eighth year this event has taken place. For every mile you…
5/6 Nobody knows the trouble they’ve seen at the Dallas Arboretum, all stirred up because of a simple event called Cool Thursdays. Every Thursday night during May, June and July, the arboretum hosted a live band on the lawn along the arboretum’s part of the White Rock Lake shoreline. For…
Claptrap The title word says it all. Empty talk intended to get applause, says the definition. That pretty much sums up Ken Friedmans farce, produced by Rover Dramawerks, which finds a novelist named Sam (Randeep Walia) battling writers block. Over and over, he types opening lines, only to wad up…
5/7 We chickened out. Suzanne Calvin, the always helpful communications manager for The Dallas Opera, said that she might have been able to arrange a phone interview with Carol Vaness, who’s performing at “An Evening With Carol Vaness,” presented by The Women’s Board of The Dallas Opera on Friday. We…
Those seeking a spiritual counterpart to the yin of Lynne Ramsay’s masterfully moody Morvern Callar will find their yang in David Mackenzie’s exquisitely sorrowful Young Adam. Art-house aficionados may recall that in Ramsay’s recent film, a young male writer commits suicide, leaving his simple girlfriend to absorb his very being…
Ever evolving, always changing, the universe nonetheless sustains many constants: Hair metal never really goes away. British women inevitably become besotted grumps. And short men always turn into intolerable control freaks. Another “true generality” holds that males of all statures develop their innate behavioral characteristics within patriarchal cultures that, while…
“It’s a maaaaaarvelous script,” says radiant screen queen Mary Dale of her role as Lady Godiva in a big-budget bio-pic set in the 11th century. “Really illuminates those troubled times. And we have some terrific musical numbers.” Dale, sleeker than Lana Turner, sweeter than Doris Day, is playwright Charles Busch’s…
Red Scare on Sunset Maybe its the chic hostess coat leading lady Mary Dale wears over her mint green slacks, but darn if she doesnt look a little like a blond Lucy Ricardo. Of course, in this production, she is a he. Actor Coy Covington, a pro at putting on…
Decade: Ten Year Anniversary Exhibition The Mulcahy Moderns current exhibition marks 10 years of success in business and the Dallas art world. This gallery has a knack for showing work that is a careful balance of delicacy and perfection. The gallery space functions something like an artwork unto itself, with…
A passion for bound literature is about more than a good story. The tale is a big part of finding a treasure, but different elements make the hunt all the more enjoyable. There’s that scent that is distinctly “book.” Not dust, nor an unpleasant odor. It’s a soft mustiness that…
Thursday, April 29 Dear John Grisham: We had you all wrong. We thought you were a writer whose only gimmick was suspense/action stories featuring lawyers and/or government agencies. Your role in writing and producing Mickey, the tale of a widower whose son shows great talent in Little League Baseball, really…
Return with us now to the days of yesteryear. Americans saw the USA in their Chevrolets, and “bad” boys and “easy” girls got their kicks on Route 66. Hertz proved it could put you in the driver’s seat with a daring, black-and-white television commercial featuring a hapless stunt man dangling…
