4/3 We tried to read Great Expectations twice before giving up and buying the Cliffs Notes. Charles Dickens just never really appealed to us. If you’re of the same bent, or even if you like Dickens, you’re bound to enjoy The Mystery of Edwin Drood, a “music whodunit” based on…
Couldn’t believe they were going to release Basic before bombs started falling over Baghdad; if it isn’t the worst movie of 2003 I’ve watched, it’s only because I haven’t seen Boat Trip yet. Now, in the shadow of smoke rising from the rubble in Iraq–where U.S. soldiers are missing and…
When you see a glamorous movie star like Kate Beckinsale tying her hair back and wearing glasses, it’s surefire shorthand that she’s an uptight soul. But just in case you aren’t familiar with all the usual signals, writer-director Lisa Cholodenko gives a couple of even more obvious ones in her…
It was only in 1967 that Great Britain struck from its jurisprudence the “common scold,” essentially a crime of catty insolence for which the convicted party–almost always a woman disturbing the peace by nagging a man–was punished via a public ducking into cold water. Nobody likes a bitch, but arguably…
War, as it turns out, is good for absolutely nothing when it comes to anti-war songs. At the risk of sounding like Bill O’Reilly (who, no doubt, listens only to Wagner), it’s time to protest the protesters, most of whom are blowin’, all right, just not in the wind. The…
Setting a play at a high school reunion is a risky choice. Most people dread reunions. Like weddings and funerals, those two other overused plot gimmicks, the real thing is bad enough. Why sit through one where you don’t even know the participants? In The Pavilion, now onstage in its…
Naked bodies and furniture go together about as well as teen-agers and sex. Which is to say the juxtaposition of subjects in Hidden Secrets is perfectly natural and still a tad disturbing. Joy Christiansen, a Texas Woman’s University grad student and photographer, presents work that is simple, direct and mysterious…
Thursday, March 27 ThursdayWe’d like to see Hugh Grant and John Cusack duke it out over whether Yanks or Brits better portray the 30-something scoundrel with the mind of an adolescent that they both played in the films About A Boy and High Fidelity. But a much better choice might…
Right at this moment comedian Margaret Cho is in a relaxed and reflective mood. But don’t let that fool you. Cho’s mission is to keep everyone on their toes, and off of hers. The 34-year-old comic has evolved into an R-rated prophet, using the pain of a past fraught with…
3/30 Mark Andrew Ritchie’s Spirit of the Rainforest is the freakiest book I’ve read. If you can stomach the horrific violence, it’s practically impossible to put down. So why is it that no national publisher dared touch it? Spirit is an autobiography of sorts, the story of Jungleman, a powerful…
3/29 What could be more fun than reliving your high school football glory days? How about watching a bunch of overgrown former jocks relive theirs in Let It Fly, The World’s Largest 4 on 4 Flag Football Tournament? Don’t worry, the boys aren’t the only ones getting to play. This…
3/29 For all you baseball fans out there–and I’m guessing there has to be at least two or three of you Babe Ruth-era originals who are still alive and bothering to watch the sport–the Texas Rangers are holding a “sandlot celebration” from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the…
3/29 God love the fine thespians at Kitchen Dog Theater. When it comes time to throw a party, they don’t mess around with some bizarre theme. Nope, they come right down to the point of partying–drinking. The repertory troupe, named Dallas’ best theater company by the Dallas Observer last year,…
3/30 While most people think of her television series and its groundbreaking “coming out” episode when they hear the name Ellen Degeneres, few realize that the all-ages content of her small-screen show isn’t just a sanitized version of Ellen’s humor. Instead, it’s a taste of what can be expected at…
Once upon a time, a scuffling actor named Sylvester Stallone decided that the key to stardom was to write a screenplay as a perfect vehicle for himself. Since then, untold hundreds or thousands of hopefuls, mistaking Stallone’s good luck (and, yes, talent) for some sort of cosmic justice, have confidently…
You know how boys love to play soldier? How they get stern-faced and march out to destroy an enemy whom they believe needs destroying? Well, actors are into that, too. Sometimes they soldier on even when Bruce Willis or Mel Gibson isn’t around to help them frown determinedly. Such is…
Lawrence Kasdan directs and co-writes (with William Goldman) Dreamcatcher, the latest addition to the Stephen King adaptation genre, currently at 74, including film and TV, and counting. Taking the Internet Movie Database as a source, this puts King handily ahead of Michael Crichton (23) and Bram Stoker (38), closing in…
The Dallas Video Festival folks like to say that when Bart Weiss and Melissa Berry conceived their child in 1986, before the fest even had a name, video was the dominion of pornographers and avant-gardists who were experimenting with the still-burgeoning medium. Video cameras were years away from being the…
Times being what they are, one line in Act 2 of the play Transatlantic Liaison is guaranteed to goose the audience to attention. “What a thankless people, the French,” growls Chicago author Nelson Algren to his paramour, French Existentialist writer Simone de Beauvoir. On opening night at Theatre Three, where…
The first thing one must say about Come Forward, the Dallas Museum of Art’s show of emerging Texas artists, is: At least it tries. This is not necessarily to damn with faint praise. Unlike too many DMA shows before it, this one isn’t just a PR moment masquerading as an…
Alvin Ailey was 27 when he and a troupe of modern dancers performed for the first time in New York City, a far cry from Ailey’s hometown of Rogers, Texas. About 45 years later, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has become one of the most reputed companies in American…
Thursday, March 20 ThursdayIt’s hard to imagine a Neverland scarier than the one in which Michael Jackson lives (either the one in his head or the actual property that houses him and his menagerie). But Damion Dietz’s Neverland comes close. The film, presented as part of a series hosted by…
