Conventional wisdom says that the Coen Brothers–Joel, who directs, and Ethan, who produces–can do no wrong artistically. Of course, that’s not true. Barton Fink, with its arrogant antihero wittily subverting the idea that the creative process can take the place of real-life experience, was a generally dense and often obtuse…
There are two theories behind the Hollywood mistreatment of Julia Roberts’ latest vehicle, Mary Reilly: Either the studio, TriStar, shot several endings because the film sucked, or because its fitful, mischievous tone wouldn’t suit Julia Roberts fans. The movie was pulled from its original release date last summer and subjected…
Mike Nichols’ new film, The Birdcage, has most of the trappings of a typical domestic comedy: Val (David Futterman) returns from college to announce to his father, Armand (Robin Williams), that he’s engaged to the daughter of a right-wing U.S. senator (Gene Hackman). The senator is embroiled in a controversy,…
thursday march 7 Dawn Upshaw: Critics have fallen all over themselves to sing the praises of American-born soprano Dawn Upshaw ever since she won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1984. Terms like “sweeping romanticism” and “spine-tingling” are tossed around as easily as Nerf balls, but the word no…
I always wanted to use the word “penultimate” in a sentence, and this is the penultimate week of the 1996 Drive-In Academy Award nominations, better known as the Hubbies–the only awards that never honor Emma Thompson under any circumstances. And the nominees are… Best Geek Acting * Penny Arcade, Hellroller,…
Should a play, like a poem, not “mean” but “be”? Thomas Lanier “Tennessee” Williams posed that question in his preface to Camino Real, in response to the widespread bafflement that greeted the play when it was first produced in 1953. Williams concluded that drama does not enjoy the same lack…
No he don’t I Feel Alright Steve Earle Warner Bros. Records A country boy who busted into the honky-tonk swinging an electric guitar like a longhair and spitting out his junkie lyrics like a Springsteen who never even heard of the promised land, Steve Earle fucked himself up but good…
I’m no fan of mob justice, but in the name of good filmmaking, I say American audiences should campaign to get the American citizenship of Barbet Schroeder revoked. The filmmaker began his career 27 years ago in France, making a series of deliberately obscure personal dramas–two of which featured soundtracks…
Trends in movie themes are peculiar things. Sometimes they don’t manifest themselves in predictable or expected ways, but they’re there right on the screen, looking you straight in the face, begging to be noticed. Case in point: Less than a week after Dallas’ first and only showing of Abel Ferrera’s…
thursday february 29 Ad-Libs Ninth Anniversary: Having any kind of business survive for nine years is an impressive accomplishment, but when you consider said enterprise is an improvisational comedy troupe, that’s an even bigger deal. When Phil Larsson and his buddies started Ad-Libs in 1987, the live-comedy performance field was…
It’s Ladies Week in the ongoing announcement of the 1996 Drive-In Academy Award nominees, and somewhere in this column you will find our favorite Hubbie category (as if I have to tell you which one that is). Get out your pencils, and gimme the goldurn envelope. Best Actress * Maria…
Jackie Chan, the most popular screen actor in the world, doesn’t make movies. He is his movies–a one-man film industry, kicking and spinning and leaping his way into cinemas all over the planet. For more than 15 years, he’s helped define and develop the Hong Kong film community, appearing in…
Got any out-of-town friends, relatives, clients or other cadgers coming to visit in the next few months? If so, consider taking them to see A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline, which is playing at the Caravan of Dreams in Fort Worth through June. Not only will your guests get to…
The Music of Chance, a little-seen film directed by Philip Haas, is an enigma of sorts, but a fascinating one: After a card sharp loses a poker game, he and a friend must pay off their debt by building a stone wall that serves no purpose. You keep expecting the…
thursday february 22 Let’s Play School: With the explosion of high-quality children’s entertainment during the past decade, the consistent craftsmanship and wit that infuses the Children’s Television Workshop’s Sesame Street is a measure of the love behind it. Those of us who learned numbers, letters, and a fine satirical sense…
Voting in the 1996 Drive-In Academy Awards continues apace, except I don’t really know what “apace” means. Anyhow, you still have time to vote. The only requirement is that you’ve seen at least 60 of the year’s grade-B exploitation releases. The number is so high because we know you’re gonna…
As a rule, I oppose giving away the endings of movies–not because of some vague notion of devotion to the film itself, but because it isn’t necessary. If a movie is bad, it’s usually bad all the way through, and divulging the climax is pointless. Rules were made to be…
If plays were judged by the number of literary allusions they contain, The Swan would rate high. This elliptical, enervating drama by Elizabeth Egloff is rife with references and parallels to works including Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Yeat’s poem, “Leda and the Swan,” Grimm’s fairy tales, and Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Unfortunately, it takes…
When somebody pays attention to filmmaker Abel Ferrara, it’s usually for something naughty he did–shooting Harvey Keitel on a date with Rosy Palm and her five sisters in Bad Lieutenant, or orchestrating the gang rape of a doe-eyed mute woman, only to have her launch a revenge killing spree in…
Many actors–hell, maybe even all actors–can easily outdistance Christian Slater for on-screen magnetism. He’s gotten away with that bargain-basement Nicholson ripoff since Heathers, but he’s never been able to equal Nicholson’s evil energy–the devilish charm that makes Nicholson captivating in almost any part. When the story doesn’t demand of him…
thursday february 15 Molka Alexandrova and Sasha Botcharova: Third Planet Theatre is a Dallas-based performing-arts company that specializes in importing Russian and other international talent as part of a post-communist, good-faith project. Its latest care package to the arts-loving Dallas population is a pair of singer-actor-dancer-comics who promise to deliver…
“I’ll tell you something,” Bob Musgrave whispers while standing in Goff’s Hamburgers, a curiously highbrow dive off the Tollway. “Back in the ’70s, the owner, Harvey Goff, used to keep this side door to the restaurant open, and every once in a while, he’d shoot a .38 slug into a…
