Take heart, Newsroom fans. If you were hankering for more scenes of Jeff Daniels standing around talking, you’ll find an unlikely ally in the new young-adult sci-fi sequel Allegiant, the third entry in the Divergent series based on Veronica Roth’s hit novels. Too bad the stuff he’s saying is so…
These days, buying new stuff just isn’t cool anymore. No one cares about your expensive Italian leather couch from a swanky furniture store, but a rare designer divan (that’s fancy talk for sofa) from the 1950s is a conversation piece. More importantly, that old-ass couch says that you’re a cool-ass…
I knew I was in trouble when I saw the subject line: “Reminder for Career Expo at Richardson High School.” I had committed to appearing to represent journalism as a profession to thousands of impressionable kids. My reaction was immediate and vulgar and aimed at Dallas Observer staff writer Eric…
Do This! Each year the Dallas St. Patrick’s Parade and Festival treks down two miles of Greenville Avenue from Blackwell Street to Yale Boulevard with somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 floats in tow, each flinging approximately 7 millions strands of dangerously projectile green necklaces. Parade-goers can expect green-hued dogs, a…
Drone warfare is a moral gray area, and this movie is on it. Gavin Hood’s Eye in the Sky stands alongside Drones and Good Kill as the cinematic equivalent of online commenters shouting “First!” on a hot topic but not bothering to say anything new or insightful about it. As…
Why is it that little movies about being out of step so often wind up feeling the same? Not long into Michael Showalter’s Hello, My Name Is Doris, a comedy about a misfit frump pining for a much younger hunk, the unlikely target of the heroine’s affections muses to his…
The Pee-wee Productions logo that kicks off the new Netflix film Pee-wee’s Big Holiday trumpets comedian-turned-actor Paul Reubens’ comeback as the formerly ubiquitous man-child. Forget about The Pee-wee Herman Show, Reubens’ fan-service-intensive Broadway extravaganza. Big Holiday (which premieres March 18 on Netflix) plays like an un–self-conscious continuation of the character’s…
For the protagonists of cable dramas, sex and death are twin forces of titillation, pressure valves for frustrated middle-aged men or steely-eyed careerists. That’s also true for the audience of cable dramas, of course, but there’s a reason we eagerly pursue onscreen what often makes us squirm in real life:…
In Jeff Nichols’ gripping domestic thriller Take Shelter, Michael Shannon played a family man convinced that Armageddon was upon us. But even as the character’s visions compelled him to take more and more extreme precautions, the film remained fixed in the world of the real. It was a portrait of…
This patchy comedy about a cossetted, obnoxious gymnast who has slid deep into sloth in the decade or so since her Olympic triumph gets an occasional laugh from the American ills it sends up: jingoism, the sports-industrial complex, home-schooling, fast-food gluttony. The scattershot jabs pepper the flaccid storyline of the…
The Brothers Grimsby is a movie for those who thought Kingsman: The Secret Service didn’t go far enough. If all the exploding heads and anal-sex jokes and creative impalements of Matthew Vaughn’s tongue-in-cheek spy thriller didn’t do it for you, rest assured: This time, we get to see British super-agent…
We hereby declare 3/16 Stone Cold Steve Austin Day. The Texas Rattlesnake, Stone Cold Steve Austin is the most popular wrestler of all-time. Yes, I will happily put Austin ahead of Hulk Hogan and The Rock. So what does March 16th have to do with Steve Austin? Well, Stone Cold’s…
Six Flags Over Texas may have found an answer for people who are afraid of roller coasters. The New Revolution Virtual Reality Coaster is 200 feet high and moves at high speed with twists and turns. But a smart phone strapped across your eyes will put you in a virtual…
On Monday night, America watched Dallas native JoJo Fletcher get dumped by the love of her life, her best friend, the man of her dreams. BUT THAT’S OK BECAUSE NOW SHE’S THE NEW BACHELORETTE. Yes, Dallas’ own sweet JoJo went on The Bachelor to find love and happiness with Perfect…
There’s plenty to do in Dallas this week from talks from famous authors to wine crawls. Authors Live: A.O. Scott 7 p.m. Monday It’s a fallacy that everyone’s a critic. Everyone has an opinion—that much is certain. But criticism implies critical thinking, insight and consideration, all or most of which…
Three things you don’t expect at a Dallas Symphony concert: a free s’mores bar in the lobby, electric guitars, and a concert made up entirely of music written in the past thirty years. Such was the case, however, as the orchestra continued its Remix series—not at the Meyerson, not on…
Turns out that the Walker Stalker Con that hit the Dallas convention center last week was not, in fact, devoted to the city’s favorite TV son, Walker, Texas Ranger. Nope. This con was for the fans of The Walking Dead, who came in whatever the collective noun is for the…
Do This! The Dallas Flea quickly became one of the largest shopping events in the city. It became so big that they’ve expanded, changed locations and even re-branded. This year, Flea Style takes over Fair Park’s 85,000-square foot Automobile Building (1010 First Ave.) with a huge array of vendors selling handmade…
Growing up in Oak Cliff, Lee Escobedo and Patrick Patterson-Carroll didn’t have many opportunities to be aware of cinema. They remember looking for movies at grocery stores and pawnshops. Sometimes they would leave the neighborhood and visit a Half Price Books. But now they are using What is Cinema?, a…
Since 2015’s When Marnie Was There looks to be its final new film for the foreseeable future, it makes sense that Studio Ghibli would circle back around to its beginnings. Isao Takahata’s 1991 Only Yesterday was not Ghibli’s first feature, however; it was preceded by Hayao Miyazaki’s 1986 Castle in…
A legitimate stunner in that word’s truest sense, Colombian director Ciro Guerra’s river-trip Embrace of the Serpent mesmerizes and jacks with you, leaving you not quite certain, at its end, how to go about the rest of your day. The film is beautiful and ferocious, calm and torrential, a plunge…
“Why did you let me film this?” filmmaker Josh Kriegman incredulously asks Anthony Weiner late in Weiner, a documentary about the former New York congressman’s failed 2013 mayoral run. The disgraced candidate doesn’t have a good answer, but the question hangs over this fascinating film, which plays like it started…
