In much of Casey Gray’s art, there’s a humorous tension between message and medium. Imagine if the 17th century Flemish painters had worked in spray paint. Conversely, picture Peter Paul Rubens on a skateboard. See? Funny. This was the crux of much of San Francisco-based Gray’s early work, in which…
Six by Hitch Lonestar Film Society pays tribute to one of film’s master directors all weekend by screening six of his best films at The Modern in Fort Worth. Starting Thursday with a screening of one of Alfred Hitchcock’s earliest films, Blackmail, this weekend walks through his career presenting classics,…
Genius is hell, both for the blessed and those stuck in the shadows, cursed to spend a lifetime smashing their heads against the glass. In its presence we find ourselves dwarfed and dumb, like moths. We know we’re before brilliance we can’t comprehend — and we know we’ll never have…
For women especially, it’s wholly out of fashion to have sympathy for middle-aged white men. In both real life and fiction, the thinking goes, they’ve reigned supreme long enough. Who cares about their anxiety over their receding hairlines, their poochy stomachs, their inability to attract young babes? That tinny plink…
After The Princess Bride made Robin Wright a star, she shocked Hollywood by saying no. No to The Firm and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. No to Jurassic Park, Dirty Dancing, Born on the Fourth of July and Batman Forever. She even said no to the cover of Vanity Fair…
Here’s what an R rating gets you these days: a few splattery headshots, some glimpses of cable TV-style background nudity, a couple kids and families popped by assassins, a brace of fucks, in dialogue, and one un-bracing fuck, in bed, mostly clothed. During its longueurs, this engagingly grim spy-versus-spymasters time-passer…
If you’ve never seen a Marx Brothers film, stop reading and download one right now. We’ll wait. Too busy now? Then just make plans to head to the Alamo Drafthouse (100 S. Central Expressway in Richardson) at 12:30 p.m. Sunday, when the movie theater screens Duck Soup, which is often…
The summer is winding down and pretty soon it’s going to get rainy and cold. Well, cool. Or at least cool-ish. Sure, you’re sweltering now, but you’re going to miss all the parties, concerts and other outdoor events you didn’t take advantage of because you were inside, hugging an air-conditioning…
You say you just can’t wait to get your greasy mitts on some of the fine State Fair of Texas fried food? Twelve months is just too long to wait between bouts of funnel cakes and corn dogs? Well, we have good news and bad news. The good news is…
Some movies are just downright trashy. Not trashy in a sexy, tawdry way but trashy in a why-the-hell-can’t-I-turn-this-POS-off way. When the acting is downright awful, the plot absurd and the production quality minimal, the filmmaker may not have a blockbuster, but it might have a late-night hit on its hands…
Did you know that Barbra Streisand has a shopping mall in the basement of her house? (Stars, they’re just like us!). That real mall is the setting of Jonathan Tolins’ otherwise fictional one-man comedy, Buyer & Cellar, which arrives at the Dallas City Performance Hall (2520 Flora St.) Wednesday after…
Oh, jukebox musical, you’ve brought us so many gems. Mamma Mia!: The ABBA musical. The Boy from Oz: The Peter Allen musical. Holler if Ya Hear Me: The Tupac Shakur musical. Wait. Oh. Never mind. OK, so maybe the jukebox musical is actually a horrible concept but perhaps with the…
Frame for frame, is there a more quotable movie than Princess Bride? Hmm. Ghostbusters, maybe. (“That’s a big Twinkie.”) Monty Python and the Holy Grail? (“Your father smelt of elderberries.”) Young Frankenstein, Pulp Fiction … this is the sort of question movie geeks love. Princess Bride might not be No…
In 1929, rumors began to swirl that the first talking picture in Great Britain was being made, though it’s not clear anyone actually informed the director of that film, at least at the start of filming. The director, A1 creepy creep and master voyeur Alfred Hitchcock, was filming drop-dead gorgeous…
I was 13-years-old before my parents would let me watch Psycho. Growing up on a steady diet of Alfred Hitchcock films (Rope was too boring; The Birds was too campy), I expected another suspenseful romantic black and white with a handsome devil like Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart trying to…
In 1994, a flamboyant little film out of Australia made serious waves in world cinema with a heartfelt and fabulous story of two drag queens and a trans woman driving a bus through the Outback. Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce and a brilliant Terrance Stamp take on the roles of our…
The ’20s were a great decade for women. It gave us bobbed hair, trousers, and oh yeah, a tiny thing called women’s suffrage. It would be a few decades before we mastered the art of second wave feminism, in which women began to reclaim their sexuality, but it’s certainly the…
Contrary to popular media narrative, there are still young people in America who read books. Libraries still serve as place for children to be swept away by on trails of adventure or romance. This hope that literature will forever remain a cornerstone of the human experience is an impetus for…
The fall dance season is starting off with “the best dance festival ever!” says arts patron and Dallas DanceFest producer Gayle Halperin. Back after nearly 10 years, the Dallas DanceFest will definitely give a lay of the Dallas dance land, but we’ll have to see if it’s actually the best…
As Americans — actually, just as literate creatures — we’re protective of those special treasure troves of words we call books. In fact, well before our military involvement in World War II, the United States became terribly disturbed by a certain form of censorship occurring in Nazi Germany: book burning…
Dallas/Fort Worth is getting a third Alamo Drafthouse movie theater to fulfill the needs of the Metroplex’s more hardcore and addicted cinephiles. The theater chain announced earlier today that it plans to open a third location in Las Colinas in the new Music Factory shopping and entertainment complex located at…
Mixmaster presents “100 Creatives,” in which we feature cultural entrepreneurs of Dallas in random order. Know an artistic mind who deserves a little bit of blog love? Email lauren.smart@dallasobserver.com with the whos and whys. No matter the medium, the work of Roberto Munguia seems riddled with mystery. It’s not that…
