Imagine you’re sitting in the Observer office on your lunch break scrolling through Craigslist when suddenly you’re locking eyes with the screen shot of this guy, who coincidentally bears a vague a resemblance to Catfish guy. He asks you the tough questions. Do you like office work? What about ice…
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. “You can’t have too many businesses,” says Brandon Castillo. Dallas is certainly lucky he thinks so…
Spring spills over into summer and the party begins. There’s so much going on this weekend, it’s difficult to narrow a schedule down into something doable. You’ll need to make choices this weekend. You can’t do it all. The good news is, everything on this list will make for a…
For some reason, this seems to be the week that everyone in Dallas/Fort Worth has chosen to try and earn a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. We just found out that the Texas Pinball Festival officially won their spot for the “Most People Playing Pinball Simultaneously” and…
The latest thing to set the Internet on fire was LeVar Burton’s Kickstarter campaign to revive and expand his vision for the PBS show Reading Rainbow. Those of you who grew up on a steady diet of public television probably remember watching Burton’s enthralling show about children’s books and the…
In 1986, peaceniks were mad at Tom Cruise. That year, the Navy thanked Top Gun for boosting enlistment another 20,000 recruits. Since then, he’s made more critiques of military than advertisements, most of which (Lions for Lambs, Born on the Fourth of July, The Last Samurai, Valkyrie) j’accuse bad leadership…
The most radical thing about this eco-terrorism drama is its quiet patience and formal vigor. While most studio pictures slap together their images with all the care of a grocery-store deli clerk assembling the ham and carrots on a cheap party platter, Kelly Reichardt, the director of Night Moves, favors…
Cancer, so costly in real life, can be thrown around pretty cheaply in fiction, which is why most cautious readers and moviegoers are wary of it as a plot element. Call it the Love Story syndrome. But the presence of mortal illness has always been a staple of romantic melodrama,…
The grand old dirty pope of midnight-movie voodoo and post-’60s turn-on, drop-out mythopoeia returns with a vengeance, in his autumnal phase and with, surprise, a personal look backward at his own childhood. The Dance of Reality may be Alejandro Jodorowsky’s best film, and certainly, in a filmography top-heavy with freak-show…
When a new play hits a stage in near-perfect form — like Matt Lyle’s Barbecue Apocalypse, the sizzling comedy headlining as a world premiere at Kitchen Dog Theater’s New Works Fest this month — it can look too easy. Dialogue crackles with originality; the plot veers off in unexpected directions…
If you’d never seen a river portrayed on stage by actors holding long swaths of silky blue cloth, waving them up and down to make the “water” ripple, then the images evoked in The Magic Rainforest, An Amazon Journey would seem, well, magical. But unless you’re 8 — about minimum…
When first-time director Gillian Robespierre’s festival favorite Obvious Child makes its theatrical debut in June, it could herald the sweetest, funniest, most unassuming cinematic revolution in years. Starring former Saturday Night Live bit player Jenny Slate in a ravishing star turn, the romantic comedy quickly grabbed attention at Sundance for…
When Phil Lord and Chris Miller pitched their idea for a 21 Jump Street movie, a film everyone thought was, at best, a moronic moneymaker, they had one bold proposal: “What if the twist is that we try to make it really good?” says Lord. “That’s basically a summary of…
Multihyphenate actor Clark Gregg understands that hard work and perseverance don’t necessarily pay off in Hollywood. Since moving to Los Angeles in 1992, the star of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has directed two feature films and scripted three, none of which are the work he’s best known for. Gregg knows…
One of the biggest selling points of 21 Jump Street, the 2012 TV-remake comedy, turned out to be its seemingly unscripted lunacy, the way it put Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill in police-shorts outfits and let them riff on their characters’ mutual ineptitude. Sometimes you need a little flapdoodle, and…
Put on your pinstripes and pack a picnic. As part of their annual free-to-the-public summer parks concert, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra is bringing a little swing and a lot of syncopation to Klyde Warren Park (2012 Woodall Rodgers Fwy) at 8 p.m. Thursday. Principal pops conductor Jeff Tyzik will lead…
Imagine you’re the slave to a powerful ruler centuries ago. You toil all day long. Then, one night, your master is gone, so the women slaves throw a party and invite all of the men slaves. It’s the rave of the year and the prettiest woman from the harem hooks…
Here’s what we gleaned about Ping Pong Summer, the indie comedy screening at 9:15 p.m. Friday at Texas Theatre, 231 W. Jefferson Blvd.: It’s Karate Kid, except with table tennis and hip hop, the beach is on the East Coast, the time is 1985 and Susan Sarandon is Mr. Miyagi…
TV and movies have a weird way of warping famous people into mythological gods and goddess that somehow also make non-famous people look pudgier and more serf-like as if there’s a special camera filter made for both of them. Everyone has a story about meeting a famous celebrity and how…
Despite their gallant efforts to combat eons of genetic hard-wiring a majority of heterosexual males -regardless of how progressive or chaste they may be- remain compelled to sneak a furtive glance at the female form when the chance presents itself. Cursed by evolution to be visual creatures, modern man must…
Razzle Dazzle, the Dallas street festival celebrating Gay Pride Month – that’s June – returns to the Oak Lawn area this year with vendors, food, booze, live music and none of the controversy over bare skin. Nope, that’s the pride parade in September that had the brouhaha over how much…
Get Wrecked It’s that time of year again when Art Conspiracy starts prepping you for the art party of the fall. You know the one. They take over a warehouse, hundreds of local artists donate original pieces, and all money raised goes toward a selected beneficiary. Sound good to you?…
