You’re never quite sure where you are when you talk to Neil Hamburger. The standup walks a fine line that can leave you dancing between genuine reality and some bizarre universe where you’re not sure if the hand you hold in front of your face is real or even your…
A comedian, storyteller and founding member of the sketch troupe The State is bringing his deep and dark storytelling podcast to the Dallas Comedy House next month. Kevin Allison will record a live episode of his popular Maximum Fun podcast Risk! at 10:30 p.m. Friday, February 7. The podcast is…
It’s all there in black and white. For nearly 30 years Pegasus Theatre has been presenting Dallas writer-actor Kurt Kleinmann’s comedy take-offs on old B-movie murder mysteries and Hitchcock thrillers. The shows are presented in Kleinmann’s trademarked visual style that eliminates everything but shimmery shades of black, white and gray…
New Zealand stuntwoman-turned-actress Zoë Bell is fully aware of her unique position as an action star that also does her own stunts. After working as Lucy Lawless’s stunt double on Xena: Warrior Princess, Bell was discovered by Quentin Tarantino on the set of Kill Bill. After that, Bell has enjoyed…
In Spike Jonze’s new sci-fi romance, Her, Joaquin Phoenix plays a divorcee who rebounds by falling in love with his smartphone. On a recent Wednesday, however, he’s a delinquent boyfriend, leaving his iPad abandoned on a chair in a Lebanese restaurant as he bounces off to the parking lot for…
Here’s a movie that’ll flop in Kabul. Lone Survivor, the latest by Battleship director Peter Berg, is a jingoistic snuff film about a Navy SEAL squadron outgunned by the Taliban in the mountainous Kunar province. After four soldiers — played with muscles and machismo by Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile…
The terrible reality of modern life is that even beautiful young people on a first date can’t go a whole evening without checking their phones. We need to be potentially connected to every possibility at all times; just allowing the present to happen has become increasingly foreign. That’s the idea…
Without big truth-telling scenes, grand, great-lady, Meryl Streep-type actors would be out of work. Hell, Meryl Streep would be out of work. But for now, at least, August: Osage County, John Wells’ film adaptation of Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway hit, keeps her out of the bread line. Streep plays…
Three types of artists hinge on authenticity: punk bands, folk singers, and rappers. Actors, like Oscar Isaac, are by definition phonies. But the star of Joel and Ethan Coen’s new film, Inside Llewyn Davis, gets that pressure to keep it real. In high school, he was a straight-edge punk frontman…
Here’s where I write about how hard it is to draw up a 10-best list at the end of the year. Except it isn’t: I think of drawing up a list as an honor and a necessity, a way of putting 12 months of moviegoing into some sort of perspective…
I could write a Shakespearean sonnet about each film on my Top 10 of 2013, but we know we’re all here for the agreements and arguments. (Plus, have you tried writing about Joe Swanberg in iambic pentameter?) Ladies and gentlemen, let’s begin. The Act of Killing — The year’s best…
January! Just the time to snuggle up with a 3D swordandpectoral extravaganza. And although some of its more imaginative plot details would make Edith Hamilton blanch, Renny Harlin’s Legend of Hercules fulfills every silly, flimsy promise that it makes in the first place: There are lots of battles (albeit rather…
Horror is an often- (and wrongly) maligned genre. True, there’s more than a healthy amount of crap in it, and the most famous examples are full of campy characters like Leatherface and William Shatner-masked psychopaths. But like any genre, horror can be well-executed, intellectual and artful. The Texas Theatre, 231…
Some will tell you that comedian Neil Hamburger wasn’t born in a traditional sense, that he instead materialized in the coat check of a pizza parlor off a frontage road in Atlantic City. Hamburger speaks in a collective “we,” and whether he’s including his phantom “management,” adoring fans or alter…
It’s rare that drinking more beer equates with raising your IQ. Usually it just ends up with you abandoning your britches in some nature-rich landscape, like that one shady bush next to the bank drive-thru. And yet Bottle Cap Bingo is an event that promises to bolster your brainpower through…
There are so many ways you could know Colin Quinn. Way back in the day he was on an MTV game show called Remote Control. Less back in the day he was on SNL. And recently he had his own show on Comedy Central — Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn…
If the extent of your safari knowledge comes from The Wild Thornberrys, it’s time to get with the program, sister. The Dallas Safari Club’s annual convention is a solid place to start, especially if you’re into things themed “Generations” that promise to “set the standard for sporting enthusiasts from around…
It’s a big night in the gallery and nonprofit art sector, with dozens of spaces ushering in a new start of 2014 exhibitions. See our full run-down in the paper’s Culture section. If you can only get to four shows, here are my picks, but you’ll be running from Uptown…
Ever since they put out Toy Story, the first all-CGI movie about a depressing nightmare world where toys come to life and live eternally, suffering the inevitable neglect of their child owners, Pixar has produced some of the most visually impressive children’s movies in history. Considering their prodigious talent for…
Typically, we at the Observer don’t associate with scavengers, Dumpster divers or unruly birds of prey — they tend to carry easily transmittable parasites, wear colorful open sores or just have frustratingly misspelled neck tattoos, none of which are terribly appetizing. However, in the world of Finders, we draw a…
As we age, films take on different functions. Take Brazil, for instance. Sure, it’s become a cult classic, as most dystopian, bureaucratically steeped, darkly satirical cinematic spools do. But it’s more than that, really, because Brazil ties with Videodrome for most frequently shown hipster bar video of all time. (Is…
There’s a classic moment from the silent film era that’s ingrained in our collective memory. Sure, you may not know that it’s Buster Keaton in the scene, or that it’s from the full-length comedy Steamboat Bill Jr., but you’d recognize it nonetheless. A man is standing in front of an…
