If you are what you buy, then the use of product placement would make James Bond and Carrie Bradshaw (and all of their assorted accoutrements) a match made in heaven. The newest Bond film is setting a record for product placement with $45 million (or 1/3 of the film’s budget)…
If multiple viewings of Black Swan didn’t satisfy your dance yen for the year, Dallas has plenty of opportunity for you to take care of your obsession throughout the end of May — and like Black Swan, it all revolves around a most talented Nina. The Dallas Black Dance Theatre…
If you are looking for interesting and innovative ways to beat the forthcoming summer heat when (not if-this is Texas after all) it rears its ugly head, look no further than the McKinney Avenue Contemporary. This art museum specializes in the exhibition of emerging and established artists whose art stands…
Few things are more depressing than day-old doughnuts. I found this out as part of the custodial staff for the UNT University Union, where the sympathetic employees in the deli store would give us leftover pastries they otherwise would have had to throw out after closing time. They look fine,…
Remember the old public service commercial that told us our brain was an egg, and then showed the egg in a frying pan, “on drugs?” The metaphor’s pretty far out, man, and we’re not sure we completely understand the message. Though, we have been called eggheads a time or two…
Every production at Matthew Posey’s Ochre House theater goes to a dark place in some way. His latest, the musical The Butcher, sounds intriguingly perverse. Written and directed by Posey, who also stars, the show is described by its creator as “Kurt Weill meets Irish folklore.” Set in Ireland during…
If you were alive in the ’80s, you know all about 9 to 5. And Jams, mesh shirts and White Rain, too, but that’s a whole other story. This particular story is about three working gals, their jerk alert boss and a file folder’s worth of revenge. It was like…
Betty Friedan opened the proverbial can of worms when she introduced the phrase “feminine mystique” into the vernacular. Friedan’s diagnosis for bored, unsatisfied housewives–“the problem that has no name”–led to an ongoing recovery both spiritual and economic. But the question “What does it mean to be a woman?” persists. Paint…
Three intriguing trends emerged during a week of seeing new plays at small playhouses: the simple but stunning effect of actors’ faces lit with tiny handheld flashlights; plots about murders in dark environs; and animals as pivotal characters (a monkey in one show, a pig in another). Some strange and…
Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque blew a lot of minds when they began to transition their styles in the early part of the 1900s. They both began to bring more abstract elements into their work; first, the wildly saturated color seen in Cezanne’s work, and then an obsession with geometry,…
Look closer. Don’t be afraid. Look closer. Have you ever taken a second look at a piece of art and discovered its true meaning? Do the lines and colors evoke emotion? Is there a symbol hidden beneath the stroke of the paint brush or curve of the pencil? Take a…
If you’ve ever wondered how to dance across the floor like Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, look no further than Dancing by the Creek. This year’s monthly dance lessons will teach aspiring dancers everything from salsa to two-step. Each lesson will be taught by instructors from the Arthur Murray Dance…
Tibetan society is so defined by Buddhism and spirituality, that Western standards of art often don’t apply at all. In fact, the Western definition of “art” doesn’t exist in Tibet at all. Instead, artists are judged based on their ability to adhere to certain prescribed traditional forms. The Crow Collection…
Choreographer Kelly Devine is all too aware what happens when you Google her. “I have to tell everyone at the first rehearsal of a show that I am NOT the porn star,” she says. Same name, way different career paths. These days the non-porn Kelly Devine is in big demand,…
Stop whatever you’re doing and go take a Zumba class now. I don’t care if you’re recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery, on an airplane or at the office. Oh, poor you. You have to “work” and “earn money” so you can “eat” and “not perish.” LIES. You need nothing more…
It doesn’t matter how much it costs. It really doesn’t matter. Running down the checklist of the requirements for perfect art — flaming car (check), enormous moon (check), wizard (with rock horns) check — it’s immediately clear that this glossy print might be the best in the history of humankind.In…
Galaxies will collide when a pair of science fiction icons, Star Trek’s Leonard Nimoy and Star Wars’ Carrie Fisher, enter the same orbit at Dallas Comic Con at Irving Convention Center this weekend. If that isn’t enough to incite a fanboy riot, the place might blow when headliner Stan Lee,…
I’m not ashamed — I’ve totally watched Celebrity Apprentice this season. And while I found myself irritated by the scheming of TV personality, author and lawyer Star Jones, I gotta say, she knew how to play the game when she wasn’t the project manager. Delegate, work below the radar, call…
On the other side is the trailer for Crispin Glover’s What Is It?, Part One of his so-called “It” trilogy and an altogether unpleasant experience — and one entirely unsafe for the workplace. Which I mention only because the Texas Theatre has just announced that on July 15, the man…
It’s time for The Weekly Tease, wherein every Tuesday (or as known to us, “press day”), The Mixmaster brings you a little taste of the upcoming cover art for the issue about to hit the streets and stands around town. We hope that this week’s cover (and cover story) will…
The cover of Volume 31, Issue 19 of the Dallas Observer was graced with the talent of local creative outfit Bee Things. Surely, many may have already seen some of their work out and about, at places like We Are 1976 and many an Etsy-Dallas event (as can be spied…
On the occasional occasions when I watch The Biggest Loser, I’m in it for the weigh-in: the glory of success, the tragedy of defeat, the big people in little clothes, the gradual emergence of muscles, the transformations. I love a good makeover. The other stuff — the sweating, the grunting,…
