Do you have a collection of knickknacks, art or priceless antiquities you’d like to put on public display? How about a few million dollars to spare? If so, it sounds like you’ve got a museum to build. But you might want to bring in some professional consultants, such as Aaron…
People have odd ways of enjoying their hobbies. This guy I know is the only person I’ve ever met that gets excited when he hears a whistle blast and the guardrail comes down over the road. He springs out of the car, hoists a video camera to his bony shoulder…
I grew up right outside of Washington, D.C., and was exposed at an early age to a lot of different cultures…and their cuisines. The district is home to a plethora of Ethiopian restaurants, for instance, so I know my Ethiopian food, and I sure do love it. (Very vegetarian-friendly, and…
Creative Arts Theatre & School in Arlington celebrates its 30th year with Into the Woods (Fund-raiser Show!), a performance and live auction benefiting the school’s graduating seniors. Stephen Sondheim’s twisted, fairy tale musical mishmash is an appropriate backdrop for artists just entering the real world. The childhood favorites–Jack, Little Red,…
The timeless story of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is one of triumph and tragedy within a cruelly run mental institution. We are familiar with the film version. Jack Nicholson is superb in his role as the over-the-top McMurphy, a criminal who is hiding in the nuthouse rather than…
When I first heard about National Public Gardens Day, the name conjured up Karl Marx’s wettest dream. I envisioned men, women and children of all stripes coming together to plant flowers and vegetables, comrades with an equal stake in their garden’s success. Turns out it’s an annual, nationwide celebration, locally…
OK, maybe you really did catch the bacon explosion before it blew up. You were there when Will Ferrell got into it with his little-girl landlord, and thanks to you, all your friends knew about the Buffalax music videos before anybody else. Maybe you’re a real viral video curator, but…
Here’s a crazy did-ya-know fact about butterflies: the winged beauties are total suckers for beloved sports beverage Gatorade. I’m not sure if it has to do with dehydration from incessant flight, G’s brilliant coloration or that awesome flavor, but the attraction is made apparent at the 8th annual Kiwanis Butterfly…
“Bokeh” is a photographic technique derived from the Japanese term for “blur” or “haze,” specifically referring to when the background and edges of a photo are blurred to make the subject stand out. A new exhibit at Kettle Art, Bokeh: The Edge Is Completely Undefined, showcases this technique and several…
When corporate fat cats are stuffing bonus cash into their bankrupt drawers, The Man getting you down seems more inevitable than ever. If the worst recession since your grandma can’t get Him down, what can? Seems to us like Dixie’s Tupperware Party has it figured out: The country’s numero uno…
More than 30,000 people in the United States are living with cystic fibrosis, and 1,000 new cases are diagnosed each year. In the 1950s, many children with CF didn’t make it through elementary school. Today, improved medical treatments and research allow those affected by CF to enjoy an increased quality…
Comedian Jeff Dunham is arguably the most famous ventriloquist in the world at this point, thanks in large part to his Comedy Central specials. In fact, the premiere of his most recent show, Jeff Dunham’s Very Special Christmas Special, was the highest-rated telecast in the history of the network, besting…
There’s something so optimistic and buoyant about baseball that I can’t give up on it, no matter how many times Jose Canseco opens his mouth. Our Texas Rangers are a good case in point. Every time I want to give up on them, something fantastic happens–like Ian Kinsler hitting for…
I’ve read my share of self-deprecating memoirs/collections of essays meant to read like memoirs from lovely, funny women. I have a love/hate relationship with such books and their authors–Laurie Notaro, Chelsea Handler, Sloane Crosley and the like. Then there’s Jen Lancaster. I can safely say that although I’ve not read…
“I just wanna say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? Plastics.” Need I say more? Need I even mention the original MILF, Anne Bancroft? Or Dustin Hoffman banging on the glass in the church while shouting, “ELAINE! ELAINE! ELAINE!” over and over and over? No. Because…
Calling the current production of the musical Sarah, Plain and Tall a “world premiere” is a stretch. But that’s how Dallas Theater Center is promoting its last show of the season, which is also its last new one in the 50-year-old Kalita Humphreys Theater before the move next October into…
Two weeks after jowly Matthew Perry transformed into pretty Zac Efron to relive his adolescence in 17 Again, Warner Bros. releases Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, another backward and backward-looking child-is-father-to-the-man rom-com, with Matthew McConaughey, who, 18 years Efron’s senior and slightly butcher, has just a few more years of prettiness…
Is Anybody There? Director John Crowley’s lighter followup to the anguished Boy A features a standard teaming of reluctant oldster and troubled youngster—both residents of a down-at-heels family-run rest home. Besides the blokeish star playing retired magician Clarence (Michael Caine, who could twinkly-tearily confide with bobbing accent in his sleep),…
Lymelife There’s nothing new under the suburban sun (save for infectious ticks) in Derick Martini’s Lymelife, whose weighty allegorical title and fastidious 1970s accoutrements aim to do for beer-and-pretzels Long Island what Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm did for tony, key-party Connecticut. Dad (Alec Baldwin) is shtupping the secretary (Cynthia…
Made in U.S.A. Jean-Luc Godard’s Made in U.S.A. is not the celluloid holy grail, but it’s close enough. Four decades after its New York premiere in 1967, the least-seen, most quintessential movie of Godard’s great period lights up a screen at Dallas’ Angelika Film Center at 9:15 p.m. Friday as…
X-Men Origins: Wolverine Without fail, the dullest installment in any superhero movie franchise is the first film—the, yawn, origin story during which audiences anxiously awaiting The Big Bad Guy have to suffer through, yaaaawn, scenes of childhood traumas and other expository effluvia, by which point the closing credits are fast…
I’ve learned a lot from books. From Sarah, Plain and Tall, I learned the words “squall” and “ayuh” and that storybook stepmothers aren’t always evil. The Newbery Medal-winning novel tells the story of Jacob Witting, a widowed Kansas farmer who places a classified ad seeking a wife and a mother…
