For a brief moment in college I considered studying architecture or design. Then I realized how much math was going to be involved in those fields, so I went running toward the safety of the literature department, but that doesn’t mean that I ever lost interest. For those that do…
Ah, Run Lola Run—the movie responsible for the sale of thousands of bottles of Manic Panic Pillarbox Red dye. More importantly, though, the film was a groundbreaker in the genre of “real time” entertainment, paving the way for 24 and other clock-ticking, heart-pounding action-adventure stories. Granted, Jack Bauer has never…
I can get attitude anytime I want from The Gap at Mockingbird Station, but why those shop girls and boys throw so much of it over denim is beyond me. Maybe I’m just a tad too big for their fitted shirts or my scruffy beard doesn’t meet their clean-cut demeanor,…
An award-winning science fiction children’s book is now a play to be performed on one of America finest stages. No plane tickets to Chicago or New York needed, just a family outing to Dallas Children’s Theater to catch Lois Lowry’s The Giver starting Friday. This Newbury-winning first part of Lowry’s…
The New York Times-lauded jazz vocalist Dianne Reeves is coming to Dallas soon to promote her new record, When You Know. According to the record’s appropriately gushing press release, it’s a “gorgeous album of songs celebrating the different stages of love in a woman’s life.” The hits? Well, I expected…
You might think you’ve made it in show business when you’ve been in one slacker drug film, but you really haven’t reached the pinnacle of success until you’re in the sequel to that slacker drug film too. That’s how I know John Witherspoon’s upcoming headlining stint at the Addison Improv…
After reading the description for Molly “The Dining Diva” Fowler’s Elegant Dinner for Friends class, I’m not so sure I need to go. Or, rather, I’m not sure some of my friends would know what to do with a salad of pears, Roquefort and pecans. Pan-seared salmon on wilted spinach?…
In the documentary The Black List: Volume One, currently pitching its tent on the film-fest circuit before landing on HBO in the fall, Chris Rock announces the precise moment at which racism in the U.S. will be pronounced a thing of the past: It’ll happen when black artists are allowed…
By now the Jason Kidd experiment should be over (what are we, a dozen games in with Kidd at the helm?), but the truth is, the jury is still out on the new-look Mavs. Against cruddy teams, the Mavs have looked fabulous, but against the West’s best they’ve struggled. And…
Rare is the star vehicle that is as poorly matched to its star as Drillbit Taylor, which casts Owen Wilson as a homeless Army deserter and con man, able to fool people into believing he’s both a substitute teacher and a master of hand-to-hand combat. It’s a part that requires…
The latest out-of-town import to arrive at the Dallas Theater Center’s Kalita Humphreys stage lets the audience see through walls. In Robert Hewett’s The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead, actress Annalee Jefferies plays all seven characters. To transition from housewife (redhead) to gossipy neighbor (brunette) to alluring Russian…
Sometimes it’s the terrible ideas — say, a TV show about nothing, or stirring corn into your mashed potatoes — that turn out to be genius. Super Smash Bros. landed on the Nintendo 64 nearly 10 years ago, kicking off a concept that initially sounded nauseating: “lovable Nintendo characters in…
Do we need another look back at the rotten heart of the ’50s nuclear family? Ira Sachs thinks we do, and as one who can’t get enough of sweaty melodramas about rotting families, I’m with him in principle. Mind you, Sachs’ noticeably childless new movie is less about families than…
. . . And Justice for All: Special Edition (Sony) Appleseed Ex Machina (Warner Bros.) August Rush (Warner Bros.) Bee Movie (DreamWorks) Black Widow (Fox) Dan in Real Life (Buena Vista) Def Comedy Jam: D.L. Hughley (HBO) Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes Volume 3 (Fox) Hitman (Fox) Housewife, 49 (Acorn)…
No Country for Old Men (Paramount) “A horror comedy chase” is how a grinning Tommy Lee Jones describes No Country for Old Men in the making-of — meanwhile, his fellow actors add to the list such adjectives as “a very primitive ride,” “a rabbit chase through Texas,” and “a very…
You’ll know in the first few minutes exactly what Patapon has going for it. There’s the goofy premise, which casts you as the tribal god Patapon, lord of a band of creatures called, imaginatively enough, Patapons — little savages that are basically eyeballs with arms and legs. Then there’s the…
The pleasing circularity of Gus Van Sant’s masterful Paranoid Park is not only a function of the film’s narrative structure but reflects the arc of its maker’s career. Few directors have revisited their earliest concerns with such vigor. Van Sant’s debut, the 1985 Mala Noche, was a moody drizzle of…
For the crime of obliterating high culture, for the crime of getting off on vicarious degradation—and, above all, for the crime of sitting through any movie that resembles the one he’s (re)made—Michael Haneke sentences you (me, us) to Funny Games. Scratch that: to a second fucking helping of Funny Games…
The Unseen must be seen. Wedged into a ragged repertory of a dozen shows at WaterTower Theatre’s seventh annual Out of the Loop Festival, this 65-minute drama by Craig Wright occupies the small studio space only one more time on the fest’s closing weekend. It could and should reach a…
He’s best known for his “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” but George Carlin’s routines on poor language have always been my favorites. Gripes such as, “What the hell is pre-board? Get on before you get on?” and “Get on the plane? Fuck you, I’m getting in the…
Here’s what I want to know: Do clowns tell dirty jokes? Now, I’m not talking about creepy “Here’s some candy, little girl” pretend-clowns, or scary Tim Curry-in-the-gutter clowns. I’m talkin’ pro. Chas Elstner is a former Barnum & Bailey circus clown turned touring comic. He’s graced not only the stages,…
Here it is, folks. The greatest rock ‘n’ roll movie ever made. It doesn’t matter that the band featured in the film is “fake.” The trials and tribulations they endure are frighteningly real. Ask anyone who’s ever been in a band and they’ll confirm that 1984’s hilarious This Is Spinal…
