Most rock and roll tries to be a badass thrill ride, every guitar lick fulfilling testosterone-fueled fantasies of living fast and dying young. But if real life were anything like the things that happen on Alice Cooper or Eminem records, we wouldn’t call banging 40 chicks and dumping some haters…
I realize that the amount of time I devote to Cold Case Files, Forensic Files and other Court TV shows detailing gruesome investigations of murder and heinous crimes might be shocking to the average person. But to someone like Dallas native and author John Leake—who celebrates the release of his…
Secretly Canadian (and publicly awesome) Norwegian neo-crooner has the innocent face of a boy and the smooth, persuasive voice of, well, Jens Lekman. There’s just nothing else out there quite like his combination of kitsch, sincerity, romance and quirkiness. Whether it’s melancholy piano ballads or meshing dance beats and strings,…
No End in Sight (Magnolia) Charles Ferguson’s debut doc, easily the most important in a year full of notable fact-gathering films, assembles some of the key players behind the invasion and occupation of Iraq and seems to ask them but one question: “What went wrong?” In short: everything. But Ferguson’s…
American Gangster is a movie with obvious gravitas and a familiar argument: Organized crime is outsider capitalism. As archetypal as its title, Ridley Scott’s would-be epic aspires to enshrine Harlem dope king Frank Lucas in Hollywood heaven, heir to Scarface and the Godfather. Or, as suggested by the Mark Jacobson…
No matter how apparently brilliant or obviously slobbering a kid is, every single parent has said the exact same thing about 38 times this week alone: My Kid Could Paint That. We’re so proud of our little geniuses and so desperate to prove to the world that our children know…
It must’ve been a scorching summer day when the game developer stared at his thermometer and realized, “Sweet sassy molassey, this would make a helluva game!” How else to explain the existence of the quirky puzzle series Mercury Meltdown? Debuting on the PSP, the original Mercury Meltdown turned Marble Madness…
John Cusack, who more or less began his career sneaking a peek at Molly Ringwald’s panties in Sixteen Candles, has finally become an on-screen daddy—only took, what, 23 years? Except, he’s not exactly the most fortunate family man on film: First, in Martian Child he plays a widower who adopts…
The Amicus Collection (Dark Sky) Angel: Complete Series Collector’s Set (Fox) Beastie Boys: The Complete Story (Video Music) Benny Hill: The Complete Megaset (A&E) A Christmas Story (Warner Bros.) CSI Miami: The Fifth Season (Paramount) The Cup (Festival Media) Day Watch (Fox) Dear Jesse (Sovereign) The Devil Came on Horseback…
No names are named in The Little Dog Laughed, a newish comedy now playing in the studio space at Addison’s WaterTower Theatre. So go ahead and play fill-in-the-blank in the dilemma of a handsome Hollywood up-and-comer whose wholesome public image is at odds with his closeted personal life. Coming out…
“There’s a reason I’ve had some good pictures and other guys will never have good pictures,” Sidney Lumet says matter-of-factly on a recent afternoon in his New York office — four cramped white walls, unadorned by awards or other memorabilia, on the top floor of the Ansonia Building, where Enrico…
I hope people ask me, ‘Where did you find that local actress?'” Ben Affleck told Amy Ryan when he cast her as a wreck of a single mother in his directing debut, Gone Baby Gone. When Ryan showed up on the Boston set in ratty hair, muddy makeup, and a…
After making a mint off a series about nothing, Jerry Seinfeld apparently decided his first feature film ought to be about something—in the case of Bee Movie, the enslavement and torture of bees for the pleasure and profit of humans, which is, like, hilarious. It’s rather tempting to approach Seinfeld’s…
Pretentious. Self-indulgent. Sell-outs. Bald. The Smashing Pumpkins have been called all these things and so much more. Bob Mould from Hüsker Dü himself once referred to the Pumpkins as “the grunge Monkees.” This was not always the case, however. Way back in the early 1990s, the Smashing Pumpkins were purveyors…
As anyone who has lived in Texas for more than five minutes will tell you, the Lone Star State used to be an independent country, which explains why our state flag is often flown side by side with Old Glory. It also explains why we have our own identity, culture…
Although it was meant to be a one-day protest of Alabama’s arrest of Rosa Parks, the Montgomery Bus Boycott took on a life of its own and ultimately evolved into nearly 400 days of civil rights activism in the 1950s. The boycott achieved change through abstaining from an action, but…
I think it’s safe to say we’ve come to the point in our society where Internet flirting is a generally accepted form of courtship. In the interest of full disclosure, I do say this as someone who met their significant other on MySpace, but I still stand behind my statement…
In influential literature, Miguel de Cervantes’ The Adventures of Don Quixote is memorable in terms of theme, visual elements and literary reference. The word “quixotic” is derived from the character of Don Quixote. The description of foolish acts as “tilting at windmills” is a reference to his fantastical sword battles…
Despite being the president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister does not feast on baby orphan hearts or spend his off hours harpooning domesticated puppies for sport. Even more surprising, he’s an advocate for energy conservation and unconventional alternative fuel sources. Hofmeister has said, “We can by design, we can by…
Fans of night-crawling creatures rejoice: Dracula is coming to the Irving Arts Center, wherein “good and evil battle for the possession of a young woman’s soul.” It’s too bad that a flesh-nibbling vampire hell-bent on sucking the lifeblood out of the delicate neck of a nubile young maiden isn’t actually…
Did you see Pan’s Labyrinth? Holy out of nowhere with the stabbing the guy in the face with the broken bottle, right? And that no-eyeballs-filling-his-eyeholes monster with the creepy eyehands was easily up there in the Top 10 Freaking Scariest Movie Bad Guys Ever (I wonder if Michael Jackson is…
“That son of a bitch cut me off!” You’ve said it so often you think you own it. But when Tom “Maverick” Cruise lets it fly in Top Gun, he got paid megabundles and got offered a lifetime of jumping on couches with Oprah. Damn! Give me a jet (preferably…
