As kids, we hated going to the dentist, because we loved candy and we always had cavities. We also hated flossing and loathed our hygienist, because we could never floss enough to satisfy her. Therefore, “open wide”is not a phrase that evokes a positive response in us. Open Wide, however–a…
The word “freedom” has been hijacked by jingoistic fascists, but something good comes from its misuse. Ever since “freedom fries” and operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, you can substitute the word “bullshit” when you hear “freedom.” The Sean Hannity Freedom Concert, consisting of overpriced cornball country and conservative talk-show…
Hollywood is full of weirdos. When Billy Bob Thornton was married to Angelina Jolie, the unlikely pair wore each others’ blood around their necks and would publicly say things about their sex life that still make the mind reel and the skin crawl. Billy Bob Thornton is, of course, most…
Puerto Rican-born American citizen William Rodriguez is believed to be the last person to escape from World Trade Center Tower #1 on the morning of September 11, 2001. As a custodian in the building for 19 years, he had the only access key to three fire stairwells, and made repeated…
High up on my wish list of indulgences I want but will never be able to afford on my meager salary would have to be last year’s Criterion release Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films. With a hefty price tag of $850, the collection features 50 of the…
In elementary school, my teachers would run out the clock on the school year by watching movies in class every day for the last week or two. Back to the Future was always one of them. The teacher never bothered with the pretense that it was part of some science…
The only place you can get cotton candy and really enjoy it (because it tastes so much better in its natural habitat) is at the circus. Cotton candy at the circus almost makes you forget that animals are being tortured and that clowns are the scariest invention ever. The moment…
The words “jam band” have become as disturbing to most music fans as the words “George W. Bush” have become to everybody else. It is rare for a jam band to achieve much more than perpetual touring and a few thousand die-hard fans that follow them around doing questionable things…
It’s not often a building gets compared to a stuffed animal, but that’s the implied comparison the president of the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History makes when he talks about the 66-year-old building: “It has been loved to death.” For many native (and nerdy) North Texans–this writer included–the…
If I had a friend that ever acted like my pets act, I’d give that friend a good talking to, followed swiftly by a good face slapping. I’ve never had a friend pee on my carpet just because he was stressed. No friend of mine has told me he liked…
The Bourne Ultimatum opens in Russia as the amnesiac super-spy Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) does what he does best: elude capture, crack skulls, brood. Lickety-split he’s en route to Paris, nursing his wounds and breaking out with a bad case of those itchy-scratchy hallucinations known as Hollywood Flashback Syndrome. Choice…
It’s impossible to write about David Wain’s The Ten without first making passing reference to Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Dekalog and Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. The former, originally made for Polish TV 20 years ago and first shown in the United States in 2000, offered a modern-day take on the…
In 1987, Bart Weiss viewed his nascent Dallas Video Festival as a way to collect “ephemeral media, the throwaway stuff no one paid attention to,” he says now, as the 20th Dallas Video Festival gets under way at the Dallas Theater Center and Angelika Film Center. The first festival included…
Saw a strange new play about a handsome thief named Edward whose hands are amputated by court order. New ones are transplanted onto the stumps. The convicted thief is white. The recycled mitts are brown. The thief begins channeling the thoughts of the hands’ former owner, a Dalai Lama-like religious…
Oh, wipe that starchy Masterpiece Theatre moue off your face—pop Jane Austen is fun, especially when it’s almost completely made up. According to Becoming Jane, a new addition to the plentiful Austen spin-off canon, off duty our lady of graceful letters was hot stuff at cricket and kissing and had…
Hot Fuzz (Universal) The second feature from writer-director Edgar Wright and writer-star Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead) has been available on home video for decades: Hot Fuzz is, after all, a witty and wisecracking montage of clips from some hundred-plus A-list and bargain-bin action films, chief among them Lethal…
What says “Dallas” more than Neiman Marcus presenting a salon on fashion? I don’t care if people say this is a shallow town only interested in big hair and plastic surgery. Would we like our Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and Mavs Dancers any other way? I like having umpteen Starbucks. I…
Ah, the circus. What little boy hasn’t dreamed of running away and joining the circus? Besides virtually every other boy born in America since 1913, we mean. Nevertheless, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey keeps chugging along, a cultural artifact kept alive by fans–parents mostly, one presumes–indifferent to the fact…
Generally, the most attention we pay to tiles is when we’re scrubbing them. Luminous and delicate aren’t words hat we’d use to describe them, even when they’re not covered in goop. So, we’re ready to be enlightened with the Meadows Museum’s new exhibit of Spanish tiles, many of which are…
If you love the power of slaying dragons and using a “saving throw” to escape a cave filled with “orcs”, then this is your week. Come out of your parent’s basement and embrace your love of Dungeons & Dragons at the DFW Roleplayers Game Night. A night when all you…
Defending the Caveman is the longest running solo play in Broadway history at two years. It’s about male/female relations with comedic insights on feminism, masculinity and the naughty bits of both parties in the light of amateur anthropology, prehistory, psychology, sociology and mythology. The play is not so much a…
One of the inherent rights of a child is to have their own playhouse. It can be made from couch cushions and blankets or wood and nails; hell with just a little imagination even an empty box can be the coolest land of escape ever. So if you had any…
