Once before we mentioned this Web site — on November 9, when 2006 Dallas Observer Music Awards-winner Kristy Kruger’s brother, 40-year-old Lt. Col. Eric J. Kruger of Garland, was killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb. We mention it again today because this week, another Dallasite’s name was added to…
On the evening of November 13, hundreds of people swarmed Farmers Branch City Hall. The small council chamber quickly reached capacity, and most of those trying to get in were relegated to the lobby. Some jostled for a view of the meeting through the closed glass doors while others watched…
Crystal ball: What does the new year hold in store for Dallas? Police Chief David Kunkle’s divorce lawyer gets a new boat, thanks to his favorite client? Mayor Laura Miller at long last hauls off and slugs someone? The feds announce a major investigation into City Hall, then quietly steal…
It’s official: Hollywood has run out of original ideas. If you thought 2006 was bad, just wait. In 2007 the studios will give up on birthing blockbusters and instead concentrate on cloning them, with sequel after sequel after sequel. Familiar titles will be followed by so many numbers that filmgoers…
Dashiell Hammett goes to high school—the perfect studio pitch. Yet after wowing ’em at the film fests, Rian Johnson’s knockout debut as writer and director, Brick, languished in theaters and on DVD. It took a bunk, as Hammett mighta said, and wound up wearing a wooden kimono. Johnson, who wrote…
James Longley’s Iraq in Fragments is a one-man production of startling audacity and aesthetic provocation. It isn’t just that Longley (Gaza Strip) worked unembedded in Iraq for two years after the start of the war, gaining access to the stories of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds in wartime and risking his…
Made when he was a stripling of 24, Argentine filmmaker Daniel Burman’s first feature, A Chrysanthemum Burst in Cincoesquinas, was a violent story of love and revenge. He must have gotten that out of his system: Though Burman’s subsequent movies also traffic in what he calls “the great transitions of…
A car speeds down a forest road, only to be surrounded in an instant by armed crazies who materialize from the nearby woods. In the visual grammar of big-budget action films, the sequence that ensues should be a scattergun barrage of images: Wheels! Guns! Blood! Shriek! Fireball! Crash! Add a…
Dirty Business We’re trying: I also know of a white man about 20 years old who went to the car wash at lunch to wash his car (“SAFE as Hell,” by Jim Schutze, December 14). The police came and harassed him, telling him he was only there to make a…
Now that divorce is common and kids often grow up being shuttled between two houses, it’s easy to become disheartened about the chances of finding true love, but for the hopeless romantics among us, no challenge is too great when it comes to finding The One. Which is why, if…
T.O. must go. Because the only justification for stomaching Terrell Owens is a championship. And, after another egregious home loss in which their egocentric receiver dropped another key pass, the Dallas Cowboys aren’t going to win the Super Bowl. Selling your soul to Beelzebub for an NFL title is a…
On an early December afternoon at the offices of Malpaso Productions, Clint Eastwood’s four Academy Awards have been placed into thick velvet carrying bags, while that famous poncho—the one Eastwood donned for the entirety of Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy—is being carefully loaded into a large shipping box. But that doesn’t…
Downtown office-to-loft rennovations are getting real-estate investors all giddy about the market. Least they’re not turning them into parking lots. Dallas is a hot commodity, real-estate-wise. Says so right here, in Commercial Property News, where Meridian Capital Group managing director Alex Katz insists 2007’s shaping up to be a very…
www.drive-ins.com Those of us born and raised here remember well the good ol’ Gemini Twin Drive-In theater at the northeast corner of the North Central Expressway-Forest Lane intersection. The self-proclaimed “world’s largest drive-in” with 2,000 parking spots — which is where the Raquel Welch movie One Million Years B.C. was…
Adios, John Danks, we hardly knew ya. No, seriously. We don’t even know if this is a picture of John Danks. We’re just taking a shot in the dark here. I’d swear during baseball’s winter meetings earlier this month I heard Texas Rangers general manager Jon Daniels say something to…
Aurora Maison de Cuisine is among AAA’s Four Diamond eateries. I don’t think the Metro Diner placed as high, which is a travesty. Never get behind a car with a AAA sticker on its bumper, at least if you wanna get to where you’re going sometime that week. That said,…
Carrie Underwood’s the latest pop star to be linked to the Cowboys’ QB. Hasn’t he ever seen The Slugger’s Wife? Aw c’mon — Carrie Underwood? Really? But, yeah, that’s the latest pop star to which the name “Tony Romo” has been affixed. But by whom? Well, it comes from no…
Flip Benham’s still at work, preaching about how much God loves you by insisting He can’t stand everyone else. In July, we mentioned how Flip Benham led his locally based Operation Save America to Jackson, Mississippi, where they protested the only abortion clinic in Jackson — by which I mean…
Till yesterday, I was going to suggest you visit these folks to fill any post-Christmas gift needs you might have missed; nothing says ho-ho-homer better than a “Romosexual” T-shirt. But after yesterday, no way does that seem like a good idea. The Cowboys QB played like the big-league rookie he…
Illustration by Craig LaRotonda For those looking for a little light reading during this slow news week, here’s the entirety of the lawsuit filed today against Farmers Branch. Thanks to Estuardo Rodriguez at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund for providing the document. The suit was brought by…
Radiant’s got big plans on New Year’s Eve. You? Didn’t think so. Looks like watching Jimmy Kimmel Live can actually pay off. Jesse Hopkins and Levi Smith, two members of local rockers Radiant (whose sensitive, shimmery, orchestral songs and cute-boy haircuts makes the ladies swoon) were idly watching Kimmel’s late-night…
See ya at Club Blue Sunday night, right, mayor? On Friday, the city of Dallas finally responded to the federal lawsuit filed in October by the owners of Club Blue, who accuse the city of violating “rights, privileges and immunities secured to it by the Constition of the United States.”…
