Thanks to the rise of movie streaming subscription services like Netflix, movie theaters have had to step up their offerings to compete for audiences. The Alamo Drafthouse’s national chain plans to roll out its own subscription service by the end of the year to all of its theaters, which will…
When people see game show host and television producer Marc Summers outside of their TVs or childhood memories, he says he loves it when they come up to him, politely introduce themselves and tell him that they grew up watching him host Nickelodeon’s messy kids’ game show Double Dare. “I get…
When Saturday Night Live star and writer Seth Meyers moved from the Weekend Update desk that he shared with the likes of Amy Poehler and his insane, gay lover, Stefon, to NBC’s Late Night desk, he says he and his team thought the audience would gravitate toward bits and segments…
Taking the reins of a storied radio institution like NPR’s long running variety show A Prairie Home Companion may seem like a surreal moment. Chris Thile, a singer, composer, mandolinist for the bluegrass quintet Punch Brothers and the host of the traveling variety radio series Live from Here, says the…
If you got punked on Monday because you forgot for a couple of seconds that it was also April Fools’ Day, you weren’t alone. Good Morning Texas host Alanna Sarabia was the target of an on-air prank Monday morning on WFAA Channel 8 thanks to Chad Cline, a local actor and Stomping Ground Comedy Theater…
Comedies always gets snubbed at award shows. They get beat at the Oscars by stuffy British films no one’s ever seen. When the Grammys airs on TV, the comedy category barely gets a mention during the recap. There used to be an annual American Comedy Awards, but it isn’t around…
The arcade may not be as thriving and widespread as it once was, but the lack of public places to play pinball hasn’t killed the mighty machine just yet. In fact, it’s experiencing a second Renaissance. Giants of the pinball industry like Williams, Bally and Midway fell into financial oblivion,…
Familiar names like Jim Gaffigan, Elizabeth Moss and Dirk Nowitzki will appear in some of the more than 50 films screened at the Dallas International Film Festival (DIFF). DIFF released the full list of films that will get a screening at the 13th annual film festival, including five world premiere…
A new addition to the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame features some collectibles that TV and movie geeks will find interesting. The Fort Worth attraction opened a new gallery in the building’s second floor Kit Moncrief Galleries earlier this month, and it includes some rare collectibles. The museum…
Atari’s Pong may seem elementary compared with today’s high-definition video games that can link up to players anywhere in the world, but it’s one of the reasons video games are a billion-dollar industry. Pong, a bare-bones version of table tennis consisting of just two vertical bars as paddles and a tiny…
The wildly popular podcast Serial, created by This American Life creators Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder, doesn’t really fit the mold of a true-crime series. It’s not about exploring all the ugly facets of a horrible tragedy. It’s about the consequences that they create. “I’ve never been interested in crime…
Any magician can fool their audience. Magician Michael Carbonaro, who stars in TruTV’s hidden-camera magic show The Carbonaro Effect, wants to leave his viewers with something much more powerful than feeling stupid for a few seconds. He wants them to question the nature of the reality around them. “I think…
Free Play Arcade, the local retro arcade chain, will build a fourth location near downtown Fort Worth and halt plans to open a pinball arcade in the Oak Cliff neighborhood. Corey Hayden, owner and founder of the chain, which opened its first location in Richardson in 2015, says the Fort…
The Artisan Center Theater in Hurst turned into a crime scene earlier this month when burglars broke into the theater’s offices and stole thousands in cash and electronics. Richard Blair, the ACT’s executive producer and co-founder, says the burglary happened sometime in the late hours of Monday, Feb. 11, or…
Clark James Gable III, the most recent host of the long-running Dallas reality show series Cheaters, died suddenly Friday. The show’s creator, Bobby Goldstein, says the show and Dallas lost more than a charismatic and likable TV personality. “He was a great friend of mine,” Goldstein says. “He was just…
Artist Nathan Sawaya builds sculptures and wall paintings out of LEGOs, the toy building block that’s been a creative outlet for kids and adults and the bane of shoeless parents since the 1930s. Sawaya says his reproductions of classic pieces of art — which are on display at the Perot Museum of…
Comedian Bert Kreischer is a happy guy, and it’s not the beer talking. “I’m extremely happy,” Kreischer says. “For the first time in this entire business, I get to do anything I want to do and not because I have to do it.” These days, the things Kreischer says he…
Watching comedy is a mostly sedentary act. Comedian Gretchen Young, who’s better known by her stage nickname “GretchYo,” has found a way to make it move in so many ways. She’s the creator of a monthly comedy show series called “Destination Unknown” that puts audiences on a bus where they…
Last year, the cast of Pocket Sandwich Theatre’s comedy The Roof — which parodies actor, writer and director Tommy Wiseau’s unintentional comedic drama The Room — reached out to their characters’ Room counterparts before the premiere of their play. Except, of course, for Wiseau because, well, he’s Tommy Wiseau. Actor Dan…
Even if the mainstream has squandered media’s powers, television, film and new advancements in virtual technology still possess the amazing ability to transport audiences to new places and perspectives. So many new and exciting ventures are exploring these growing art forms that the Dallas VideoFest can’t share it with just…
When you’re watching a local-produced sketch or improvisational comedy show, chances are that the performers, writers and other crew members aren’t getting a single cent from the box office or the club housing them. Lindsay Goldapp, the managing director of the nonprofit Stomping Ground Comedy Theater, wrote on the theater’s…
Last year, the Dallas Mavericks added another team to Dallas’ growing roster of esports teams, the Mavs Gaming team for the NBA2K League that plays Take-Two Interactive’s NBA2K basketball title. The season may not have ended with a championship for the gaming or the real team last season, but it’s…
