There are isolated moments in writer-director Carl Franklin’s adaptation of Devil in a Blue Dress when you roll your eyes heavenward at the familiarity of it all. This is the story of a man caught between two different forces who would use him for their own ends, then throw him…
thursday september 21 Andrew Sullivan: Although The New Republic’s 29-year-old editor has been called a conservative gay activist, in his publication – and the essays he’s written for The New York Times and other publications – Andrew Sullivan has carved out a fiercely moderate position on social issues (with a…
The deeper you delve into the latest serial-killer thriller Seven–and the film’s damp, shadowy, claustrophobic look does make you feel like a spelunker at times–the more you’re likely to be annoyed by the visual excesses of director David Fincher. The man has one feature film to his credit–the underrated financial…
Four years ago, writer-director Todd Haynes was the toast of the American indie scene, having earned the prestigious Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for his feature debut Poison–as well as the ire of Congressman Jesse Helms. Poison had received a very small portion of its budget from the National Endowment…
The latest film by writer-director Todd Haynes (Poison, Dottie Gets Spanked) has barely earned a nickel in its limited theatrical engagements around the country, yet it’s the canniest, most intriguing American film to be released so far this year. The reasons for its box-office reception are not hard to fathom…
Don’t let the title mislead you–Unstrung Heroes doesn’t deal with an underdog sports team, or a state psychiatric hospital that wins big against the snobs of a private institution during field day. Still, the film does deal with mental illness–not to mention cancer, religious faith, the human imagination, family relationships,…
American cinema usually splits the difference when it comes to depicting the high-school experience. In a hormone-driven subculture where democracy exists only as a popularity contest, most filmmakers have been wary of spreading perspective too thin. So we’re offered the views of teachers (Up The Down Staircase, Dangerous Minds); the…
thursday september 7 Ampersand Dance/Theatre: Two good buddies, Texas Christian University graduates Eric Salisbury and Shannon Slaton, have been profiled extensively in the Dallas press for talents that don’t often bring you much acclaim – not to mention financial security – in this city. Salisbury is a dancer-choreographer who’s performed…
Photographer Larry Clark’s debut feature film Kids is one of those tough critical calls for a movie pundit, although you wouldn’t know it by reading any of the rapturous notices printed in the national press about this eye-poppingly explicit look at the hijinks of a group of rootless adolescents on…
As soon as writer-director Spike Lee burst into the national arena with his masterful unwinding of an urban race riot in 1989’s Do The Right Thing, both Anglo and African-American audiences expected him to explain for us the strangling bitterness that lurks between black and white in America. Unlike the…
This much-anticipated, unofficial American version of the 1994 Australian art-house hit Priscilla, Queen of the Desert has different audiences waiting for different results. Action film fans wonder how Wesley Snipes and Patrick Swayze will carry themselves with heels, fake nails, and extravagant drag-queen mannerisms. Gay audiences, thrilled by the moxie…
thursday august 24 Radiothon: Sadly, it often takes one tragedy to prevent others from happening. This is what the Dallas-based Mothers Against Teen Violence, Inc. hoped to do when they formed two years ago after the brutal murders of Charles Christopher Lewis and Kendrick Demon Lott – both of whom…
Fretful, chain-smoking fashion wunderkind Isaac Mizrahi–the subject of Douglas Keeve’s wildly kinetic, hysterically funny documentary Unzipped–is a slightly more butch Yiddish version of Alicia Silverstone, and sort of like Harvey Fierstein without the mileage. During this documentary, which details the New York fashion designer preparing for his fall 1994 show,…
Prominent movie critics across the country have joined hands in ritual public display of their admiration for Oklahoma-born photographer Larry Clark’s unrated feature debut Kids. This, after all, is the film that Mickey The Mouse refused to release under His newly acquired Miramax label, forcing the filmmakers to form their…
thursday august 17 The Women in Theatre Festival: It’s easy to fear that a series of short plays performed under the title “The Women in Theatre Festival,” presented by the New Horizons Theatre Company and the Bath House Cultural Center, will spend most of their time scoring the obvious political…
A glance at the names associated with Like Water For Chocolate’s Alfonso Arau’s new filmic fable A Walk in the Clouds is enough to strike terror in the heart of any Like Water cultist. Can the Mexican director’s pulsing, sexy vision survive the Zucker brothers production team, who have individually…
Paul Rudnick’s Jeffrey, directed by award-winning New York stage director Christopher Ashley in his feature film debut, is something of a mess. Ashley has no sense of how to build momentum within the camera’s frame, so he relies on stock TV effects–slow motion, crane shots, first-person addresses by the lead…
As of this writing, there are only three American actresses who’ve proven to Hollywood they can attract big audiences by name alone–Demi Moore, Meg Ryan, and Julia Roberts. Moore is by far the worst of the three, a relentless publicity machine whose presence in wretched box-office triumphs like Disclosure proves…
thursday august 10 Surfabilly roundup: You say you don’t have 50 bucks to blow for the privilege of sweating your eyeballs out at Starplex, standing among zoned-out stoners and hopped-up acid freaks, and watching Courtney Love’s eyeliner roll in rivers down her cheeks? Well, join the rest of the city…
thursday july 27 Taste of Deep Ellum Tour ’95: With their long series of art and music festivals, it seems obvious that the powers behind Deep Ellum are trying to allay fears that the neighborhood is headed toward tourist-trapsville. Although it may be one of the first places Dallas hosts…
At first, adults might not see the delightful kid-flick Babe as an intelligent, even brave film. The film’s clever combination of stunts by live animals and incredibly expressive animatronic puppets makes you suspicious, a little fearful it might become an ordeal of gimmicks. The story unleashes a barnyard full of…
About halfway through Rage To Survive, the new autobiography of Etta James, one thought hits you smack between the eyes: This is not the kind of life story that’s written while the subject is still alive, much less by the subject herself. The book is a harrowing page-turner that chronicles…
