thursday july 20 Moving The Fire: Removal of Indian Nations to Oklahoma: There is nothing more haunting about the infamous “Trail of Tears”–the U.S. government’s brutal relocation of American Indian tribes to Oklahoma in the 19th century–than the fact that so many settlers left their belongings behind but brought with…
friday july 14 West End’s Taste of Dallas: This is a warning to people who think they have iron stomachs–the wide variety of foods available at the West End’s three-day Taste of Dallas doesn’t necessarily mix well. If you choose to sample Frito pie and ostrich stew in the same…
There’s a moment in the second half of Crumb, Terry Zwigoff’s scorching and fearless feature-length profile of the underground comic-book artist Robert Crumb, that confirms movie audiences have entered a very different world than they are accustomed to exploring. After Crumb and numerous friends, family members, and loved ones have…
The opening credits of the new sci-fi thriller Species are splashed across a panorama of stars while ominous, understated theme music lurks in the background. Veteran monster movie fans might be reminded of Ridley Scott’s 1979 Alien by this deliberately hushed but melodramatic beginning. Audiences will find another link between…
friday july 7 Annie Leibovitz and Fabrice Berger-Remond: Is there doubt in anyone’s mind that Annie Leibovitz is one of the greatest photo-portraitists working in America right now? Sure, she gets the same flak Richard Avedon has for decades now about snapping so many celebrities and working primarily with (gasp!)…
thursday june 22 Kirk Whalum: In the midst of all those beltway arguments among critics and musicians as to who makes jazz and who makes Cheez-Whiz, certain contemporary artists have chosen to make their mark with a sound that capitalizes on the hippest jazz conventions while, at the same time,…
thursday june 15 Dr. Kent Weeks: The latest Egyptologist to make world headlines about his discoveries frolicking among the dead is Dr. Kent Weeks, whose recent discovery of a tomb that dates back to 1500 B.C. is said to house most of the 52 sons of the legendary Rameses the…
Think about the most wildly popular fantasy adventures of the past couple of years–everything from Jurassic Park to the spastic Jim Carrey vehicle The Mask–and it’s a given that what you’ll remember are single images: the tyrannosaurus rex bumping its nose against the clear plexiglass roof of a jeep where…
friday june 9 Didn’t We Ramble: Of all the bedrock American musical styles that Texas can proudly claim, jazz seems to be the least recognized. Blind Lemon Jefferson plays that twangy down-home blues and Bob Wills moves a dance floor with his galloping Texas swing in our collective memories, but…
thursday may 25 Peacemaker: One of the most obvious but least discussed flaws in the new national mania to “crack down” on juvenile violent crime is that many kids living in urban squalor have to take up arms simply to stay alive–when you’re forced at birth to swim with sharks,…
thursday may 18 Deepak Chopra: It’s hard to know where to draw the line among the hordes of books every year written by pop-psych gurus, “secret of success” motivators, and candy-cane spiritualists, but the works of Deepak Chopra, M.D. seem a good place to start. On the one hand, Chopra,…
At the American box office, hot weather means action heroes wisecracking their way through one elaborately staged disaster after another–all that we hold dear depending on their charisma and endurance. But this is a unique summer: the country is still reeling from allegations that the Oklahoma City federal building was…
thursday may 11 Male Figurative Show: Why is it that everyone’s afraid of the penis? From popular entertainment to classic visual art, any Western medium that deals in images over the last few hundred years has treated the male genitalia as verboten–while women’s bodies can be viewed from any and…
thursday may 4 Contemporary Hollywood Portraits: Pick up movie magazines, watch syndicated entertainment news programs, listen to cinephiles sit around the table for drinks and discussion–everyone’s lamenting the dearth of genuine movie star appeal in American cinema. This is not a new complaint, of course–folks back in the ’20s bemoaned…
Whether Oscar-nominated actor Leonardo DiCaprio chooses to identify himself as “gay” is entirely his business. Where once the issue of outing celebrities sharply divided the gay and lesbian community, there has been a growing consensus that the reluctance of the mainstream press to discuss such “personal” issues is hypocritical, since…
About 20 minutes into the French-Italian melodrama Farinelli, a spoiled courtesan summons the greatest castrato singer of 18th century Europe, Farinelli (Stefano Dionisi), to a private meeting with her and dozens of tittering ladies fair. All of them are astounded by the three-octave range of this slender, incendiary beauty who…
thursday april 27 Joel-Peter Witkin: If, as someone once observed, humans are animals cursed with the ability to think like gods, then legendary photographer-montagist Joel Peter-Witkin is the documentarian of that dilemma. His pictures are ecstatic nightmares about mortality, images of twisted and deformed bodies trapped in tableaux of pain…
The Cahiers du Cinema-era French film critics coined a name for the American crime drama of the ’40s and ’50s, in which every technical effort was extended to forge a mood of sordidness and epic struggle. They called it film noir–a genre in which ticket-buyers were carried roller coaster-style through…
thursday april 20 Ampersand Dance: Creating a new dance company is always a risky business, but in a city like Dallas, where culture too often means you choose an imported beer while watching TV football, it’s downright courageous. But dancer-choreographers Eric Salisbury and Shannon Slaton are forging ahead with Ampersand…
Film lovers can be divided into two categories. There are those who approach the cinema with a Wildean belief that art exists to improve the human condition, or at the very least idealize it. They watch movies using a kind of aesthetic white glove test, always on the lookout for…
There’s only one dud among the seven somber short films featured in Short Stuff. It’s a pretentious fantasy flight called “Goddess” in which a Mary Kay-shellacked female icon becomes human in order to avenge the death of a man by his twin brother. Yawn. But two films punch you in…
Note: The 25th Annual USA Film Festival runs Thursday, April 20 through Thursday, April 27 at the AMC Glen Lakes theater, 9450 North Central Expressway (except for The Stars Fell on Henrietta and Panther, which will be screened at the General Cinema NorthPark III-IV, North Central Expressway at Park Lane)…
