thursday april 13 Alan Dershowitz: Being a civil libertarian in America at a time when politicians and talk-radio morons are demanding a quick emotional fix for our national malaise can be a thankless job…unless, of course, you’re a civil libertarian who also happens to be one of the highest-paid defense…
thursday april 6 Fred Curchack: Texas-based performance artist Fred Curchack has traveled the world collecting awards and stunning non-English-speaking audiences with his one-man “revisionings” of some of William Shakespeare’s most elaborate multicharacter fantasies. Curchack accomplishes this through a carefully synchronized combination of masks, light, shadow, sound effect, and, of course,…
thursday march 9 In the Land of the Deaf: A recent Spy magazine essay pinpointed with deadly accuracy the career rewards many Hollywood actors and actresses reap when they portray a character with a physical impairment. While it seems there aren’t enough such roles to go around for performers eager…
In an age when virtually everyone has a prepared statement for the press–if not a calculated, image-reinforcing soundbite–it’s surprising and refreshing to find an artist who’s almost speechless when the time comes to discuss her craft. At first, it was a shock that Miranda Richardson, 1995 Oscar nominee for Best…
friday march 3 North Texas Irish Festival: It’s been said that the unhappiest people throw the most elaborate parties. This might go a long way toward explaining the centuries-old reputation the Irish have for celebrating life with raucous music, merry dance, and prodigious drink–when they haven’t been treated like a…
There’s a moment on Laurie Anderson’s most recent album, last year’s portentous and unnerving Bright Red, when her velvety sage’s voice breaks out of its cool, ironic mode and challenges the very universe. In “Love Among the Sailors,” a funereal piece about the devastation of AIDS, Anderson declares: “If this…
thursday february 23 Valery Kuleshov: In retrospect, isn’t it strange that the former Soviet Union often made exceptions (albeit heavily guarded ones) for its most talented artists when the time came to export Russian influences throughout the rest of the world? That suggests there has always been, in many of…
Few literature students have escaped exposure to the works of T.S. Eliot. Although Eliot’s influence has waned somewhat, he represented, for the post-World War II American academic elite, a living wish-fulfillment fantasy of everything they thought a man of letters should be–Anglophilic to the extreme (he renounced his American citizenship…
thursday february 16 15th Annual Fort Worth Home and Garden Show: In many ways, the paltry winter experienced by North Texas over the last few months has felt like a spring that won’t just come right out and reveal itself. Warm days, cool days, then more warm days–people who are…
The story of Leni Riefenstahl’s rise from renowned professional dancer to beloved German movie star to perhaps the greatest woman filmmaker of all time is marked by one constant–her brash, archaic, even narcissistic belief in herself and her creative abilities. Her artistic achievements, specifically her film versions of the gargantuan…
thursday february 9 Deborah Mathis: As strange as it seems, the normally indefatigable national press has been cowed by House blowhard Newt Gingrich’s claims that they are “a tool of the Democratic Party” (a charge leveled at professionals who, over the past two years, nailed Bill Clinton–sometimes fairly, sometimes hysterically–to…
Generally speaking, directors who try to make movies in which characters represent political or philosophical beliefs have a difficult time making those people feel authentic to movie audiences. One of two things usually happens: either the filmmaker reduces the characters to strident mouthpieces (David Mamet’s adaptation of his own play…
thursday february 2 Video Art: The First 25 Years: Ever since portable video equipment became an affordable technology in the late ’60s, a growing number of artists have employed the medium to make personal statements in a way film had never been used. The key words for the first generation…
thursday january 26 Friends of the Major: Major Theatre co-owners Rob Clements and Bryce Gonzalez present the debut screening and reception for what they plan to be a regular series of special events. Friends of the Major is what they call it, and it’s a combination fund-raiser and meeting-of-the-minds. For…
thursday january 19 Women’s Voices: Kitchen Dog Theatre delivers a calmer though no less cerebral follow-up to its physically draining Zastrossi. Women’s Voices is an evening of one-acts described by the company as “feminist”–not a very popular adjective these days. Still, both pieces strive to present a dramatic situation in…
Paul Newman is our most complex living movie icon. The man and his image are loaded with contradictions–he is an actor of fairly limited abilities, but at least a dozen of his performances from a 41-year career have been burned into our consciousness with the force of genius. Newman’s appearances…
thursday january 12 Sincerity Forever and The A Merkin Dream: Naked Mirror Productions presents two one-act plays together, the first a Southwest premiere by one of the country’s leading dramatic innovators and the second a world premiere by a young pup in the theatre world. Dallas theater-goers are most familiar…
Matt Zoller Seitz When H.L. Mencken wrote that criticism is prejudice made plausible, he was onto something. Like music, movies are more often fueled by passion than intellect. They invite, even demand, borderline-irrational gut responses. As a result, it’s always difficult to come up with year-end “Best” lists–especially when you…
thursday january 5 Elvis Presley’s 60th Birthday: If you really want to rile die-hard Elvis fans, pop the subject of the King’s new son-in-law and watch their ears burn. Last October’s planned tribute to Elvis at Graceland was supposed to feature Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley performing duet versions…
thursday december 22 TubaChristmas Concerts and the Dallas Bach Society: The tuba has as long and esteemed a history as most of the other brass instruments–but somehow, all that goes down the tubes when you hear one in its natural habitat. Not to say that the tuba is an unworthy…
The conventional line about Hollywood is that there are few good roles for women. And while women still tend to be simultaneously blamed and glorified for what happens to us as a culture, it remains unlikely that cinema–as pure a social reflection as you’ll find–can create an adult female who…
The best way to describe Jodie Foster’s singular brand of beauty is bird-like–large eyes, sharp nose, a concentrated mouth, a tiny frame. She contains a fierce intelligence which compels her to talk a mile a minute. The tom-boyishness of her childhood movie performances returns even as she riffs eloquent on…
