I have to admit, what I know about Antwone Fisher doesn’t surpass the 120 minutes from the film of the same name. He was born in a jail, went into the Navy, confronted childhood horrors and ended up turning a bleak life into something prominent and heroic. It’s not fair…

Whenever you come across those people that don’t quite “get art” or how it can be a statement of something, refer them to Alisa Banks. Her works should be able to get it through their thick skulls—especially her books, in which she touches on inner identity based on ideas of…

Save for Friday Night Lights and We Are Marshall, there are just a few options left for good high school football drama. Well, that should read “cheesy, feel-good flick where rag-tag underdogs pull it together, the black and white guys resolve racial tensions, the cheerleader and the quarterback really do…

Man, I just don’t know what to write about the Deep Ellum Arts Festival. I have a good time every year I go but for some reason I’m coming up blank. I could write about the how I was introduced to local band Lovie for the first time. I remember…

The Wizard of Oz is so technically flawed that I can’t help but notice all the things that go wrong. The way the Tin Man actually helps the balloon to take off or how the gatekeeper’s mustache changes directions will always catch my attention but by the end I still…

I can get attitude anytime I want from The Gap at Mockingbird Station, but why those shop girls and boys throw so much of it over denim is beyond me. Maybe I’m just a tad too big for their fitted shirts or my scruffy beard doesn’t meet their clean-cut demeanor,…

Country singer Sara Evans was well on her way to being the next Faith Hill. Starting out as a fairly modest act, a string of hits and crossover appeal transformed her into a glammed-out artist. That was before 2006. Someone must not have told her that Dancing With the Stars…

I envision jazz the way Elmer Bernstein musically painted the 1955 film The Man With the Golden Arm—gritty, dark and blaring. Music that is beautiful but treacherous and can score both the delicacy of romance and the seediness of drug addiction. Now, whether I find that up in Addison is…

Easter is the only holiday I can get away with not spending with my family. I opt not to see a rampant number of second cousins that I don’’t know hunting for eggs. What’s better, no guilt trip from the parents. For whatever reason, the resurrection apparently doesn’t have the…

I hope she takes this as a compliment, but I wish local artist Pauline Hudel-Smith would consider creating fabric and wallpaper. Her illustrations, filled with popping color and geometric design, are just beautiful enough to surround yourself with and quirky enough to be out of the norm. Or maybe I’m…

If you’ve never had a proper welcome to the city of Irving, then by golly, you are in luck. Because if the dirty white-top of Texas Stadium isn’t satisfying your hospitable standards, then the Irving Archives and Public Library will sure try to. The two departments present Welcome to Irving,…

What happens when you combine Dancing with the Stars, American Idol and Singin’ in the Rain? Other than a potential hot mess, you get a legend against a backdrop of trendy reality television. Debbie Reynolds (yes, the Debbie Reynolds) hosts a one-night-only show of Simply Ballroom with the Dallas Symphony…

Back in the 1940s, a small group of creative types called themselves the Fort Worth Circle Artists. Started by a mere four students from the FW School of Fine Arts, they probably had no idea that Cowtown would be kicking Dallas’ ass in the arts and museum scene the next…

Just who do those Turtle Creek Chorale singers think they are? They keep trying to push the conventional chorus concert to the edge by performing some elaborate concert opera. And to top it off, it’s a huge to-do about 1895 England where 600 men got the heck out of Dodge,…

Scary movies scare me. However, the fact that I cover my eyes and jump at sharp noises makes me appreciate the horror film more so than many other genres, something I blame on a certain Freddy Krueger’s influence on my early years. In fact, I think I’ll go tell him…

Although it’s early in the year, I hereby proclaim Fort Worth Community Arts Center’s Sight and Sound 2008 fund-raiser as the best event of the year. Anybody who combines three dance floors (disco, classic country and rock) with a food selection that includes pizza, barbecue and Mexican food wins hands…

Hard to say if the Dallas Architecture Forum is happy about all the pre-fabricated condos going up in town. The latest boom of cookie-cutter buildings probably rubs the scholars the wrong way. They might distract themselves by inviting badass architects to school this town. The Forum brings in Brazil’s Milton…

When KISS went back to both their makeup and their original lineup in the mid-’90s, it was one of the most contrived marketing moves ever. But a packed Reunion Arena show back in ’96 proved it worked. What could have been on the heavier side of lame reignited interest in…

I must say, this year’s Oscar nominees are somewhat of a snore. Despite the greatness of some nominated flicks, such as No Country for Old Men, the tone overall is just short of depressing. And Juno is not exactly the strong, snuggly counterbalance that Little Miss Sunshine was last year…

In going from comedian to TV show consultant to best-selling author with nothing to back up the latter two except merely being a guy, Greg Behrendt has pulled off quite a feat. The author of He’s Just Not That Into You even had his own talk show. He’s like the…

We should probably give Valley House Gallery a standing ovation for bringing Mark Messersmith’s work to the locals. Landscapes in art are a yawn for the most part: They teach them to death in school, and generic vistas dominate the “art” section at many a Target and Wal-Mart. Messersmith’s landscapes…