If Stephen Baldwin played himself in a movie, it would be his most entertaining role ever. Imagine if Mötley Crüe and Kirk Cameron were one guy and that guy always referred to himself in the third person. In a 2004 interview with New York Magazine, Baldwin explained his goal to…
The Sub-Zero Wolf Grilling Demonstration and Fine Wine Dinner seems problematic. How long does it take to heat up a grill in such weather? Then, wolves are endangered, so you’ve gotta get ’em from Nigel at Black Market Meats ‘R’ Us. I don’t have to tell you what kind of…
Johnny Cash had the kind of voice that is oft-imitated but never duplicated, a rich, booming baritone perfectly fitting for a true giant of American music. Sure, Joaquin Phoenix did an admirable job of portraying the country legend in Walk the Line, nailing Cash’s persona and onstage mannerisms, but his…
A lot of people complain about how bad classic bands are after they get back together for their umpteenth reunion tour. There’s truth in that, but there’s also the sad fact that some bands can’t reunite for whatever reason—usually dead members—and in their place, the oldies touring circuit gets inundated…
O, promising blues boy, where did you go? You offered us Lie to Me and Wander This World and despite their still-green qualities, we wondered if something wonderful might still come of you. Then we heard Turn Around, and though your name is on the front we couldn’t find you…
Jeff Foxworthy is the comic equivalent of Rascal Flatts—someone who pretends to represent the authentic South, who, in fact, appeals mostly to Sun Belt suburbanites who wear pleated khakis to wash their SUVs. Despite his redneck shtick, Foxworthy isn’t the Springsteen—or even the Billy Joel—of the South, but a minstrel…
Who doesn’t love getting felt up for a good cause? This week, it’s breast cancer research. For everyone who gets fitted for a bra at specific Neiman Marcus stores, underwear company Wacoal will give $2 to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Choose Wednesday at the Neiman’s downtown, 1618…
Gary W. Moore never knew that his father once had a promising major-league baseball career. At 15, his papa, Gene Moore, was the best catcher anyone in his small town of Sesser, Illinois, had ever seen. Then his baseball career was interrupted by World War II, and he was shipped…
It’s not enough that Governor Rick Perry owes his political career to good fortune and better timing. Now he’s creating his own luck. After six years in office, during which he belatedly passed a school finance bill that doesn’t seem to do a whole lot, Perry wound up being such…
His voice is warm and comforting, like a bowl of homemade oatmeal on a winter’s morn. His words are as sweet as rhubarb pie, and his face is a doughy mass. Anyway you slice it, Garrison Keillor is delicious. He’s like the Barry White of the Midwest. But instead of…
It seems the caveman/frat boy idea of manhood is more prevalent than ever. There’s an oiled-up, bikini-clad starlet on the cover of every men’s magazine, and beer commercials have gone from celebratory to just plain oppressive. Even certain bank commercials describe their checking as “maximum strength” while denouncing their competition…
“There is no them and us. There is only us,” says San Antonio artist Michael Nye. No, he’s not talking about the race, age or gender issues that we see in society every day. He’s talking about mental illness, from anxiety to depression, from schizophrenia to bipolar disorder. After losing…
These days, Desperate Housewives star Teri Hatcher is looking more and more like Dr. Frank-N-Furter. I’m crossing my fingers that this season she performs “The Time Warp.” It’s not her fault, though. She’s getting older, and trying to fight the crinkles means you gotta grab that trowel and slop on…
Illegal drag racing is about the dumbest thing ever. Why anyone would want to hang out in a parking lot on Northwest Highway with a bunch of morons in pimped-out Honda Civics is beyond me. The fact that your hobby is the basis of two films starring Paul Walker (and…
As a young baby-sitter, the Frog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel was an instrumental tool in our sitting supply case. No matter which ankle-biter I had to preside over for the evening and no matter how totally irritating they were spraying bathwater or how disgusting they were during dinnertime,…
Filmmaker and journalist Quin Mathews turned his camera on an unusual artist for his latest film. The one-hour documentary Beyond the Plane looks at the innovative three-dimensional constructions of Rusty Scruby, a Dallas contemporary artist who has studied aerospace engineering and music composition. (One of those overachievers who couldn’t pick…
The Magnolia at the Modern is an ongoing series featuring recently released, critically acclaimed films, and this time around they present the Charles Bukowski boozefest Factotum. Adapted from a 1975 novel of the same name, the story centers on Hank Chinaski, the author’s alter-ego author who engages in dead-end part-time…
I think we can all agree that Gigli was the No. 1 horror movie of all time. Thanks to Ben Affleck’s participation in the film, it became the gruesomely terrifying feature that it was written to be. During early screenings of the movie, viewers were so moved by his performance…
Directed by Brian De Palma from the novel by neo-noirist James Ellroy, The Black Dahlia is a true-crime policier unfolding in late-’40s Los Angeles somewhere between the neighborhoods of Chinatown and Mulholland Drive. The premise involves one of L.A.’s most notorious unsolved homicides. In early 1947, the naked corpse of…
The Rock”–formerly known as “Flex Kavana” and, a bit later, as “Rocky Maivia”–was a practicing actor long before he turned to movies and started taking down $12 million paychecks. The happily deluded throngs who used to watch him lay signature moves such as the People’s Elbow or the ominously named…
Those twentysomethings, poor dears, can never catch a break in the movies. First this maligned generation is told, in countless gritty indies and perky studio comedies, that they’re rowing through life without oars. Now, director Tony Goldwyn’s admirably understated handling of dispiritingly slender material suggests that if you’re pushing 30,…
A great many angels may comfortably waltz on the head of a pin, but putting 20 actors and four musicians on the pint-sized stage at the Flower Mound Performing Arts Theatre for the musical City of Angels spells claustrophobia. How small is this place? Just 60 seats are jammed into…
