Ruff Reels

A certain relative has a video on his cell phone of his dog attacking a raisin. I’m not exaggerating when I say that he shows it to pretty much every animal lover he comes in contact with. And to be honest, it’s safely one of the funniest things I’ve seen…

Literary Licks

Seeing as the Dancing Tongue Literary Cabaret does not, in fact, have anything to do with the works of Anaïs Nin, we’ll endeavor to avoid any skeevy, tired jokes using naughty Latin words. Rather than overheated diarists, Dancing Tongue’s focus is on poets, blending their words with live music and…

Du Hast Spuds

From the country that brought you Rammstein, the beer stein and Dirk Nowitzki comes a life-changing event. Strap on your suspenders and bust out the lederhosen: it’s time for Kartoffel Fest (“kartoffel” means “potato” to Germans). This Sunday, GermanDeli.com’s outlet store (2890 Market Loop in Southlake) honors the importance of…

Fellini’s Fort Worth

Any kid who took Film 101 thinking they could sleep through feature films for an easy A knew they were done for when they hit Eisenstein, Bergman, Kurosawa and Fellini. These directors created meaty, inspired (and inspiring) films—dramatic and sometimes bizarre, but not entirely lacking humor. With help from the…

The Inside Track

If I say “strong, smart and bold,” who would be the first person to come to your mind? My answer would be the female half of the Clinton administration. I’m not a big fan of ol’ Hill, but she’s certainly not lacking in any of those areas. And look where…

Makeover Magic

While pursuing my own journalistic glory (please, send me your leads), I bide my time writing weekly blurbs for our calendar, in hopes Pulitzer might see that one piece with a distinct pathos. Hey, it could happen…and I say that because of the following nine words—American Society for Aesthetic Plastic…

Waltzing Suburban

Every weekend, thousands of people in North Texas spend hours preparing for an age-old waltz. They focus their minds on the execution of traditional tango. They get geared up to go out and try to get themselves laid. Nowhere is this time-honored tradition more respected than in Addison. There, the…

Sweet Virginia

Virginia Woolf was an interesting woman. She was one of the most critically acclaimed literary figures of the 20th century and she had a huge nose, as portrayed by Nicole Kidman’s prosthetic beak in her Oscar-winning role in The Hours. Shortly after Woolf’s death, a play opened on Broadway called…

Schoolgirls

Q Cinema presents the return engagement of Loving Annabelle, the winner of the “Best Lesbian Film” title at last year’s Q Awards. The troublemaking new student at an all-girls Catholic school is Annabelle, played by Erin Kelly; the favorite English teacher who brings out her student’s knack for erotic poetry…

The Scientific Method

We appreciate the efforts of those who encourage children to study the sciences. After all, it’ll be up to the next generation to come up with the nifty scientific advances we’ll need to counteract the abuse we’ve given our bodies. Smoking, drinking, fatty foods, no exercise—those chickens should be heading…

Rose Is a Rose

Rosalind de Rolon, besides having a fantastic name, is also a former journalist, diplomat and religious scholar who spent 12 years studying the Aramaic Gospels, the Holy Grail, the feminine archetype and the historical Jesus—which is a fancy way of saying she studied the ideas upon which The Da Vinci…

Road Trippin’

Nothing says summer like the sound of an approaching ice-cream truck, the laughter of children splashing in front-lawn sprinklers and the sight of Flea and Anthony Kiedis biking down the street dressed only in cock socks. Actually, they say that nothing chafes like bare butt on a glitter vinyl banana…

Burning Daylight

The unwritten rule in Dallas is that you don’t complain about the heat. You can be dressed in a suit and stuck in a one-sided conversation on a rental car lot while the glare of a 105-degree sun batters you like Farrah Fawcett’s husband in The Burning Bed, and you…

Ain’t No Sunshine

Like the shambling VW van its hapless characters steer from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach, Little Miss Sunshine is a rickety vehicle that travels mostly downhill. How this antic extended sitcom from first-time feature makers Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris left Sundance with an eight-figure deal and reams of enthralled press…

Risk vs. Reward

Bart Weiss figures that the Dallas Video Festival, of which he’s founder and director, has screened close to 3,000 offerings during the past 18 years, among them everything from giddy compendiums of global TV advertisements to conventional narratives to avant-garde animation to agit-prop docs. It is the veritable hodgepodge, a…

Cleveland’s Rocks

So you know how Parker Posey nearly always plays sarcastic, uptight smokers? In The Oh in Ohio, she finally stretches a bit: Here, she’s a sarcastic, uptight career woman…who doesn’t smoke! Also, she wears her hair down, whereas it’s usually pulled back into some kind of tightly wound style more…

Closet Case

Perhaps the saddest aspect of The Normal Heart, Larry Kramer’s autobiographical 1985 play about the first wave of AIDS deaths, is that it doesn’t feel like a museum piece. If only it did. Two and a half decades into the epidemic that has claimed millions of lives worldwide, Acquired Immune…

Whodunnit High

Brick (Universal) Rian Johnson’s feature debut as writer-director will wind up as one of the year’s best films. A film noir set in a modern-day high school, it’s Sam Spade roaming Ridgemont High; kids get doped up and knocked up and even rubbed out while speaking pulp-novel slang, but the…

Ant Wussy

In 2004, Jason Hall, the head of Warner Bros.’ new videogame division, did something remarkable: He promised to end bad movie tie-ins. By then, gamers had become well acquainted with the suckiness of movie-based games. Ever since Atari’s E.T. –a game so bad, tons of unsold copies were buried in…

Our top DVD picks for the week of August 8

Adam and Steve (TLA) Back Woods (Terror Vision) Beautiful People: The Complete Series (Sony) Clone (Image) Damon Wayans’ Last Stand (Fox) Frat Boy Collection (Fox) Gilles’ Wife (Koch Lorber) Ghost in a Teeny Bikini (Image) Grounded for Life: Season 3 (Anchor Bay) The Hidden Blade (Tartan) Inside Man (Universal) Jayne…

Spin Off

Over the years, public relations firms and political consultants have become more daring in their methods and shrewder with their strategies; selling their candidate’s policies and platforms to the Great Unwashed Masses with such flippant ease you’d think they were marketing a new flavor of tartar-control mouthwash. (Wow, this tax…

What a Doll

A lot of people think little girls are just interested in frilly toys and the like. But really, they’re pretty deep. Take Barbie Live! In Fairytopia for example. The play stars an actress playing Barbie starring as a fairy named Elina. How meta is that? Little girls clearly love peeling…