To prepare for reviewing Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, I did the obvious research: I watched Yellowbeard again. Yes, yes indeed–can’t do without Fairbanks as The Black Pirate and Flynn as Captain Blood. But when appraising a new comedic pirate adventure, it’s important to consider…
French director Francois Ozon doesn’t like to repeat himself. His last film, 8 Women, was a theatrical, rather campy piece of fluff starring la crème de la crème of contemporary Gallic actresses. Before that came Under the Sand, an unsettling drama about a woman (Charlotte Rampling, giving perhaps her finest…
If, in keeping with current fads, you seek movies featuring females kicking a bunch of ass, your appetite will be tended (and cultivated) at the multiplex all summer long. Wander into your local art-house, however, and you may find a fine, if somewhat challenging, import called The Legend of Suriyothai–billed…
One thing about watching Hamlet, Shakespeare’s longest play: By the time the drama drags its boots into the fifth and final act, we groundlings are more than ready to see yon moody Dane die young. The sooner the better, too, because by the time this one ends, it feels as…
Locals who lament the loss of the late, great Dallas Fantasy Fair have been teased of late with word of a WizardWorld convention coming to Arlington in November. But the gathering, run by Wizard magazine, is more rumor than fact at this point: The Web site lists no guests or…
Thursday, July 10 Bela Lugosi will always be Count Dracula. He was even buried in the cape he wore in the movie. But some critics say there is a better vampire film than the one Lugosi starred in, and the story behind it is worthy of a movie itself. While…
Surfing. Candy. Mayhem. One would imagine that after all the scientific discoveries made over time, you’d know that large amounts of sugar pumping its way through the bloodstreams of 100-plus children in the middle of July is a recipe for disaster on the scale of Woodstock ’99. You should learn…
7/11 Frivolous, imprudent and prodigal, with an inclination for extravagant court expenditures: That’s how history remembers Marie Antoinette, queen consort of King Louis XVI of France (1774-’93). She was vilified by her subjects and plotted against by her enemies, many of whom circulated juicy details of alleged extramarital affairs that…
7/12 How come anything interesting that comes out of Australia fails to grab our attention for more than a year at a time? Think about it: Yahoo Serious, Paul Hogan, Silverchair and the Crocodile Hunter are a fraction of the 15-minute flashes that have used the convicts’ island as a…
7/13 On an ideal trip to the zoo, the polar bears are awake; the monkeys are more up for performing acrobatics than grooming one another; the lions are out in the open basking in the warm, but not hideously hot, sun; nobody smells too much and all petting zoo participants…
7/11 Takashi Miike. For some, simply the mention of the Japanese director’s name is enough to cause the relished and anticipatory rubbing of sweaty palms. For most, “Miike” only phonetically resembles Disney’s trademark mouse. No matter, as the filmmaker, whose conveyor belt output is matched only by each project’s schizophrenic…
7/10 Mush-brained by midweek, fellow indentured servants? Added toner to the copier one too many times? Thank gawd (or any reasonable facsimile) that you live in Dallas, where you may work like a dawg all week, but you can find real escape and cerebral stimulation somewhere, somehow, every weekend. Perfect…
Much like “hilarious Islamic comedy” or “sublime Affleck picture,” the term “terrific second sequel” isn’t bandied about too much. Name one. Took you a minute, didn’t it? Don’t be ashamed–there are probably support groups for fans of Smokey and the Bandit III. Generally, creative juices are drained by parte trois,…
ABC-TV has penciled into its 2004 schedule a series based on the 2001 film Legally Blonde, for which a pilot has been shot starring someone named Jennifer Hall in the Reese Witherspoon role of Elle Woods, the pretty-dumb-in-pink sorority girl-turned-whip-smart attorney. MGM, which owns the franchise, smartly decided to shoot…
DreamWorks’ Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas pulls into port but a week before Walt Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the theme-park-ride-inspired, Jerry Bruckheimer-produced spectacle that bears a screenplay co-written by the very men responsible for last year’s Disney-made animated flop Treasure Planet, a…
Once in a while a film comes along that is as sound, smart, sweet and significant as can be, and Whale Rider is such a film. Fault the project on various counts if you like (I’ll try), but ultimately the tale is beyond reproach, a bane to cynics and a…
With a curtain time of 8:15 p.m., performances of Shakespeare Festival of Dallas’ current production of The Taming of the Shrew light up the outdoor Samuell-Grand Amphitheater just before the sun has dropped completely out of sight. Above the cool green lawn sloping up from the stage, purple streaks of…
We’re skeptics. Always have been; always will be. We don’t believe in UFOs manned by aliens bent on destroying the earth. We don’t believe in Bigfoot. And we don’t believe that turning our stereo up so loud it reaches the 145th decibel point can actually get us evicted, even though…
Ah, the circus. What traditional art form better captures the wonder of childhood, the mysteries of nature, the glories of human physical achievement, the… the… Oh, screw it. We won’t lie. What we remember of our one boyhood venture under the big top many, many years ago was not some…
7/4 Rest up, folks, the 2003 Trinity Fest Fourth of July celebration is going to take all the stamina you have. From an afternoon filled with music, rides, food and fun right up to the fireworks program choreographed by the pyrotechnic genius of Gruccis of New York, this promises to…
7/5 How does your garden grow? If the answer is, “What garden?” or, “Who has the time or the space?” check out the Heard Natural Science Museum’s “The Contained Gardener” class at 10 a.m. July 5. Bring a pot or jug or whatever you want to grow your posy in,…
7/3 Dallasites love ice-based entertainment at the utmost convenience. Think about it: Mall shoppers had a rink built in the middle of the Galleria; hockey nuts imported an entire team from Minnesota and this Night & Day staffer was once personally escorted from the Galleria for cross-checking an opponent. Granted,…
