Thursday, June 12 One of the current great mysteries in our life is why that car dent repair kit sold on the TV infomercials comes with a free glue gun and glue sticks. It’s sad, we know. Even sadder, though, is that we don’t really care. They’re free, and everything…
Everybody knows David Brent. We’ve worked with, under or over someone like him, and it’s nothing other than excruciating. He’s the boss who points to a “Billy the Big Mouth” fish plaque and says, “You can’t put a price on comedy.” He’s the guy who warrants an unflattering PhotoShop job…
6/14 In the not too distant past, we scoffed at what we called “indulgent pet owners,” people who outfitted their furry friends with premium treats, name-brand apparel and high-end accessories. (We’re talking the Burberry dog coat and the Swarovski crystal collar.) That was, of course, before we adopted a dog…
Whenever the stars of the adolescent street-racing fantasy 2 Fast 2 Furious were feeling balky or temperamental on the set, as movie stars are wont to do, the cure was probably easy–an oil change and a tune-up. John Singleton’s adrenaline-spiked sequel to the surprise summer hit of 2001, The Fast…
Credit the quality of a superior educational system. Or the native wit of two quick thinkers with a gift for understanding the human animal. Or the power of happy collaboration. In any event, Lawless Heart, the second feature co-written and co-directed by the young Brits Neil Hunter and Tom Hunsinger,…
If we can glean any trend so far in the feature films of Icelandic actor-turned-director Baltasar Kormákur, it would be his ability to offer up utterly unsympathetic characters who are difficult to identify with, while somehow managing to keep us interested in their fates regardless. His feature directorial debut, 101…
In November there will arrive on newsstands a music magazine edited by Alan Light, who left Spin to embark on his endeavor of publishing a journal devoted to that long-ignored audience: the over-30 CD-buyer, the old fart for whom “new music” is a mystery left to be fathomed by The…
In the parlance of Harlem circa 1943, an “old settler” was an unsettling term for a woman of a certain age who had no children, no husband and no prospects. With so many men in uniform overseas in those years, there weren’t a lot of single gents on the home…
We’ve always wanted to travel on a passenger train. A lifetime of watching Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, North by Northwest and Strangers on a Train (the list of Hitch’s films with train scenes could go on), and we’re completely wrapped up in that seduction and mystery that roll along two…
Thursday, June 5 Baseball often involves three things we find repugnant: food cooked under heat lamps, sitting outside in the heat and people wearing white pants. But more important than inappropriate heat and fashion emergencies is that guy, the one who thinks he’ll change our mind. If only we knew…
Dana Carvey made an excellent point in his 1995 HBO special Critic’s Choice. Gordon Sumner must have had serious balls to ask his friends to start referring to him as Sting. Carvey describes the young musician with his pals as he reminds them of his new name, to which they…
6/7 Though it’s one of the area’s largest fund-raisers benefiting North Texas HIV/AIDS organizations, Razzle Dazzle has always been a skippable event in years past. Why pay to get onto the Cedar Springs strip for this one event when you’re just going to end up in the same old bars…
6/7 There’s strength in numbers, especially when it comes to fighting breast cancer. That’s why you’ll see herds running around in matching T-shirts at the Plano Komen Race for the Cure, the latest in the Komen Race for the Cure 5K runs and fitness walks. Since the first race in…
Ongoing When recently mulling over just how much I remind myself of Harrison Ford and the many rugged cinematic icons he’s personified, a few undeniable similarities became apparent. First, there are the all-American good looks. Next, there’s the affinity for the male “one earring” statement. Above all, though, the most…
6/7 Life as a poor terrorist can be frustrating. Sure, the grocery store carries envelopes and stamps, but anthrax, the most important ingredient in low-grade postal terror, is a wee bit tougher to come by these days. But fear not, mail rebels, for there’s a better, less contagious means of…
6/5 Don’t bore your fund-raising dinner guests with the same tired surf ‘n’ turf entrée: For your dining pleasure, we are pleased to suggest T-Bone ‘n’ Weasel. Since you are likely skilled at T-bone preparation, let us concentrate on that inimitable side dish, the weasel. After deboning the carcass, season…
If you’re reading this paper, chances are you’re more literate than the average American. If you’re reading the film reviews, it’s also likely that you’ve become familiar with words like “bravura” and “eponymous,” which seem to exist only in the vocabularies of professional movie assessors. But what if you were…
Another week, another remake–summer, that season of air-conditioned originality, must be upon us. Only unlike The In-Laws, which creaked into theaters last week, this latest updating of a decades-old action-comedy has two things going for it: Its forebear is a veddy British caper film little-seen in the United States, which…
If grown-ups were meant to watch Walt Disney cartoons, God would have kept us all in the third grade for two or three decades. Still, somebody has to drive the SUV every time the Disneyfolk decide to lure the little ones down to the multiplex, and as long as the…
You’ve been warned: This is a column about politics wherein a popular-culture critic (dunno what that is either, but says so on my tax returns) interviews a former rock journalist-turned-publicist-turned-band-manager-turned-record-label-executive about how the Democratic Party alienated everyone under the age of death. You may take this with a grain of…
“Adults are obsolete children,” said Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, the beloved author of dozens of books that taught children to read and parents to read faster. For generations, toddlers have cut their first molars gnawing corners of The Cat in the Hat and Hop on Pop. Seuss’…
We have one of those friends, and we bet you do, too. That person who can’t finish an e-mail message without some sort of smiling, winking, tongue-sticking-out face using a combination of punctuation marks and numbers. Then there’s the worst of all: the heart, the sideways one using a “less…
