Those constantly disenchanted with the simplicity and apparent meaninglessness of modern art need not read any further. The following will just give you more reason to scoff. Everyone else, feel free to proceed. Earlier this year, Houston resident Brad Tucker took his brand of weirdo art up to New York…
Admit it. You’ve done it, and your silence is part of your shame. Statistics say you’re still doing it, perhaps more than the once-a-week average; and statistics don’t lie. We imagine you think you’re doing it when no one is around, where no one will see you or catch you…
The advent of digital filmmaking has been essentially a good thing, allowing cameras to go places their larger, celluloid-spooling cousins cannot, generally requiring less specialized lighting and, above all, making it affordable to put together a film while maxing out only one credit card. Sure, for every The Celebration you…
Read My Lips (Sur Mes Lévres) puts forth the fascinating and heretofore unexamined theory that being deaf offers its estimable rewards. It allows one the chance to tune out the world, to ignore everything and everyone. To the deaf, chaos can feel like the soothing calm, and madness comes with…
Not much has changed in the 11 years since Mike Myers used the first Wayne’s World movies as a personal launchpad, only tipping his James Bond-spoofing Austin Powers hand when he was strong enough at the box office to reap the rewards of his licensed characters. Now those spy-movie send-ups–the…
A film that posits a world in which giant fake-looking anthropomorphic bears walk among us without people noticing that they look any different from other humans, and a select group of them have been the biggest country-rock band in this alternate-reality world for many years (songs actually penned by John…
After endless failed relationships, a middle-aged exterminator and jazz musician (Jeffrey Tambor) begins to think that maybe he’s gay. On his very first attempt to pick someone up at a gay bar, however, he meets a beautiful divorcee (Jill Clayburgh) whose recent love life has been equally unsatisfying. The two…
During the last weeks before the fall of Saigon, tens of thousands of South Vietnamese, fearful of NVA recriminations, fled the country for the United States, where they were held in relocation camps until American sponsors could be found. First-time director Timothy Linh Bui–who co-wrote and co-produced his brother Tony’s…
If bad acting were a federal crime, Tony Curtis would be locked up in Leavenworth. In the much-ballyhooed, hooey-filled Some Like It Hot, now finishing its run at the Dallas Summer Musicals at Fair Park, Curtis does it all. Which is to say, he can’t do any of it. Can’t…
The relationship between pop culture and Andy Warhol had an element that any couple would envy. The two actively inspired one another. In effect, they created icons that are each in their own way unmistakably American. Most have seen a Warhol in a book or on television (whether Campbell’s soup…
Clearly, I should have thought ahead. On a recent swing dance night, I mustered the nerve to sever myself from the wallflowers and ask for a dance, and I truly held my own during a middle-of-the-road version of “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen.” Confident, I remained on the dance floor…
Think of it as Todd Solondz light–loads of dysfunction but, thankfully, none of the perversion. In fact, despite deep-seated neuroses, occasionally inappropriate behavior and a propensity for unhealthy relationships, the four females who are the Marks family are a fairly benevolent lot. As observed by writer-director Nicole Holofcener, the characters…
On the first day (of opening weekend), the lord said, “Let there be, like, this year’s Evolution or sumpin’, only with more hope for significant box-office returns,” and there is, and it is called Eight Legged Freaks, and it is good. The silly title needs a hyphen in the compound…
Of all the A-list men playing dedicated authority figures, Star Wars alums Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson remain among the most amusing and pleasing, which is why K-19: The Widowmaker glides along engagingly rather than sinking. In many ways it’s just another cramped, dank submarine movie–bells, whistles, leaks, danger-danger!–but well-established…
It took the creative giants behind MIIB (a.k.a. Men in Black II) five years to come up with a disappointingly flat and uninspired sequel that not only treads familiar ground but does so with far less pizzazz than the original. It took the forces behind Stuart Little 2 a mere…
At this very moment, members of the Television Critics Association are gathered at the Ritz-Carlton in Pasadena, California, to preview this fall’s new series, interview those responsible for them and, finally, gorge themselves silly and drink themselves stupid on the networks’ dwindling dime. This event, the so-called “press tour,” takes…
Every woman knows a “Mr. Love.” He’s the too-handsome roué who dabs too much Aramis on his neck and darts his eyes at his reflection in every shiny surface. In Karoline Leach’s 1995 play The Mysterious Mr. Love, now onstage at the Trinity River Arts Center, the title character carries…
Forget sex and eating. As anyone who ever stared down a deadline can tell you, the strongest human drive is the urge to plagiarize. If you’re honest, you limit the lifting to ideas, motifs, the occasional metaphor or turn of phrase. To borrowing from yourself and, on occasion, your dreams…
Celtic music, food, fire-eating warriors, handmade wares and endangered birds are only some of the ingredients of the third annual Celtic Festival Benefit, which takes place Saturday at Betwixt & Between Community Center. Originally scheduled to happen in March, when the festival benefit was rained out, the all-day, indoor event…
Isn’t art supposed to be a reflection of society? Despite a swelling Latino population in North Texas, theater catering to this segment of the community, not to mention mirroring it, is difficult to find. Theaters produce non-Anglo writers’ works infrequently. Bilingual or strictly Spanish performances are even more rare. The…
Joe Versus the Volcano ran on cable last week, and contained within that misguided, unmemorable film was a small scene that only now resonates. Tom Hanks, who believes he has not long to live, emerges from a doctor’s office wearing a fedora too small for his head and a trench…
If there’s any truth to reincarnation, the spirit of Napoleon may walk among us today. It’s not unreasonable to conjecture that he has taken up residence in Bill Gates or Joel Silver, but–perhaps more likely–the little conqueror with the big hat has fragmented and landed in the bodies of countless…
