Lance Barton, thin as paper and frail as fine china, is such a horrific stand-up that during an amateur-night performance at the Apollo Theater, he is booed with such force–the audience whips up its own whirlwind–he’s literally knocked off the stage. Lance’s manager insists he’s such a failure because he’s…
Sara is quirky and free-spirited. That, at least, is the premise of the hilariously wretched new weepie Sweet November, of which Sara, embodied by the breathtaking Charlize Theron, is the heroine. But if you’re smart enough to run in terror at the threat of a movie character who’s quirky and…
There is a level of technical sophistication in Theatre Three’s current production of the “lost” Stephen Sondheim period musical Saturday Night that makes it seem as though artistic director Jac Alder and his small circle of the T3 faithful have received some special injection of inspiration. The design team of…
I didn’t know much about Marian Anderson, the pioneering contralto who died just eight years ago at the age of 96, when PBS’ News Hour With Jim Lehrer did a short segment several years ago commemorating the 100th anniversary of her birth. I vaguely recall learning more in that 10…
Nobel laureate Gabriel Garca-Márquez once remarked that the Latin-American strongman is the only myth Latin America has foisted upon the First World. He is wrong. In the art world, an equally pervasive myth endures, that of the hysterical, polemical Latin artist. It is a stereotype at least as durable as…
Never let it be said, concupiscent readers, that we don’t have your best interests at heart. We slog and grind through the week, compiling these pages filled with little trifles for your amusement, as if your very lives depended on it. We want you to have fun, try something new,…
The buzz (otherwise known as five guys hanging out at Harry Knowles’ house) has it that The X-Files is better this year than last, which is impossible; no Garry Shandling so far this year. The buzz also has it that Robert Patrick, as Agent John Doggett, is appropriately severe as…
Sometimes, usually out on the golf course near his home in upstate New York, Dan DeCarlo feels terrific, far younger than his 81 years. He’ll thwack the ball, reflect upon his 55 years of marriage to the same beautiful woman and occasionally contemplate a life spent drawing and creating some…
When the lights finally came up in the Washington, D.C., movie theater, Leonard Nimoy sat still, silent, and a bit shaken. He could scarcely believe what he had seen–and what he had not seen. The movie was beautiful, but beneath the surface sheen, there was no heart, no soul. It…
Most of the players have already left, fled for a much-needed shower and a little downtime, leaving the practice court all but empty. A few television reporters and radio personalities remain, chattering among themselves, waiting for a final interview about an upcoming game–searching for that last meaningless quote that you,…
Ridley Scott’s Hannibal, with a screenplay by David Mamet and Steven Zaillian, is being released exactly 10 years after Silence of the Lambs, the film that established Hannibal Lecter as an iconic villain in our culture, right up there with Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger, Friday the 13th’s Jason,…
The man who made Problem Child, Beverly Hills Ninja, and Brain Donors–which are to humor what Robert Downey Jr. is to clean living–has, perhaps all too explicably, become Hollywood’s most coveted and celebrated comedic director. “From the director of Big Daddy”–so blares the trailer for Saving Silverman, touting Dennis Dugan…
That anyone should consider making a film of Reinaldo Arenas’ memoir Before Night Falls is curious. That the person to do it should be painter-turned-film director Julian Schnabel is truly unusual. And that the results should be as good as they are is most remarkable of all. But it would…
Peruse just a handful of the estimated 190 titles from American playwright Don Nigro’s canon–Dead Men’s Fingers, Boneyard, Lucia Mad, Nightmare With Clocks–and you can’t help but think the 50-year-old writer must possess the complete collection of Goth queen Diamanda Gallas’ musical ravings, if not a few original Edward Gorey…
Speaking of writers and control, playwright David Lindsay-Abaire has stated in interviews that his huge off-Broadway hit Fuddy Meers, currently being produced at Fort Worth’s Circle Theatre, was one of those scripts that writes itself. He was as surprised at the desperate and disturbed high jinks as was the play’s…
It’s Sunday, Super Bowl Sunday, and Connie Connally’s helpers have deserted her to rush home for the game. The men in her life–husband, Pete Stovall; son, Zach; and friend, Gary Daniel–spent most of the day hanging the panels Connally has labored over for more than a year on the long,…
Although the skill of tying shoes is a distinct childhood milestone, it’s a boring and ordinary feat. It’s expected. With few exceptions (cowboys, businesswomen, fans of Velcro), people can and do tie their shoes every day. But whistling or making armpit noises–now those are real defining talents. They’re skills learned…
Fair warning: We’re about to burn something into your brain that will stick with you for the rest of the day. First, start humming the Beach Boys’ classic, “California Girls.” You know, “The West Coast has the sunshine, and the girls all look so tan.” Got it? Now try to…
Eddie Izzard knows precisely why he wanted to become a performer, be it an actor or stand-up comedian or, for that matter, a street performer entertaining passers-by for spare change. When he was 6 years old, Izzard was living in South Wales with his parents and older brother. Before that,…
It’s been a long time since he’s wrapped himself in deep blue and silver and taken to the turf. A long time since he hauled in that Hail Mary pass against the Vikes and made you cheer his soft hands as though a war had just been won or countless…
With the canon of Jane Austen all but exhausted, literary filmmakers continue their assault on Edith Wharton, another sharply observant writer of yore with something timeless to say about the plight of women. Terence Davies’ The House of Mirth, from Wharton’s beautifully detailed, ironically titled 1905 novel about a mannerly…
There is an eerie sense of familiarity wafting through The Invisible Circus, a pervasive whiff of déjà vu that intensifies with each passing minute. Regardless of whether or not one has read the novel of the same name by Jennifer Egan, it’s impossible to deny that there’s ample foreknowledge of…
