A couple of years or so ago, Jane Austen suddenly rose from classical obscurity to become the hottest screenwriter in Hollywood. Now, it is Shakespeare himself who has become the magic name to drop. There are straight-up productions of his plays in the works–a star-studded version of A Midsummer’s Night…
Stuffed full of fantasy comics, addicted to action, and steeped in digital technology, the frenetic moviemakers Andy and Larry Wachowski have done what they must–create an eye-popping, morph-mad, quasi-mythical sci-fi flick that will thrill computer nerds as it kicks serious ass. The Matrix also presumes to (ahem) think deeply–although this…
Six Ways to Sunday is director Adam Bernstein’s second theatrical film, so it’s a little early to attempt a coherent analysis of his career. On the surface, this young mobster story couldn’t be more different from his earlier effort, the egregiously unfunny It’s Pat, which foolishly bloated Julia Sweeney’s one-gag…
Never knew quite what to make of Kinky Friedman, but that’s never been the point, has it? That would take a bit of the fun out of Kinky’s self-created, but not undeserved, legend. Besides, he likes it that way–loves it, really–being the eccentric joker laughing behind his ever-present shades, black…
So the undeserved hubbub over intergalactic summer blockbusters like Armageddon and Deep Impact has, rightfully, burned out faster than a dying comet. In fact, these overblown tripefests of quasi sci-fi and soapy drama have become punching bags for critics everywhere who need a quick illustration on just how obtuse and…
thursday april 1 Night & Day hasn’t quite grasped the concept of Art Bar, one-fourth of the four-bars-in-one concept that also includes Club Clearview, Blind Lemon, and Red. Essentially an art gallery inside a bar, Art Bar is definitely more one than the other. We’ve been there a handful of…
They surround him with their cameras and tape recorders, vultures picking apart their prey. And Dallas Mavericks point guard Steve Nash–the co-captain of this team, the six-million-dollar man, the man who cost Dallas next year’s first-round draft pick–sits there like a gentleman, absorbing every blow like a punch-drunk fighter against…
Now that I’ve enjoyed a sad, funny, subtle evening of family memories and unseen fates in WaterTower Theatre’s sterling production of Richard Greenberg’s Three Days of Rain, I must express my gratitude by harassing producing director Gayle D. Pearson with the following plea. (Right about now, the sounds of collective…
Perhaps the biggest deficiency of Dallas theater is the tendency to cast performers against type. The pool of committed actors in this town is small, and chances are if you think so-and-so would be just perfect for this role, he or she is already working in someone else’s production. Sometimes…
Ah, youth. Jeffrey Silverthorne was only 27 when he first entered a morgue to take pictures of the bodies. Just the sort of thing a struggling, energetic artist might attempt: “What hasn’t been done? What can people not ignore?” Well, they sure as hell can’t ignore a bevy of large,…
Back in 1993, Disney released Swing Kids, a dead-earnest portrait of rebellious German jazz fans during the Third Reich. This bizarre hybrid–a blend of Footloose and Schindler’s List, of The Dead Poets Society and The Diary of Anne Frank–pitted big bands vs. armbands; it was a classic case of high-concept…
Self-serving confessions are a mainstay of best-seller lists; now we’re doomed to see their ilk on-screen. 20 Dates is the not-so-verite story of Myles Berkowitz, a tyro filmmaker in his mid-30s who tries to advance his career and up his happiness quotient by filming himself on a score of dates…
There’s an old adage that says that by the age of 40, a man gets the face he deserves. If that’s true, then Clint Eastwood, the producer, director, and star of the death-row thriller True Crime, must have committed a capital offense or two of his own. To call it…
Ginger and Fred. Shirley Temple and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds. To the list of unforgettable movie dance partnerships, we may now add Omar Epps, the trim, handsome young man who stars as one-third of The Mod Squad, and Michael Lerner, the heavyset middle-aged actor who played…
“I hope it’s better than The Truman Show,” said the woman in line behind me at the publicized “sneak preview” of EDtv. Afterward, a man in my row declared, “That was a lot better than The Truman Show.” Pretentious high-concept films like The Truman Show often garner accolades and let…
thursday march 25 It’s a stretch to call stock-car racing–or any type of car racing, for that matter–a sport. If sitting on your butt for hours at a time is a sport, then we should have racked up millions of dollars in prize money in the past year or so…
Internationally feted actor-writer Fred Curchack loves talking about the gap between the “groundlings” and the “sophisticates” when discussing one of his favorite writers, William Shakespeare. Specifically, he loves how hyper-learned critics like Harold Bloom get all red-faced wading into the mosh pit to snatch back Willie’s language from indecent interpretations…
Oh, yeah. Those of us who know what a real fetish is, the kind that makes you kinda dizzy and stupid, are about to be real happy. We’re guitar lovers. No, not the occasional strummers or weekend rock stars or haphazard collectors, although those people will find something to gawk…
Until today, the weather had been warm in Port Charlotte, Florida, temperatures reaching into the lower 80s, the wind barely existent, humidity thick during the wee small hours. But this morning, especially through press-box windows that open to reveal a neatly trimmed baseball diamond below, the air is dry, crisp,…
More than a couple of times in David Mamet’s rage-and remorse-filled trilogy of scenes, The Old Neighborhood, staged by New Theatre Company, one character is stuck trying to express himself and finally just says: “Do ya know?” The other character replies: “Yeah, I know.” It’s vintage Mamet–a concession that more…
The last decade has been an extraordinary period for Iranian cinema: Restricted by minuscule budgets, filmmakers have been forced to fall back on exactly those qualities that Hollywood thinks it can afford to ignore–character insight, social analysis, and unadorned storytelling. The success of Abbas Kiarostami, Iran’s best-known moviemaker, at international…
Imagine a bunch of kids watching the classic 1956 film musical The King and I on television, then going outside and spending the rest of the afternoon acting it out in the back yard. Apart from a lack of hired-gun Broadway voices performing the songs, their re-creation might not be…
