SWEETWATER–The retiree from Alvin, Texas, turns off I-20 and maneuvers the gray Ford pickup down the gravel road toward the private hunting club. His door opens to reveal a shopping bag, a cowboy hat, and Styrofoam coffee cups with cold, wet grounds still in the bottom. There are guns and…
When I first noted that Kitchen Dog Theater’s current production, composed of two one-acts and called Women’s Voices, included the work of a man, I was a little baffled. I mean, if Kitchen Dog wanted to give the evening that kind of feminist–or at least feminine–weight, couldn’t it have found…
To Live, the latest historical melodrama from Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou, isn’t anything like the film I’d been led to anticipate–and that’s good. The trailers playing in art houses across the United States position it as a traditionally sentimental epic about a poor family buffeted by the winds of history;…
There’s nobody in American movies like Hong Kong superstar Chow Yun-Fat. Best known stateside as the stoic center of John Woo’s most dizzying action maelstroms (including The Killer and Hard-Boiled), Chow’s antiheroic presence is so alluring that he seems born to play such parts. (It’s been argued that Chow’s good…
Raucous, bawdy, sexy, and violent, Queen Margot is history as feverishly overwrought soap opera–history painted in tears, sweat, blood, and semen, with a very broad brush. In telling the tale of the title character, who survived a ghastly royal power struggle that pitted Catholic against Protestant and royal against royal…
I think I’m the last person in America who doesn’t give one flyin’ flip about what he eats. “Why are you drownin’ those pancakes in syrup?” Is this a question? This is not a question. Do I have to answer this? “I can’t believe you’re puttin’ butter on that.” Why…
thursday february 2 Video Art: The First 25 Years: Ever since portable video equipment became an affordable technology in the late ’60s, a growing number of artists have employed the medium to make personal statements in a way film had never been used. The key words for the first generation…
It is true that those who despise Mark Morris’ dancemaking do so for the same reasons many of us find him the most innovative choreographer of his generation. In some eyes, Morris has brought a fine-tuned and sensitive musicality formerly missing from postmodern dance, while his gender-bending style helped liberate…
AUSTIN–Early into Before Sunrise, as Jesse (the traveling American played by Ethan Hawke) and Celine (the French student, portrayed by Julie Delpy) share their first moments on Eurail bound for Vienna, Hawke’s character explains an idea for a cable access program that would run 24 hours a day for an…
All movie fans have a filmmaker they latch onto, take to heart, and enthusiastically root for. Their triumphs make you euphoric and their failures make you surly and sad, and once you’re plugged into the thrill of following their careers, the emergence of each new work is simultaneously thrilling and…
thursday january 26 Friends of the Major: Major Theatre co-owners Rob Clements and Bryce Gonzalez present the debut screening and reception for what they plan to be a regular series of special events. Friends of the Major is what they call it, and it’s a combination fund-raiser and meeting-of-the-minds. For…
It was three NFC championship games ago. I was standing in the driveway of the Cowboys’ San Francisco hotel–one day before Dallas beat the 49ers. Charles Haley was standing nearby, waiting for cough medicine. None that tastes bad, he told his wife, in a fine rendition of the man-who-has-a-cold whine…
When the curtain first lifted on the antimusical Avenue X, my first thought was, this is just another musical. That’s not a bad thing normally, but I expected a different, scrappy kind of beginning rather than the entire ensemble gently singing a lovely opening number amidst a muted set. The…
Paul Newman is our most complex living movie icon. The man and his image are loaded with contradictions–he is an actor of fairly limited abilities, but at least a dozen of his performances from a 41-year career have been burned into our consciousness with the force of genius. Newman’s appearances…
For several years now, I’ve wondered if I simply didn’t get the movies of Krzysztof Kieslowski, the Polish filmmaker who specializes in fare so abstract, obtuse, and overtly symbolic that it’s nearly impossible to read it fully and accurately in one sitting. The first film of his that I sat…
It’s not at all surprising that when Susan Sarandon finally edged away from earthy sexpot roles and began embracing characters with maternal streaks, she’d do it with the same warmth, clearheadedness, and street-smart charm she’s displayed throughout her long and fruitful career. In the past six months, she’s played three…
After several years of talking about it, the Inwood Theater’s parent company, Landmark, has finally decided to sink money into restoring the 48-year-old building. The three-phase renovation process is already under way, with workers busily cleaning and repairing various murals and other artwork. The theater was designed with an aquatic…
thursday january 19 Women’s Voices: Kitchen Dog Theatre delivers a calmer though no less cerebral follow-up to its physically draining Zastrossi. Women’s Voices is an evening of one-acts described by the company as “feminist”–not a very popular adjective these days. Still, both pieces strive to present a dramatic situation in…
In case you haven’t noticed yet, it’s Valentine’s Day in the seasonal aisle at Kroger. That means it’s about the day big-league pitchers and catchers normally report to camp in Florida and Arizona. But, of course, it isn’t going to happen. The only baseball players doing any showing up anytime…
Writer-director John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood was a triumph of intimate storytelling–an African-American melodrama set in a bullet-riddled South Central Los Angeles populated by believable characters who possessed strong, simple emotions. While watching it, you knew (except during a couple of “message” scenes) that you were in confident directorial…
Though 1994 was an interesting year for local imagesmiths, I bet it won’t hold a candle to 1995. Nearly three dozen independent theatrical features either were shot or commenced shooting in the Dallas-Fort Worth area last year; still more are planned. So consider the following list of faves as the…
Matt Zoller Seitz When H.L. Mencken wrote that criticism is prejudice made plausible, he was onto something. Like music, movies are more often fueled by passion than intellect. They invite, even demand, borderline-irrational gut responses. As a result, it’s always difficult to come up with year-end “Best” lists–especially when you…
