Monday marked the season finale of Bachelor in Paradise and honestly hopefully it was also the series finale because this spinoff of The Bachelor was one big snore. The episode begins with six couples remaining. Until, of course, host Chris Harrison shows up to inform everyone in a formal sit-down…
The Six Flags theme parks are known for giant roller coasters and drop rides that are designed to pull whatever you’ve been eating out of you in new and curious ways. It’s an ingenious business model when you really think about it. The less food in your system, the more…
My last day in Venice always makes me blue. On the way to my final screening, a tourist with an Eastern European accent I couldn’t quite identify stopped me a block or so from the sad and shuttered Hotel des Bains and asked me if it was open. “I have…
It’s rare that one of the more difficult categories to choose for the DFW Theater Critics Forum Awards is “Best New Play or Musical.” But with Dallas Theater Center leading the charge and the smaller companies rising to the occasion, this year in Dallas/Fort Worth theater featured numerous new plays…
Mixmaster presents “100 Creatives,” in which we feature cultural entrepreneurs of Dallas in random order. Know an artistic mind who deserves a little bit of blog love? Email lauren.smart@dallasobserver.com with the whos and whys. Michelle Rawlings is one of the emerging Dallas-based painters we’ll be able to say “we knew…
At the biggest comedy event in Dallas/Fort Worth this year, three names on the bill are a little bit more local than the rest. Stand-up comedians Christopher Darden, Josh Johnson and Clint Werth have been touring the local clubs, bars and any other places that will let them set up…
There’s a lot of Beethoven in the bloodstream this month. Just in time too. In the wake of summer’s blast-furnace oppression, a whole lot of Beethoven is just the ice bath we need to ready ourselves for another season of classical offerings. We have prodigies, a world-class violinist, some Shostakovich,…
The first time I remember classical music, I was sitting in Morton H. Meyerson’s box. I was staring, wide-eyed at the organ for one of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s noon recitals. Like most things at eight years old, I was convinced someday I would play that monstrous instrument. But we…
Mixmaster presents “100 Creatives,” in which we feature cultural entrepreneurs of Dallas in random order. Know an artistic mind who deserves a little bit of blog love? Email lauren.smart@dallasobserver.com with the whos and whys. Classical music. It seems as though we’ve had a love/hate relationship with it over the past…
Cymbeline is the misunderstood schoolchild of Shakespeare’s plays, the misfit who speaks up at odd times and sometimes says the wrong thing, awkward in all kinds of obvious ways. It’s a special-needs play, but the beauty of it is right there in its bones, not least because in it we…
Most of us would agree that there’s only one Al Pacino. But this year in Venice, there are actually two: Pacino appears in two films at the festival this year, David Gordon Green’s Manglehorn, about a lonely Texas locksmith stuck in a romantic dream, and, playing out of competition, Barry…
In 2012, documentary filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer made a splash with The Act of Killing, in which he sought out members of Indonesian killing squads, individuals who murdered thousands of innocent citizens accused of being communists after a military takeover in 1965, and invited them to re-enact their crimes in the…
The gent at the Delta check-in counter back in New York sighed when he saw where I was headed. “Romantic Venezia!” he said, and the comment stopped me short, because film festivals located in the most beautiful settings in the world have a way of making you forget – almost…
The visual art scene reignites for the fall season this weekend, with a plethora of openings throughout Dallas. If you land in the Design District at 6 p.m. Saturday, you can walk in just about any direction and find an exhibition to wander into. From Conduit Gallery (above photo) to…
Dark Circles Contemporary Dance has already scheduled an additional performance this weekend. Saturday night sold out quickly. The season premiere of one of Dallas’ top emerging companies expects full houses at the Sanders Theatre in Fort Worth. Originally founded in Seoul, South Korea in 2010, DCCD moved state-side in 2013,…
The urge to hop in a time machine and head back to our youth is universal. Obviously, science hasn’t resulted in a Back To The Future-style time travel option just yet, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible to take a nostalgic trip down memory lane. There are still…
By Monica Hinman How to deal with the trials and travails of life? Anxiety about the future, the disappointments of today and the scars from yesterday can be ameliorated with a Xanax or a bottle of wine, a little shopping or a gallon of ice cream. Or if you are…
For much of its existence, the Goss Michael Foundation has been known as that George Michael art place. But in the past few years, it’s beginning to prove that it can be so much more. With Kenny Goss at the helm, the space has introduced innovative educational and charitable initiatives…
The Jewish Community Center of Dallas’ annual film festival is one of the smaller jewels in the DFW’s cinematic crown. It may not take up as much real estate as the USA Film Festival or the Dallas International Film Festival but it still sparkles when the light shines upon it…
What’s that saying about tides and ships? As the arts scene in Texas swells, so does the opportunity for cross-city collaboration. Whether it be sending Dallas artists to Austin, or bringing Houston artists here, as is the case with Draped Up & Dripped Out, a two-part exhibition at the Oak…
Tifa Tittlywinks, Kiki Maroon, Divertida Devotchka, Vivienne Vermuth, Layna D’Luna, and Lola LeStrange want to show you their naughty bits. Seriously. And, they are doing it all in the name of video games. A dream come true, right? You can thank Viva Dallas Burlesque for it; see, there’s a reason…
The man with the most distinctive voice in comedy defines the concept of a “comic’s comic.” Gilbert Gottfried did more than just spend a lifetime doing comedy and spending a season or two on Saturday Night Live. He stuck to his comedy no matter where his career took him through…
