Drinking and comedy have always gone together like peanut butter, jelly and soft, white bread with the crusts carefully removed. Comedy club drinks, however, aren’t the tastiest or most reasonably priced concoctions. It’s part and parcel for the business and not just for the club’s bottom line. Sometimes all it…
Being an artist can be a tough gig, especially if your heart is set on living indoors and enjoying the occasional meal. Naturally most artists find themselves working more than a few odd jobs to keep the lights on. So when California native Gary Sweeney was given the chance to…
Come November, Oak Cliff’s Bishop Arts District will be welcoming its newest member, the EXHIBIT3 Art Gallery. The grand opening on November 2 will present art centered on Day of the Dead themes to coincide with the neighborhood’s celebrations. The gallery’s owner Art Spigel, a Dallas-native, says he’s hoping to…
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. When Kelsey Leigh Ervi graduated from Baylor University, moving to Dallas would’ve been an obvious choice…
Recently, I asked a scarf if it had a moment to sit with me and talk about why it’s in Dallas so much this time of year. The scarf was gracious enough to oblige. Here is our interview: Hey, Scarf. Can I just ask, what the hell? It’s 100 degrees…
The first time I met Kenny Goss, he wanted to show me his art collection. We were meeting for an article about the annual fundraiser, MTV:ReDefine, but first, would I like to see his Damien Hirst? While famously associated with the pop singer George Michael, the Goss-Michael Foundation is more…
Named Best Classical Music Addition of 2013 by Dallas Observer, Dallas Chamber Symphony (DCS) is gearing up for a new season. At just 4 years old, DCS has quickly become one of the most exciting and innovative professional performance ensembles in North Texas, and a lot of that has to…
The Dallas Museum of Art was first to the downtown neighborhood we now know as the Dallas Arts District. Quickly thereafter, the Meyerson Symphony Center opened its doors, becoming one of the city’s most elegant buildings and one of the finest concert venues in the world. Designed by I.M. Pei…
In much of Casey Gray’s art, there’s a humorous tension between message and medium. Imagine if the 17th century Flemish painters had worked in spray paint. Conversely, picture Peter Paul Rubens on a skateboard. See? Funny. This was the crux of much of San Francisco-based Gray’s early work, in which…
Six by Hitch Lonestar Film Society pays tribute to one of film’s master directors all weekend by screening six of his best films at The Modern in Fort Worth. Starting Thursday with a screening of one of Alfred Hitchcock’s earliest films, Blackmail, this weekend walks through his career presenting classics,…
Genius is hell, both for the blessed and those stuck in the shadows, cursed to spend a lifetime smashing their heads against the glass. In its presence we find ourselves dwarfed and dumb, like moths. We know we’re before brilliance we can’t comprehend — and we know we’ll never have…
For women especially, it’s wholly out of fashion to have sympathy for middle-aged white men. In both real life and fiction, the thinking goes, they’ve reigned supreme long enough. Who cares about their anxiety over their receding hairlines, their poochy stomachs, their inability to attract young babes? That tinny plink…
After The Princess Bride made Robin Wright a star, she shocked Hollywood by saying no. No to The Firm and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. No to Jurassic Park, Dirty Dancing, Born on the Fourth of July and Batman Forever. She even said no to the cover of Vanity Fair…
Here’s what an R rating gets you these days: a few splattery headshots, some glimpses of cable TV-style background nudity, a couple kids and families popped by assassins, a brace of fucks, in dialogue, and one un-bracing fuck, in bed, mostly clothed. During its longueurs, this engagingly grim spy-versus-spymasters time-passer…
If you’ve never seen a Marx Brothers film, stop reading and download one right now. We’ll wait. Too busy now? Then just make plans to head to the Alamo Drafthouse (100 S. Central Expressway in Richardson) at 12:30 p.m. Sunday, when the movie theater screens Duck Soup, which is often…
The summer is winding down and pretty soon it’s going to get rainy and cold. Well, cool. Or at least cool-ish. Sure, you’re sweltering now, but you’re going to miss all the parties, concerts and other outdoor events you didn’t take advantage of because you were inside, hugging an air-conditioning…
You say you just can’t wait to get your greasy mitts on some of the fine State Fair of Texas fried food? Twelve months is just too long to wait between bouts of funnel cakes and corn dogs? Well, we have good news and bad news. The good news is…
Some movies are just downright trashy. Not trashy in a sexy, tawdry way but trashy in a why-the-hell-can’t-I-turn-this-POS-off way. When the acting is downright awful, the plot absurd and the production quality minimal, the filmmaker may not have a blockbuster, but it might have a late-night hit on its hands…
Did you know that Barbra Streisand has a shopping mall in the basement of her house? (Stars, they’re just like us!). That real mall is the setting of Jonathan Tolins’ otherwise fictional one-man comedy, Buyer & Cellar, which arrives at the Dallas City Performance Hall (2520 Flora St.) Wednesday after…
Oh, jukebox musical, you’ve brought us so many gems. Mamma Mia!: The ABBA musical. The Boy from Oz: The Peter Allen musical. Holler if Ya Hear Me: The Tupac Shakur musical. Wait. Oh. Never mind. OK, so maybe the jukebox musical is actually a horrible concept but perhaps with the…
Frame for frame, is there a more quotable movie than Princess Bride? Hmm. Ghostbusters, maybe. (“That’s a big Twinkie.”) Monty Python and the Holy Grail? (“Your father smelt of elderberries.”) Young Frankenstein, Pulp Fiction … this is the sort of question movie geeks love. Princess Bride might not be No…
In 1929, rumors began to swirl that the first talking picture in Great Britain was being made, though it’s not clear anyone actually informed the director of that film, at least at the start of filming. The director, A1 creepy creep and master voyeur Alfred Hitchcock, was filming drop-dead gorgeous…
