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. Calling Paul Varghese Dallas’ first breakout comedy star really isn’t giving him enough credit. Dallas wouldn’t…
When you walk into most tattoo shops, you expect certain things — biker-looking dudes, rat-tails and surliness. They grunt. You point. They tattoo. And you can’t wait ’til it’s over. Rudy Hetzer of Dallas Tattoo & Art is out to change that. He’s got a shop, a clothing line and…
The Fault in Our Stars made heaps of money at the box office, and film critics Alan Scherstuhl and Stephanie Zacharek wonder if a recent piece declaring that adults should feel ashamed to read young adult novels has any weight to it. They also talk about The Immigrant and film…
By Scott Mitchell Inside the modest digs of one of the newer galleries in Expo Park, Cohn Drennan Contemporary houses a new round of art from local photographer Dan Allen. Today, Allen appears as a stark contrast to his documentary photography hanging on Drennan’s walls. The exhibit, which consists of…
When was the last time you saw a film with a female protagonist you felt like you could actually relate to? You know what I’m talking about. The film world is saturated with rom-com, super women, nymphomaniac, unemployed but NYC-dwelling bull shit. Where are the normal women? Complaints aside, there…
Saturday night in Deep Ellum the gallery scene was busy. Cohn Drennan Contemporary opened its doors with Dan Allen’s scrapbook, a photography exhibit chronicling the alternative music scene in Dallas, specifically featuring portraits of the punk, gothic, and riot girl musicians and fans. Visitors overflowed into the street, while the…
Every year Dallas hosts the high-nerd homecoming A-Kon. Tens of thousands of costumed characters clogged the hallways of the Hilton Anatole this weekend, where nearly 100 vendors sold everything from DVDs to broadswords and rooms were filled with card dueling gamers. Meanwhile, I was looking for something off the fairly…
“Dogs should live in a world where we the human beings create balance and harmony,” says Art Ortiz, owner of DogFit Dallas. “Humans complicate things because we’re so emotional, because we’re intellectual. We think about the past, we think about the future. But we don’t spend much time living in…
Monday, June 9 Lev Aronson Legacy Cello Festival Last year, Thornton founded the Lev Aronson Legacy Festival to memorialize the man who changed countless lives with music. This year the festival returns to the camp of Southern Methodist University June 9-14, with performances by former students – including Kirshbaum and…
Willie Baronet is an artist who wears his intentions on his sleeve. His primary interest is interventionist art and he spends much of his time creating projects that force people to pay attention to someone or something. Currently, Baronet is preparing for a coast-to-coast homeless sign buying trip that will…
Some fans express love for their favorite entertainment franchise by endlessly watching, reading or buying the things that spawned their love for it. Ghostbusters fans go a step beyond, especially in Dallas. Thirty years ago this Saturday, the blockbuster comedy became a phenomenon in spite of the fact that no…
Playwrights seek inspiration everywhere. Dallas-based writer Jonathan Norton is no exception. The prolific dramatist is constantly on the hunt for a good story, particularly one that strikes a chord with him. For his newest play Mississippi Goddamn, inspiration arrived on a trip to the titular state where he was reminded…
Imagine you’re sitting in the Observer office on your lunch break scrolling through Craigslist when suddenly you’re locking eyes with the screen shot of this guy, who coincidentally bears a vague a resemblance to Catfish guy. He asks you the tough questions. Do you like office work? What about ice…
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. “You can’t have too many businesses,” says Brandon Castillo. Dallas is certainly lucky he thinks so…
Spring spills over into summer and the party begins. There’s so much going on this weekend, it’s difficult to narrow a schedule down into something doable. You’ll need to make choices this weekend. You can’t do it all. The good news is, everything on this list will make for a…
For some reason, this seems to be the week that everyone in Dallas/Fort Worth has chosen to try and earn a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. We just found out that the Texas Pinball Festival officially won their spot for the “Most People Playing Pinball Simultaneously” and…
The latest thing to set the Internet on fire was LeVar Burton’s Kickstarter campaign to revive and expand his vision for the PBS show Reading Rainbow. Those of you who grew up on a steady diet of public television probably remember watching Burton’s enthralling show about children’s books and the…
In 1986, peaceniks were mad at Tom Cruise. That year, the Navy thanked Top Gun for boosting enlistment another 20,000 recruits. Since then, he’s made more critiques of military than advertisements, most of which (Lions for Lambs, Born on the Fourth of July, The Last Samurai, Valkyrie) j’accuse bad leadership…
The most radical thing about this eco-terrorism drama is its quiet patience and formal vigor. While most studio pictures slap together their images with all the care of a grocery-store deli clerk assembling the ham and carrots on a cheap party platter, Kelly Reichardt, the director of Night Moves, favors…
Cancer, so costly in real life, can be thrown around pretty cheaply in fiction, which is why most cautious readers and moviegoers are wary of it as a plot element. Call it the Love Story syndrome. But the presence of mortal illness has always been a staple of romantic melodrama,…
The grand old dirty pope of midnight-movie voodoo and post-’60s turn-on, drop-out mythopoeia returns with a vengeance, in his autumnal phase and with, surprise, a personal look backward at his own childhood. The Dance of Reality may be Alejandro Jodorowsky’s best film, and certainly, in a filmography top-heavy with freak-show…
When a new play hits a stage in near-perfect form — like Matt Lyle’s Barbecue Apocalypse, the sizzling comedy headlining as a world premiere at Kitchen Dog Theater’s New Works Fest this month — it can look too easy. Dialogue crackles with originality; the plot veers off in unexpected directions…
