So. Many. Operas. And good ones, too! With The Dallas Opera wrapping up its season and the Fort Worth Opera kicking off its acclaimed annual festival, there’s loads of opera to be heard on area stages this month. There is also plenty of chamber music available in April, with concerts…
Everyone’s favorite ultra-budget dragon tease mega-series returns for its fourth season on Sunday night. We’ve constructed a drinking game in its honor. I would opt for a light mead. Not wildfire. Will Daenerys actually make it across the sea? WILL JOFFREY EVER DIE? How amazing is Brienne of Tarth? Will…
Tonight marks the opening of the Dallas International Film Festival. In its eighth year, it is physically impossible to see all of the films at this year’s fest, which boasts more than 170 films over the course of 11 days all over the city. However unlikely their success, there will…
When Chris Dowling began writing his film Produce, he didn’t know he was writing a film about down syndrome. “I wanted to write a story about faith,” he says. “And then as I was working on the film’s narrative, I realized there had to be a character with this childlike…
In the last year, the shopping options for stylish Dallas dudes grew exponentially. If you want to drink while you shop, West Village’s Rye 51 liquors up its customers while they browse. If you want someone to help you choose your clothes, the business model of Henderson Ave.’s Trunk Club…
Before we continue, I should give you a few reasons to hate me: The only time I’ve been called into jury duty, it was iced out. I still have my tonsils. Oh, and this week my job includes writing about Conan O’Brien’s stop in Dallas. I’ve always been a Jimmy…
By Mark Walters Earlier this year, the Texas Film Awards honored Richardson native David Gordon Green for his achievements as a director. The 38-year-old writer and director launched his film career with the indie flick George Washington in 2000 and followed that with more independent work, as well as mainstream…
For my money, Miss Great Plains was robbed. At each performance of Pageant: The Musical, on now at Uptown Players at the Kalita Humphreys Theater, the same six contestants vie to be named Miss Glamouresse. The winner is picked by a panel of judges selected from the audience. Opening night…
Tucked into a pocket of his workout sweats, Steve Rogers — aka Captain America, the serum-enhanced Yankee Doodle Dynamo who’s spent the last six decades in deep freeze — keeps a notebook of cultural beats he’s missed: Star Wars, Marvin Gaye, Thai food. If only he’d added ’70s conspiracy thrillers…
As its subtitle suggests, one reason Errol Morris’ 2003 documentary The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara proved so resonant is that its subject was partly a proxy for his most notorious professional successor, the decidedly less available Donald Rumsfeld. “I don’t do quagmires,”…
Let’s start with the ending, the closing credits disclaimer that insists that none of the lead actors in Lars von Trier’s two-part erotic epic Nymphomaniac filmed penetrative sex. If there is real sex in the movie, and it sure looks like there is, it must have been the duty of…
Why can’t women stay friends? That’s a trick question, of course, but also one that British actresses Emily Mortimer and Dolly Wells lifelong pals in real life attempt to answer earnestly and honestly in their new HBO cringe comedy Doll & Em. In the sixepisode series, Mortimer and…
“I’ve interviewed a lot of nasty characters over the years,” says a cheerful Errol Morris over lunch on a bright Los Angeles day. “I’m a connoisseur of bullshit.” He’s sampled some of the finest: Holocaust deniers, murderers swearingtheir innocence, a beauty queen who claims she only kidnapped and raped that…
Even if you’re not a regular listener of classical symphony music, chances are you’ve heard the name Yo-Yo Ma whether it’s because he’s a world class cellist with a renowned talent or it’s the name that Kramer randomly shouts after he gets kicked in the head on that episode of…
For centuries, music has served as an audible expression of freedom. Yes, for its requirement for performers to be free of nerves and fear to perform perfectly, and definitely for its ability to make even the imprisoned feel free during those rare moments of beauty. But sometimes, music is truly…
If it isn’t enough watching Jillian Michaels yell in Biggest Loser contestants’ faces and then spending alone time with her in your living room while you grunt and groan to her workout DVDs, then her Maximize Your Life tour might just be the perfect push for you to finally get…
Deep Ellum had a hard time a while back. Bars closed. Venues closed. Tattoo parlors seemed oddly unaffected. But now, with places like Pecan Lodge moving in and bars reopening, Deep Ellum is back. One feature of the neighborhood never went anywhere, though. This weekend, the Deep Ellum Arts Festival…
What if I told you that at 11 a.m. Saturday a selection of your fellow citizens plan to show up at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis to run with a herd of very alive bulls? They will place their bodies on the quarter-mile track to run in front of, behind,…
Brooklyn- and Dallas-based painter Michelle Mackey brings her new show Afterglow to town this week. Her paintings use dark and quiet hues and layer upon layer of paint, which mimic layers of memory. Using photographs and drawings as inspiration and source material, Mackey begins the pieces that are based on…
When it comes to performance art, the only artist who springs to mind is Marina Abramovic. Oh, you know, the woman who plopped down for a few days in New York’s Modern Museum of Art. Visitors sat at a table across from her and stared into her eyes. People ate…
Classical ballet can look pretty stern from the audience’s perspective. It’s all tightly pinned hair, feet that are ramrodded into impossible positions, and austere faces in the spotlight. Behind the scenes, things can look even worse — lots of body consciousness issues and, in some companies, backbiting to make it…
Are you, like a certain former U.S. president, a budding artist looking to expand your horizons? Tired of sketching the usual still lifes of bowls of fruit? The Dallas chapter of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School has just the thing to expand your endeavors into life drawing. Better yet, if you’re…
