Rossini’s classically lighthearted tale of romance and false identity is an operatic standard. Barber of Seville’s music is so prevalent that without even seeing it performed live or in its staged form, you’ve encountered the libretto through untold doses of pop culture parody. Barney Rubble belted it in the bath…
Remember when we told you that local filmmaker Toby Halbrooks’ first short film Dig was selected for the 2014 Sundance Film Festival? Well, he’s there now and he told me to tell all of you lovely people hello. One of the cool Sundance things is watching the short films on…
The Out of the Loop Fringe Festival has been premiering new work for more than a decade. WaterTower just released the 2014 line-up, which includes 18 artists and performing arts organizations, 12 of whom make their festival debut.
Jared’s Epic Party is only a month away and he already has a ton of attractions in store that could make the richest kid in Highland Park’s birthday party look like a gathering at a Chuck E. Cheese. Besides the promise of reuniting Vanilla Ice and his “Ninja Rap” with…
Since hashtags became a thing, the four-letter slogan “YOLO” has been attached to more than 16 million pictures on Instagram of bleary-eyed frat parties, foolhardy stunts and ill-advised trips to tattoo parlors. After all, you only live once. Over at the Margo Jones Theatre in Fair Park, this motto of…
On Saturday night about 1620 of us got together at Artopia. We drank things. We shook things. We absorbed Dallas’ creativity. Picking a favorite part of the night is impossible: Downstairs Magician Confetti Eddie and sidekick the Lovely Karleena were show-stoppers, and the Danielle Georgiou Dance Group captivated us with…
Pamela Smart, the sexpot schoolteacher who seduced three teenage boys to shoot her husband, has been imprisoned without parole since 1991. Her official release year is sometime in 9999, assuming that human civilization is still alive. Yet the captive in Jeremiah Zagar’s Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart isn’t her…
© Courtesy of Sundance InstituteSixty years ago, Fred Flintstone hawked Winston cigarettes. Today, he pitches cereal. And both can kill. Stephanie Soechtig’s rabble-rousing documentary Fed Up argues that it’s time to attack Big Sugar just like we successfully demonized Big Tobacco. Narrated by Katie Couric, Fed Up is the first…
© Beth Dubber, Courtesy of Sundance InstituteKristen Stewart in Camp X-Ray.Kristen Stewart spent five Twilight films getting rescued by werewolves and vampires. Consider Camp X-Ray her rebuttal to a half-decade of playing damsels in distress. As Guantanamo guard Private Cole, Stewart is punched, bloodied, and spat on — and that’s…
File this under “Positively Charming.” Texas Theatre shows Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou Saturday night, and in proper Texas Theatre style they’ve filmed a mock doc promo teaser. From the miniature architectural model to the Candy Dungeon, it’s extremely satisfying. (Especially with The Midnight Coterie of Sinister…
The perennial gaming powerhouse ScrewAttack announced that they will hold another massive gaming-gasm in Dallas this summer, and you have your first chance to pick up your tickets. The annual ScrewAttack Gaming Convention (SGC) will return to DFW on July 11-13 to the downtown Sheraton Hotel and the tickets for…
Here’s what I wrote about actor Brian J. Smith in 2002 when he was a 21-year-old student starring as Alex, head of the Droogs, in Collin College’s production of A Clockwork Orange: “His command of this difficult role is impressive and memorable. Smith, who grew up in Allen, has the…
I think by now we’ve reached an understanding. A cultural trust fall, of sorts. This Saturday is Artopia, the Observer’s annual art-dance-music-fashion party, and you should go. I say that with bias aside, because the lineup is crazy good. VIP is sold out. A few general admission tickets are still…
This is the first of what we plan to be a regular series of Q&As with the people behind some of Dallas’ more interesting, unique, art-inspired local businesses. Know of any good ones? Drop us a tip in the comments. We’re leading off with Melissa Mackaly and Photo-Wagon, the mobile…
The children are indeed the future. Local preteen KJ Takahashi is competing in a video contest, Marquese Scott’s Shut Up and Dance: Dance Among Dragons, in which he’s currently ranked third. This isn’t a kid-specific contest. KJ’s competitors are grown-ass adults, and he’s closing in on the second- and first-place…
Pianist Hélène Grimaud has just finished a mentally and physically demanding rehearsal of the first two movements of Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto. Wearing unremarkable dark street clothes and no makeup, she still somehow pulls off that chic, effortless beauty that only French women can. She settles on the couch in…
Magician Edward Ruiz takes a classic approach to magic from the illusions he performs on stage to his physical appearance. It’s no accident that he looks exactly like one of caped madmen straight from the pages of an old kids’ magic book. “As a kid, I wanted to be that…
“Having a gallery in Dallas is great,” says Red Arrow Contemporary co-director Elissa Stafford. “But having something that’s more than that, an experience and way to give back to people, especially to other artists — that would be really powerful for us.” She, her sister Erin and I are sitting…
A tale of love complicated — if not thwarted — by prior responsibilities, intractable barriers and the rigid high-society norms that frustrate its Victorian characters’ attempts to live as they so desperately want, The Invisible Woman finds Ralph Fiennes proving as adept behind the camera as he is in front…
Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi solidifies his status as one of cinema’s finest living dramatists with The Past, a superb follow-up to 2011’s Oscar-winning A Separation that again situates audiences amid interpersonal, familial and household crises. Working from a script that incisively plumbs a thicket of logistical and emotional complications, Farhadi’s…
If you’re a person alive in this age, Ralph Fiennes has at some point probably made you hate him. As the Nazi Amon Goeth in 1993’s Schindler’s List, Fiennes embodied one of history’s great evils, somehow making being utterly detestable compelling. In Martin McDonagh’s riotous, under-regarded In Bruges, Fiennes spat…
Russians still make the best movie villains. Since 9-11, Hollywood has been queasy about giving us fictional baddies from Arab countries — the line between cheap stereotypes and real-life religious extremism is too blurry, too delicate. South American drug lords have had their day, and Albanians in bad sweaters just…
