Arts & Culture

Before Wes Anderson became a dollhousehold name, wallpapering his films with signature diorama decor, he sparked his directorial career with the short film-turned-feature, Bottle Rocket. It was created here, drafted over many Cosmic Cup meetings, a favorite collaboration spot for Anderson and the Wilson brothers. Cosmic was owned by Kumar…

You may not have heard by now, but we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination. “Celebration” may not be the right word, but with all the archive newspaper reprints and the tasteless sexy JFK corpse Halloween costumes, there are a lot of mixed-messages about how America and Dallas…

There have been a lot of great pairings in history. Batman and Robin were rad. Kirk and Spock kept each other balanced. It seems fitting that local designer/artist Sleepy Dan and vinyl toy team Monster Bot would finally mind-meld, as they do tonight at ATAMA (5307 E. Mockingbird Lane, Suite…

Dallas Contemporary is turning 35 and to celebrate, they’re hosting Alive for 35, a two-day nonstop event that crams approximately 35 million things into less than 48 hours (1 p.m. Friday to midnight Saturday). Go ahead and block that calendar, girrrl. Then chug a sixer of Red Bull because it’s…

“I saw David Sedaris and it was just OK” is a thing you will never hear about one of the most popular comedic authors in America. You can see just why at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Bass Performance Hall, 525 Commerce St. in Fort Worth. Sedaris’ writing has taken a…

For the past decade the Fox network has let millions of viewers witness folks dance their hearts out on So You Think You Can Dance. (Assuming the audience can balance it against Nigel Lythgoe’s sarcastic antics and Mary Murphy’s supersonic screams.) Expressing a mixture of jazz, hip-hop, tap, contemporary, ballroom…

Every time the lease runs out, you dream of finding a real community to call home, rather than just a roof overhead. You know, like Melrose Place, but minus the catfights and STD scares. It’d be awesome to walk out your front door and feel the love from your neighbors,…

Our recent Best of Dallas issue gave Best Beer Festival honors to Big Texas Beer Fest, a massive and well-run celebration of suds in Fair Park, and Best Festival to Untapped, which combined a great indie-music lineup with excellent beer curation. So what happens when the people behind BTBF and…

Attention Free Peoples of Middle-earth: An epic auditory journey will occur Sunday at the Music Hall at Fair Park. Appointed to task by Dallas Summer Musicals, the Dallas POPS will courageously bear the burden of The Precious and present Howard Shore’s score of The Fellowship of the Ring (aka: the…

On Sunday, new Dallas Symphony Orchestra pops conductor Jeff Tyzik brings the sounds of Harlem to downtown Dallas for an afternoon of suspender-snapping, skirt-swinging entertainment. Classic blues, jazz and swing standards by Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, George Gershwin, Louis Armstrong and others round out the program for the orchestra’s “Night…

In 1960s Detroit, Motown Records unleashed the Funk Brothers — a clutch of session players that turned the backbeat up on hundreds of hits, thanks largely to legendary finger-hooked bassist James Jamerson. Meanwhile in Memphis, Stax had its own wrecking crew: Booker T. & the MGs stirred up the rowdier…

Brought to us by the Lone Star Film Society, the Lone Star Film Festival is a prime example of what makes Fort Worth such a culture-rich city. They gather big name films (and Oscar contenders) that have shined on the international festival circuit and bring them home so that we…

This generation may not have a Walter Cronkite, a universally respected and trusted news anchor, but as far as modern talking heads go there may not be anyone more beloved than Anderson Cooper. The Peabody-winning CNN anchor appears at UT Arlington’s College Park Center, 601 Spaniola Drive, Arlington, at 7:30…

Two of Dallas’ freakiest art minds have finally gotten together. Wednesday at Steve Paul Productions, a music studio and gallery hybrid at 2814 Main St., Clay Stinnett and Kevin Parmer play with scale in Possessed2. There you’ll get an assortment of Parmer’s psychedelically summoned collages, cut and ribbon-stripped in his…

While we, print’s lowly writers, hope that our words will be read, we understand great photography renders us nearly obsolete. Kettle Art celebrates those who capture life’s images at their most pivotal during Shot in Dallas, a group show featuring work by nine different media photographers. Naturally, there’s a twist…

Bull Game (winner loses action figure) is the newest play with a grammatically challenging title from the Dead White Zombies, Dallas’ most bizarre theatre troupe. The Zombies’ latest project is structured as a fight for success and survival, and the audience interacts as fans of the different competitors. Starring reigning…

In the coming weeks, there’ll be JFK media rehashes out the yin-yang, conspiracy theories resurfacing like rubber ducks in a tub. But El Centro College takes a different approach with the fashion exhibition Jackie and Main Street, focusing not on the darkness of that November in 1963, but instead on…

(The award for best sax solo goes to this guy at the one minute mark. Schuller conducts.) He’s played with Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie. Edited and posthumously released Charles Mingus’ final work Epitaph. He’s won the freaking Pulitzer Prize for Of Reminiscences and Reflections, is a celebrated author and…