Monster Hit

It doesn’t suck to be the cast of Avenue Q at Theatre Too in The Quadrangle. A year after opening the first local production of the Tony-winning puppet-centric musical, the same seven Dallas actors still have their hands up the backsides of the fuzzy felt-mericans. Their performances, brighter and funnier…

Del Toro’s Pacific Rim Offers Monster/Robot Glory

If the great god of movies, whatever slippery Mount Olympus of money he resides on, decrees that summer is the time for larger-than-life 3-D blockbusters, Guillermo del Toro may as well make one. His Pacific Rim is summer entertainment with a pulse. The effects are so overscaled and lavish as…

Making movies and going mad in Berberian Sound Studio

A bewitching helix of pure movie stuff, Peter Strickland’s seething and self-conscious whatsit Berberian Sound Studio may scan as a psychological thriller, but it’s really a lavish gift to film geeks in a lovely matryoshka box. We haven’t been here before: the Italian film industry circa 1976, in that post-dubbing-craze…

Loose-Lipped Locals

On Thursday night, Arlington Improv (309 Curtis Mathes Way, #147, Arlington) presents DFW Stand-Up Superstars, a curated night of North Texas comedy from Houston-based entertainment house Sol-Caritas. It is suggested that before taking in this show, you “forget everything you know about comedy,” which is as nerve-wracking as ending a…

Into Something Good

Dallas’ population density can be an asset, or it can be a point of division because as we pack in tighter, we seem to know fewer neighbors. But imagine if we did: If we unified our voices, talents and passions to improve the area we inhabit, we could create utopia…

Changing of the Color Guard

You are over summer fashion. The maxi skirt trend is responsible for two recent face-plants; the white jeans Dallas ladies seem to relish are a no-go for someone with a sangria obsession; and if you see one more adult woman wearing a romper, you will blog about the evils of…

Behold: Fashion’s Future

There was a time, lovelies, when a fashion show was just that: a show of fashion. There were folding chairs, grindy music of the techno variety, and when it was over, you expounded loudly about how the use of textiles for that season was rife with commentary about geopolitical unrest,…

A Positively Charming Slaughter

“Taxidermy mannequins, foam, push pins, fake roses, poured plastic, glitter” are the listed ingredients in “Cluster,” a piece by Ann Wood that straddles the line of installation and sculpture. Wood’s tendency to draw from multiple conflicting influences is what gives her work its interesting points of juxtaposition, which you can…

Any Excuse for a Cape

This weekend, Café Madrid brings you all the fun of Spain’s annual Running of the Bulls without the risk of getting trampled, you know, by actual bulls. There will also be a lot less running (read: none) and a lot more eating great food and drinking Spanish wine. Starting at…

Reject Artistic Transfats

After a gluttonous weekend of stuffing ourselves with hot dogs, potato salad and high fructose corn syrup, we could all use a gentle reality check on what we actually put into our bodies. Commentaries on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s policies on pharmaceuticals and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and…

Big Appetites Happen Here

A wise cartoon rat once pontificated that “a fair is a veritable smorgasbord.” Nowhere is that more true than Fair Park (1121 1st Ave.) Friday through Sunday as the grounds convert into a foodie oasis for the 27th Annual Taste of Dallas. Coated in a saucy barbecue theme, this year’s…

“Whoa, Rufus!”

Despite the blockbusters and cult favorites, Bill and Ted will always be your preferred Keanu Reeves film. It’s the one that had you racing home to cut his face out of every magazine you could find, the one that asserted, once and for all, that San Dimas high school football…

Wear A Rib Bib, Paint A Bug

When deciding where to hold its weekly paint party, Paint Nite picked the obvious choice — Logan’s Roadhouse (2513 S. Stemmons Freeway). Logan’s will play host to a night of fine dining, wining and painting, and for only $45 you and your friends can partake in this delicious and unconventionally…

Break Your Summer Habits

If you’ve seen the classic ’80s movie Summer School, in which Mark Harmon plays a reluctant summer school teacher who must engage a classroom of misfits, use that as your guide for Sister’s Summer School Catechism at the Eisemann Center (2351 Performance Drive, Richardson). One nun gets snaked out of…

Cinematic Surrender

The Asian Film Festival Dallas reached maximum occupancy in 2012, so for its 2013 run, July 11 to 18, the showcase tackles a larger venue, filling the Angelika (5321 E. Mockingbird Lane, #230) with a week’s worth of vetted works, costumed screenings and films that you simply would not see…

Dance Like Everyone’s Watching

Celebrate Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth’s 10th Annual Modern Dance Festival at the Modern (3200 Darnell St., Fort Worth) this weekend with art, formal concerts, films and, of course, dance. CD/FW’s mantra begins, “We’re NOT the ballet. We fall down … on purpose.” And boy, will that hurt in the Modern’s grand…

The Color Wheel, Set at 88 MPH

Neutrals are strong and dependable; nothing’s changed. But as much as black is slimming, gray is chic and a nude shoe can lengthen the leg, there’s something to be said for the energy and attitude of vivid color. It can feel fairly daring to try to live in floral and…

Dane Cook is Coming to Dallas

Cook gets all meta on Louie. The sentence “Dane Cook is coming to Dallas” could be interpreted as a warning or an announcement, depending on your stance. The divisive comic behind the platinum-selling album Harmful if Swallowed and the double-platinum hit Retaliation, is back on tour with a Dallas date…