“Black Don’t Crack”

Paul Mooney is as much a yarn-spinner as he is a comic. Attend one of his live shows and you’ll understand: It feels more like sitting around the living room with a ridiculously funny father figure than a traditional stand-up set with lead-ins and punch lines. Mooney doesn’t need those…

Haint Valentine’s Day

You can call bullshit on the hearts and doilies. Don’t waste any red roses on us, boxed, vased or otherwise. While we’re totally down with the sweet treats (year round), we don’t exactly vibe with the rest of the Valentine’s Day agenda to prove one’s love or prove one has…

You Look So Beautiful With Those Wings in Your Teeth

Get bit by the love bug recently? It’s nothing to lose your head over — unless you’re a male praying mantis. Ditch the cliché candlelit dinner this Valentine’s Day and take your date somewhere adventurous. Somewhere with chocolate. Somewhere … entomological. Break from convention and join the Texas Discovery Garden…

In the Lee of Valentine’s Day

It’s the day after Valentine’s Day and you need a little grit to get the too-sweet taste of chocolate out of your mouth. You need to get far, far away from a world of dinner reservations and floral arrangements and all things sappy, and the cinematic gods have united to…

Bring It With Singing

The original Bring It On, with its race- and class-tinged throw-down between competing squads of cheerleaders, was the quintessential date movie. It had girl power and cheerleaders for her and Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku and Gabrielle Union in really … um … pert short skirts for him. That’s the sort…

Reel Life

The most memorable film moments, the ones that leave the most lasting impressions, often come from real life caught on film — the ones about which audiences say out loud, “I can’t believe that really happened.” But it’s not just about having a camera to catch those scenes; there’s an…

Gold Star Installation

Remember that kid in school who made you look bad by going the extra mile, incorporating lustrous glitter or even computer printouts into his poster project? Yeah, that kid is back in the form of Michael A. Morris, dazzling the arts scene with his mixed-media solo installation, It’s Just Meant…

Angel Baby

This time a year ago we were directing you to the Echo Theatre production of The Executioner’s Sons, the first winner of the Big Shout Out! competition, so it’s only fitting that one year later the independent theater company, created for and by women, is presenting a stage run of…

He is Iron Man

While edgy is good, poise is equally important — especially when you’re talking about hard, steel constructions. Artist Marko Kratohvil has found the perfect balance between the traditional and the contemporary. Smooth surfaces of iron and steel collide with the sharp and abrupt bends and sudden loops in his sculptures…

A River Runs Through It

The most famous homage to the Mississippi River in musical theater might be Showboat’s “Ol’ Man River,” but it isn’t the only work to use the river as a means to discuss the unsavory aspects of our nation’s heritage. Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the 1984 musical…

Wating for The Pin (Show) to Drop

We’re so excited about the return of the Pin Show, that Mixmaster ran downtown today and touched base with the runway extravaganza’s organizers during an afternoon fitting session. With more than 30 local and national designers on the bill, the team of the Pin Show is already ahead of schedule…

For the Love of Kettle: Buy Great Local Art, Cheap!

There’s love steeping over at Kettle Art. The city’s feel-good gallery has toasted up a warm-spot in my cardiac for its work as an artist’s nexus. Aspiring talent lines Kettle’s walls, creating a collaborative visual buffet of area-crafted projects.You always know that you’ll find something new and interesting when you…

Thin Line Film Fest: A Local Celebration With International Talent

Battle for Brooklyn is this year’s opener for Thin Line Film Fest, Denton’s celebration of documentary film production. Pulling a hefty load of 29 films, a combination of short works and features by local and international filmmakers, the fest stretches from this weekend through Monday, the 20th with a preemptive…

Hustle and Flow On 35mm, Get Your Game Back

It’s hard out here for a pimp. By mid-week your hustle has slowed down to a shuffle and you can’t get a handle on your flow. That stack of reports on your desk keeps getting more oppressive and your afternoon conference call is a wild card, like a trick who…

Free Screening of Rampart, Tomorrow

Rampart isn’t a “date” film. Don’t be so blinded by the word “free” that you go home and tell the misses that the two of you should reconnect with a nice night out at the movies — unless you like the couch and she enjoys night terrors. Here’s the film’s…

A Pocket Full of Quarters: There Will Be Pinball

There are a lot of things that people miss when they move to a new city. Friends? Sure. Favorite swimming holes? Yeah, I guess. But for me the real pull, the thing I cannot shake loose no matter how hard I try is my undying affinity for Austin’s temple of…

Art We Like: Clay Stinnett at Smoke and Mirrors

Outsider art is fun, especially when it’s made by local dark horse Clay Stinnett. His depictions of wrong-eyed souls are three parts sideshow, one part Crumb thrown together in a brown paper bag with flour and seasoning, shook up and deep-fried. I also have a hunch that when those shape-shifting…

Top Ten Photos From the Dallas Burlesque Festival (NSFW)

Last weekend our city was rubbed down with rouge and doused with an extra kissie-blow of glitter when the Dallas Burlesque Festival shook its goods at the House of Blues. Seduction and tease were the event’s cornerstones and the nationally acclaimed cast of exoticas delivered both in their fullest. But…