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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
This is the final weekend of performances of Coyote, a seat-gripper of a play at the Magnolia Lounge in Fair Park. Nouveau 47, the little troupe modeling itself on the Margo Jones theater company of 60 years ago, premieres Kevin Kautzman’s excellent script, which had its first reading here last…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Bick and Leslie’s Big Song in Giant There are many things amiss in the musical Giant, the Dallas Theater Center/Public Theater co-production playing a couple more weekends at the Wyly Theatre. But let’s just look at the top dozen. 1. These Yankees make rotten Texans. The whole cast of Giant…
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…
John Leguizamo is on a roll, and it’s only 7:45 a.m. He’s in a good mood, which might be attributed to the financial and critical success of his new one-man play, Ghetto Klown, which starts its three-day Dallas run at the Majestic Theatre on February 16. But I think it’s…
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…
For some, love is expressed through time invested, a gentle touch or a shared sigh. For others it’s a scavenger hunt in the mall, or at least that’s what the organizers of “Where’s the Love?” at the Parks at Arlington would hope. Show your sensitive side through VDay by sprinting…
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…
