This Mariachi Band Is Having a Whale of a Time — Get It?!

Sure, sure, overnight this video blew up on the Interwebs (and we thought people slept! Pshaw). Even Kristen Schaal tweeted it. But who gives a shit because it’s that gross time known as “almost 9 a.m.” and this is pretty much the best thing we’ve seen. In a while. For…

Frisky Business

A lesson in how to succeed at staging a creaky vintage musical comedy can be found in ICT Mainstage’s current uncreaky production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. It’s fresh, fun, funny. Everything works. Musical director Scott A. Eckert’s tight eight-piece pit band sounds lush, full of…

The Change-Up Misses the Plate

A uniquely Freudian entry in the body-switching comedy canon, The Change-Up stars Jason Bateman as standard-issue anal-retentive lawyer/family man Dave, and Ryan Reynolds as Dave’s classically anal-expulsive stoner/playboy childhood friend Mitch. When sober, Dave begrudgingly tolerates Mitch’s wild-animal routine. One night, when both are drunk, Dave admits he’s secretly jealous…

Another Earth: Same Crap

There may be nothing as Old Hollywood as the narrative about a pretty girl summoning up a dose of pluck to triumph over adversity. And yet Brit Marling — the lithe, stunning co-writer and star of 2011 Sundance Film Festival hits Another Earth and Sound of My Voice, who gives…

Won’t You Be Our Neighbor?

There are a few city leaders I sure hope make it to this exhibition examining how new architecture in a city’s historic districts can allow area neighborhoods to evolve without endangering the crucial character that made the areas worth protecting to begin with. Ahem. Context/Contrast originally appeared at the New…

Handle with Care

When folks read headlines about floods, famines and other natural disasters around the world, they cope in many different ways. Some write it off to climate change and head to the bar with friends. Others circle passages in sacred texts or watch 2012 doomsday documentaries and set dates for their…

Making Her Mark

Since becoming a popular movement in the 1950s, minimalism has remained a powerful force in fashion, art and architecture. Of course, as with any art movement, there are critics who are quick to attack minimalist art as too simplistic or less meaningful than, say, impressionist or abstract art. But art…

More Than a Crush

Ladies in comics aren’t always relegated to the roles of helpless damsels in distress or impossibly proportioned Barbie doll heroines in skin-tight costumes, and ladies creating comics don’t have to fall into the mold of cranking out dull everywoman schlock like Cathy. Exhibit A: the awkward high school protagonist of…

Down the Hatch

Being a fan of chiles isn’t always easy. Lots of sweat, tears and glasses of milk are involved if you’ve got a serious obsession. Lucky for you, Blue Mesa admires your loyalty to being a hothead. Blue Mesa Grill’s 15th Annual Hatch Chile Fest is offering the biggest and baddest…

Presenting! The Best of Dallas Readers’ Poll for 2011

A few weeks ago, we asked you to help us (help you) on the subject of the Best of Dallas Readers’ Picks Categories. Your suggestions didn’t disappoint. After throwing your advice in the hopper and giving them a test run, we now have chemically tested, FDA-approved poll for you. A…

The Scariest Shark You Won’t See During Shark Week

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and though many of you might disagree with that statement because it’s ball-sweat hot (even my metaphorical balls are sweating), it really is the best time of the year because it’s Shark Week. Shark Week! The one week of the year where…

Ready, Aim, Tease!

​Easy with that trigger finger, hombre; it’s time for the Weekly Tease!This week’s offering of a sneak snippet of the forthcoming print edition dropping in a couple of days gives us an interesting detailed look at … well, seems to be the business end of a gun. Either that, or…

Imagined Dallas Landscapes in Leigh Merrill’s “North Texas Strip”

The images in Leigh Merrill’s “North Texas Strip” look at once blighted and serene, like photos taken ten minutes after the Apocalypse. Merrill took thousands of photographs featuring buildings and streetscapes in the metroplex, then digitally assembled and reassembled them to make new images of unreal places. Some of the…

Carlos Donjuan’s “Sympathetic Drank” at Rising Gallery

Thanks to the popularity of artists like Banksy, graffiti is becoming a more accepted form of art rather than just the unsolicited tagging of newsstands and buses. Local artist Carlos Donjuan has elevated graffiti, and his works, along with other members from the art collective SourGrapes, can be seen in…

Trina Turk Boutique Open in Highland Park Village

Those into high-end have some new, very fashionable, doors to stroll through in Highland Park Village. Last Saturday morning marked the first day that the 1300-square-foot Trina Turk Boutique was open for business. The store offers the Turk not only ready-to-wear and accessories (including summer appropriate collections), but also a…

Seatbelts Fastened, Hands Up: Happy 50th, Six Flags!

The History Channel offered a shout-out to Six Flags Over Texas in its This Day In History feature on history.com. There were also some notes about Hitler celebrating the opening day of the Olympics and MTV in the video (above), but we cruised on past those and got pretty excited…

Pottermania Immortalizes Harry Potter’s Magical Birthday

With the final installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, steadily climbing the box office charts (earning more than $1 billion) and JK Rowling devising a virtual scavenger hunt for Pottermore, it’s only right for Potterheads to go bat-shit crazy with excitement during Harry Potter’s birthday. This year…