Celluloid Bakers

Lemon meringue, rich, chocolate cream and powder filled puff pastries sit beautifully on display. Meticulously arranged like an artistic masterpiece, they cry out to the watering mouths of all those who dare stare at their ornate detail. The judging is about to commence. The competitors are frantic and scramble to…

Oden’s Omen

The Portland Trail Blazers have been hovering under .500 and in the bottom of the Western Conference Northwest division while your Dallas Mavericks are trying to close in on San Antonio for first in the Southwest division. But that doesn’t mean it will be a blowout when they meet Tuesday…

Casino Jack: Pointlessly Manic and Missing an Edge

The late George Hickenlooper’s Casino Jack is an improbably blithe cautionary tale, recounting the rise and fall of D.C. superlobbyist Jack Abramoff. “You’re either a big-leaguer or you’re a slave clawing your way onto the C train,” the avid antihero (Kevin Spacey) tells his mirrored reflection in the pre-credit sequence;…

The Royal Treatment

It’s got ’em all–knights, kings and queens–and they all sing and dance. Monty Python has nothing to do with this, and I know it doesn’t sound like the best evening ever, but trust me, you’ve gotta see Camelot. The Lerner and Loewe musical opened on Broadway in 1959 starring Richard…

Dodd-Gone

In his latest batch of inventive mixed-media sculptures, Jerry Dodd explores the “functional and esthetic qualities” of tools, utilitarian objects and the like by incorporating things like pitchfork tines, hooks and rototiller blades into the context of his welded steel sculptures. Then, Dodd lavishly paints many of the components in…

A Concert of Paintings

Local artist Mark Shane Nelson is a bit of a rock star. And that’s not just because he created the cover art for fellow Dallasites and indie nostalgia-pop darlings The Happy Bullets’ Hydropanic at the Natatorium. Nelson’s work is musical in its own right, mixing brilliant colors and subjects together…

Joker‘s Wild

When artists are described as the “artists laureate of Oak Cliff,” it gets our attention. We love Oak Cliff and its artistic sensibilities. So, we assume that Brian Jones and Brian Scott are real artist’s artists. And, with work that depicts the Carni-sutra (Kama Sutra with carnival people) and a…

Murder Was The Case

Pegasus Theatre makes the fans of its “Living Black and White” comedies wait a year for a new show. This new one bears evidence that playwright-actor Kurt Kleinmann spent much of 2010 polishing the details. Script, sets, costumes and casting are right on the money in this latest in Kleinmann’s…

Monster Jams

You can always count on a handful of things to never go out of style. These are the timeless items that, no matter the decade, can still put a smile on your face. Things like chocolate cake, oversized sunglasses, Paul McCartney, martinis or Young Frankenstein. If the latter seems a…

Macho, Macho Bowl

If you don’t want to party then you can go home. The ice cold beer is ready, the wings are extra sloppy and the fans are ready to hoot and holler at the TV screen. The Super Bowl is one of America’s most coveted sports spectaculars, and with the city…

Passion Tent

If you don’t want to party then you can go home. The ice cold beer is ready, the wings are extra sloppy and the fans are ready to hoot and holler at the TV screen. The Super Bowl is one of America’s most coveted sports spectaculars, and with the city…

Rabbit Hole: The Lifeless Pursuit of “Normal” Life.

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by David Lindsay-Abaire, John Cameron Mitchell’s Rabbit Hole plops us down in the lives of Becca (Nicole Kidman, who also produced) and Howie (Aaron Eckhart), fortyish bourgie marrieds rattling around an East Coast dream house. In the film’s first scenes, the couple acts out…

True Grit: Coen Brothers Take Their Tongues Out of Their Cheeks.

Boldly reanimating the comic Western that secured John Wayne his Oscar 41 years ago, the Coen brothers’ True Grit is well-wrought, if overly talkative, and seriously ambitious. Opening with a strategically abbreviated Old Testament proverb (“The wicked flee when none pursueth”), the film returns the Coens to the all-American sagebrush…

Little Fockers: The Franchise Has Seen Better Days.

Just in time for the whole family to file into the multiplex on a silent Christmas night when there’s nowhere else to go: a return to the magnified dysfunction of the Focker household and the cozy holiday glow of some paychecking celebrities. This began a decade ago in Meet the…

Stripping for History’s Sake

How much has changed over the last century? Well, just take a look at the technology surrounding us, our extracurricular activities and the way we interact with others. History books can get a little boring, so how about a little striptease to take us through the ’20s, ’30s and today?…

This Pageant Rocks

We tend to like our holiday music the way it is. It’s hard to imagine improving such classics. Many have tried and failed miserably. But when students from For Those About to Rock perform their holiday hits, it may prove that even if their Rudolph isn’t your grandmother’s Rudolph, you…

Have a Ball

The Jewish Community Center is presenting its annual Jewish singles bash on Christmas day, the Original Matzoh Ball. Now there is ample opportunity to start with the jokes, but we here at Night & Day are above such things. Wait–we’re not? All right, then, leave your yarmulkes at home because…

Let Nana Cook for Your Nana

If you’re not one for cooking and the thought of trying to execute the preparation of a ham and all the fixings for holiday guests stresses you out, fear not. Nana at the Hilton Anatole has got you covered. Nana is open between 5:30 and 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve…

Kettle Claus Has Come To Town

You swore it would be different this time. You’ve changed, really you have–or at least that’s what you want your friends and family to think. Yet here you are, stuck empty-handed at the giftiest time of the year. Forget about gift cards and last-minute gift sets that scream, “Yeah, I…

Delicieux Noel

There may be a little bit of ugly American in us, still holding a grudge against the entire French people based on a single high school experience with a Grenoble cafe employee who pretended not to understand the word “croissant” until we finally exhaled it out in a spiteful overly…

Babe Versus the Baron

Do you have kids who just can’t keep themselves from yelling advice, cheering or booing at the characters when you go to the movies, no matter how much the other patrons shush them or give them the stink-eye? Then you probably think there’s no chance they could handle live theater…