If we were homeless, we would definitely feel compelled to express ourselves through art, but it wouldn’t be the kind of work that gets snatched up by folk-art collectors. It would more likely be gathered as evidence of so-called “terroristic threats” or labeled “graffiti” than be seen as a legitimate…
The holiday season just isn’t the holiday season without at least one viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life. The film’s got guardian angels, soda jerks, broken banisters, people falling into swimming pools–what’s not to like? And, sure, you could rent a copy from Netflix and watch it on the ol’…
Folks up north get to have snow during the holidays, and they won’t let you forget about it either. Fine. Down here we get the Latin American tradition of holiday tamales, and stockings stuffed with tinfoil wrapped tamales is a fair consolation prize for when you can’t build a snowman…
How ironic that a Christmas-hating character and a destination so emblematic of the worst excesses of the holiday can, in combination, actually get us in the Christmas spirit. There are few places as hellish as a mall during the run-up to Christmas, but NorthPark manages to make the experience tolerable…
It boggles the mind when you think about the ways that American cinema is different from its European counterpart. Actually, counterpart may be too strong a word, as film produced in this country is by and large a completely different being than in most other places in the world, Bollywood…
It’s been a long time since we had our picture taken with the Stanley Cup the day the Stars came to the Fort Worth Convention Center. To be honest we didn’t really follow hockey much at that point in our lives–some thirteen-year-old kids just prefer football, or (God-forbid) soccer. It…
It’s always a little bittersweet for die-hard Mavs fans when Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns come to town. After all, once upon a time in the early ’00s, Nash was our guy, swishing threes, dishing out dimes and clowning around with Dirk at more than a few local watering…
Sheila Cunningham is a photographer who lives and works in Dallas. She experiments with various media to create installations, which she then photographs to create a final piece. Cunningham’s especially interested in the decline of books, the recent surge of interest in plants and the connection between them. In her…
This season, the Sun to Moon Gallery has an extra gift to celebrate: its nine-year anniversary! Along with showcasing its new digs in the Design District, the photography gallery’s celebratory exhibition includes works by eight photographers, including experiments in bromoil (a textured, impressionistic method), the encaustic method with beeswax, works…
Men follow Angelina Jolie in The Tourist. Men and cameras. They follow her — chic, coiffed, assless—through the streets of Paris. They follow her onto the train to impossible, floating Venice, where she heads on the instruction of her shadowy, fugitive lover. Eventually, they follow fellow passenger Johnny Depp as…
It’s taken almost two years for the bonkers, exhilarating same-sex romantic comedy I Love You Phillip Morris to finally reach theaters. Premiering at Sundance in January 2009, the movie was a near-casualty of nervous-nellie U.S. distributors—more comfortable with innocuous gay genres like the homosexual weepie or the martyr biopic—and countless…
A massive project, taken up lightly by Disney in the giddy post-Lord of the Rings atmosphere and dropped upon failing to return the requisite billions, this third adaptation from C.S. Lewis’s seven-volume (!) Chronicles of Narnia comes underwritten by a new studio, 20th Century Fox, and with a new director,…
In Yony Leyser’s documentary hagiography—which ends with John Waters nominating its subject for iconoclast-artist sainthood—William Seward Burroughs’ literary efforts are of secondary interest, noted for their influence on rock lyrics and band names. In the main, celebrity talking heads have gathered here to celebrate Burroughs’ life as an 83-year masterpiece…
Airily disregarding the Hemingway Unadaptability Principle, this quaintly racy version of Papa’s most hated novel has a few bullets in its barrel: Dynasty scion Jack Huston, as the Hem avatar, is dull but physically a perfect fit, the Mediterranean tourist-porn is addictive and the story, unique in this particular corpus,…
You can’t swing an elf without hitting a Christmas-themed play or musical in Dallas theaters this week. And for swinging elves, there’s no better one than Crumpet, the sassy alter ego of writer David Sedaris in his one-man comedy short, The Santaland Diaries. Contemporary Theatre of Dallas has produced this…
The holidays aren’t just about gifts; they’re about spending time with family and friends. Whether you’re a fan of the cheesy music and silly sweaters or just a few bites of apple pie, the “most wonderful time of the year” only comes around once per. Though there are tons of…
For those about to rock, please bring money or canned food to the Dallas School of Rock’s “Rock Out Hunger” event for the North Texas Food Bank Saturday. Students from ages 7 and up will play a range of rock music from Aerosmith to Zeppelin at the City Tavern from…
Athens, Georgia’s Drive-By Truckers formed in 1996 and spent a good five years paying their dues before they broke through with 2001’s Southern Rock Opera, a double-LP concept record about Lynyrd Skynyrd and “the duality of the Southern thing” that they self-financed with the help of their fans. Since then,…
Jake Johannsen has an awkward but endearing hesitant delivery that makes him sound more like a neurotic friend telling a funny story full of spontaneous asides than a pro reciting a practiced stand-up routine. But to be invited to perform on The Late Show With David Letterman a record 35…
Do a Marty McFly and travel back in time to the 19th century during Candlelight at Old City Park in Dallas. The two-day weekend festival conjures up ye olde holiday experience for the family: carriage rides courtesy of half-brother donkeys Nip and Tuck, storytelling, photos with St. Nick, crafts, entertainment…
Holiday travel conjures up a level of dedication in people that few situations do. For example, last Christmas Eve I left Dallas at 10 a.m. and arrived at my destination 140 miles away nearly 30 hours later, after spending a night on an icy rural highway with the cheerful members…
This holiday season, let’s harken back to a simpler time. A time without iPads, GPS systems, 3-D movies or Facebook obsessions. A time when folklore was mighty interesting and groups of eager ranch hands would sit around a blazing fire and share tall tales late into the night. If this…
