Getting Over the Blues

If you haven’t heard much about your Dallas Stars this season, don’t fret. Thus far there hasn’t been any real reason to unless you’re a passionate hockey fan. The team has started the first season of the post-Modano era with a 9-7 whimper–not Mavericks great, but not Cowboys bad, either,…

What Happens In Cairo…

Reality takes a backseat in Cairo Time, a love story targeted to ladies who buy J. Crew sweater sets and consider Nora Roberts a guilty pleasure. The AARP chick flick stars the excellent Patricia Clarkson, a fashion editor romanced by Alexander Siddig’s suave and swarthy guide on what’s supposed to…

The Big German Takes on King James

Lebron James broke ten million Ohioan hearts this summer with his Decision, perhaps the best example of misguided egotism in the history of sports. In bolting to South Beach, he also helped create the NBA’s most evil franchise, a basketball Death Star with Pat Riley in the role of the…

Saints or Winners?

So which Dallas Cowboys team will show up to play the New Orleans Saints on Thanksgiving? Will it be the ‘Boys who played with passion and heart and a fire under their asses and clobbered the New York Giants after the firing of Wade Phillips put the fear of God…

It’s A Hard-Knock Life

Annie mania struck me hard as a seven-year-old. The movie came out that year leaving a sea of red-headed merchandise in its wake: I had Annie T-shirts, Annie dolls and Annie records. I wanted curly ginger hair. I wanted a scruffy dog named Sandy. And most of all, I wanted…

The Nose Knows

Sometimes it pays to be different. So what would you do if you had a nose that glowed? Would you join in all the reindeer games or would you use your powers for good and guide a historical and magical man around in a sleigh for the night? Talk about…

Puppets Require Hans

The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen is the fairy tale that scared the hell out of me as a kid. A Snow Queen with a heart of ice holds a boy, Kai, captive until he can spell the word eternity with shards of ice. His friend Gerda saves him…

Woman, Naturally

If Damian Elwes’ name sounds familiar it may be because his brother is man in tights and passionate farmboy Cary Elwes, but it may also be because he’s a well-collected artist. Elwes is exhibiting recent paintings–a collection entitled HUMANATURE–at the Kristy Stubbs Gallery through December 31. The works focus primarily…

Take Pride In The Power

This, like so many other times in history, is a tough time to be a girl. We ladies need to stick together, and I’m not just talking about all the single ladies throwing their hands up. Our sisters and daughters are searching for role models in TV shows and the…

Red Baron’s Frozen Beagles

If you are the kind of person who either A.) likes unconventional holiday outings or B.) has a Clark Griswold complex and is constantly in search of things for the whole family to do together, the Gaylord Texan Hotel and its annual ICE! attraction is right up your alley. This…

The Bridge to Fabulous

Talk about an art exhibition that really nails the interest of Dallas citizens: Try an installation that uses pre-made pieces and images of bridges (ahem) and maps of our city, along with art information carts and kiosks, to convey just how industrial and city structures affect people’s everyday lives. Maybe…

The Next Three Days: Paul Haggis Shows No Improvement.

What if we choose to exist solely in a reality of our own making?” asks Pittsburgh community-college lit professor John Brennan (Russell Crowe) rhetorically during a discussion of Don Quixote in The Next Three Days, Paul Haggis’ fourth effort as director. Like his lumpy protagonist, Haggis, who also scripted this…

Boxing Gym: Frederick Wiseman’s Doc Scores a Knockout.

“I was recently sitting with a group of French directors, and at a certain point the conversation turned to Fred Wiseman,” critic Kent Jones wrote eight years ago in Film Comment. “Without hesitation, everyone agreed that he was probably America’s greatest living filmmaker”—not to mention the world-champion practitioner of the…

Go Paint, Junior

Just because the kids get a Thanksgiving vacation doesn’t always mean moms and dads aren’t still stuck in the office. Sure, you can send the kids to granny’s house or off to daycare, but that probably wouldn’t be as exciting as a holiday camp at Oil and Canvas. With art…

Sad Sack

What makes Louis CK a truly great stand-up comic is how completely fearless and honest he is about his least admirable qualities. Which, of course, are the undesirable qualities we all have in common but try to hide. What father hasn’t thought that his 4-year-old daughter is a complete asshole?…

The Nerdist Approaches

You may remember Chris Hardwick as the co-host of ’90s MTV show Singled Out, but he has been doing plenty since with his popular podcast, The Nerdist, hosting two shows on the G4 network and taking his turn in a couple of movies. The whole time, he has been doing…

Shop and Bathe

The Bath House Cultural Center is ready to kick its 2010 Winter Art Mart into gear. The event will feature more than 35 vendors hawking a variety of artsy stuff, including the painted kinds, the sculpted kinds, the fragile, polished, shiny kinds and much more. The money you spend will…

Hey, Hey, Beaujolais

Some of us age gracefully, mellowing into supple silvers and golds, wearing each year as a pearl of wisdom rather than a battle scar. Unfortunately, many of us, like Beaujolais, are bright and crisp when we’re young, but quickly turn to unenjoyable vinegar. All the more reason to enjoy life–and…

Watch Your Nuts, Dallas

You know the holiday season is just around the corner when tree ornaments and lights go up at Walgreen’s, Christmas gift ideas start showing up in magazines and newspapers, and The Nutcracker (in some form or fashion) starts popping up on theater marquees. And this season for DFW, the nutcracking…

Crafts That Jingle

Etsy is seriously one of the best things to ever come out of the Internet. I mean, I don’t want to start a big argument about whether a Husky’s auto-tuned singing voice is better than a cat jumping on a surprised baby, but buying other people’s handmade items on a…