Video Killed the Radio Star

Tired of combing through dozens of Netflix recommendations for fresh flicks, only to be disappointed? Well, launch yourself off the couch and drive down to the Angelika. VideoFest, an annual local film festival showcasing documentaries, independent and experimental films, starts tonight. The Video Association of Dallas says the festival is…

The Rahr of the Crowd

According to my admittedly Looney Toons-influenced impression of how dog racing works, greyhounds chase a mechanical rabbit around a track. I don’t have much more personal experience with human races than I do with dog races, but as far as I know they don’t use a comparable incentive for the…

Still On The Line

Glen Campbell is best known as a country-pop singer with a knack for plaintive, almost confessional songs like “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” and “Wichita Lineman.” but he was also a much in demand session guitarist and bassist throughout the 1960s, playing on the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds…

Life During Wartime: Todd Solondz Returns, Grim as Ever.

Elegant opening credits, written like calligraphy on a wedding invitation, yield to a couple in blunt close-up—unhappy, interracial, tearfully celebrating their anniversary in a shopping-mall restaurant. After an unfathomable exchange, he presents her with an antique bowl found on eBay and, after reciting a guffaw-worthy litany of sins, promises to…

The Town: Ben Affleck, Caught Between Redemption, Action and Hometown.

Directing himself as a verifiable big-movie lead after some time in supporting-actor Triple-A ball, director/star Ben Affleck models a full line of warm-up suits to play Doug MacRay, a second-generation blue-collar stickup man, brains of his four-man bank crew. The setting is Charlestown, the square-mile majority-Irish Boston neighborhood that shares…

Now That’s Indie Spirit

Dripping in loyalty, passion and determination, the people of Mexico scream for liberty as Father Hidalgo rings the brass church bell. The battle for independence has begun. Join Teatro Dallas as they commemorate this infamous 200 year-old moment in history with this year’s El Grito celebration. WFAA Channel 8’s Gloria…

Jeanne Speaks!

Jeanne Robertson is absolutely not a comedian. Says so in her bio and in the press release for her upcoming appearance at the Lakewood Theater, where many comedians–but not Robertson, because she isn’t one–often perform. Couldn’t be clearer: “Jeanne Robertson is a professional speaker who specializes in hilarious humor based…

View the Apple With the Tree

Last year, Maximiliano Alessandro Vatovac and his mother, L. Hart Rueter, collaborated for a benefit show to raise money to cover Max’s tuition at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy. The exhibition was a success, and work-study opportunities and scholarships are covering costs for Max’s second and third years…

Good Teacher Goes Bad

Kids will believe anything. “Yes, a watermelon will grow in your belly if you eat the seeds,” and “Women with black hair and crooked noses are witches.” So is the story of Miss Nelson is Missing!, a classic children’s book about a long-suffering schoolteacher who has finally had it with…

The Smoky Haze of Art

Mark Sheinkman’s ability to represent an organic curve is lyrical, urban and damn sexy. His exhibition, Manhattanville, named for the area near West Harlem in which he works, conveys a smoky city quality that seems like a perfectly natural product of New York. At times, his works read like the…

It All Comes Rushing Back

They say all is fair in love and war. Both can be painful, overly stressful and highly demanding. But sometimes, love can be even more treacherous than war. So is the case in Betrayal, a play by Harold Pinter. The story follows Emma, a woman looking once more for passion…

King of the Slum

Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture and Best Original Song at the Academy Awards in 2009. It’s now 2010, and the film’s music has only gained popularity since. The award-winning song “Jai Ho,” or “be victorious” when translated into English, was composed by AR Rahman exclusively for Slumdog. Even if you…

Go, Go, Gadget Green

Wanting to make your life a little more environmentally friendly? Learn more about how to live a greener life and about the nature that surrounds us, and have a good time with the whole family at the third annual Dallas Green Festival, Saturday September 18 from 9 a.m. until 2:30…

Beer Before Beer, Never Fear

Funny thing about Oktoberfest is that it happens in September. It’s actually a two week festival that originated in Germany, and at its center are polka music, bratwurst, lederhosen, and of course–beer. But while Germans halfway around the world are getting hammered on the beverage they’re famous for, we’re still…

Let’s Go RVing

Primitive camping is all well and good, but it can present a few problems, especially during the dog days of summer. First of all, you have no protection from pesky flies when you’re just walking around in the open air. And, as you probably already know, telling flies to leave…

You’ll Flip At His Command

It’s not too often that comedy club patrons actually want to be singled out by the star comedian. Not so with Flip Orley, even though his chosen medium has the most potential for public humiliation. He’s a hypnotist. A funny hypnotist, who creates his scenes from volunteers who are lulled…

Hopper on Over to the Inwood

There’s nothing quite like the experience of being in a movie theater filled with stoned people. It’s marked by lots of crowd interaction, loud conversations, laughing (at appropriate moments or not), abnormally frequent disturbances as people leave and come back, and the occasional hacking cough followed by a billow of…

How ‘Bout a Little Bear Huntin’?

It’s the second week of the regular season, which either means we’re all collectively breathing a sigh of relief because this shit actually counts, or we’re all burying our faces in bags of Fritos Scoops and bean dip because this shit really does count. Either way, seems like a win-win,…

Fire Power

Now that the wave of yellow book covers of The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo has subsided, America is working its way through the best-selling “Millennium” trilogy, written by the late Stieg Larsson, who died before his books were published. The film adaptation of the second installment, The Girl Who…

All the Wine is All for You

It’s the end of summer, and there are plenty of things to celebrate: the end of the hellish heat, for example; the end of a sartorial season that saw rompers on grown women, for chrissakes; and the beginning of football. And grapes, of course. Because nothing signals the onset of…

We Can Do It Without Him

Pre-season seems to exist for two reasons: to give the sports junkies a quick fix, and to give everyone a taste of what to expect from a team. Like an international friendly, a pre-season game gives a team automatic bragging rights in the case or a win, or an honest…