Just Wright

Another movie, not as awful or deluded as this one, might one day find better use for the easygoing vibe between Queen Latifah and Common, the stars of Just Wright, a romantic comedy (for the ladies) with basketball and cameoing NBA players in it (for the fellas). That absolutely no…

Robin Hood joins the Tea Party

Is it an accident that Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood plays like a rousing love letter to the Tea Party movement? It’s certainly something of a surprise. When the movie was announced in 2007 with the title Nottingham, reports suggested that it would sympathize with the normally vilified Sheriff of Nottingham…

Hot Links

Artist Awadh Baryoum delves headfirst into the world of visual analogies with his new exhibit, Analogical Context, now showing in the Lillian Bradshaw Gallery at the Dallas Public Library, 1515 Young St. According to Baryoum, his paintings explore the “the tensile linkage between the known and the unknown; the visible…

All In a Day’s Work

Anyone who’s watched Leonardo DiCaprio sketch Kate Winslet naked on a couch or dared to look under their meth-addicted roommate’s trap door knows the artistic highs and lows that can come from an hours-long flurry of single-minded inspiration. Could be art, could be a bicycle tire wrapped in unbent paperclips,…

Everywhere and Nowhere at All

Remember the Myers-Briggs personality test? I recently discovered that, as it turns out, when you break down the U.S. population in terms of ENFJs and ISTPs, most Americans are introverts. Of course, one of the questions is whether you’d rather read a book or go to a party, and given…

Revive Your Recipes

If you can’t tell whether the Tupperware bin of leftovers is from this week or last month, your cooking needs some variety. At “Panqueques With Dulce De Leche” ($15) 10:30 a.m. Monday, learn how to make tender crepes filled with golden dulce de leche. Then, at 6:30 p.m., winemaker Gaspar…

They Bleed Music

These days, vampires are like viruses. They’re everywhere, thanks to Twilight. There are the garden variety evil vampires, vegetarian vampires, vamps who drink synthetic blood, and–wait for it–singing vampires. One wonders if the fangs get in the way of a high A. That’s a question for The Urban Vampires, a…

Original Sin

Contrary to what you may thing, “The Mexican Tsunami” is not the name of the newest WWE SmackDown personality, though it is still quite a force to be reckoned with. No, Sin Limite – The Mexican Tsunami, is actually a collaborative art installation piece by local artists Hugo Garcia Urrutia…

Unleash The Animals

More than once, it’s come up on local news blogs that Dallas just lacks certain pieces to complete its status as a cultural destination. Clearly, we’re no New York City. We never will be. But much has been accomplished in the past few years with the buildup of the Arts…

Burnin’ Up For Some Beer

Humans have celebrated and feared fire since the moment that Prometheus brought it down from Mount Olympus. Like the other classical elements (earth, air, water), fire has the power to sustain life or destroy it, and it’s only in the last 400,000 years that humans have learned to control it…

Seek And Find And Drink

Think long and hard about this: Why the hell wouldn’t you want to compete in a 21-and-up scavenger hunt/pub crawl benefiting a worthy artistic organization? There’s absolutely no reason. Scavenger hunts are bad-ass. They provide ample opportunity to own on your friends, and someone always ends up in a photo…

In The Backyard, At The Mall

It’s about that time again. You know, that time of the year when just about every weekend centers around a barbecue by the pool, a few beers and, well, basically just an excuse to let loose and have a good time. Journeys Backyard BBQ Tour will bring one of those…

Skating For The Jam

The Winter Olympics seem to rule our lives for two weeks every four years, and no matter how hard we try to stick to the “cool” events like luge and snowboarding, it always seems that we eventually get sucked into the soap-opera-on-ice that is figure skating. Surely there’s plenty of…

Frank-ly, My Dear

If you want to know what a real Frank Sinatra fan looks like, don’t bother with American Idol and last week’s Sinatra tribute shows. Don’t get us wrong, Harry Connick Jr. is great, but he’s a little, well, large-scale, for our blood. We like an homage to be intimate and…

Better Scurry

Oklahomaisn’t just a state; it’s the name of a musical that revolutionized musicals after its Broadway premiere in 1943. The story’s pretty simple–Curly the cowboy loves Laurey, and she loves him, but goes to the dance with sinister hired hand Jud instead. It all turns out pretty well in the…

See The Artist For The Trees

If you’re on President George W. Bush’s mailing list, you’re probably already familiar with James Blake’s work. The Fort Worth artist had the honor of designing Laura and Dubya’s 2006 Christmas card–if having one’s work appreciated by a president not exactly renowned for discernment or intelligence can be considered an…

Conan Is Ownin’

Did you ever hear the tale of the Irishman who spent 16 years working the same late-night job with the promise he would soon get a promotion when another fellow (who happens to have a half moon-shaped face) would retire? Well, that day came when the half moon-shaped face man…

A Legend In Lines

If architecture is a dialogue with the forces of life, Rafael Vinoly, the upcoming lecturer at the Dallas Architecture Forum, is multi-lingual. The leading architect, with buildings ranging from large cultural projects to educational and commercial projects, will speak in the 14th season of the Architecture Forum in the Magnolia…

Taste The Fashion

Do you ever think to yourself that you want to dedicate a night to helping out young, aspiring fashion design students while enjoying music from a pianist that once toured with the Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and possibly purchasing artwork from local artists? You do! Great! This Thursday, Tre…

A Very Big Deal

Popping pimples, cracking voices, growing facial hair and yes, even a Bar Mitzvah. What do changing physical features and a Jewish celebration have in common? Well, they’re all a right of passage into the wonderful world of adolescents, of course. You remember those days don’t you? Or maybe you’re still…

Keanu And RDJ Get Animated

Texan Richard Linklater’s 2006 movie A Scanner Darkly looks unlike almost any other film, having been shot and originally edited like any live-action film, and then “animated” by computers, with lines drawn over lines already filmed to make everything and everyone look like a cartoon. The result is pretty amazing…

A Mountain Of A Film

Based on a true story, North Face is a suspenseful man-vs.-nature film about a competition to climb one of the most dangerous rock faces in the Swiss Alps. Set in 1936, the film follows the paths of four climbers–two German and two Austrian–as they take on the north face of…