As an only child, I never really found myself getting into any kind of precarious situation. Most of my young life consisted of playing with Hot Wheels (Barbie was weird), biking around the neighborhood and climbing trees. Well, there was that one time I found that old wooden storage closet–I…
There are a lot of picky eaters out there. Some people don’t go near meat. Others only eat raw foods. Still more abstain if the fare isn’t organic, and many really go for buzz terms like “gluten-free” and “free-range.” Jennifer Moreman also likes the natural stuff and, in her new…
Don’t confuse comedian Dale Jones with the Dentonite Dale Jones who covers himself with fake blood and performs confrontational solo blues sets as New Science Projects. You’re far more likely to laugh at startled audience members during a NSP show than during the Indiana comic’s set, as his jokes about,…
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has found himself in a bit of a pickle in recent weeks, forced to defend his own state’s universal health care system from conservative counterparts, who have noted certain undeniable similarities between Massachusetts’ 2006 reform and “Obamacare.” Defending himself on a recent episode of Fox…
Text-based art is one of those things that you either love or loathe–there’s rarely a middle ground. While some artists make the written word the basis of their full body of work (see Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger and Martin Firrell), others have used text selectively, using it to supplement their…
You can forget Thelma and Louise. And forget Lucy and Ethel while you’re at it because the age gap between girlfriends is growing in One Thirty Productions’ theatrical presentation of Grace and Glorie. Grace is a 90-year-old woman who has just returned home from her stay at the hospital. She…
Everybody and his dog have seen Ken Russell’s hallucinogenic film interpretation of The Who’s Tommy, right? Good, now I don’t have to explain what a “Gypsy Acid Queen” is. Now that we’re past that, we can all cut the attitude and admit that pinball is a totally bad-ass game. It…
The effectiveness of hypnotism depends on how susceptible the subject is to the power of suggestion. Unfortunately, I seem to be impervious. Back in high school, our sociology teacher had a hypnotherapist treat our class. He had us all visualize something we wanted to change about ourselves, and then attempted…
Last year, when USA Today published the salaries of all of the players in the NBA, I had never given much thought to how much players make. Didn’t care, still don’t. Well, after reading the breakdown of the highest-paid players, I remember thinking, “Kevin Garnett makes more than LeBron?!” That…
It’s easy to tell which generation one belongs to by discussing favorite Disney movies. I’m all about the 1973 animated version of Robin Hood (suck it, Toy Story.) Americans big and small are well-acquainted with Disney characters, thanks to Walt and his empire. If you can’t take the family on…
I’ve entered a few art contests in my time, but I’d have to say the most memorable was the time I got to meet Pudge Rodriguez for drawing his face better than anyone else at the Boys & Girls Club. I haven’t worked up the courage to really pursue an…
Back in the ’90s, Jonathon Larson made rock ‘n’ roll and seriously heavy issues all one nice, catchy musical package when he penned RENT. Well, apparently 100 years before that, a guy over in Germany had already done the same thing when he wrote Spring Awakening. The play centers around…
Lucky for us, just because SMU will be host to the George W. Bush Presidential Library doesn’t mean the entire university has to join up with the Bush brand of conservative, head-in-the-sand politics. Glory, glory: Several SMU departments have partnered with the Veteran Feminists of America (that’s a group for…
In Pretty Woman, director Garry Marshall’s personal cinematic high score, the opening credits close (and the closing credits open) with the voice of a street freak, barely noticeable in wide shot, chanting an absurd mantra—”Welcome to Hollywood, land of dreams!” Twenty years later, Marshall dips into the same well to…
Though no one’s idea of an action film, Andrew Bujalski’s Beeswax feels less charmingly aimless than its radically slight precursors Funny Ha Ha (2002) and Mutual Appreciation (2006). Have Bujalski’s feckless characters joined the workaday world? As its title suggests, Beeswax has a mild buzz of business—and busy-ness. Set in…
Neil LaBute and Nora Ephron. Now there’s a cage match waiting to happen. LaBute, the reigning American writer of terse stage and screen dramedies about women who love men who hate women, wrote one, The Shape of Things, about a man-hating woman who does to one nice guy what LaBute’s…
Agreeing at the insistence of a Corsican mob boss to suck and then slash a fellow inmate, newly jailed Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim)—poor, illiterate, a “dirty Arab” in the prison’s racist pecking order—gets what’s coming to him, but in a good way. Indeed, crime pays in A Prophet, the…
Better late than never—a bang-bang pulse-pounder predicated on the Bush administration’s deliberate fabrication of WMDs in Iraq. Paul Greengrass’ expertly assembled Green Zone has evidently been parked for some time on Universal’s shelf. Had the movie been released during the 2008 election season, it might have been something more than…
Ever since the mindless swill the Disney Channel serves up cornered the market a few years back, kids spend their time learning about young pop stars who lead double lives and pretty teenage girls who are full of angst ’cause they’re also wizards. Kinda makes you lose faith in children’s…
For the most part, cover bands are a huge letdown. They’re cheesy, over the top and, more often than not, generally disappointing. That said, Rain: A Tribute to The Beatles seems to be everything but the typical gang of wannabes. This musical tribute to one of the greatest bands of…
Walt Disney mulled an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland for decades before producing an animated feature in 1951, although by all accounts, he didn’t much care for the prim little protagonist, let alone her supporting cast of “weird characters.” One wonders what Uncle Walt would have made of his studio’s…
One of the great things about Alaska is that you can always keep your eye on what Russia is up to. But there’s no need to distract yourself with Russian matters when there are so many activities in the Last Frontier (we’re talking about Alaska again). If you don’t want…
