Shattered Glass. A Million Little Pieces. The Talented Mr. Ripley. Catch Me If You Can. These are revelations of Milli Vanillis who have sought fame or fortune by doctoring the records. But none paid for their indignities like Donald Crowhurst after sailing his trimaran, Teignmouth Electron, in England’s 1968-’69 Golden…
I have all the experience I need to enter future relationships, what with the emotional roller coaster the Mavericks keep providing. The season has started, and all the speculation is just about whether or not we’ll ever win a championship. I’ve learned to just enter this go-around with no expectations…
Before I preview Bootstraps Comedy Theater’s current production, I should disclose one particular facet of my taste in comedy: I never find cross-dressing humor funny. Too many plot gimmicks and cheap sight gags, I guess. For all the laughs I got, the last performance I saw of Twelfth Night may…
Nothing like dumping some extra cash and adding to your art collection whilst helping a do-gooding community organization. At least, that’s what I hear. This year’s annual Art + Advocacy auction features an array of paintings, photographs and sculptures from local galleries and retailers to benefit the Dallas Children’s Advocacy…
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is less Sidney Lumet’s comeback than his resurrection. Three years after being presented a Lifetime Achievement Oscar, the 83-year-old director comes forth with a violent family melodrama that is his strongest movie in at least two decades. Robustly directed from Kelly Masterson’s bear-trap screenplay…
Midway through the amiable children’s movie Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, there comes a speech that I’ll wager writer-director Zach Helm has been saving for future use ever since he discovered the Bard. As pop philosophy goes, it’s bracing stuff: Paraphrasing King Lear, Mr. Magorium (Dustin Hoffman), a 243-year-old “toy impresario”…
The Addams Family: The Complete Series (MGM) Amazing Grace (Fox) Annie Duke’s Texas Hold’em Supercourse (Big Vision) Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Criterion Collection (Criterion) Close Encounters of the Third Kind: 30th Anniversary Ultimate Edition (Sony) Gilmore Girls: The Complete Seventh Season (Warner Bros.) It’s a Wonderful Life: 2-Disc Collector’s Set (Paramount)…
The Princess Bride: 20th Anniversary Edition (MGM) As far as anniversary-edition DVDs go, The Princess Bride is crushingly disappointing: no Rob Reiner commentary track, no outtakes, no making-of doc, no nothing, save for a lousy game and a few short interviews with Robin Wright Penn, Mandy Patinkin, Christopher Guest, and…
Show of hands: Has anyone not heard of Guitar Hero at this point? You sir, in the back row clutching the Ratt cassette — you’re the only one? All right, pal, here’s your recap: Guitar Hero is the most popular music-based game ever made. It comes with a plastic guitar…
Everyone, audience included, visits hell in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, the Stephen Adly Guirgis drama at Risk Theatre Initiative. The setting is a courtroom in purgatory. The trial could overturn the eternal damnation of the apostle who committed suicide after betraying Jesus Christ, the defense argument being, if…
A doom-ridden pulp cabalist with a dark sense of purpose as well as humor, Richard Kelly shoots the moon with his rich, strange and very funny sci-fi social satire, Southland Tales. Kelly’s debut, Donnie Darko, was the first post-millennial cult hit; his second feature, Southland Tales, achieved film maudit status…
Ask any non-techy person to complete a circuit and they’d probably either stare at you or give it a shot just to get their hands on a sweet-ass soldering iron. Circuitry is for the trained electronics professionals, Cirkitry, however, is something for the artists, the collaborators, and it’s a way…
Everyone has a few random memories from childhood that are vivid and persistent for no good reason. Some folks have flashes of birthday parties or beloved relatives. I see Arlo Guthrie. The soundtrack for Alice’s Restaurant was in constant rotation during my childhood, and the cover—with Arlo posed at a…
Anyone following the Dallas Stars lately knows that the things that happen on ice in this town can be more than a little disappointing. If you’re tired of getting the cold shoulder, head not to the American Airlines Center but to ye olde Reunion Arena for Disney On Ice. See…
It’s a tragic historical irony that the spiritual descendants of some of the world’s greatest artists have devolved into so many dullards who’d rather boycott, ban or burn an objectionable artwork than try to understand it. How could this faith that inspired such beautiful creative expression in its early followers…
It’s almost Thanksgiving and that means a little preemptive pound prevention might not be such a bad idea. After all, you can’t eat turkey sandwiches and left-over casserole for a week and not gain any weight. Likewise, you can’t suck down an entire can of cranberry sauce and not have…
It’s time for fancy-ass wine and free samples from La Duni, Lavendou Bistro Provençal, Paciugo Gelato and a bunch of other places you can barely pronounce the name of even when you’re stone-cold sober. Master of Ceremonies Troy Dungan will be there to talk Beaujolais and bow ties. Well, maybe…
UNT is performing a modern version of Antigone. And I can’t wait. Antigone’s gonna overdose on TrimSpa at the end of the play when she thinks Creon has refused to DJ a proper HipHopera memorial service for Polynices (but then we find out that he was totally willing to DJ…
I’ll admit it. Back in 1995, I saw Houseguest in the theater. And you know what? I thought it was funny. To see Sinbad fake his way through a tooth extraction while pretending to be Phil Hartman’s dentist friend…well, that’s the stuff of Comedy Central dreams, amigos. See the man…
If I had to pick between being a Hank Williams impersonator and being an Elvis Presley impersonator, I’d have to go with Hank Williams. After all, the Elvis market is saturated, man. Jason Petty made the same choice some time back, doing eight years of research with Hank’s family, band…
I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to tell you guys this, but soccer (or football if you’re not from these parts) is where it’s at, and this weekend is a big one in the world of footie. Sunday brings us both the MLS Cup Finals as…
If we told you that Yacov Moshe Maza was coming to Dallas for the first time in more than 20 years, you’d likely race to Wikipedia to figure out who the hell we’re talking about. If you don’t need to enlist the help of everyone’s favorite fact-checker, then congrats. Oh,…
